To me, it sounds like a less mumbly Turkish, and certainly much more like Turkish than, for example, Azeri sounds to me. Having read the other answers, there are moments where I hear something reminiscent of Russian palatalisation, but they are very infrequent.
That’s of course proves that I shouldn’t be reading the other answers before answering questions like this.
I received this a week ago from Sophie Dockx, and am passing it on. The bug report Sophie mentions is a security hole I am electing not to publicise; Quora has been notified of it.
I saw your graphs on the necro. Such over 45° upward slopes are indicative of a lot more than management or policy changes within Quora. This is the signature of a management being flooded with complaints until past saturation point, and that is now collapsing under the work pressure.
Q-mod and Q-admin are not responsible for the bans. They have been flooded and overworked. That is why they don’t check each report properly anymore, because they can’t. They have (almost literally) opened the emergency pressure valve in the hope the report bombings stop. They have banned the targets, not the targeters. They don’t realise that this only makes it worse for them. Incomprehensible bans lead to voluntary quits, as by my friend Prof. Walter Lewin. That is why the Quora community needs to know.
People are leaving Quora for the wrong reasons. They are not a bunch of incompetents or of totalitarians. They have been under attack from an organised mob, but don’t seem to realise that they have. Discuss this with your friends, please, Nick. Don’t take my word for it. Quora has been criticised wrongly by most of its critics. It is not Quora, it is a group of users doing this.
Send my bug report to your friends. Call me conspiracy nutter if you have to. Mock me, have a laugh on my expense I don’t care. What is happening to Quora at the moment is the work of conspiracy nutters. They can’t make such shit work in the real world, but they can on the web.
Sites have been switching to Real Name policy without taking into account why it had been abandoned in the nineties. Real names add credibility to the content, but at the same time warrant a much tighter vetting and background checking procedure. Like the one applied by LinkedIn. Quora has been overambitious. They are slow at detecting fake names, because they rely on reporting by the community for that. That explains also why many people have been banned for using their real names that have been flagged by numerous users as fake names. It happened to me in October.
Like Turkish (and just as mumbly as Turkish), with what sound like added uvulars. Which make it sound slightly Arabic.
I have seen another such question about Central Asian Turkic, where an answer commented that it sounded Korean. I can see why: the combination of high back vowels and rapid syllables.
Habib, so many good answers here with allusion to the US Constitution, and I couldn’t hope to exceed them or even reach them.
And then, I remembered a different country’s constitution. Not even its current version.
In the 60s, Greek leftist youth protested the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis and the subsequent upheaval in the country, by chanting “114!”
Article 114, the final article of the 1952 Constitution of Greece. It’s article 120 in the 2008 revision of the current Constitution of Greece.
H τήρηση του Συντάγματος επαφίεται στον πατριωτισμό των Eλλήνων, που δικαιούνται και υποχρεούνται να αντιστέκονται με κάθε μέσο εναντίον οποιουδήποτε επιχειρεί να το καταλύσει με τη βία.
Upholding the Constitution is a responsibility entrusted to the patriotism of the Greek people, who are entitled and obligated to resist by any means necessary whoever attempts to do away with it by force.
Mutatis mutandis, Habib le toubib? You could do worse than this as a closer.
First and so far only eponymous BNBR. Story told in three parts:
(My only anonymous BNBR, I *think*, was for a similar reason.)
… after months of dodging the bullet by using Safari.
… Yeeeeeech.
First suspect thing: how many months does it take to roll out a consistent Quora experience to all platforms? Really? Is that a feature and not a bug?
Second: Why does a “story” I’ve clicked stay shaded? What does that mean? That I’ve read it? What if the “story” was short enough that I didn’t need to click it? Why did I need these distracting shade trackers? Who asked for them?
Third: “Read 1 Answer”? Why “Read”? I wouldn’t know what “1 answer” means under a question?
Fourth: You’re hiding all the other “stories” with this zoomy lightbox thing? Why do you want to disorient me?
Fifth: When I keep scrolling your infernal lightbox down, I end up … scrolling it off the screen? What if I scrolled too fast? What if I wasn’t done with it? What visual metaphor has ever involved scrolling a modal window off screen, to begin with? Anywhere?
What visual metaphor scrolls a modal window halfway off the screen, so I can peer underneath? It’s meant to be a popup, not a convertible sunroof! Why do you make me doubt my sanity?
And if the popup is going to be a convertible sunroof, why does it disappear off screen when I’ve scrolled 3/4 of the way off the screen, rather than all the way off the screen?
And if the modal window is for a “story” shorter than a screenful, why is the modal window flush with the top of the screen, and not in the middle of the screen? Have you ever seen a modal window do that? Does Quora like disconcerting its users? (Don’t answer that.)
Sixth… I reload Quora (in another window) and lightboxes go away again. WTF?
And if that is a feature and not a bug, how can I ensure that I don’t get lightboxes back?
Seventh…
…
… WHAT DO THEY PUT IN THE WATER IN THE UX CANTEEN IN MOUNTAIN VIEW?!
EDIT: Eighth: The lightbox for when I answer a question… The brightness! It burns! (Because there’s all this gleaming white all of a sudden from a blank white modal window against a grey background; much more distracting than the old answer page, which was somehow just as blank.)
Poll: New Blog for Deactivated Quora Users
Purpose: Per discussion under Do we care about Deactivations? by Nick Nicholas on Necrologue, I will be launching a new blog limited to reporting deactivations, to complement Necrologue, with community submissions. The people of Quora can name the blog whatever they want, so long as they choose one of the four obscure Hellenic names I’ve just made up for it.
Deadline: 2017–04–11
Submissions: New Blog for Deactivated Quora Users
They’re all Ancient Greek, really, and they’re all Greek star names from Nick Nicholas’ answer to What are all the Greek star names?
I’ve answered a closely related question:
….
[Lots of provisos, which you must read]
A ballpark figure is going to be closer to between 500 and 1000 years. With all the provisos already given.
I love my folks, however problematic things have been between us, and I don’t begrudge them their struggles in a strange land, to do the best they could for their kids. (Maybe their objectivity, but not their struggle.)
But what was it like to be raised by immigrant parents?
Defensive.
Don’t assimilate to those drunkards. Remember your heritage. Stick to your own. We have morals. We have tradition. All they care about is horse races and booze anyway. Of course you’re going to make something yourself. No you’re not going to be a musician. No, you can’t date, you must attend to your studies. [The fact that I felt I needed to get permission!] Surely you’re going to want to go back to the mother country one day. What do you mean, “you could never function in a country without a civil service that works like clockwork”?!
Not a negative overall; I like that it’s given me a detachment from both the majority and the minority cultures, it’s a useful thing. But there’s a lot of sex I missed out on as a result…