Allohistorical convergence pet peeves

C stands for the phoneme "ts". Pretty much all Slavic languages have six or more S-like phonemes (s, š, ts, tš, z, ž etc.)

I noticed that there was a lot of those in my brief study of Bulgarian. Wouldn't Polish be better off spelled with Cyrillic letters, that can accurately portray all those sounds without resorting to all those horrible dialectic marks?
 
I noticed that there was a lot of those in my brief study of Bulgarian. Wouldn't Polish be better off spelled with Cyrillic letters, that can accurately portray all those sounds without resorting to all those horrible dialectic marks?

We spent the latter half of the 19th century trying to explain it to them, but they just wouldn't listen.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
We spent the latter half of the 19th century trying to explain it to them, but they just wouldn't listen.

And now they wouldn't switch because forcing absurd diacritics on foreign language wikis is apparently too entertaining.
 
Speaking of Korea, one thing that I have found retrospectively dubious is the fact that in a fair number of post-1900 timelines, an alternate North Korea or a Communist United Korea is almost inevitably run by Kim Il Sung. As I am currently reading a biography on the man and the history of the country in general, I have realized that is not necessarily true at all.

Kim Il Sung had enough trouble in the early stages gaining respect in OTL, being seen as too young and as a puppet for Moscow. A political mis-step in a crucial early point could have been devastating to his political capital, and allowed a rival to step in.

One of the most important early Communist figures was Pak Honyong, but his fatal flaw was that his organization was based in Seoul. In a United Korea under the Communists, he is much more likely to have entered into a leadership role before Kim Il Sung could establish a personality cult.

What's more, a United Korea would have more ideological diversity. The Korean war saw the polarization of both the North and the South, with moderates suffering on both sides. Though rightists would likely succumb in a Communist United Korea, the moderates would have greater numbers and may have to be brought into the government, with individuals such as Kim Gu and Cho Manshik ("Korea's Gandhi".)

As modern North Korea in many ways has been largely shaped by the Kim personality cult, alternatives where Kim Il Sung did not achieve absolute power would have different natures and temperaments (Pak Honyong preferred a USSR-style elite Party rather than a mass party system, for example).
 
From a thread in Chat: Italy is always united in the end; it doesn't matter that the South and the North were on pretty damn horrible terms, that the South and North had had separate identities for a long time, and they speak, essentially, different languages. They'll still end up united.

They're going to stay disunited in my TL, even in 1995. But Italy will consist of only 3 countries by then, so don't expect any insane balkanization or the "Italy must stay disunited" cliché. The only reason why it's not fully united in my TL is because there's still a Kingdom of Naples in the south, even in the late 20. century. :cool:
 
They're going to stay disunited in my TL, even in 1995. But Italy will consist of only 3 countries by then, so don't expect any insane balkanization or the "Italy must stay disunited" cliché. The only reason why it's not fully united in my TL is because there's still a Kingdom of Naples in the south, even in the late 20. century. :cool:

Just because naples exists does not mean that they could be annexed by a North Italian power,Norther italy has an advantage over southern Italy.
 
Just because naples exists does not mean that they could be annexed by a North Italian power,Norther italy has an advantage over southern Italy.

True, Italy will almost unite in my TL (in the aftermath of a WWI analogue), but the annexation of Naples will eventually be cancelled and the country will be left independent.

Two reasons :
1. The then ruling politicians of the North don't like the idea of the poor South joining in, because they fear it will supposedly "drag the North's economy and welfare to hell". That's Notherner pride for you... :rolleyes:
2. To preserve the then existant "balance of power" in the Mediterranean. Some of the other European powers dislike the notion of Naples loosing independence. So, the North (known in my TL as the New Lombard League) was rather eager in letting Naples go, even though it had every possibility to occupy, annex and assimilate it into a unified Italian state.

Essentially, the north and south cultural and economic dichotomy of Italy is even more pronounced than in OTL, so stuff like this simply happens. A lot...

However, the ATL 3 Italian countries will have an economic, trade and postal union since the mid 1940s - in the vein of the OTL BENELUX countries. :)

C stands for the phoneme "ts". Pretty much all Slavic languages have six or more S-like phonemes (s, š, ts, tš, z, ž etc.)

Precisely.
 
Speaking of Korea, one thing that I have found retrospectively dubious is the fact that in a fair number of post-1900 timelines, an alternate North Korea or a Communist United Korea is almost inevitably run by Kim Il Sung. As I am currently reading a biography on the man and the history of the country in general, I have realized that is not necessarily true at all.

Kim Il Sung had enough trouble in the early stages gaining respect in OTL, being seen as too young and as a puppet for Moscow. A political mis-step in a crucial early point could have been devastating to his political capital, and allowed a rival to step in.

One of the most important early Communist figures was Pak Honyong, but his fatal flaw was that his organization was based in Seoul. In a United Korea under the Communists, he is much more likely to have entered into a leadership role before Kim Il Sung could establish a personality cult.

What's more, a United Korea would have more ideological diversity. The Korean war saw the polarization of both the North and the South, with moderates suffering on both sides. Though rightists would likely succumb in a Communist United Korea, the moderates would have greater numbers and may have to be brought into the government, with individuals such as Kim Gu and Cho Manshik ("Korea's Gandhi".)

As modern North Korea in many ways has been largely shaped by the Kim personality cult, alternatives where Kim Il Sung did not achieve absolute power would have different natures and temperaments (Pak Honyong preferred a USSR-style elite Party rather than a mass party system, for example).

One interesting bit is that if the USSR had chosen to grab all of Korea in 1945 there was nothing the USA could have done about it. The consequences of a unified Korea would be a bit more interesting as absent the DMZ and militarization what happens in the event of the implosion of the USSR becomes a very good question.
 
And on the subject of Korea, why is it always taken over by the Japanese, instead of managing to somehow prevent Japanese annexation. Korea was actually modernizing at a similar pace as Japan, so preventing the annexation would be an easy way to make ones timeline distinctive.
 
The consequences of a unified Korea would be a bit more interesting as absent the DMZ and militarization what happens in the event of the implosion of the USSR becomes a very good question.

There would still be militarization, it would simply be with an eye on Japan (and maybe China too) rather than South Korea. I would expect Chinese intervention if it looks like the communist regime is about to be lose power; Beijing didn't have a Sinatra Doctrine in 1989.
 
There would still be militarization, it would simply be with an eye on Japan (and maybe China too) rather than South Korea. I would expect Chinese intervention if it looks like the communist regime is about to be lose power; Beijing didn't have a Sinatra Doctrine in 1989.

Many believed that Japanese democracy would be unable to sustain the threat of a fully Communist Korea, and there would be a rapid return to militarism and dictatorship. That would probably push Korea and China together quite handily.

If Communist Korea is not run by Kim Il-Sung, and it doesn't have to worry about the whole rivalry-with-the-South thing, it might end up more like a normal socialist-bloc country, for good or ill.
 
And on the subject of Korea, why is it always taken over by the Japanese, instead of managing to somehow prevent Japanese annexation. Korea was actually modernizing at a similar pace as Japan, so preventing the annexation would be an easy way to make ones timeline distinctive.

The same reason any TL with a continually independent Palestine stretches credulity. Korea is a peninsula which is a natural trade route between the larger societies of China and Japan. For it to do this would require it to be armed to North Korean levels with the economic power of South Korea.

There would still be militarization, it would simply be with an eye on Japan (and maybe China too) rather than South Korea. I would expect Chinese intervention if it looks like the communist regime is about to be lose power; Beijing didn't have a Sinatra Doctrine in 1989.

Which would also probably trigger another military dictatorship in Japan. I wonder what the USA does in this scenario, does it accept this like it did with the likes of Mobutu or does it try to halt it?

Many believed that Japanese democracy would be unable to sustain the threat of a fully Communist Korea, and there would be a rapid return to militarism and dictatorship. That would probably push Korea and China together quite handily.

If Communist Korea is not run by Kim Il-Sung, and it doesn't have to worry about the whole rivalry-with-the-South thing, it might end up more like a normal socialist-bloc country, for good or ill.

Which leaves the question of what the United States does in this scenario given that it would turn out the only thing 4 years of WWII did was to put the same kind of people back in power.
 
Many believed that Japanese democracy would be unable to sustain the threat of a fully Communist Korea, and there would be a rapid return to militarism and dictatorship. That would probably push Korea and China together quite handily.

Which would also probably trigger another military dictatorship in Japan. I wonder what the USA does in this scenario, does it accept this like it did with the likes of Mobutu or does it try to halt it?



Which leaves the question of what the United States does in this scenario given that it would turn out the only thing 4 years of WWII did was to put the same kind of people back in power.

I don't see why this is assumed. The US could certainly prevent it, given that it had Japan under occupation for so many years, and would want to, unless everybody suddenly forgot about Pearl Harbor. If (West) Germany could avoid a return to militarism with communists close to the Main and Weser, Japan can do the same with communists across the Korea Strait.
 
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