title: Abrahamic religions

text: The Roman Catholic Church believes in observing abstinence and penance. For example, all Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days. The law of abstinence requires a Catholic from 14 years of age until death to abstain from eating meat on Fridays in honor of the Passion of Jesus on Good Friday. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops obtained the permission of the Holy See for Catholics in the U.S. to substitute a penitential, or even a charitable, practice of their own choosing. Eastern Rite Catholics have their own penitential practices as specified by the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) embraces numerous Old Testament rules and regulations such as tithing, Sabbath observance, and Jewish food laws. Therefore, they do not eat pork, shellfish, or other foods considered unclean under the Old Covenant. The "Fundamental Beliefs" of the SDA state that their members "are to adopt the most healthful diet possible and abstain from the unclean foods identified in the Scriptures".


title: Abrahamic religions

text: In the Christian Bible, the consumption of strangled animals and of blood was forbidden by Apostolic Decree and are still forbidden in the Greek Orthodox Church, according to German theologian Karl Josef von Hefele, who, in his Commentary on Canon II of the Second Ecumenical Council held in the 4th century at Gangra, notes: "We further see that, at the time of the Synod of Gangra, the rule of the Apostolic Synod [the Council of Jerusalem of Acts 15] with regard to blood and things strangled was still in force. With the Greeks, indeed, it continued always in force as their Euchologies still show." He also writes that "as late as the eighth century, Pope Gregory the Third, in 731, forbade the eating of blood or things strangled under threat of a penance of forty days."


title: Abrahamic religions

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prohibits the consumption of alcohol, coffee, and non-herbal tea. While there is not a set of prohibited food, the church encourages members to refrain from eating excessive amounts of red meat.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Sabbath in the Bible is a weekly day of rest and time of worship. It is observed differently in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and informs a similar occasion in several other Abrahamic faiths. Though many viewpoints and definitions have arisen over the millennia, most originate in the same textual tradition.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Judaism accepts converts, but has had no explicit missionaries since the end of the Second Temple era. Judaism states that non-Jews can achieve righteousness by following Noahide Laws, a set of moral imperatives that, according to the Talmud, were given by God as a binding set of laws for the "children of Noah"—that is, all of humanity. It is believed that as much as ten percent of the Roman Empire followed Judaism either as fully ritually obligated Jews or the simpler rituals required of non-Jewish members of that faith.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Moses Maimonides, one of the major Jewish teachers, commented: "Quoting from our sages, the righteous people from other nations have a place in the world to come if they have acquired what they should learn about the Creator". Because the commandments applicable to the Jews are much more detailed and onerous than Noahide laws, Jewish scholars have traditionally maintained that it is better to be a good non-Jew than a bad Jew, thus discouraging conversion. In the U.S., as of 2003 28% of married Jews were married to non-Jews. "See also Conversion to Judaism."


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Christianity encourages evangelism. Many Christian organizations, especially Protestant churches, send missionaries to non-Christian communities throughout the world. "See also Great Commission". Forced conversions to Catholicism have been alleged at various points throughout history. The most prominently cited allegations are the conversions of the pagans after Constantine; of Muslims, Jews and Eastern Orthodox during the Crusades; of Jews and Muslims during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, where they were offered the choice of exile, conversion or death; and of the Aztecs by Hernán Cortés. Forced conversions to Protestantism may have occurred as well, notably during the Reformation, especially in England and Ireland (see recusancy and Popish plot).


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Forced conversions are now condemned as sinful by major denominations such as the Roman Catholic Church, which officially states that forced conversions pollute the Christian religion and offend human dignity, so that past or present offences are regarded as a scandal (a cause of unbelief). According to Pope Paul VI, "It is one of the major tenets of Catholic doctrine that man's response to God in faith must be free: no one, therefore, is to be forced to embrace the Christian faith against his own will." The Roman Catholic Church has declared that Catholics should fight anti-Semitism.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Dawah is an important Islamic concept which denotes the preaching of Islam. Da‘wah literally means "issuing a summons" or "making an invitation". A Muslim who practices da‘wah, either as a religious worker or in a volunteer community effort, is called a dā‘ī, plural du‘āt. A dā‘ī is thus a person who invites people to understand Islam through a dialogical process and may be categorized in some cases as the Islamic equivalent of a missionary, as one who invites people to the faith, to the prayer, or to Islamic life.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Da'wah activities can take many forms. Some pursue Islamic studies specifically to perform Da'wah. Mosques and other Islamic centers sometimes spread Da'wah actively, similar to evangelical churches. Others consider being open to the public and answering questions to be Da'wah. Recalling Muslims to the faith and expanding their knowledge can also be considered Da'wah.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: In Islamic theology, the purpose of Da‘wah is to invite people, both Muslims and non-Muslims, to understand the commandments of God as expressed in the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet, as well as to inform them about Muhammad. Da‘wah produces converts to Islam, which in turn grows the size of the Muslim Ummah, or community of Muslims.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: This section reports on writings and talks which describe or advocate dialogue between the Abrahamic religions.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Amir HussainIn 2003, a book titled "Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism" contains a chapter by Amir Hussain which is titled "Muslims, Pluralism, and Interfaith Dialogue" in which he claims that interfaith dialogue has been an integral part of Islam since its origin. After he received his "first revelation" and for the rest of his life, Muhammad was "engaged in interfaith dialogue." Islam would not have spread without "interfaith dialogue."


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Hussain gives an early example of "the importance of pluralism and interfaith dialogue" in Islam. After some of Muhammad's followers were subjected to "physical persecution" in Mecca, he sent them to Abyssinia, a Christian nation, where they were "welcomed and accepted" by the Christian king. Another example is Córdoba, Andalusia in Muslim Spain, in the ninth and tenth centuries. Córdoba was "one of the most important cities in the history of the world". In Córdoba, "Christians and Jews were involved in the Royal Court and the intellectual life of the city." Thus, there is "a history of Muslims, Jews, Christians, and other religious traditions living together in a pluralistic society."


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Turning to the present, Hussain says that one of the challenges which Muslims currently face is the conflicting passages in the Qur̀an some of which support interfaith "bridge-building," but other passages of it can be used to "justify mutual exclusion."


title: Abrahamic religions

text: The 2007 book "Trialogue: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Dialogue" starkly states the importance of interfaith dialogue: "We human beings today face a stark choice: dialogue or death!"


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Pope Benedict XVIIn 2010, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about "Interreligious dialogue." He said that "the Church's universal nature and vocation require that she engage in dialogue with the members of other religions." For the Abrahamic religions, this "dialogue is based on the spiritual and historical bonds uniting Christians to Jews and Muslims." It is dialogue "grounded in the sacred Scriptures" and "defined in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church "Lumen Gentium" and in the Declaration on the Church's Relation to Non-Christian Religions "Nostra Aetate". The Pope concluded with a prayer: "May Jews, Christians and Muslims . . . give the beautiful witness of serenity and concord between the children of Abraham."


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Learned IgnoranceIn the 2011 book "Learned Ignorance: Intellectual Humility Among Jews, Christians and Muslims", the three editors address the question of "why engage in interreligious dialogue; its purpose?":


title: Abrahamic religions

text: The Interfaith AmigosIn 2011, TED broadcast a 10-minute program about "Breaking the Taboos of Interfaith Dialogue" with Rabbi Ted Falcon (Jewish), Pastor Don Mackenzie (Christian), and Imam Jamal Rahman (Muslim) collectively known as The Interfaith Amigos. See their TED program by clicking here.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Divisive matters should be addressedIn 2012, a PhD thesis "Dialogue Between Christians, Jews and Muslims" argues that "the paramount need is for barriers against non-defensive dialogue conversations between Christians, Jews, and Muslims to be dismantled to facilitate the development of common understandings on matters that are deeply divisive." As of 2012, the thesis says that this has not been done.


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Cardinal KochIn 2015, Cardinal Kurt Koch, the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, an organization that is "responsible for the Church's dialogue with the Jewish people," was interviewed. He noted that the Church is already engaging in "bilateral talks with Jewish and Muslim religious leaders" but stated that it is too early for the Church to host "trialogue" talks with representatives of the three Abrahamic religions. Yet, Koch added, "we hope that we can go in this [direction] in the future."


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Omid SafiIn 2016, a 26-minute interview with Professor Omid Safi, a Muslim and Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center, was posted on YouTube.com. In it, Safi stated that he has spent his life trying to combine "love and tenderness" which are the "essence of being human" with "social justice."


title: Abrahamic religions

text: Christianity is the largest Abrahamic religion with about 2.3 billion adherents, constituting about 31.1% of the world's population. Islam is the second largest Abrahamic religion, as well as the fastest-growing Abrahamic religion in recent decades. It has about 1.9 billion adherents, called Muslims, which constitute about 24.1% of the world's population. The third largest Abrahamic religion is Judaism with about 14.1 million adherents, called Jews. The Baháʼí Faith has over 8 million adherents, making it the fourth largest Abrahamic religion, and the fastest growing religion across the 20th century usually at least twice the rate of population growth. The Druze Faith has between one million and nearly two millions adherents.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: The Human Centipede (First Sequence) is a 2009 Dutch body horror film written, directed and co-produced by Tom Six. The film tells the story of a deranged German surgeon who kidnaps three tourists and joins them surgically, mouth to anus, forming a "human centipede". It stars Dieter Laser as Josef Heiter, the creator of the centipede; and Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, and Akihiro Kitamura as Heiter's victims.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: According to Six, the concept arose from a joke he had made with friends about punishing a child molester by stitching his mouth to the anus of a "fat truck driver". Other sources of inspiration were Nazi medical experiments performed during World War II, such as those performed by Josef Mengele at the Auschwitz concentration camp. When approaching investors to fund the project, Six did not mention the premise of the film for fear of putting off potential backers; financiers did not discover the full nature of the film until completion.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: The film held its premiere at the London FrightFest Film Festival on 30 August 2009. It received a limited theatrical release in the United States on 30 April 2010. Despite a mixed critical reception, the film won several accolades at international film festivals. Two sequels that were also written and directed by Six—"Full Sequence" and "Final Sequence"—were released in 2011 and 2015, respectively. The entire trilogy was combined into a single film in 2016, titled "Complete Sequence", which Six described as a "movie centipede" due to each "Sequence" leading into its successor while simultaneously working as a separate standalone film.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Lindsay and Jenny, tourists from New York visiting Germany, get a flat tire on their way to a night club and seek help at the house of misanthropic, psychopathic surgeon Dr. Josef Heiter. He drugs the women with Rohypnol and kidnaps them to a makeshift medical ward. Heiter kills a kidnapped truck driver after Heiter informs him he is "not a match". Heiter also abducts Japanese tourist Katsuro. Heiter is a retired world-renowned expert at separating Siamese twins, but dreams of making new creatures by sewing humans together. He says he will surgically connect his three victims mouth-to-anus, so that they share a single digestive system. His prior experiment, the 3Dog, conjoined three Rottweilers into a "Siamese triplet." All three dogs expired after the operation. Heiter has moved on to using human subjects.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: After Lindsay tries to escape and fails, Heiter decides to make her the middle part of the centipede, the most painful position for the healing process, as punishment. Heiter performs the surgery, placing Katsuro at the lead, Lindsay at the middle and Jenny at the rear; he removes both the upper and lower front teeth and lips of Lindsay and Jenny, and mutilates the buttocks of Katsuro and Lindsay to provide access to the rectums. He severs the ligaments of his victims' knees to prevent leg extension, forcing his victims to crawl.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Once the operation is complete, Heiter takes the centipede to his living room, takes photos, and passes a mirror around for the segments of the centipede to view their new form. Heiter attempts to train his centipede as a pet by caging the centipede in a dog kennel, letting Katsuro eat dog food at dinner, and belittling Katsuro with racist insults and beating him with a crop when he becomes rebellious. When Katsuro defecates after apologizing to the girls, Lindsay is forced to swallow his excrement. Heiter becomes irritated after being kept awake by the screaming of a caged Katsuro (who, as the front part of the centipede, has his mouth free and is still able to speak, but in Japanese) and by the constant moaning of the women, threatening to remove their vocal cords. When the centipede attempts to escape while Heiter is swimming, all three segments are beaten with the crop. Heiter is displeased with the realization that Lindsay is constipated. He proposes to use laxatives on Lindsay. However, before he can do this, he discovers that Jenny is dying from sepsis (suggesting that Lindsay may have already defecated into her mouth off-camera, which led to infection).


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Two detectives, Kranz and Voller, visit the house to investigate the disappearance of the three tourists. Heiter comes up with an idea to add them as replacements for Jenny in a new creation: a four-segment centipede. He offers the detectives water spiked with Rohypnol. After being given the drugged water, the detectives become suspicious and obtain a search warrant for his home. When the detectives leave Heiter's home, the victims attempt to escape. Katsuro attacks Heiter. Their attempt to escape fails. Katsuro confesses to Heiter that he deserves this fate because he treated his family poorly, then takes his own life by slitting his throat with a glass shard.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Upon returning to Heiter's home, the detectives conduct separate searches as Heiter, injured, hides near his swimming pool. Kranz finds the ward along with Heiter's victims. Voller begins to feel ill from the earlier drugging, and Heiter stabs him with the scalpel pulled from his foot during Katsuro's attack. Upon finding Voller dead, Kranz is shot by Heiter with Voller's sidearm. Kranz responds by fatally shooting Heiter in the head before succumbing to his wounds. Back in the house, Jenny and Lindsay hold hands as Jenny dies. Lindsay sobs as she is left alone in the house, trapped between her deceased fellow captives.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: The inspiration for the film's plot came from a joke that writer/director Tom Six once made to his friends about punishing a child molester they saw on TV by stitching his mouth to the anus of an overweight truck driver. Six saw this as the concept for a great horror film, and he began to develop the idea. He has said he was heavily influenced as a filmmaker by the early works of David Cronenberg and Japanese horror films. Six has said he prefers horror films that are more realistic over "unbelievable" monster films, and that he gets "a rash from too much political correctness." A major influence for "The Human Centipede" was Pier Paolo Pasolini's controversial 1975 Italian drama film "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom", which was notable for its scenes depicting intensely graphic violence, sadism, and sexual depravity, as was the work of Japanese director Takashi Miike. Six has also expressed his love of the works of David Lynch. Further inspiration came from Six's previous role as a director on the Dutch series of "Big Brother", where he had been able to observe people who "did crazy things when they were alone and thought they were not (being) watched."


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Six has stated that "The Human Centipede" is, to an extent, a reflection on fascism. Dieter Laser, who played the antagonist Dr Heiter, said during the promotion of the film that he felt the guilt of Nazi actions during the war had haunted ordinary Germans for generations, and that as a German whose father participated in the war, he often felt "like a child whose father is in jail for murder." The inclusion of a German villain came from this, with Six citing both the German invasion of the Netherlands during World War II and the Nazi medical experiments as inspiration. Laser stated in an interview with Clark Collis for "Entertainment Weekly" that he considered the film a "grotesque [parody] about the Nazi psyche". Heiter's name was an amalgamation of several Nazi war criminals, his surname (literally meaning "cheerful" in German) a combination of the names of Nazi doctors Fetter and Richter, and his first name coming from Josef Mengele, who carried out experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp. World War II also played an influence on the nationality of the other main characters who were American and Japanese. Six includes many horror film clichés in the first act, such as a broken-down car, lack of phone signal and very naïve victims. Six did this in an attempt to lull audiences into thinking they are watching a conventional horror film, therefore making Dr Heiter's treatment of his victims more shocking.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Six placed a Japanese male at the front of the centipede to create a language barrier between the doctor and the centipede. Throughout the film the characters (with the exception of Heiter who for the most part speaks to the centipede in English) speak in their native languages only (subtitled for the viewer into English where necessary). Katsuro, as the front part of the centipede, can only speak Japanese and therefore cannot speak with either the doctor or Jenny and Lindsay. Secondly, Katsuro's position in the centipede sets up the opportunity for the doctor and the male victim of the centipede to fight toward the climax of the film. Six stated in the director's commentary for "The Human Centipede" that he has a personal fear of hospitals and doctors, so he stretched out the scene where Heiter explains how he will create the centipede and the subsequent procedure to create his "own nightmare."


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: While seeking funding for the film, Six pitched the idea of a surgeon who sewed people together. He did not initially reveal that the victims would be joined mouth-to-anus, as he believed this idea would stand no chance of receiving investments. His backers felt that the idea of a surgeon sewing people together was original and Six received funding. However, they did not learn the exact details of the film until it had been completed. Six claimed that they were very happy with the finished film. Before signing on, the actors were given an outline of the storyboard rather than a complete script. They were also shown sketches of how the centipede would be formed.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Although "The Human Centipede" is set in Germany, principal photography took place in the Netherlands due to the neighbouring countries' similar landscapes. Heiter's home, where most of "The Human Centipede" takes place, was a villa in the Netherlands found by the production team. The property was in a residential area and not surrounded by woodland as it appears in the film, but by other houses. This meant the filmmakers had some difficulty ensuring that the other houses did not appear in shot. Some conversion of the property took place prior to filming, such as a cinema room which was converted to form Heiter's basement operating theatre, with real hospital beds and intravenous drips rented from a local hospital. The paintings of conjoined twins that were displayed throughout the house were painted by Tom Six, which he felt contributed to the atmosphere in the house. The hotel room scene near the beginning of the film was filmed in a hotel suite at a location near Amsterdam. The film was shot almost entirely in sequence, which Yennie stated helped the actors to develop their characters throughout the film. The opening scene, which only featured Laser and de Wit, was shot on the last day of filming.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Laser remained in character as Heiter throughout the filming process, often shouting at the rest of the cast on set, and wherever possible staying away from the other actors and crew between scenes to preserve a level of separation. He only ate food he had brought onto the set himself, eating mostly fruit. He contributed dialogue for his character and selected many of his character's outfits from his personal wardrobe. Six claims that the jacket Heiter wore, which was bought by Laser, was a genuine jacket worn by real Nazi doctors. Laser was also happy for the other actors in "The Human Centipede" to add their own ideas to the film. For example, when Heiter is explaining his procedure to his victims, Katsuro's dialogue was improvised, which pleased Laser. During filming Laser accidentally kicked Kitamura (Katsuro), leading to a fight on set between the actors. The incident contributed to the tension and anger throughout the scene they were filming, in which Heiter sits at his dining table eating while the centipede eats dog food from the floor alongside him. Laser also unintentionally hurt Williams during the scene where Heiter roughly grabs and injects Lindsay, which caused a pause in shooting.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: The Nazi influence behind Heiter led to the use of classical music when the doctor is "training" his centipede. The music was deliberately played at low quality to simulate the music coming from a loudspeaker, in much the same way as music was sometimes played in Nazi concentration camps. Many of the sound effects in "The Human Centipede" were created by manipulating meat. For example, the sound of a nose being broken was made by snapping bones within cuts of raw meat. Due to the discomfort of spending long periods on their hands and knees, the actors playing the centipede were given massages at the end of each day of filming. Yennie stated that she and Williams experienced jaw pain from holding a bit in their mouths during filming, but overall she did not feel that the physical side of filming had been excessively difficult.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: "The Human Centipede" contains relatively few gory images; little of the surgical procedure is depicted directly, no excrement is shown on screen, and according to Kim Newman in "Empire", it is "never quite as outrageous as it threatens to be." Six stated that he wanted the film to be as authentic as possible and claimed to have consulted a Dutch surgeon during the creation and filming process, resulting in the film being "100% medically accurate." Six said that the surgeon initially wanted nothing to do with his film, as he felt Six was "crazy" and the idea had "nothing to do with medical science." However, the surgeon changed his mind and decided that he liked the idea, and so came up with a method of creating a human centipede. Six has claimed that the central and rear members of the centipede could survive for years by supplementing their diet with an IV drip. The special effects team was led by Rob and Erik Hillenbrink, father and son. They designed the final composition of the centipede from sketches provided by the consulting surgeon. The actors who made up the centipede wore hardened underwear, compared by Yennie to shorts, which had a rubber grip for the actors to wear, and for the actor behind to bite, creating the illusion of the mouth-to-anus connection. Six kept secret how the centipede would be formed as long as possible, and Yennie claimed that even her make-up artist did not know, asking Yennie what kind of "suit" the actors would be wearing.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: When Heiter is operating on his victims, Jenny's teeth were digitally removed in post-production. However, other effects were relatively simple to create. Heiter's "three dog" was created by Photoshopping an image of three Rottweilers to create an image of dogs joined together. Colour grading was used extensively throughout the production of "The Human Centipede". For example, at the end of the film when Lindsay is left between the dead bodies of Jenny and Katsuro, their skin tones were lightened to further emphasise that they were dead and Lindsay was still alive.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: The rain when Jenny and Lindsay's car breaks down was added digitally in post-production. The filmmakers had not been granted permission to film at the roadside location, but went ahead against the authorities' wishes as Six felt the location in the woods was ideal for the scene. When Heiter's window is repaired after Lindsay's escape attempt, the use of a tracking shot through the window pane required the reflection of the crew to be digitally removed from the glass. The film contains a large number of long tracking shots; Six has cited the influence of Takashi Miike who also uses many tracking shots in his films.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: During promotion for "The Human Centipede", press materials claimed that the film was "100% medically accurate". Six and the producers frequently stated that the film had been described as "the most horrific film ever made," and many writers, such as Karina Longworth of "LA Weekly" magazine and Jay Stone of the "Calgary Herald", described the film as torture porn. Roger Ebert, writing in the "Chicago Sun-Times", stated that he felt the film had been "deliberately intended to inspire incredulity, nausea and hopefully outrage." However, writing in "The Guardian", David Cox noted that he had been unable to trace the source of this quote as the "most horrific film ever made" and had contacted Six to attempt to ascertain the origin of the judgement. Six claimed that the statement had originally been made by "The Sun" newspaper in the United Kingdom. However, Cox was unable to trace any article making this claim. When asked by Cox as to what Six regarded as the "most horrific" film, Six stated he in fact believed it to be Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom".


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: "The Human Centipede" was released in the United States without an MPAA rating. It was released theatrically in New York City on 30 April 2010 and had a limited release in the US shortly afterward, distributed by IFC Films. Throughout 2009, the film was included in several film festivals around the world including the London FrightFest Film Festival, Leeds International Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival, and Screamfest Horror Film Festival. Six remarked on how many film festival audiences reacted strongly to the film, sometimes almost vomiting in the cinema aisles. To Six's amusement, Spanish audiences often found the film funny, and laughed throughout screenings. Six claimed that the "buzz" surrounding the film led to several studios approaching him to discuss its distribution. IFC Films has a history of releasing unconventional horror films, having previously distributed the Norwegian Nazi-zombie feature "Dead Snow" and the 2009 release "Antichrist". "The Human Centipede"s US gross was $181,467, and worldwide takings amounted to $252,207.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: The film was passed uncut by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and released with an 18 certificate, receiving a limited run in the UK on 20 August 2010. It was distributed by Bounty Films.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: "The Human Centipede" was released in the United Kingdom on DVD and Blu-ray on 4 October 2010, and in the US the following day, where, as of September 2020, DVD sales have totalled $3,669,412.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: "The Human Centipede" received mixed reviews. Review aggregator web site Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 50% approval rating based on 94 reviews, with an average rating of 5.15/10; the general consensus states: "Grotesque, visceral and hard to (ahem) swallow, this surgical horror doesn't quite earn its stripes because the gross-outs overwhelm and devalue everything else." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 33, based on 15 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Giving the film three stars out of five, "Empire" writer Kim Newman stated that "underneath an extremely repulsive concept, this is a relatively conventional horror movie." "Variety Magazine" writer Peter DeBurge criticised the film's lack of social commentary, stating that it could not "be bothered to expand upon its unpleasant premise, inviting audiences to revel in its sick humor by favoring Dr. Heiter ... and characterizing the victims as shallow expendables." Writing in "Entertainment Weekly", Clark Collis was broadly positive about Dieter Laser's performance as the Doctor, and praised Six's direction, saying Six "has put together his nightmare yarn with Cronenbergian care and precision." Collis said "The Human Centipede" was "without question one of the most disgusting horror films ever made." Writing in "The Guardian", Peter Bradshaw gave the film three out of five, saying that, whilst "entirely deplorable and revolting," the film was "sort of brilliant". "Total Film" writer Jamie Russell gave the film four stars out of five, calling it "Shocking, funny, disturbing... a throwback to the glory days of Cronenberg."


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Sukhdev Sandhu of "The Daily Telegraph" was generally negative about the film, stating, ""The Human Centipede" has its moments, but they're largely obscured by umpteen holes in the plot as well as by reams of exposition," and that it was "an ultimately underwhelming affair that's neither sick or ["sic "] repellent enough to garner the cult status it so craves." "The New York Times" review by Jeannette Catsouli noted that whether the film was "a commentary on Nazi atrocities or a literal expression of filmmaking politics, the grotesque fusion at least silences the female leads, both of whose voices could strip paint." Writing in the "Chicago Sun Times", Roger Ebert did not assign the film a star rating (not to be confused with awarding it zero stars), stating, "I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine."


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Critics and a doctor have dismissed Six's claim that the film was "100 percent medically accurate" as "ludicrous" and "rubbish". Dr John Cameron, speaking to TV3 News in New Zealand, gave an interview about the feasibility of a human centipede, stating how he believed it would be difficult for a join between different people to heal and form a connection, and how the centipede would quickly die from lack of nutrition. John Martin, a former Hollywood film executive and CEO of Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, said Six's claims of 100 percent medical accuracy should be viewed with reference to the kind of shock gimmicks that film producers had long used to attract attention. Martin compared Six's claims to those of Kroger Babb and William Castle, who had also made "grand promises" about what they were putting on screen, in a bid to lure audiences.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Despite mixed reviews, the film won several awards in 2009 during advance screenings at various international horror film festivals, including Best Picture/Movie at Fantastic Fest (Austin, Texas), Screamfest Horror Film Festival (Los Angeles), and the Sainte Maxime International Horror Film Festival. Laser won Best Actor in the horror category at Fantastic Fest and the film won the award for Best Ensemble Cast at the South African Horrorfest.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: When Tom Six began creating the "Human Centipede" sequels, he envisioned a trilogy that works as a "movie centipede". Each sequel opens with the ending of the previous film, as the events of that film influence said sequel. Although every film works as a standalone movie, they can all be connected to form a single 4.5-hour-long film.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: While promoting "The Human Centipede", Six stated that he had started work on a sequel to "First Sequence", titled "The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)". Shooting on a similar budget to the first film, Six stated the sequel would be a much more graphic, disturbing and even "shittier" film; "First Sequence" being ""My Little Pony" compared with part two." Yennie stated at the May 2010 Weekend of Horrors that the sequel would contain "the blood and shit" that viewers did not see in the first film. The plot of "Full Sequence" involved a centipede made from twelve people, featured a largely British cast, and was given the tag-line ""100% medically inaccurate"".


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: The plot of "Full Sequence" involves a man who, after becoming sexually obsessed with a DVD recording of "First Sequence", decides to create his own human centipede. The film had been planned for a DVD release in the United Kingdom. However, upon submitting the film to the BBFC for classification, the film was rejected due to content that was "sexually violent and potentially obscene". The BBFC's report criticised the film as making "little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalised, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience," and that the film was potentially in breach of the Obscene Publications Act, meaning its distribution in the UK would be illegal. Bounty Films, the UK distributor, appealed the decision, and the film was eventually passed with an 18 certificate in October 2011. To achieve the 18 rating, thirty-two cuts were made from the film, removing two minutes and thirty-seven seconds from the original version.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: The third and final film in the trilogy, "The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)", received a limited theatrical release on 22 May 2015. The film features the largest human centipede in the series, composed of five hundred victims, as Six says, "each film is a reaction to the other. And the film got so big, it was a pop culture phenomenon, and people wanted more: a bigger centipede, helicopters and things… it had to be bigger and bigger. And what I did, I used the idea and almost made a parody on the human centipede films itself." As "Full Sequence" was intended to make "First Sequence" look like "My Little Pony" in comparison, "Final Sequence" was intended to make "Full Sequence" resemble a Disney film. The movie features the tag-line ""100% Politically Incorrect"". Both Dieter Laser and "Full Sequence" star Laurence R. Harvey returned in starring, albeit different, roles.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: "The Human Centipede (Final Sequence)" was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards in the categories of "Worst Director" and "Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off, or Sequel", respectively. It was also named the second worst movie of 2015 by "Entertainment Weekly" and "The A.V. Club". In 2016, a compilation film of the entire trilogy titled "The Human Centipede (Complete Sequence): The Movie Centipede" was released, running a total of 275 minutes.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: A number of parodies of the film have been made. A pornographic parody, directed by Lee Roy Myers and titled "The Human Sexipede", was released in September 2010. It starred Tom Byron as Heiter, who joined three people mouth-to-genitals. The "South Park" episode "HUMANCENTiPAD" saw character Kyle Broflovski unwittingly agreeing to become a part of a "Human CENTiPAD" after failing to read the full details of an Apple user license agreement. The website "Funny or Die" featured a sketch where the freed victims of a human centipede, now separated, but scarred physically and mentally, argue at a survivors' meeting. "The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)" actress Bree Olson starred in a parody of the franchise that was directed by Graham Rich.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: In January 2016, Tom Six revealed on Twitter that production of a graphic novel adaptation of "The Human Centipede" was underway, along with posting an image of a test printed copy. It was also stated the graphic novel was going to be available in English, Spanish, German, French, and Japanese upon release but Six implied it would be translated into other languages later. The release for the graphic novel was stated to be in 2017, but it wasn't released that year.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: On 27 March 2018, Six again posted on Twitter that the graphic novel was ready, and he is seeking a distributor for it. Later in May 2019, in an interview with Bloody Disgusting, Six said that the graphic novel, along with a behind-the-scenes book of the first film, is set to be released on the 10th anniversary of the series, which he reiterated on Twitter. As of 21 September 2019, it is yet to be released.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: The story of the graphic novel will feature the events of the first film but it will display things that occurred before, and an epilogue that will shed light on the fate of the character Lindsay.


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Although Tom Six openly stated he viewed "The Human Centipede" as a trilogy, he told Bloody Disgusting in an interview that if he had to make a fourth installment he did have some ideas. Six said, "If I had to make a fourth one, which I might do in 20 years from now, who knows, it will be about connecting all starving Africans on the African continent done by a charity organization, to solve the hunger problem. Or about aliens connecting the whole human race!"


title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

text: Tom Six later revealed that he had written a script for a potential spin-off film titled "The Human Caterpillar", a reference to a scene from "The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)" where sewed prison inmates had their limbs amputated so they resemble a caterpillar. Furthermore, Six stated that the concept of "The Human Centipede" would appear in future projects in some form.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Everybody Loves Raymond is an American sitcom television series created by Philip Rosenthal that aired on CBS from September 13, 1996, to May 16, 2005, with a total of 210 episodes spanning nine seasons. It was produced by Where's Lunch and Worldwide Pants Incorporated, in association with HBO Independent Productions. The cast members were Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts, Peter Boyle, Madylin Sweeten, and Monica Horan. Most episodes of the nine-season series were filmed in front of a live studio audience.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: The series received positive reviews and has been ranked the 49th all-time funniest television comedy by "Complex", the 60th best all-time series by "TV Guide", the eleventh-best sitcom starring a stand-up comedian and the 35th best sitcom of all time by "Rolling Stone", and (alongside "South Park") the 63rd best written television series by the Writers Guild of America. In a "Hollywood Reporter" poll of all-time television programs surveying 779 actors, 365 producers and 268 directors, "Everybody Loves Raymond" ranked 96th.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: The show is centered on the life of an Italian-American everyman named Raymond Barone, a sportswriter for "Newsday" living with his family on Long Island. Beleaguered, diffident and dryly sarcastic, Raymond takes few things seriously, making jokes in nearly every situation, no matter how troubling or serious. He often avoids responsibilities around the house and with his kids, leaving this to his wife, Debra.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Raymond and Debra have a daughter Ally (Alexandra) and twin sons Michael and Geoffrey (originally Matthew and Gregory in the pilot). The Barone children are regular characters but not a major focus. Raymond's parents, Marie and Frank, live across the street with their older son Robert (who, later in the series, has his own apartment). All Barone relatives frequently make their presence known to the annoyance of Raymond and Debra. Although she loves them, Debra's justifiable complaints about Raymond's overbearing family serve as one of the show's comedic elements. Out of the three unwanted visitors, Debra is particularly intimidated by Marie, an insulting, controlling, manipulative (though ultimately caring) woman who criticizes Debra passive-aggressively and praises Ray, clearly favoring him over other son "Robbie," whose birth necessitated her marriage (a fact revealed in the episode "Good Girls").


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Raymond typically falls in the middle of family arguments, incapable of taking any decisive stand, especially if it might invoke his mother's disapproval. Robert, a miserable gentle giant, jealous of his younger sibling's position as favorite son and also of the success his brother has achieved both professionally and personally, is Ray's biggest rival. Robert and Raymond frequently argue like overgrown children, focusing much of their energy on picking on or one upping each other, although deep down they love each other dearly.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Frank Barone is a fiery retiree prone to directing insults and merciless put-downs at any and all targets. Largely an absentee father when the boys were growing up, Frank buries his feelings and rarely yields to sentiment. As the series progresses, however, several episodes demonstrate that the senior Barone loves his family immensely. Unlike everyone else, Frank has no problem comically criticizing Marie and often comes to Debra's defense whenever Marie comments disparagingly about their daughter-in-law.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Raymond and Debra's marriage is fraught with conflicts. Raymond prefers sports television over discussions with Debra on marital matters. Raymond works full-time, as his father had, leaving most child-rearing responsibilities to his wife; and he is often forced to help around the house. One of the show's recurring elements finds the couple having a long discussion in bed each night before going to sleep.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: In the 1990s, several television shows based on work from stand-up comedians, such as "Home Improvement" (1991–99) and "Roseanne" (1988–97), were successful. Ray Romano, a comedian for 12 years by the time "Everybody Loves Raymond" first aired, was one such comic to get development deals following a five-minute performance on the "Late Show with David Letterman" (1993–2015) in the middle of 1995. "David Letterman" executive producer Rob Burnett recalled that "by the end [of the monologue] we already had lawyers lined up to work a deal with him."


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: In looking for a show-runner, Romano wanted somebody to share his tastes in humor, avoiding those who were into writing "devicey" material. Around a dozen candidates for the show-runner position were considered before "Coach" writer Philip Rosenthal, who sent a "Frasier" spec script to Letterman's Worldwide Pants. The company read the spec and sent Rosenthal a tape of Romano asking screenwriters to help him with an upcoming show based on his work; also in the tape, he stated that he had a hard time coming up with new material because of having to raise twin sons, and showcased a "new bit" of him shaking keys while saying "hey." Romano's sense of humor intrigued Rosenthal, reminding him of Bill Cosby's early work.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: After viewing the tape, Rosenthal met with Romano in person at Art's Delicatessen & Restaurant on Ventura Boulevard about being a potential show runner. The encounter consisted of Romano and Rosenthal each discussing their families. Romano told Rosenthal he wanted to do a series about a comedian discussing current issues with friends at a coffee shop, but Rosenthal responded that kind of sitcom already existed and was a hit. Rosenthal, intrigued by Romano's crazy family fables and wanting to work around his lack of previous acting experience, then stated it would be most "comfortable" for Romano to have the Raymond character be very close to his real personality and in family circumstances reflective of Romano's home life. Although Romano has a brother named Robert in real life, he based the Robert in "Raymond" on another one of his brothers, Richard. Rosenthal also incorporated his own family experiences into the show, with his mother and wife serving as the basis for Marie and Debra respectively.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Most aspects of Romano's real life are replicated in the series, except for its setting of Long Island instead of Queens; Romano and the writers initially wanted the show to be set in Queens, but CBS executives ultimately chose Long Island due to its broad appeal, as it was a suburb with urban elements. Previous prime-time television series set in Long Island, such as "The Hamptons" (1983) and "The Pruitts of Southampton" (1966–67), never went beyond one season. Romano also explained, "There's a lot more kissing on the show than in real life;" and his wife Anna continued, "and they talk a lot more in the show than we ever do at home." The title "Everybody Loves Raymond" originated from a response Romano's brother Richard made after Ray won a CableACE stand-up award: "I had a day where people were shooting at me, and you're bringing home trophies. Everybody loves Raymond, don't they?" In the show's pilot, Robert states "Everybody loves Raymond."


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Rosenthal pitched the show to CBS president Les Moonves, CBS comedy vice president David Himelfarb, CBS comedy development executive Wendi Goldstein, and CBS comedy and drama development head Gene Stein. He kept the pitch very simple: "it's [Romano] and his family, and his parents live across the street with his brother." CBS was lukewarm towards the show's low concept, but found it enough of a low-risk investment for the series to be green-lit. Letterman's involvement with "Raymond" amounted to nothing more than a meeting where he signed Rosenthal's show-runner contract and told him, "just don't embarrass us."


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: For the non-titular lead roles of "Everybody Loves Raymond", casting director Lisa Miller chose actors with previous professional experience in acting, such as Patricia Heaton and Brad Garrett, who made several appearances in sitcoms before; and Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, both film actors. "Everybody Loves Raymond" was Heaton's fourth lead role in a sitcom after the short-lived "Room for Two" (1992–1993), "Some Like Me" (1994), and "Women of the House" (1995). When she read the pilot script during pilot season, she thought it was "beautifully written" although found the character of Debra uninteresting. Miller explained that she had to "Taft-Hartley" Romano, who didn't have much acting experience before "Everybody Loves Raymond", in order to get around legal Screen Actors Guild requirements to star in the show. He also needed trainers to make sure he performed the character of a likable protagonist well.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Garrett was the first actor to be cast after Romano, as well as the only actor to audition without Romano in the room. Garrett explained that while CBS initially wanted a small, Danny DeVito-esque character who had a "bulldog" attitude towards Raymond, he, a much taller actor, portrayed Robert as more "beaten-down" and "succumb to the fact that he's a loser" when auditioning.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: For the auditions of Heaton, Boyle, and Roberts, they were in the moods of the characters in the scenes they performed, and their auditions were very quick. Heaton was in the middle of getting-by doing babysitting work and clipping coupons when auditioning, making her very stressed. Miller chose Heaton for the role of Debra for being "very focused, real, like Helen Hunt in "Mad About You"." Boyle,


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: an actor recommended for Frank by Moonves, had a troublesome time getting to his audition location due to schedule changes and poor directions, which made him very grumpy and "in character" when he arrived. Rosenthal admitted to casting Boyle "out of fear" in response to Boyle's bitter attitude. Roberts was called by the casting team for the role of Marie after going through more than 100 actresses. She was initially reluctant to audition due to being busy with directing a 23-character play, but her agents insisted she had time; an "overwhelmed" Roberts did zero preparation, which was unusual for her, and performed her audition from her "gut reaction."


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Each episode was created in a workweek that consisted of actors reading through and rehearsing the script on Monday, actors rehearsing and the writers tweaking the script on Tuesday, CBS running through what the actors rehearsed on Wednesday, camera blocking on Thursday, and filming on Friday. A typical writing session started with each of the writers discussing their lives, which served as the basis for episode scripts; as Rosenthal summarized the process, "talking, talking, talking and then all of a sudden, that's a story." Will MacKenzie, who directed for "Everybody Loves Raymond" on the second, third, and fourth seasons, recalled the writers being so efficient that thirteen episode scripts were completed by the time a season began airing. When shooting episodes, Rosenthal was very stern about the actors sticking to the script and avoiding ad libing, although "alternative" lines were put in the script for some episodes.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Garrett compared acting in episodes of "Raymond" to the improvisational methods used by the cast in "Seinfeld" (1989–98). Garrett had appeared in a "Seinfeld" episode, playing an obsessed car mechanic that steals Jerry Seinfeld's car.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: The house used for exterior shots of Ray and Debra's home is located at 135 Margaret Boulevard in Merrick, New York and was worth $500,000 as of August 2018; as in the show, it is located across the street from the home used for exteriors of Frank and Marie's house (house number 136).


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: For "Everybody Loves Raymond", Rosenthal went for a classic sitcom style a la "The Honeymooners" (1955–56), avoiding references to current culture in order to give it a timeless quality. Explained Jeremy Stevens, the show differed from most sitcoms of its time for its focus on storytelling and reflection on most people's real lives.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Julie Pernworth, a comedy development president at CBS, categorized "Everybody Loves Raymond" as "one of the most traditional sitcoms to come along in a long time." As Rosenthal put it, "Raymond" was a "sophisticated" version of a family sitcom, which was emphasized via the show's piano-heavy background music and the use of "The New Yorker" typeface for credits. In composing the show's theme, Terry Trotter and Rick Marotta used the first few measures of a song from Woody Allen's film "Manhattan" (1979) and improvised the rest of the piece. Episodes of "Everybody Loves Raymond" are emotionally dynamic presentations of otherwise prosaic premises typical for traditional sitcoms.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: SUNY Press' book "The Sitcom Reader" (2016) analyzed "Raymond" was part of a trend in 1990s television of family sitcoms geared towards older audiences, which resulted in the scripts not focusing so much on the child characters and being entirely about grown-ups bickering at each other. While the second season was in production, Romano expressed the challenge of having to write "weird" adult humor within "parameters" of a show about a family: "I want to write a show where I have anxiety attacks, and we're all very concerned about that. Can the star of the show be a father who has anxiety attacks and flips out? Will that sit well with people?" This involved trying to keep the presence of the child characters as little as possible: "To be upstaged by toddlers? I get enough of that at home." As Romano described the stand-up material the show is based on upon the show's first season airing, "I don't want to be a spokesman for family values, but that's the way my standup is perceived. My character is a father who loves his family but who would also love a little freedom." Explained TV critic Jones Ostrow, "Raymond" "explored the tortuous/loving relationships of parents and adult children, of couples, of siblings and the Peter Pan syndrome that attaches to baby boomer males, sports nuts in particular."


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Kevin James was an actor and writer on "Everybody Loves Raymond". Once James got his own show, "The King of Queens", the two shows crossed over.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: The first crossover happened on "The King of Queens". In it, Ray Barone and Doug Heffernan become friends. Later on the same night, Kevin James showed up on "Everybody Loves Raymond" as Doug Heffernan. The shows crossed over several more times.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Ray Romano also turned up in an episode of "The Nanny": when that show's Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) attends her high school reunion, one of her classmates is revealed to be Ray Barone. (Romano and Drescher were real-life classmates at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, Queens in the 1970s.)


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: In 2009, series creator/producer Philip Rosenthal traveled to Russia to adapt the show for local audiences. His experience was documented by a film crew and released as the documentary feature "Exporting Raymond".


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: The Russian version is titled "Воронины" ("Voronin's Family", a Russian surname sounding similar to the family's name, The Barones).


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: The show was adapted in Poland under the title "Wszyscy kochają Romana" (Everybody Loves Roman). It was picked up by TVN and premiered on September 2, 2011. However, due to low ratings (fewer than 2 million viewers a week), the station put the show on hiatus after four episodes.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: In Italy, a sitcom titled "" ("Everyone loves Raymond") aired on Canale 5, SKy and Comedy Central from 2009 until, 2009.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: In Egypt, a sitcom called "El Bab Fil Bab" (الباب في الباب ), which means "Close Doors" in Arabic, is produced by Sony Pictures Television, translating "Everybody Loves Raymond" with minor changes to adapt the Eastern Culture. The first season aired in the month of Ramadan 2011; second season in 2012.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: A Dutch remake called "Iedereen is gek op Jack" ("Everybody is crazy about Jack") premiered in February 2011. The second season started airing in March 2012 and ended in May 2012.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: A pilot for a British remake, titled "The Smiths", has been commissioned to be produced for BBC One and was filmed in May 2013 at Elstree Studios. Lee Mack wrote and starred in the pilot, as Michael Smith. The pilot also starred Catherine Tate, Tom Davis, Gwen Taylor and David Troughton.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: An Indian remake, titled "Sumit Sambhal Lega" ("सुमित संभाल लेगा" – "Sumit Will Handle Everything"), premiered on August 31, 2015, on STAR Plus.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: A Czech remake called "Rudyho Má Každý Rád" (Everybody Loves Rudy) premiered on ČT1 on August 31, 2015, comprising 12 episodes.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: On December 20, 1998, two Tribune Broadcasting channels, WPIX New York and KTLA Los Angeles, bought rights for syndication of "Everybody Loves Raymond" from Eyemark Entertainment; "Variety" reported Eyemark receiving a license fee of $90,000 to $100,000 per week and barter advertising of one-and-a-half minutes. Although Eyemark planned for the two channels to start the re-runs in fall 2000, it moved the date to fall 2001 to avoid competition with other sitcoms beginning off-network runs in 2000. The deal allowed the two channels to re-run the show for four-and-a-half years. On January 26, 1999, the cable channel TBS paid "Everybody Loves Raymond" distributor Eyemark Entertainment for four years of syndication rights of the show starting in the fall of 2004.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: The show reruns in syndication on various channels, such as TBS and TV Land, and in most television markets on local stations. The show is still broadcast regularly in the UK. From 2000 to 2007, King World distributed the show for off-network syndication and Warner Bros. International Television handled international distribution. In 2007, CBS Television Distribution took over King World's distribution. CBS only owns American syndication rights; ancillary rights are controlled by HBO and Warner Bros. Television (WBIT distributes the series outside the US in conjunction with HBO; while HBO Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video own DVD rights worldwide). The show aired every morning as a double bill on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, as part of its Breakfast line up from 08:00-09:00.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: "Everybody Loves Raymond" also airs on Comedy Central in the U.K. and in Australia on Seven Network (seasons 1-mid-2), on Network 10 (late-season 2–9), on 10 Peach (a sub-channel of Network 10), on 9Go! ( a sub-channel of Nine Network) and on Foxtel's Pay TV network TVH!TS previously called TV1 (formerly aired on FOX Classics). The show reruns in India on the channel Romedy Now.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: HBO released the Complete Series of "Everybody Loves Raymond" on DVD in Regions 1, 2, and 4. Region 4 Complete Box Set was released on August 13, 2008. In Australia, the first five seasons were re-released in 2006 in slimmer packaging (originals were wide spine cases). Also, some were released with a cardboard slip cover. In North America the DVDs were repackaged between 2009 and 2012 in standard sized DVD packaging. All episodes were available on Netflix for streaming until September 1, 2016, also the date "Exporting Raymond" was taken off the platform. Also on September 14, 2004, The Complete 1st Season was released on VHS. The sixth-season DVD set contained the episode "Marie's Sculpture", which previously had not aired in the United Kingdom and was not released until almost five years after the end of the 6th season.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Until 2016, the series was available on Netflix in the United States. The series joined Peacock's Premium tier on July 15, 2020.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: "Los Angeles Daily News" critic David Kronke praised "Raymond" for being "the quintessentially honest sitcom. It's neither too hokey nor too crass. It depicts families as dissolute yet inextricably bound together, just like they really are, and finds the humor in those real frictions that threaten, yet never manage, to burst family units apart. Its characterizations are among the most finely defined on TV. Debra, with her vaguely no-nonsense disgust of Raymond's simpleton-ness, is unlike any sitcom mom ever. Doris Roberts' Marie had a sinister streak long before Nancy Marchand's Livia showed up on "The Sopranos". Raymond is also one of the few contemporary sitcoms that has figured out how to implement and even exploit the four-camera, live-audience situation, which is no simple feat."


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: A 1997 review by Bruce Fretts, which gave the show the same score, said that the show "may now be the best sitcom on the air." Common Sense Media's Betsy Wallace, who awarded the show four out of five stars, wrote: "the cast is stellar and plotlines shed light on universal human insecurities, such as doubting that your spouse still finds you attractive as you grow older." Plugged In said in their review, "Seven years and a mantle full of Emmys later, Raymond is still smartly scripted, now with new characters added to a maturing, expanding family."


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: Reviews named Garrett the show's "secret weapon" and responsible for "the bulk of the show's comic high points."


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: During its nine seasons, "Everybody Loves Raymond" was nominated for 69 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning 15 of them, including 10 for acting. The series was also nominated for 21 Screen Actors Guild Awards (1 win) and won the Writers Guild of America Award for for "Italy" in 2002.


title: Everybody Loves Raymond

text: The series finale scored a 20.2/29 rating/share, 32.94 million viewers and an 11.2/26 rating/share among adults 18–49. At 8pm, "Everybody Loves Raymond: The Last Laugh" scored a 15.3/24 rating/share, 24.52 million viewers and a 7.5/21 rating/share among adults 18–49. Throughout the latter six seasons of the show, "Everybody Loves Raymond" maintained its position on the top ten rankings.


title: Swahili language

text: Swahili, also known by its native name , is the native language of the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique (along the East African coast and adjacent litoral islands). It is a Bantu language, though Swahili has borrowed a number of words from foreign languages, particularly Arabic, but also words from Portuguese, English and German. Around forty percent of Swahili vocabulary consists of Arabic loanwords, including the name of the language ( , a plural adjectival form of an Arabic word meaning 'of the coast'). The loanwords date from the era of contact between Arab slave traders and the Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Africa, which was also the time period when Swahili emerged as a lingua franca in the region. The number of Swahili speakers, be they native or second-language speakers, is estimated to be approximately 200 million.


title: Swahili language

text: Due to concerted efforts by the government of Tanzania, Swahili is one of three official languages (the others being English and French) of the East African Community (EAC) countries, namely Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. It is a lingua franca of other areas in the African Great Lakes region and East and Southern Africa, including some parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Malawi, Mozambique, the southern tip of Somalia, and Zambia. Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and of the Southern African Development Community. The East African Community created an institution called the "East African Kiswahili Commission" (EACK) which began operations in 2015. The institution currently serves as the leading body for promoting the language in the East African region, as well as for coordinating its development and usage for regional integration and sustainable development. In recent years South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan have begun offering Swahili as a subject in schools or have developed plans to do so.


title: Swahili language

text: Shikomor (or Comorian), an official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte (), is closely related to Swahili and is sometimes considered a dialect of Swahili, although other authorities consider it a distinct language. In 2022, based on Swahili's growth as a prominent international language, the United Nations declared Swahili Language Day as 7 July to commemorate the date that Julius Nyerere adopted Swahili as a unifying language for African independence struggles.


title: Swahili language

text: Swahili is a Bantu language of the Sabaki branch. In Guthrie's geographic classification, Swahili is in Bantu zone G, whereas the other Sabaki languages are in zone E70, commonly under the name "Nyika." Historical linguists consider the Arabic influence on Swahili to be significant, since it takes around 40% of its vocabulary directly from Arabic, and was initially spread by Arab slave traders along East Africa's coast.


title: Swahili language

text: The core of the Swahili language originates in Bantu languages of the coast of East Africa. Much of Swahili's Bantu vocabulary has cognates in the Pokomo, Taita, and Mijikenda languages and, to a lesser extent, other East African Bantu languages. While opinions vary on the specifics, it has been historically purported that around 16-20% of the Swahili vocabulary is derived from loan words, the vast majority Arabic, but also other contributing languages, including Persian, Hindustani, Portuguese, and Malay.


title: Swahili language

text: Omani Arabic is the source of most Arabic loanwords in Swahili. In the text "Early Swahili History Reconsidered", however, Thomas Spear noted that Swahili retains a large amount of grammar, vocabulary, and sounds inherited from the Sabaki language. In fact, while taking account of daily vocabulary, using lists of one hundred words, 72–91% were inherited from the Sabaki language (which is reported as a parent language) whereas 4–17% were loan words from other African languages. Only 2–8% were from non-African languages, and Arabic loan words constituted a fraction of that. According to other sources, around 40% of the Swahili vocabulary comes from Arabic. What also remained unconsidered was that a good number of the borrowed terms had native equivalents. The preferred use of Arabic loan words is prevalent along the coast, where natives, in a cultural show of proximity to, or descent from Arab culture, would rather use loan words, whereas the natives in the interior tend to use the native equivalents. It was originally written in Arabic script.


title: Swahili language

text: The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa, Tanzania, in 1711 in the Arabic script that were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India.


title: Swahili language

text: Various colonial powers that ruled on the coast of East Africa played a role in the growth and spread of Swahili. With the arrival of the Arabs in East Africa, they used Swahili as a language of trade as well as for teaching Islam to the local Bantu peoples. This resulted in Swahili first being written in the Arabic alphabet. The later contact with the Portuguese resulted in the increase of vocabulary of the Swahili language. The language was formalised in an institutional level when the Germans took over after the Berlin conference. After seeing there was already a widespread language, the Germans formalised it as the official language to be used in schools. Thus schools in Swahili are called Shule (from German ) in government, trade and the court system. With the Germans controlling the major Swahili-speaking region in East Africa, they changed the alphabet system from Arabic to Latin. After the First World War, Britain took over German East Africa, where they found Swahili rooted in most areas, not just the coastal regions. The British decided to formalise it as the language to be used across the East African region (although in British East Africa [Kenya and Uganda] most areas used English and various Nilotic and other Bantu languages while Swahili was mostly restricted to the coast). In June 1928, an inter-territorial conference attended by representatives of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar took place in Mombasa. The Zanzibar dialect was chosen as standard Swahili for those areas, and the standard orthography for Swahili was adopted.


title: Swahili language

text: Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in four African Great Lakes countries (Kenya, DRC, Uganda, and Tanzania), where it is an official or national language, while being the first language for many people in Tanzania especially in the coastal regions of Tanga, Pwani, Dar es Salaam, Mtwara and Lindi. In the inner regions of Tanzania, Swahili is spoken with an accent influenced by local languages and dialects, and as a first language for most people born in the cities, whilst being spoken as a second language in rural areas. Swahili and closely related languages are spoken by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Comoros, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Rwanda. The language was still understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea in the 20th century. Swahili speakers may number 150 to 200 million in total. The East African Community created an institution called the East African Kiswahili Commission (EACK) which began operations in 2015. The institution currently serves as the leading body for promoting the language in the East African region, as well as for coordinating its development and usage for regional integration and sustainable development.


title: Swahili language

text: Swahili is among the first languages in Africa for which language technology applications have been developed. Arvi Hurskainen is one of the early developers. The applications include a spelling checker, part-of-speech tagging, a language learning software, an analysed Swahili text corpus of 25 million words, an electronic dictionary, and machine translation between Swahili and English. The development of language technology also strengthens the position of Swahili as a modern medium of communication. Furthermore, Swahili Wikipedia is among the few Wikipedias in African language featuring a fairly good amount of contributors and articles.


title: Swahili language

text: The widespread use of Swahili as a national language in Tanzania came after Tanganyika gained independence in 1961 and the government decided that it would be used as a language to unify the new nation. This saw the use of Swahili in all levels of government, trade, art as well as schools in which primary school children are taught in Swahili, before switching to English (medium of instruction) in secondary schools (although Swahili is still taught as an independent subject).


title: Swahili language

text: After Tanganyika and Zanzibar unification in 1964, "Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili" (TUKI, Institute of Swahili Research) was created from the Interterritorial Language Committee. In 1970 TUKI was merged with the University of Dar es Salaam, while "Baraza la" "Kiswahili la Taifa" (BAKITA) was formed. BAKITA is an organisation dedicated to the development and advocacy of Swahili as a means of national integration in Tanzania. Key activities mandated for the organization include creating a healthy atmosphere for the development of Swahili, encouraging use of the language in government and business functions, coordinating activities of other organizations involved with Swahili, standardizing the language. BAKITA vision are: "1.To efficiently manage and coordinate the development and use of Kiswahili in Tanzania 2.To participate fully and effectively in promoting Swahili in East Africa, Africa and the entire world over". Although other bodies and agencies can propose new vocabularies, BAKITA is the only organisation that can approve its usage in the Swahili language.


title: Swahili language

text: In Kenya, Kiswahili has been the national language since 1964 and is official since 2010. "Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa" (CHAKITA) was established in 1998 to research and promote Kiswahili language in Kenya. Kiswahili is a compulsory subject in all Kenyan primary and secondary schools.


title: Swahili language

text: Uganda adopted Kiswahili as the official language in 2022 and also made it compulsory across primary and secondary schools in the country.


title: Swahili language

text: The Swahili language is not widespread in Somalia and has no official status nationally or regionally. It is rarely taught in the education system, the main foreign languages are Arabic and English. Dialects of Swahili are spoken by some ethnic minorities on the Bajuni islands in the form of Kibajuni on the southern tip of the country and in the town of Brava in the form of Chimwiini, both contain a significant amount of Somali and Italian loanwords. Standard Swahili is generally only spoken by Somali nationals who have resided in Kenya and subsequently returned to Somalia. Lastly, a closely related language Mushunguli (also known as Zigula, Zigua, or Chizigua) is spoken by some of the Somali Bantu ethnic minority mostly living in the Jubba Valley. It is classified as a Northeast Coast Bantu language as Swahili is and has some intelligibility with Swahili.


title: Swahili language

text: Swahili played a major role in spreading both Christianity and Islam in East Africa. From their arrival in East Africa, Arabs brought Islam and set up madrasas, where they used Swahili to teach Islam to the natives. As the Arab presence grew, more and more natives were converted to Islam and were taught using the Swahili language.


title: Swahili language

text: From the arrival of Europeans in East Africa, Christianity was introduced to the region. While the Arabs were mostly based in the coastal areas, European missionaries went further inland spreading Christianity. As the first missionary posts in East Africa were in the coastal areas, missionaries picked up Swahili and used it to spread Christianity since it contained many similarities with other indigenous languages in the region.


title: Swahili language

text: During the struggle for Tanganyika independence, the Tanganyika African National Union used Swahili as language of mass organisation and political movement. This included publishing pamphlets and radio broadcasts to rally the people to fight for independence. After independence, Swahili was adopted as the national language of the nation. Till this day, Tanzanians carry a sense of pride when it comes to Swahili especially when it is used to unite over 120 tribes across Tanzania. Swahili was used to strengthen solidarity among the people and a sense of togetherness and for that Swahili remains a key identity of the Tanzanian people.


title: Swahili language

text: Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: , , , , and . According to Ellen Contini-Morava, vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. However, according to Edgar Polomé, these five phonemes can vary in pronunciation. Polomé claims that , , , and are pronounced as such only in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, as well as before a prenasalized consonant, they are pronounced as , , , and . "E" is also commonly pronounced as mid-position after "w". Polomé claims that is pronounced as such only after "w" and is pronounced as in other situations, especially after ("y"). "A" can be pronounced as in word-final position. Swahili vowels can be long; these are written as two vowels (example: , meaning "sheep"). This is due to a historical process in which the L became deleted between the second last and last vowel of a word ( e.g. "sheep" was originally pronounced "kondolo", which survives in certain dialects). However, these long vowels are not considered to be phonemic. A similar process exists in Zulu.


title: Swahili language

text: Some dialects of Swahili may also have the aspirated phonemes though they are unmarked in Swahili's orthography. Multiple studies favour classifying prenasalization as consonant clusters, not as separate phonemes. Historically, nasalization has been lost before voiceless consonants, and subsequently the voiced consonants have devoiced, though they are still written "mb, nd" etc. The /r/ phoneme is realised as either a short trill or more commonly as a single tap by most speakers. exists in free variation with h, and is only distinguished by some speakers. In some Arabic loans (nouns, verbs, adjectives), emphasis or intensity is expressed by reproducing the original emphatic consonants and the uvular , or lengthening a vowel, where aspiration would be used in inherited Bantu words.


title: Swahili language

text: Swahili is now written in the Latin alphabet. There are a few digraphs for native sounds, "ch", "sh", "ng" and "ny"; "q" and "x" are not used, "c" is not used apart from the digraph "ch", unassimilated English loans and, occasionally, as a substitute for "k" in advertisements. There are also several digraphs for Arabic sounds, which many speakers outside of ethnic Swahili areas have trouble differentiating.


title: Swahili language

text: The language used to be written in the Ajami script, which is an Arabic script. Unlike other adaptations of the Arabic script for other languages, relatively little accommodation was made for Swahili. There were also differences in orthographic conventions between cities and authors and over the centuries, some quite precise but others different enough to cause difficulties with intelligibility.


title: Swahili language

text: Several Swahili consonants do not have equivalents in Arabic, and for them, often no special letters were created unlike other languages. Instead, the closest Arabic sound is substituted. Not only did that mean that one letter often stands for more than one sound, but also writers made different choices of which consonant to substitute. Below are some of the equivalents between Arabic Swahili and Roman Swahili:


title: Swahili language

text: That was the general situation, but conventions from Urdu were adopted by some authors so as to distinguish aspiration and from : 'gazelle', 'roof'. Although it is not found in Standard Swahili today, there is a distinction between dental and alveolar consonants in some dialects, which is reflected in some orthographies, for example in ' 'to meet' vs. ' 'to be satisfied'. A "k" with the dots of "y", , was used for "ch" in some conventions; "ky" being historically and even contemporaneously a more accurate transcription than Roman "ch". In Mombasa, it was common to use the Arabic emphatics for Cw, for example in ' (standard ') 'we' and ' (standard ') 'head'.


title: Swahili language

text: Particles such as ' are joined to the following noun, and possessives such as ' and ' are joined to the preceding noun, but verbs are written as two words, with the subject and tense–aspect–mood morphemes separated from the object and root, as in ' "he who told me".


title: Swahili language

text: Swahili nouns are separable into classes, which are roughly analogous to genders in other languages. In Swahili, prefixes mark groups of similar objects: marks single human beings ( 'child'), marks multiple humans ( 'children'), marks abstract nouns ( 'childhood'), and so on. And just as adjectives and pronouns must agree with the gender of nouns in some languages with grammatical gender, so in Swahili adjectives, pronouns and even verbs must agree with nouns. This is a characteristic feature of all the Bantu languages.


title: Swahili language

text: The "ki-/vi-" class historically consisted of two separate genders, artefacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils and hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12/13), which were conflated at a stage ancestral to Swahili. Examples of the former are "kisu" "knife", "kiti" "chair" (from "mti" "tree, wood"), "chombo" "vessel" (a contraction of "ki-ombo"). Examples of the latter are "kitoto" "infant", from "mtoto" "child"; "kitawi" "frond", from "tawi" "branch"; and "chumba" ("ki-umba") "room", from "nyumba" "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to diminutives in many languages is "approximation" and "resemblance" (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like "-y" or "-ish" in English). For example, there is "kijani" "green", from "jani" "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), "kichaka" "bush" from "chaka" "clump", and "kivuli" "shadow" from "uvuli" "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such "instantiations" (usually not very active ones) are found: "kifo" "death", from the verb "-fa" "to die"; "kiota" "nest" from "-ota" "to brood"; "chakula" "food" from "kula" "to eat"; "kivuko" "a ford, a pass" from "-vuka" "to cross"; and "kilimia" "the Pleiades", from "-limia" "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the "ki-/vi-" prefixes. One example is "chura" ("ki-ura") "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore is marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: "kilema" "a cripple", "kipofu" "a blind person", "kiziwi" "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for "kifaru" "rhinoceros", "kingugwa" "spotted hyena", and "kiboko" "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").


title: Swahili language

text: Another class with broad semantic extension is the "m-/mi-" class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because "mti, miti" "tree(s)" is the prototypical example. However, it seems to cover vital entities neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as "mwitu" 'forest' and "mtama" 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like "mkeka" 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as "mwezi" 'moon', "mlima" 'mountain', "mto" 'river'; active things, such as "moto" 'fire', including active body parts ("moyo" 'heart', "mkono" 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as "mji" 'village', and, by analogy, "mzinga" 'beehive/cannon'. From the central idea of "tree", which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as "mwavuli" 'umbrella', "moshi" 'smoke', "msumari" 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as "mfuo" "metal forging", from "-fua" "to forge", or "mlio" "a sound", from "-lia" "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, "mkono" is an active body part, and "mto" is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as "mpaka" 'border' and "mwendo" 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as "mwaka" 'year' and perhaps "mshahara" 'wages'. Animals exceptional in some way and so not easily fitting in the other classes may be placed in this class.


title: Swahili language

text: Borrowings may or may not be given a prefix corresponding to the semantic class they fall in. For example, Arabic "dūd" ("bug, insect") was borrowed as "mdudu", plural "wadudu", with the class 1/2 prefixes "m-" and "wa-", but Arabic "fulūs" ("fish scales", plural of "fals") and English "sloth" were borrowed as simply "fulusi" ("mahi-mahi" fish) and "slothi" ("sloth"), with no prefix associated with animals (whether those of class 9/10 or 1/2).


title: Swahili language

text: In the process of naturalization of borrowings within Swahili, loanwords are often reinterpreted, or reanalysed, as if they already contain a Swahili class prefix. In such cases the interpreted prefix is changed with the usual rules. Consider the following loanwords from Arabic:


title: Swahili language

text: Similarly, English "wire" and Arabic "waqt" ("time") were interpreted as having the class 11 prevocalic prefix "w-", and became "waya" and "wakati" with plural "nyaya" and "nyakati" respectively.


title: Swahili language

text: Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord but, if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1–2 regardless of their noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili "(Kiswahili sanifu)", based on the dialect spoken in Zanzibar, the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not a native language, such as in Nairobi. In non-native Swahili, concord reflects only animacy: human subjects and objects trigger "a-, wa-" and "m-, wa-" in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger "i-, zi-". Infinitives vary between standard "ku-" and reduced "i-." ("Of" is animate "wa" and inanimate "ya, za.")


title: Swahili language

text: In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in "a-, wa-" and "m-, wa-," and non-human subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.


title: Swahili language

text: Modern standard Swahili is based on "Kiunguja," the dialect spoken in Zanzibar City, but there are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, such as the following:


title: Swahili language

text: The dialects of the Lamu group (especially Kiamu, Kipate, Kingozi) are the linguistic base of the oldest (c.1600 CE) Swahili manuscripts and poems that reached us. They are sometimes described as "literary" dialects but they were also used for everyday life and are still spoken today except Kingozi.


title: Swahili language

text: Maho includes the various Comorian dialects as a third group. Most other authorities consider Comorian to be a Sabaki language, distinct from Swahili.


title: Swahili language

text: In Somalia, where the Afroasiatic Somali language predominates, a variant of Swahili referred to as Chimwiini (also known as Chimbalazi) is spoken along the Benadir coast by the Bravanese people. Another Swahili dialect known as Kibajuni also serves as the mother tongue of the Bajuni minority ethnic group, which lives in the tiny Bajuni Islands as well as the southern Kismayo region.


title: Swahili language

text: In Oman, there are an estimated 22,000 people who speak Swahili. Most are descendants of those repatriated after the fall of the Sultanate of Zanzibar.


title: Juilliard School

text: The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elite drama, music, and dance schools in the world.


title: Juilliard School

text: In 1905, the Institute of Musical Art, Juilliard's predecessor institution, was founded by Frank Damrosch, the godson of Franz Liszt and head of music education for New York City's public schools, on the premise that the United States did not have a premier music school and too many students were going to Europe to study music. In 1919, a wealthy textile merchant named Augustus Juilliard died and left the school in his will the largest single bequest for the advancement of music at that time. In 1968, the school's name was changed from the Juilliard School of Music to The Juilliard School to reflect its broadened mission to educate musicians, directors, and actors.


title: Juilliard School

text: The Institute of Musical Art opened in the former Lenox Mansion, Fifth Avenue and 12th Street, on October 11, 1905. It moved in 1910 to 120 Claremont Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, onto a property purchased from Bloomingdale Insane Asylum near the Columbia University campus. In 1920, the Juilliard Foundation was created, named after textile merchant Augustus D. Juilliard, who bequeathed a substantial amount of money for the advancement of music in the United States. In 1924, the foundation purchased the Vanderbilt family guesthouse at 49 E. 52nd Street, and established the Juilliard Graduate School. In 1926, the Juilliard School of Music was created through a merger of the Institute of Musical Art and the Juilliard Graduate School. The two schools shared a common board of directors and president (Columbia University professor John Erskine) but retained their distinct identities. The conductor and music-educator Frank Damrosch continued as the Institute's dean, and the Australian pianist and composer Ernest Hutcheson was appointed dean of the Graduate School. In 1937, Hutcheson succeeded Erskine as president of the two institutions, a job he held until 1945.


title: Juilliard School

text: In 1946, the Institute of Musical Art and the Juilliard Graduate School completely merged to form a single institution. The president of the school at that time was William Schuman, the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music.William Schuman graduated from Columbia's Teachers College (BS 1935, MA 1937) and attended the Juilliard Summer School in 1932, 1933 and 1936. While attending Juilliard Summer School, he developed a personal dislike for traditional music theory and ear training curricula, finding little value in counterpoint and dictation. Soon after being appointed as president of the Juilliard School of Music in 1945, Schuman created a new curriculum called the "Literature and Materials of Music" (L&M), designed for composers to teach. L&M was a reaction against more formal theory and ear training, and as a result did not have a formal structure. The general mandate was "to give the student an awareness of the dynamic nature of the materials of music." The quality and degree of each student's education in harmony, music history, or ear training was dependent on how each composer-teacher decided to interpret this mandate.


title: Juilliard School

text: In 1946, the Juilliard String Quartet was created by Schuman as a resident ensemble at the school, and it quickly established an international reputation as one of the most notable classical music groups in the United States. That year, the school had more than 1,800 students, with more than 500 supported by the G.I. Bill. Two years later, the number was close to 1,100 students in total.


title: Juilliard School

text: In 1951, Schuman established the dance division of the school under the direction of Martha Hill. In 1957 after months of meetings with various organizations and individuals, it was announced that the Juilliard School of Music will relocate from upper Manhattan to the future Lincoln Center. It was also announced that upon the school's eventual relocating, it will add a drama division. Juilliard's new building at Lincoln Center was designed by Pietro Belluschi with associates Eduardo Catalano y Helge Westermann. The Center would cover the costs for the construction project and Juilliard would be changed with renting the space.William Schuman was elected president of Lincoln Center in 1962 and Peter Mennin, another composer with directorial experience at the Peabody Conservatory, was elected as his successor. Mennin made significant changes to the L&M program—ending ear training and music history and hiring the well known pedagogue Renée Longy to teach solfège. In 1968, Mennin hired John Houseman to manage the new Drama Division, and in 1969 oversaw Juilliard's relocation from Claremont Avenue to Lincoln Center. The School's name was changed to The Juilliard School to reflect its broadened mission to educate musicians, directors, and actors. On October 26, 1969, the dedication ceremony for the new building at Lincoln Center included a concert at Alice Tully Hall (built into the Juilliard School) with the Juilliard Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and Jean Paul Morel, and with soloists Itzhak Perlman, Shirley Verrett, and Van Cliburn.


title: Juilliard School

text: During the early 1990s, there were many budget cuts in music education throughout public schools in New York, most of which served underrepresented communities. In 1991, Polisi had the idea of creating the Music Advancement Program (MAP) to help students affected by the budget cuts. That year, 40 students from across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx successfully auditioned and were chosen to participate in the program. Like the pre-college division, it is a Saturday program. Many other changes took place in the years under Polisi. Between 1990 and 1993, individual departments for all instruments and voice were established, the Merideth Wilson Residence Hall was built next to the school, salaries for teachers were increased, and the school hoped to accept fewer people and eventually cut 100 students to allow for more funding.


title: Juilliard School

text: In 2001, the school established a jazz performance training program. In September 2005, Colin Davis conducted an orchestra that combined students from the Juilliard and London's Royal Academy of Music at the BBC Proms, and during 2008 the Juilliard Orchestra embarked on a successful tour of China, performing concerts as part of the Cultural Olympiad in Beijing, Suzhou, and Shanghai under the expert leadership of Maestro Xian Zhang.


title: Juilliard School

text: In 2006, Juilliard received a trove of precious music manuscripts from board chair and philanthropist Bruce Kovner. The collection includes autograph scores, sketches, composer-emended proofs and first editions of major works by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Chopin, Schubert, Liszt, Ravel, Stravinsky, Copland, and other masters of the classical music canon. Many of the manuscripts had been unavailable for generations. Among the items are the printer's manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, complete with Beethoven's handwritten amendments, that was used for the first performance in Vienna in 1824; Mozart's autograph of the wind parts of the final scene of "The Marriage of Figaro"; Beethoven's arrangement of his monumental "Große Fuge" for piano four hands; Schumann's working draft of his Symphony No. 2; and manuscripts of Brahms's Symphony No. 2 and Piano Concerto No. 2. The entire collection has since been digitized and can be viewed online. In 2010, philanthropist James S. Marcus donated $10 million to the school to establish the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at the school.


title: Juilliard School

text: On September 28, 2015, the Juilliard School announced a major expansion into Tianjin during a visit by China's first lady, Peng Liyuan, the institution's first such full-scale foray outside the United States. The school opened in 2020 and offers a Master of Music degree program.


title: Juilliard School

text: In May 2017, retired New York City Ballet principal dancer Damian Woetzel was named president, replacing Joseph W. Polisi.


title: Juilliard School

text: In June 2021, members of the student group "The Socialist Penguins" organized a protest against rising tuition costs after claiming that they "weren't being listened to" when meeting with president and provost about the tuition fees. In September, the school's Evening Division was renamed to Juilliard Extension which would broaden to offer programs in person and online. In December of the same year, a $50 million gift was given to the school's Music Advancement Program to help students of underrepresented backgrounds.


title: Juilliard School

text: Juilliard admits both degree program seekers and pre-college division students. The latter enter a conservatory program for younger students to develop their skills; All applicants who wish to enroll in the Music Advancement Program, for the Pre-College Division, must perform an audition in person before members of the faculty and administration and must be between ages 8 and 18.