Re:The Ainu, Japan’s Indigenous People
by thaumasiotes on Saturday May 23, 2020 @10:15PM
(#23288527)
>> What's wrong with just cupping up the water in your hands and licking it up like a cat?
This one's obvious; your tongue can't hold water the way a cat's does. Humans everywhere can cup water in their hands, but they suck it up rather than trying futilely to lick it up. I feel comfortable generalizing this into the past.
Re:The Ainu, Japan’s Indigenous People
by tragomaskhalos on Sunday May 24, 2020 @05:48AM
(#23290413)
Not sure if you're joking yourself here, but the Stewart Lee quote is part of a skit he does about the stupidities of xenophobia, where he goes progressively further back in time getting more worked up parodying the imagined resistance of the existing inhabitants of Britain to the next wave of arrivals. It ends with him barking out some phrases in old English (?) and telling the audience to bugger off home if they can't speak the language. Pretty funny and prob on YouTube
> ‘Bloody Beaker folk. Coming over here, rowing up the Tagus Estuary from the Iberian Peninsula in improvised rafts. Coming here with their drinking vessels. What's wrong with just cupping up the water in your hands and licking it up like a cat?’
The current majority culture is pretty new; about 1500 years (or maybe 1000, depending on what view you take on the Normans). There were a number of waves; before the Angles et al, the Romans, Celts, aforementioned bloody Beaker people, and various others. That’s for England; once you consider the rest of the UK it’s even messier.