JohnD wrote:bystander,
The border between Tibet and Nepal runs through the summit, along the North East and West Ridges.
Please look at any map, starting with Google Earth, because it's easy to find.
Owlice, others who complain of my nitpicking,
Quote the caption, " Mt. Everest lies in the Himalaya mountains in the country of Nepal. In the native language of Nepal, the mountain's name is "Sagarmatha" which means "forehead of the sky."
This pressed all my buttons for patronising, parochial information, that is so unlike the usual, informative, intelligent APOD caption that I had to comment.
It is as if it was written for kindergarten children, for whom simple statements are needed. But those simple statements must be correct, and on the location of Everest it's wrong, on the name it's wrong (or only partially correct),and it's wrong on the "native" language of Nepal. Is there any other that is the language of Nepal? Surely we have stopped talking of "natives" as if they were some subhuman race?
John
John, I'm not complaining about your nitpicking; I'm simply pointing out where your nitpicking is in error.
If you don't like the way something is phrased, well, okay, you don't like it. (APOD is written for a wide audience and that is reflected in its text.) APOD doesn't mention
which language of Nepal. Though Nepali is spoken by
less than half the population of that country, it is by far the language with the greatest number of speakers and is the country's official language. (In which other country is Nepali spoken by a greater percentage of its population?) It may have been more exact if the APOD text had read
In Nepali, the mountain's name is "Sagarmatha" which means "forehead of the sky", but the text as written is not incorrect.
There is nothing wrong with the term "
native language," either. Everyone has one.