Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 December 29

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December 29

Is the nature of warfare changing?

Throughout the history of the world, there were large and small empires, monarchies and states that engaged in full-scale warfare involving their military and territorial incursion. From the Greco-Persian Wars, Mongol invasions and conquests, Crusades, Hundred Years' War, Thirty Years' War, Seven Years' War, to Napoleonic Wars till 18th century, all were fought with imperialist ambitions.

In the 20th century, the only large scale war fought with imperialistic ambition was the Second World War. Cold War-era proxy wars like the Korean War and Vietnam War, or post-Cold War Yugoslav Wars were small scale regional conflicts .

On the other hand, in the 21st century, the major wars Iraq War, Afghanistan War, Libyan war were aimed at regime change. Whatever the motive, the number of warfare is decreased in the 21st century compared to the previous centuries.

The second point is that West Europe, North America, and South America are no longer the theater of major wars. The only modern post-1945 war fought in the western world in the Falklands War. There is no war in West Europe in the 21st century. List of ongoing armed conflicts clearly shows today's large-scale wars are limited to Africa and Middle East.

An Europe without war was unimaginable in the 17th or 18th centuries, but war in West Europe today is unimaginable. Does this mean the theater of modern warfare is shifting from the West to Africa, Middles East, and Asia? --IEditEncyclopedia (talk) 04:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Aside from conflicts between or within undeveloped countries, modern warfare is shifting to be almost exclusively asymmetric warfare. The middle east finds itself the home of many of these wars (at least the ones involving world powers) because that's where the oil is. You might reasonably conclude that what's happening is that developed nations are averse to warfare amongst themselves, but not with undeveloped nations, and the undeveloped nations people care about the most are the ones that are home to valuable resources. The shift in theatre is thus logical. It's been argued strongly that mutual assured destruction has prevented open warfare between major world powers. You can imagine this should work even if the nations in question don't have nuclear weapons - basically every country that was home to major battles or bombings in World War II suffered devastating damage to its economy and sometimes population, and only one of those countries was actually nuked. There's no point going to war over some economic or territorial dispute if you are likely to wind up even worse off than before, even if you win. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
"Unimaginable"? You're at war right now, with extremists of various types. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:46, 29 December 2016 (UTC) Complete nonsense. We have a minor crime problem blown out of proportion by the press and populist politicians. What you claim is a "war" has orders of magnitude fewer direct victims than those caused by traffic accidents. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC) Keep telling yourself that. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:01, 29 December 2016 (UTC) I know. Thats why I tell you ;-). More seriously, we had 3500 traffic death in Germany in 2015. We had about 650 cases of homicides (fewer than 300 are actual murders), nearly none of which are acts of terror, let alone war. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:46, 29 December 2016 (UTC) Whistling in the graveyard. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:15, 29 December 2016 (UTC) Germany's awesome. Detroit has 298 murders and 119 times less people. The most populous state has 1,699 murders and 39 million people. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:35, 29 December 2016 (UTC) Complete nonsense indeed. Don't drop by just to make inflammatory incorrect statements. That's the sort of thing extremists thrive on. Fgf10 (talk) 15:52, 29 December 2016 (UTC) Sure, it's a well-known fact that bomb-throwers consider Wikipedia a primary source of inspiration. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC) Stop embarrassing yourself. You know full well that I meant such hysterical fearmongering creates a climate of us-vs-them which only encourages terrorism. Can someone else please hat this latest instance of BBs trolling? Fgf10 (talk) 17:51, 29 December 2016 (UTC) Or better yet, delete your typical personal attacks. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:31, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

During the Falklands War, the United Kingdom invaded mainland Argentina with the aim of directing aerial bombing on its military airbases from the ground. But a British helicopter crashed in bad weather and the troops withdrew to Chile on foot.
Sleigh (talk) 04:54, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for that, Sleigh? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 10:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The plan was Operation Mikado. The helicopter crash incident was during a scouting mission. Though that wasn't about bombing, but about taking out the Argentinian air force, specifically their Excocet capacity. Fgf10 (talk) 15:52, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Someguy1221, not sure about your "that's where the oil is" claim. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been pretty hard hit with assymetric warfare and massive terrorism (terrorist attacks in Pakistan seldom even make the western media, even though I think there are many more terrorism deaths in Pakistan than in all of Europe?), and neither country has significant oil or other significant natural resources that I know of. Afghanistan's main export by value is probably Opium, so do illicit drugs count, from the occupier's perspective? Yes, if you believe conspiracy theories of U.S. government involvement in the drug trade? But control of Opium production is a massive issue to the insurgents, as it allows them to fund their operations. Perhaps their biggest funding source? Eliyohub (talk) 16:09, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Afghanistan was invaded because that's where the group that caused America's biggest terrorist attack by an order of magnitude was. Then Osama snuck into a neighboring country hoping he'd be safer there and the asymmetrical warfare continued till 2016. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:53, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Iraq was invaded by Bush, not Osama. But Pakistan's issues are largely of its own making, nurturing Islamists for decades to use against India and dominate Afghanistan, than seeing these very Islamists turn against them. The invasion of Afghanistan may not have helped, but when since independence has Pakistan enjoyed true political stability, as in, healthy robust institutions of governance, not strongmen and their armies keeping a superficial lid on things?

To be fair, America did the same, backing extremist Mujihadeen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, only to see them and their successors turn against America in a horrifying way a decade or two later. Eliyohub (talk) 17:07, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

In this day and age, it takes maybe five seconds to look up the natural resources of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Both countries have significant mineral and oil wealth. Please do the bare minimum before responding on the reference desk. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 20:05, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The other issue of possible relevance to the changing nature of warfare is robotics, be it ground, sea, and air. Drones are probably the most-high profile of these - and they are not limited by any means to the United States. China is building a drone fleet too, I gather (can anyone source this?). But many other robotics are taking over battlefields - like, experts are asking, why does a tank need a human crew on board, as opposed to remote control? And if Pakistan should block land access for US forces into Afghanistan, simply ship supplies to just off the Pakistani coast and have unmanned planes or cargo helicopters deliver through Pakistan or Iran by air (forcing through airspace is much easier for the U.S., both militarily and politically, than forcing their way overland. The Soviet Union did not attempt to shoot down supply deliveries during the Berlin Airlift, though they no doubt had this capability). Even infantry roles - traditionally the most "human" of the jobs - are seeing robots push their way in. And once robots replace humans, war becomes a cheaper proposition, as human losses on the part of the invader (and the political ramifications of them) are significantly reduced. Eliyohub (talk) 16:09, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Henry Owner

Please help me find more information about a man named Henry Owner, who served as an American commercial agent in the Society Islands, mainly additional biographical information, his lifespan (birth and death dates) and other events of his life beside his 1858 to annex Raiatea to the US.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 10:33, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

See our article National Archives and Records Administration, one of their facilities would be the place I'd look first for such info. Not familiar with their systems, but you can ask them for help with this sort of request. Whilst I highly doubt they'd do your research for you, they could point you in the right direction as to which of their facilities might have this info, and how to search the databases. Eliyohub (talk) 16:31, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The Country Gentleman: Jan-Jul 1857 (p. 68) says "Henry Owner of California" (not much but at least we know where he comes from). The National Intelligenser: January 1, 1861 - June 30, 1863 says: " Info received from Mr Geo F Seward the US Cnsl at Shanghai, of the death on Apr 23 last at that place, of Henry Owner, formerly U S Cnsl at the Society Islands, once a resident of Wash City". It's only a "snippet view" so I can't tell which year, but it's on p. 385, quite a way through the book, so 1862 would be an intelligent guess. It's a difficult name to search, you get lots of "John W. Henry, owner of the Florida Marlins" and "Howard Henry, owner of Howard Tire & Auto"... Alansplodge (talk) 17:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

People who love human being what are they called?

People who love human being what are they called? I mean that I see sometimes people who hates human beings (as ridiculous it is...) but loves animals. Do they have some professional term which describe such people? 93.126.88.30 (talk) 15:37, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

It isn't ridiculous, some people no doubt hate all of humanity with a passion, but they'd usually be deemed to have a psychological problem (not sure what diagnosis? Would think some personality disorder-type phenomenon?).

Rapists and partner-bashers motivated by a burning hatred of the entire female half of humanity are also not all that uncommon (not all rapists fit this definition by far, but some do. Peter Dupas definitely fit this category). Again, I'm not sure what the psychological term is, but such crimes are certainly Hate crimes.

On the other hand, people who don't hate humanity, but just don't want to be around their fellow humans would be deemed Hermits. These exist, but from my psychology studies, every society sees them as unusual, not at all the norm. But you wouldn't necessarily deem them to have a mental problem. Schizoid personality disorder might apply to some of these individuals, I'd say.

As to love of all humanity, the hippie stereotype sort? I'm sure there's a term for it, but I don't know what it is. Any psych students able to help? Eliyohub (talk) 16:23, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Humanist might be a good word. Alansplodge (talk) 16:48, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Note that Humanists (in the modern sense) have concern for others without reference to religion. However, all the adherents of the Abrahamic religions are required to love their neighbours by the Ten Commandments. Jesus argued that any person that you came into contact with was your neighbour (see the Parable of the Good Samaritan), so any Christian who doesn't at least try to love other humans isn't a very good one. The Buddhist principles of Karuṇā, "the desire to remove harm and suffering from others" and Mettā, "the desire to bring about the well-being and happiness of others", form part of the four immeasurables. Alansplodge (talk) 22:28, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Philanthropist if you want Greek. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:53, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. And what about those who hate human beings? (I checked out the term Androphobia but it doesn't fit my question) what about animal lovers (not in meaning of sexuality) but just about people who love animals more than the average person.93.126.88.30 (talk) 17:05, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Check out Misanthropy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:11, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

That it's exactly what I looked for! Thank you 93.126.88.30 (talk) 23:46, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Jewish Journalists interviewing Trump re his positions on domestic American Jewry's concerns

Hope this question is not mistaken as trolling or anti-semitic, I ask in good faith.

I am Jewish myself. There was a lot of focus of Trump's likely political position towards Israel. Now, I do not consider that irrelevant, but it missed what was, for me, an equal issue.

Have any Jewish journalists had the opportunity at any point to ask Trump questions regarding his positions on the issues of importance to the Jews of America? I mean domestic ones, not foreign policy ones.

Some of these issues are not uniquely Jewish (e.g. healthcare policy), so a Jewish journalist would not bother asking the question, it will likely have already been canvassed. And with "two Jews equals three opinions", American Jewry will hardly be united in what it wants from the President.

But let me give an example of a "Jewish" issue, of huge importance to the American religious Jewish community: Government support for private religious schools. Religious Jews do not want to send their kids to public schools - they very firmly want a "Jewish education", and this is expensive, even for the middle class, particularly given that orthodox Jews tend to have large families. Lessening the tuition burden (e.g. making tuition tax-deductible) would be a huge issue for the Orthodox Jewish community. Probably not strictly the President's jurisdiction (it would fall to congress to make any changes to taxation or budget policy), but neither was Obamacare (not a Presidential powers area either), and the President's views clearly have influence. (The Catholic church may share this concern about government tuition relief, but American schooling is generally far more public-oriented than say, Australia's education system, meaning those who want private education are expected to generally more or less foot the whole expense themselves. In my country, Australia, private schools get generous government support, controversial though this policy may be).

There must be other similar issues of domestic policy where Jewish concerns are particularly concentrated. Can anyone point me to any interviews with Trump by a Journalist from the "Jewish" media (Newspaper, blog, magazine, whatever), which canvassed domestic American Jewish concerns, and was not dominated by "Israel policy"? Eliyohub (talk) 16:58, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I would avoid using the word "Jewry", as it has a history of being used in antisemitic rants. StuRat (talk) 05:47, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Does Eliyohub ever post a question that doesn't start with a caveat? I am tempted to start an SPI. μηδείς (talk) 06:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Let's not forget that Trump's daughter is Orthodox Jewish.92.8.220.149 (talk) 14:57, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Medeis, I don't have any other accounts, but I have often posted questions and replies without logging in. See other questions of mine on this page, not all begin with caveats. Some end in caveats, often to avoid you labelling the question medical or legal advice, or a BLP violation, or someone crying "troll!". Forgive my mild paranioa, this place can get heated, so I do perhaps attempt to guard myself somewhat with Disclaimers, for what they're worth.

StuRat, I do apologize for the use of the term "jewry", I don't tend to hang around antisemitic conspiracy theorists if I can help it, either online or in real life, so would be unfamiliar with such usage. We had a somewhat similar situation of me quoting a judge who used the word "niggardly". No, it's not racist, any more than "country" is a swear word.

I see my question is too narrow, so I'd like to broaden it. Interviews are too narrow, so instead, can anyone track down any articles online from Jewish publications, looking at the various positions Trump holds in regards to issues the author deems of importance to American Jews? I.e. Not Israel-policy centric? Eliyohub (talk) 16:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Start your search with the pages in Category:Jewish newspapers published in the United States. Open each link, scroll down to External links, and visit the newspaper's website where you can find content on this topic, perhaps aided by the site's "Contact us" feature. I'll also suggest you rephrase your inquiry, considering:

• Donald Trump is likely to continue refusing to be held accountable for what he says or has said in any public medium, and his actions cannot be predicted in advance, and
• Unless you rely on stereotypes (e.g. the superiority of "skullcap-wearing" accountants) there is no homogeneity to the population of Jews in the USA: not in their political affiliations (i.e. issues), nor in their religious practice (including sending their children to a private parochial school), nor even in their affiliation or self-identification as Jews.

The main issue common to US Jews qua Jews anticipating Trump-era America is how they might be mistreated for being Jews or simply non-WASP, and whether they'd have any protection or post facto recourse under such law as will be upheld. . -- Deborahjay (talk) 19:29, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Sikh Singaporeans

In the 1960s, Singapore had a campaign against long hair. How did this affect Sikh Singaporeans? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.100.136.48 (talk) 17:00, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Added header. Fgf10 (talk) 17:55, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Don't know, but knowing what i know of the Singaporean mindset, they probably wouldn't have objected to hair hidden under a turban or the like. It was probably more a crackdown aimed at the then-emerging Hippie movement (and its politically subversive nature), I would think? Or general messiness, which used to cause people to be occasionally rejected when attempting to enter Singapore. But I have no source, can anyone clarify? Eliyohub (talk) 18:20, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Can women have long hair? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the ban was aimed at males with "hair covering the ears", "hair reaching below an ordinary shirt collar", and/or "hair falling across the forehead and touching the eyebrows". It was intended to discourage "anti-social" youth cultures from imitating the "decadent West" - see Long hair in Singapore. As Sikhs wear their hair concealed, the ban seems not to have applied to them, although I can't find a reference to support that. The minority group which did run foul of the ban was the Malay Singaporeans and migratory Malay workers, who have a tradition of wearing long hair, according to this 1976 newspaper article. Alansplodge (talk) 21:57, 29 December 2016 (UTC).

Sounds like I was right with my guess: Singapore hated or feared Hippies, so it forcibly cut off their hair. Eliyohub (talk) 21:36, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Has there ever been warfare in a modern city?

I was looking at pictures of skylines and thinking... has there ever been a battle in a big, modern, gleaming, vertical city? The world outside New York and Chicago wasn't really built upwards during World War 2, and all the wars since then have been in less developed countries. Aleppo, Baghdad, and Donetsk all have some taller buildings, but has there ever been any warfare at all in a city/metro area with a building taller than fifty floors? Other than terrorist incidents, of course. --Golbez (talk) 18:01, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Paris, Eiffel Tower, 300 metres, WWII (surrendered without fighting really). Paris, WWI, was bombed by the Paris gun, Eiffel Tower wasn't hit. We're getting closer. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:05, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The Eiffel Tower isn't a building! It's a tower! With only 3 floors! :P --Golbez (talk) 18:10, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I presume you mean ground urban warfare, not aerial bombing? If not, how built up was Belgrade at the time of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia? Eliyohub (talk) 18:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Any kind of warfare, and that's a good suggestion. I was also thinking maybe Kuwait City, but I'm pretty sure it didn't get vertical til well after the Gulf War. Looks like the tallest building in Belgrade at the time was 35 stories, which is pretty big. --Golbez (talk) 18:19, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Not warfare, but for several examples of genuine non-terrorism sky-high horror, see http://web.archive.org/web/20160101071544/http://www.skyscraper city.com/showthread.php?t=1801571 . Remove the space I inserted in the URL, I have zero idea why the site is on the blacklist! I had to use internet archive, as the images seem to be broken in the current version. We had such an incident here in Melbourne, Australia. Thankfully, sprinklers and fast evacuation meant zero deaths. But the same problem has caused true horror in places like Dubai. Any interest? Or am I way off track? Eliyohub (talk) 18:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

OK, clarified blacklisting reason: "this site is extensively used in mainspace despite being a forum and thus not suitable as a source of information". [1] Should be Ok for the refdesk, though, shouldn't it? Not a "reliable source" in itself per se, but the photos are amazing, and the page in question does quote media reports. Eliyohub (talk) 18:39, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Sourcing for articles is stricter than for the ref desk. As an example, there are often questions for which the best answer is a youtube video, which are not considered reliable for articles, but can be "reliable enough" to answer a question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:49, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I've submitted a request to get the blacklisting modified so it only applies to mainspace, but it may take a few days to get attended to. Eliyohub (talk) 19:04, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think the answer to your request is going to be that it's not possible. The blacklist system is pretty simple and doesn't allow much flexibility. I don't think even the whitelist allows for limits by namespace. Obviously wait until you get a response from one of the people deeply familiar with the system, but I just don't think it's possible. Ravensfire (talk) 19:57, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Turin was bombed in WW2. Allied soldiers came to capture the city from the Nazis but found it already liberated by a revolt that started 5 days before Hitler killed himself. The Mole Antonelliana has only 5 floors but it's 550 feet tall and was a museum. I looked at every pre-1946 building over 149 meters extant or destroyed and this was the tallest outside America (I suppose the database could be incomplete, who knows if the Tower of Babel story wasn't inspired by a real say 50 floor building and a battle happened to happen nearby before some natural disaster prevented it's 50+ floor height from entering reliable history?). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:43, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

• Before the Lebanese Civil War, Beirut was known as the "Paris of the East" and was then largely destroyed. I don't know the architectural facts, but it was full of high-rises. μηδείς (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The Beirut Trade Center was the tallest building in Beirut during the war. But not quite the OP's criteria. It's only 40 floors, doesn't have enough height to fit 50 floors (459 feet) and was never even finished. The BTC was almost done though (when war stopped work). It managed to survive the war with some bomb damage. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, SMW. Where do you get this?!?!? In any case, the "floor" criterion seems arbitrary, and Beirut certainly counts as a world-class city worthy of consideration. Larry Niven even considered it an example of high civilization in his magnum opus, Ringworld. μηδείς (talk) 06:03, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

[2] [www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=354751]. 500 feet is the most common cutoff for skyscraper. That would be 50 ten-foot stories. (A metric skyscraper is 150 meters/492 ft). (there's also supertall, a real word): Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 07:40, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

List of architects of supertall buildings

Websites similar to peoplesmart that work for addresses in Canada

Are there any websites similar to Peoplesmart that work for addresses in Canada? I'm trying to find names of previous residents of a certain address. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle dan is home (talk • contribs) 23:15, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Canada 411 sort of does that, although it won't tell you who is a former resident and who is a current resident. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:42, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Is there ability to be a lawyer in many countries by study in one institute?

Is there ability to be a lawyer in many countries by study in one institute -in one country, or it's necessary to study in any country in its own institute in order to know the specific laws? I'm looking for information about an option of to be international lawyer, if something like that exists. I believe that there is a basic infrastructure between all the law system in the modern world (excluding religious countries) 93.126.88.30 (talk) 23:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid your last point isn't true. Apart from religious law, there are two distinct "basic infrastructures" - Common law systems (basically, everywhere that was once part of the British Empire) and Civil law systems (most other countries). See List of national legal systems for details. Tevildo (talk) 00:03, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

And note that international law is distinct, too, involving lawsuits from one nation to another, the International Criminal Court, etc. StuRat (talk) 05:50, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Then if I want to be an international lawyer, meaning that I want to have the basic infrastructure in the common lows in the modern world, then what do I need to study? (of course L.L.B but I mean what do I have to focus on?)93.126.88.30 (talk) 18:41, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Please see the articles public international law and Municipal law (a/k/a civil law in the sense of law of the country/state). Hopefully I'm not repeating anything you already know, but the term "international law" (and, correspondingly, "international lawyer") is ambiguous and sometimes used in an unclear manner (i.e., an incorrect or confused manner, according to purists). Put simply, every country or political unit (even theocratic or "religious" countries) has a legal system, which can technically be referred to as municipal law (not to be confused with local "municipal" law of towns/cities). Municipal law applies within that country, but the municipal law of many countries is similar; as mentioned, many countries belong to either the "civil law" or "common law" tradition (but those are not exhaustive groups). International law in the technical sense is public international law, which governs the relationship between countries (states). Out of the world's legal activities (and out of all of the world's lawyers), only a very small number practice public international law. However, in regard to the "basic infrastructure" of laws in the modern world, this is not a very substantive area in the academic study of law. You can study basic concepts that apply to nearly all modern legal systems or you can also focus on either the civil law or common law countries and study on the "basic infrastructure" that underlies either the civil law tradition or common law tradition--in any case, studying only basic concepts will not take you very far....aside from limited theoretical discussions, "basic concepts," are just that, a very limited stage of academic study of law. You would then need to specialize in the law of a particular country (it is rare to have a degree in public international law without having a foundation in the law of at least one given country). Does this help or do you still have questions?

You will probably get a little more traction if you make a choice to pursue either common law or civil law: i.e., you can spend a few years studying English law and then apply that knowledge, plus another degree or qualification exams, to many other Commonwealth countries, and you can do the same thing if you first study Spanish law and then want to move to a Latin American country. However, the "civil law countries" are much more fragmented (even putting aside language) than the common law countries, so it would be harder to start out with French law and then move to Latin America. Within the civil law countries, you will find a rough breakdown among French-speaking, Spanish-speaking and German-speaking civil law countries (these are the larger groupings for the sake of example only). Chinese and Japanese law in the modern age have their roots in European civil law (largely German) but have evolved so that they now diverge from civil law/German law fairly significantly for practical purposes. --208.58.213.72 (talk) 11:40, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. For now I learnt from your things that there are two main systems of law: civil law and common law (mainly British countries or colonies). Then I cannot study both of them? I just want to have a common language between me and colleague or judges as someone who want to be a lawyer in the future. In addition I don't know how what specialty to choose for this purpose while the institutes suggest for the students of L.B.B to focus on something already when they are in the studies of first degree. (I don't have yet any background in law). 93.126.88.30 (talk) 15:12, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

You may be able to study both civil law and common law but it most likely you will have to focus on one and make the other a secondary focus (e.g., get a degree in ta common law country and take just a few courses on civil law, or the reverse), or get one degree in civil law first and then an LLM (masters of law) in a common law country. However in regard to a topical discipline, you could go with comparative law, or you could try to think about your future interests...for example, would you like to be a litigation attorney arguing before courts? A commercial lawyer dealing with corporate and financial transactions? A lawyer dealing with matters of marriage, divorce, family and children? In many countries (e.g., UK and China) it is common for a first university degree to be in law, but if your country (like the US) doesn't allow law as a first degree you can find something that matches one of the interests I described above, e.g., finance, government, social work, etc.--208.58.213.72 (talk) 17:13, 31 December 2016 (UTC)