title: Vietnamese language

text: Like many other languages in Southeast Asia and East Asia, Vietnamese is an analytic language with phonemic tone. It has head-initial directionality, with subject–verb–object order and modifiers following the words they modify. It also uses noun classifiers. Its vocabulary has had significant influence from Chinese and French.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese was historically written using , a logographic script using Chinese characters () to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, together with many locally invented characters to represent other words. French colonial rule of Vietnam led to the official adoption of the Vietnamese alphabet () which is based on Latin script. It uses digraphs and diacritics to mark tones and some phonemes.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Early linguistic work some 150 years ago classified Vietnamese as belonging to the Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family (which also includes the Khmer language spoken in Cambodia, as well as various smaller and/or regional languages, such as the Munda and Khasi languages spoken in eastern India, and others in Laos, southern China and parts of Thailand). Later, Mường was found to be more closely related to Vietnamese than other Mon–Khmer languages, and a Viet–Muong subgrouping was established, also including Thavung, Chut, Cuoi, etc. The term "Vietic" was proposed by Hayes (1992), who proposed to redefine Viet–Muong as referring to a subbranch of Vietic containing only Vietnamese and Mường. The term "Vietic" is used, among others, by Gérard Diffloth, with a slightly different proposal on subclassification, within which the term "Viet–Muong" refers to a lower subgrouping (within an eastern Vietic branch) consisting of Vietnamese dialects, Mường dialects, and Nguồn (of Quảng Bình Province).


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese belongs to the Northern (Viet–Muong) clusters of the Vietic branch, spoken by the Vietic peoples. The language was first recorded in the Tháp Miếu Temple Inscription, dating from early 13th century AD. The inscription was carved on a stone stele, in combined Chữ Hán and archaic form of the Chữ Nôm.


title: Vietnamese language

text: In the distant past, Vietnamese shared more characteristics common to other languages in South East Asia and with the Austroasiatic family, such as an inflectional morphology and a richer set of consonant clusters, which have subsequently disappeared from the language under Chinese influence. Vietnamese is heavily influenced by its location in the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, with the result that it has acquired or converged toward characteristics such as isolating morphology and phonemically distinctive tones, through processes of tonogenesis. These characteristics have become part of many of the genetically unrelated languages of Southeast Asia; for example, Tsat (a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within Austronesian), and Vietnamese each developed tones as a phonemic feature. The ancestor of the Vietnamese language is usually believed to have been originally based in the area of the Red River Delta in what is now northern Vietnam.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Distinctive tonal variations emerged during the subsequent expansion of the Vietnamese language and people into what is now central and southern Vietnam through conquest of the ancient nation of Champa and the Khmer people of the Mekong Delta in the vicinity of present-day Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Northern Vietnam was primarily influenced by Chinese, which came to predominate politically in the 2nd century BC. After the emergence of the Ngô dynasty at the beginning of the 10th century, the ruling class adopted Classical Chinese as the formal medium of government, scholarship and literature. With the dominance of Chinese came radical importation of Chinese vocabulary and grammatical influence. The resulting Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary makes up about a third of the Vietnamese lexicon in all realms, and may account for as much as 60% of the vocabulary used in formal texts.


title: Vietnamese language

text: After France invaded Vietnam in the late 19th century, French gradually replaced Chinese as the official language in education and government. Vietnamese adopted many French terms, such as ('dame', from ), ('train station', from ), ('shirt', from ), and ('doll', from ).


title: Vietnamese language

text: The following diagram shows the phonology of Proto–Viet–Muong (the nearest ancestor of Vietnamese and the closely related Mường language), along with the outcomes in the modern language:


title: Vietnamese language

text: A large number of words were borrowed from Middle Chinese, forming part of the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary. These caused the original introduction of the retroflex sounds and (modern "s", "tr") into the language.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Proto-Viet–Muong had no tones to speak of. The tones later developed in some of the daughter languages from distinctions in the initial and final consonants. Vietnamese tones developed as follows:


title: Vietnamese language

text: Glottal-ending syllables ended with a glottal stop , while fricative-ending syllables ended with or . Both types of syllables could co-occur with a resonant (e.g. or ).


title: Vietnamese language

text: At some point, a tone split occurred, as in many other mainland Southeast Asian languages. Essentially, an allophonic distinction developed in the tones, whereby the tones in syllables with voiced initials were pronounced differently from those with voiceless initials. (Approximately speaking, the voiced allotones were pronounced with additional breathy voice or creaky voice and with lowered pitch. The quality difference predominates in today's northern varieties, e.g. in Hanoi, while in the southern varieties the pitch difference predominates, as in Ho Chi Minh City.) Subsequent to this, the plain-voiced stops became voiceless and the allotones became new phonemic tones. Note that the implosive stops were unaffected, and in fact developed tonally as if they were unvoiced. (This behavior is common to all East Asian languages with implosive stops.)


title: Vietnamese language

text: As noted above, Proto-Viet–Muong had sesquisyllabic words with an initial minor syllable (in addition to, and independent of, initial clusters in the main syllable). When a minor syllable occurred, the main syllable's initial consonant was intervocalic and as a result suffered lenition, becoming a voiced fricative. The minor syllables were eventually lost, but not until the tone split had occurred. As a result, words in modern Vietnamese with voiced fricatives occur in all six tones, and the tonal register reflects the voicing of the minor-syllable prefix and not the voicing of the main-syllable stop in Proto-Viet–Muong that produced the fricative. For similar reasons, words beginning with and occur in both registers. (Thompson 1976 reconstructed voiceless resonants to account for outcomes where resonants occur with a first-register tone, but this is no longer considered necessary, at least by Ferlus.)


title: Vietnamese language

text: Old Vietnamese/Ancient Vietnamese was a Vietic language which was separated from Viet–Muong around 9th century, and evolved to Middle Vietnamese by 16th century. The sources for the reconstruction of Old Vietnamese are Nom texts, such as the 12th-century/1486 Buddhist scripture "Phật thuyết Đại báo phụ mẫu ân trọng kinh" ("Sūtra explained by the Buddha on the Great Repayment of the Heavy Debt to Parents"), old inscriptions, and late 13th-century (possibly 1293) "Annan Jishi" glossary by Chinese diplomat (c. 1259 – 1309). Old Vietnamese used Chinese characters phonetically where each word, monosyllabic in Modern Vietnamese, is written with two Chinese characters or in a composite character made of two different characters. It conveys the transformation of Vietnamese lexicons from sesquisyllabic to fully monosyllabic through monosyllabization process under pressures of Chinese linguistic influence, characterized by phenomena such as the reduction of minor syllables; loss of affixal morphology drifting towards analytical grammar; simplification of major syllable segments, and change of suprasegment instruments.


title: Vietnamese language

text: For examples, the modern Vietnamese word "trời" (heaven) was read as "*plời" in Old/Ancient Vietnamese and as "blời" in Middle Vietnamese.


title: Vietnamese language

text: The writing system used for Vietnamese is based closely on the system developed by Alexandre de Rhodes for his 1651 "Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum". It reflects the pronunciation of the Vietnamese of Hanoi at that time, a stage commonly termed "Middle Vietnamese" (). The pronunciation of the "rime" of the syllable, i.e. all parts other than the initial consonant (optional glide, vowel nucleus, tone and final consonant), appears nearly identical between Middle Vietnamese and modern Hanoi pronunciation. On the other hand, the Middle Vietnamese pronunciation of the initial consonant differs greatly from all modern dialects, and in fact is significantly closer to the modern Saigon dialect than the modern Hanoi dialect.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Most of the unusual correspondences between spelling and modern pronunciation are explained by Middle Vietnamese. Note in particular:


title: Vietnamese language

text: De Rhodes's orthography also made use of an apex diacritic, as in "o᷄" and "u᷄", to indicate a final labial-velar nasal , an allophone of that is peculiar to the Hanoi dialect to the present day. This diacritic is often mistaken for a tilde in modern reproductions of early Vietnamese writing.


title: Vietnamese language

text: As the national language, Vietnamese is the "lingua franca" in Vietnam. It is also spoken by the Jing people traditionally residing on three islands (now joined to the mainland) off Dongxing in southern Guangxi Province, China. A large number of Vietnamese speakers also reside in neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos.


title: Vietnamese language

text: In the United States, Vietnamese is the sixth most spoken language, with over 1.5 million speakers, who are concentrated in a handful of states. It is the third most spoken language in Texas and Washington; fourth in Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia; and fifth in Arkansas and California. Vietnamese is the fourth most spoken language in Australia, after Arabic, Mandarin and English. In France, it is the most spoken Asian language and the eighth most spoken immigrant language at home.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese is the sole official and national language of Vietnam. It is the first language of the majority of the Vietnamese population, as well as a first or second language for the country's ethnic minority groups.


title: Vietnamese language

text: In the Czech Republic, Vietnamese has been recognized as one of 14 minority languages, on the basis of communities that have resided in the country either traditionally or on a long-term basis. This status grants the Vietnamese community in the country a representative on the Government Council for Nationalities, an advisory body of the Czech Government for matters of policy towards national minorities and their members. It also grants the community the right to use Vietnamese with public authorities and in courts anywhere in the country.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese is increasingly being taught in schools and institutions outside of Vietnam, a large part which is contributed by its large diaspora. In countries with strongly established Vietnamese-speaking communities such as the United States, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Czech Republic, Vietnamese language education largely serves as a cultural role to link descendants of Vietnamese immigrants to their ancestral culture. Meanwhile, in countries near Vietnam such as Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, the increased role of Vietnamese in foreign language education is largely due to the recent recovery of the Vietnamese economy.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Since the 1980s, Vietnamese language schools () have been established for youth in many Vietnamese-speaking communities around the world, notably in the United States.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Similarly, since the late 1980s, the Vietnamese-German community has enlisted the support of city governments to bring Vietnamese into high school curriculum for the purpose of teaching and reminding Vietnamese German students of their mother-tongue. Furthermore, there has also been a number of Germans studying Vietnamese due to increased economic investments and business.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Historic and stronger trade and diplomatic relations with Vietnam and a growing interest among the French Vietnamese population (one of France's most established non-European ethnic groups) of their ancestral culture have also led to an increasing number of institutions in France, including universities, to offer formal courses in the language.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese has a large number of vowels. Below is a vowel diagram of Vietnamese from Hanoi (including centering diphthongs):


title: Vietnamese language

text: Front and central vowels (i, ê, e, ư, â, ơ, ă, a) are unrounded, whereas the back vowels (u, ô, o) are rounded. The vowels â and ă are pronounced very short, much shorter than the other vowels. Thus, ơ and â are basically pronounced the same except that ơ is of normal length while â is short – the same applies to the vowels long a and short ă .


title: Vietnamese language

text: The centering diphthongs are formed with only the three high vowels (i, ư, u). They are generally spelled as ia, ưa, ua when they end a word and are spelled iê, ươ, uô, respectively, when they are followed by a consonant.


title: Vietnamese language

text: In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs) and centering diphthongs, Vietnamese has closing diphthongs and triphthongs. The closing diphthongs and triphthongs consist of a main vowel component followed by a shorter semivowel offglide or . There are restrictions on the high offglides: cannot occur after a front vowel (i, ê, e) nucleus and cannot occur after a back vowel (u, ô, o) nucleus.


title: Vietnamese language

text: The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is complicated. For example, the offglide is usually written as "i"; however, it may also be represented with "y". In addition, in the diphthongs and the letters "y" and "i" also indicate the pronunciation of the main vowel: ay = ă + , ai = a + . Thus, "tay" "hand" is while "tai" "ear" is . Similarly, u and o indicate different pronunciations of the main vowel: au = ă + , ao = a + . Thus, "thau" "brass" is while "thao" "raw silk" is .


title: Vietnamese language

text: The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consonant sounds are written with a digraph (like "ph"), and others are written with more than one letter or digraph (the velar stop is written variously as "c", "k", or "q").


title: Vietnamese language

text: Not all dialects of Vietnamese have the same consonant in a given word (although all dialects use the same spelling in the written language). See the language variation section for further elaboration.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Syllable-final orthographic "ch" and "nh" in Vietnamese has had different analyses. One analysis has final "ch", "nh" as being phonemes contrasting with syllable-final "t", "c" and "n", "ng" and identifies final "ch" with the syllable-initial "ch" . The other analysis has final "ch" and "nh" as predictable allophonic variants of the velar phonemes and that occur after the upper front vowels "i" and "ê" ; although they also occur after "a", but in such cases are believed to have resulted from an earlier "e" which diphthongized to "ai" (cf. "ach" from "aic", "anh" from "aing"). (See Vietnamese phonology: Analysis of final "ch", "nh" for further details.)


title: Vietnamese language

text: Each Vietnamese syllable is pronounced with one of six inherent tones, centered on the main vowel or group of vowels. Tones differ in:


title: Vietnamese language

text: Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the tone diacritics appear above the vowel; however, the "nặng" tone dot diacritic goes below the vowel). The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi), with their self-referential Vietnamese names, are:


title: Vietnamese language

text: Words with tones belonging to a particular tone group must occur in certain positions within the poetic verse.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese Catholics practice a distinctive style of prayer recitation called , in which each tone is assigned a specific note or sequence of notes.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese, like Chinese and many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic language. Vietnamese does not use morphological marking of case, gender, number or tense (and, as a result, has no finite/nonfinite distinction). Also like other languages in the region, Vietnamese syntax conforms to subject–verb–object word order, is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier ordering), and has a noun classifier system. Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, and allows verb serialization.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Many early studies brainstormed Vietnamese language-origins to have been either Tai, Sino-Tibetan or Austroasiatic. Austroasiatic origins are so far the most tenable to date, with some of the oldest words in Vietnamese being Austroasiatic in origin.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Although Vietnamese roots are classified as Austroasiatic, Vietic and Viet-Muong, the result of language contact with Chinese heavily influenced the Vietnamese language, causing it to diverge from Viet-Muong into Vietnamese, which was seen to have split Vietnamese from Muong around the 10th to 11th century. For instance, the Vietnamese word "quản lý," meaning management (noun) or manage (verb) is likely descended from the same word as "guǎnlǐ" () in Chinese, "kanri" (, ) in Japanese, and "gwanli" (, ) in Korean. Instances of Chinese contact include the historical Nam Việt (aka Nanyue) as well as other periods of influences. Besides English and French which have made some contributions to Vietnamese language, Japanese loanwords into Vietnamese are also a more recently studied phenomenon.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Modern linguists describe modern Vietnamese having lost many Proto-Austroasiatic phonological and morphological features that original Vietnamese had. The Chinese influence on Vietnamese corresponds to various periods when Vietnam was under Chinese rule, and subsequent influence after Vietnam became independent. Early linguists thought that this meant Vietnamese lexicon then received only two layers of Chinese words, one stemming from the period under actual Chinese rule and a second layer from afterwards. These words are grouped together as Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary.


title: Vietnamese language

text: However, according to linguist John Phan, “Annamese Middle Chinese” was already used and spoken in the Red River Valley by the 1st century CE, and its vocabulary significantly fused with the co-existing Proto-Viet-Muong language, the immediate ancestor of Vietnamese. He lists three major classes of Sino-Vietnamese borrowings: Early Sino-Vietnamese (Han Dynasty (ca. 1st century CE) and Jin Dynasty (ca. 4th century CE), Late Sino-Vietnamese (Tang Dynasty), Recent Sino-Vietnamese (Ming Dynasty and afterwards)


title: Vietnamese language

text: Additionally, the French presence in Vietnam from 1777 to the Geneva Accords of 1954 resulted in significant influence from French into the Indochina region (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). ""Cà phê"" in Vietnamese was derived from the French "café" (coffee). Yogurt in Vietnamese is ""sữa chua"" (lit. "sour milk"), but also calqued from French ("yaourt") into Vietnamese ("da ua -" /j/a ua). ""Phô mai"" (cheese) is also derived from the French "fromage". Musical note was borrowed into Vietnamese as ""nốt"" or ""nốt nhạc"", from the French "note de musique". The Vietnamese term for steering wheel is ""vô lăng"", a partial derivation from the French "volant directionnel". The necktie ("cravate" in French) is rendered into Vietnamese as ""cà vạt"".


title: Vietnamese language

text: In addition, modern Vietnamese pronunciations of French names remain directly derived from the original French pronunciation (""Pa-ri"" for Paris, ""Mác-xây"" for Marseille, ""Boóc-đô"" for Bordeaux, etc.), whereas pronunciations of other foreign names (Chinese excluded) are generally derived from English pronunciations.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Some English words were incorporated into Vietnamese as loan words, such as "TV" borrowed as "tivi" or just TV, but still officially called "truyền hình". Some other borrowings are calques, translated into Vietnamese, for example, 'software' is translated into ""phần mềm"" (literally meaning "soft part"). Some scientific terms such as "biological cell" were derived from chữ Hán, for example, the word tế bào is in chữ Hán, whilst other scientific names such as "acetylcholine" are unaltered. Words like "peptide", may be seen as "peptit".


title: Vietnamese language

text: Japanese loanwords are a more recently studied phenomenon, with a paper by Nguyễn & Lê (2020) classifying three layers of Japanese loanwords, where the third layer was used by Vietnamese who studied Japanese and the first two layers being the main layers of borrowings that were derived from Japanese. The first layer consisted of Kanji words created by Japanese to represent Western concepts that were not readily available in Chinese or Japanese, where by the end of the 19th century they were imported to other Asian languages. This first layer was called Sino-Vietnamese words of Japanese-origins. For example, the Vietnamese term for "association club", "câu lạc bộ," which was borrowed from Chinese (; pinyin: "jùlèbù"; jyutping: "keoi1 lok6 bou6"), which was borrowed from Japanese (kanji: ; katakana: ; rōmaji: "kurabu") which came from English (""club""), resulting in indirect borrowing from Japanese.


title: Vietnamese language

text: The second layer was from brief Japanese occupation of Vietnam from 1940 until 1945. However, Japanese cultural influence in Vietnam started significantly from the 1980s. This new, second layer of Japan-origin loanwords is distinctive from Sino-Vietnamese words of Japanese-origin in that they were borrowed directly from Japanese. This vocabulary included words representative of Japanese culture, such as "kimono", "sumo", "samurai", and "bonsai" from modified Hepburn romanisation. These loanwords are coined as "new Japanese loanwords". A significant number of new Japanese loanwords were also of Chinese origin. Sometimes, the same concept can be described using both Sino-Vietnamese words of Japanese origin (first layer) and new Japanese loanwords (second layer). For example, judo can be referred to as both "judo" and "nhu đạo", the Vietnamese reading of 柔道.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Some words such as "lạp xưởng" from 臘腸 (Chinese sausage) primarily keeps to the Cantonese pronunciation, brought over from southern Chinese migrants, whereas in Hán-Việt, which has been described as being close to Middle Chinese pronunciation, is it actually pronounced "lạp trường." However, the Cantonese term is the more well known name for Chinese sausage in Vietnam. Meanwhile, any new terms calqued from Chinese would be from Mandarin into Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation. Additionally, in southern provinces of Vietnam, the name "" can be used to refer to die, which may have derived from a Cantonese or Teochew idiom "xập xí, xập ngầu" (十四, 十五, Sino-Vietnamese: "thập tứ, thập ngũ") meaning "fourteen, fifteen" meaning 'uncertain'.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Basic vocabulary in Vietnamese are of Proto-Vietic origins, these words are considered as pure Vietnamese words rather than loanwords. Vietnamese shares a large amount of vocabulary with the Mường languages, a close relative of the Vietnamese language.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Other compound words, like nước non (chữ Nôm: 渃𡽫) meaning figuratively "country; nation" (literally meaning, water and mountains) seem to be purely Vietnamese inventions, which used to be inscribed in chữ Nôm characters, which were compounded self-coined Chinese characters, which are now written in the Vietnamese alphabet.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese slang (tiếng lóng) has changed over time. Vietnamese slang consists of pure Vietnamese words as well as words borrowed from other languages such as Mandarin or Indo-European languages. It is estimated that Vietnamese slang that originated from Mandarin accounts for a tiny proportion of all Vietnamese slang (4.6% of surveyed data in newspapers). On the other hand, slang that originated from Indo-European languages accounts for a more significant proportion (12%) and is much more common in today's uses. Slang borrowed from these languages can be either transliteration or vernacular. Some examples:


title: Vietnamese language

text: With the rise of the Internet, new slang is generated and popularized through social media. This more modern slang is commonly used among the younger generation in Vietnam. This more recent slang is mostly pure Vietnamese, and almost all the words are homonyms or some form of wordplay. Some examples include:


title: Vietnamese language

text: There are debates on the prevalence of uses of slang among young people in Vietnam, as specific teen speak conversations become difficult to understand for older generations. Many critics believed that incorporating teen-speak or internet slang into a daily conversation among teenagers would affect the formality and cadence of speech. Others argue that it is not the slang that is the problem but rather the lack of communication techniques for the instant internet messaging era. They believe slang should not be dismissed, but instead, youth should be informed enough to know when to use them and when it is appropriate. Quê, a word in Vietnamese, in English means "hometown", but it's a slang people use to make others feel embarrassed or guilty


title: Vietnamese language

text: After ending a millennium of Chinese rule in 938, the Vietnamese state adopted Literary Chinese (called or in Vietnamese) for official purposes.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Up to the late 19th century (except for two brief interludes), all formal writing, including government business, scholarship and formal literature, was done in Literary Chinese, written with Chinese characters (). Although the writing system is now mostly in "chữ" "quốc ngữ" (Latin script), Chinese script known as chữ Hán in Vietnamese as well as Chữ Nôm (together, Hán-Nôm) is still present in such activities such as Vietnamese calligraphy.


title: Vietnamese language

text: From around the 13th century, Vietnamese scholars used their knowledge of the Chinese script to develop the () script to record folk literature in Vietnamese. The script used Chinese characters to represent both borrowed Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and native words with similar pronunciation or meaning. In addition, thousands of new compound characters were created to write Vietnamese words using a variety of methods, including phono-semantic compounds.


title: Vietnamese language

text: writing reached its zenith in the 18th century when many Vietnamese writers and poets composed their works in , most notably Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương (dubbed "the Queen of Nôm poetry"). However, it was only used for official purposes during the brief Hồ and Tây Sơn dynasties (1400–1406 and 1778–1802 respectively).


title: Vietnamese language

text: A Vietnamese Catholic, Nguyễn Trường Tộ, unsuccessfully petitioned the Court suggesting the adoption of a script for Vietnamese based on Chinese characters.


title: Vietnamese language

text: A romanisation of Vietnamese was codified in the 17th century by the Avignonese Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), based on works of earlier Portuguese missionaries, particularly Francisco de Pina, Gaspar do Amaral and Antonio Barbosa. Still, was the dominant script in Vietnamese Catholic literature for more than 200 years. Starting from the late 19th century, the Vietnamese alphabet ( or "national language script") was gradually expanded from its initial usage in Christian writing to become more popular among the general public.


title: Vietnamese language

text: The Vietnamese alphabet contains 29 letters, including one digraph ("đ") and nine with diacritics, five of which are used to designate tone (i.e. "à", "á", "ả", "ã", and "ạ") and the other four used for separate letters of the Vietnamese alphabet ("ă", "â/ê/ô", "ơ", "ư").


title: Vietnamese language

text: This romanised script became predominant over the course of the early 20th century, when education became widespread and a simpler writing system was found to be more expedient for teaching and communication with the general population. The French colonial administration sought to eliminate Chinese writing, Confucianism, and other Chinese influences from Vietnam. French superseded Chinese in administration. Vietnamese written with the alphabet became required for all public documents in 1910 by issue of a decree by the French Résident Supérieur of the protectorate of Tonkin. In turn, Vietnamese reformists and nationalists themselves encouraged and popularized the use of . By the middle of the 20th century, most writing was done in , which became the official script on independence.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Nevertheless, was still in use during the French colonial period and as late as World War II was still featured on banknotes, but fell out of official and mainstream use shortly thereafter. The education reform by North Vietnam in 1950 eliminated the use of and . Today, only a few scholars and some extremely elderly people are able to read or use it in Vietnamese calligraphy. Priests of the Jing minority in China (descendants of 16th-century migrants from Vietnam) use songbooks and scriptures written in in their ceremonies.


title: Vietnamese language

text: The Unicode character set contains all Vietnamese characters and the Vietnamese currency symbol. On systems that do not support Unicode, many 8-bit Vietnamese code pages are available such as Vietnamese Standard Code for Information Interchange (VSCII) or Windows-1258. Where ASCII must be used, Vietnamese letters are often typed using the VIQR convention, though this is largely unnecessary with the increasing ubiquity of Unicode. There are many software tools that help type Roman-script Vietnamese on English keyboards, such as WinVNKey and Unikey on Windows, or MacVNKey on Macintosh, with popular methods of encoding Vietnamese using Telex, VNI or VIQR input methods all included. Telex input method is often set as the default for many devices. Besides third-party software tools, operating systems such as Windows or macOS can also be installed with Vietnamese and Vietnamese keyboard, e.g. "Vietnamese Telex" in Microsoft Windows.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese speak date in the format "day month year". Each month's name is just the ordinal of that month appended after the word "tháng", which means "month". Traditional Vietnamese however assigns other names to some months; these names are mostly used in the lunar calendar and in poetry.


title: Vietnamese language

text: The Vietnamese prefer writing numbers with a comma as the decimal separator in lieu of dots, and either spaces or dots to group the digits. An example is 1 629,15 (one thousand six hundred twenty-nine point fifteen). Because a comma is used as the decimal separator, a semicolon is used to separate two numbers instead.


title: Vietnamese language

text: "The Tale of Kiều" is an epic narrative poem by the celebrated poet Nguyễn Du, (), which is often considered the most significant work of Vietnamese literature. It was originally written in Chữ Nôm (titled ) and is widely taught in Vietnam (in "chữ Quốc Ngữ" transliteration).


title: Vietnamese language

text: Vietnamese has traditionally been divided into three dialect regions: North, Central, and South. Michel Ferlus and Nguyễn Tài Cẩn found that there was a separate North-Central dialect for Vietnamese as well. The term "Haut-Annam" refers to dialects spoken from the northern Nghệ An Province to the southern (former) Thừa Thiên Province that preserve archaic features (like consonant clusters and undiphthongized vowels) that have been lost in other modern dialects.


title: Vietnamese language

text: The dialect regions differ mostly in their sound systems (see below) but also in vocabulary (including basic vocabulary, non-basic vocabulary, and grammatical words) and grammar. The North-Central and the Central regional varieties, which have a significant number of vocabulary differences, are generally less mutually intelligible to Northern and Southern speakers. There is less internal variation within the Southern region than the other regions because of its relatively late settlement by Vietnamese-speakers (around the end of the 15th century). The North-Central region is particularly conservative since its pronunciation has diverged less from Vietnamese orthography than the other varieties, which tend to merge certain sounds. Along the coastal areas, regional variation has been neutralized to a certain extent, but more mountainous regions preserve more variation. As for sociolinguistic attitudes, the North-Central varieties are often felt to be "peculiar" or "difficult to understand" by speakers of other dialects although their pronunciation fits the written language the most closely; that is typically because of various words in their vocabulary thar are unfamiliar to other speakers (see the example vocabulary table below).


title: Vietnamese language

text: The large movements of people between North and South since the mid-20th century has resulted in a sizable number of Southern residents speaking in the Northern accent/dialect and, to a greater extent, Northern residents speaking in the Southern accent/dialect. After the Geneva Accords of 1954, which called for the temporary division of the country, about a million northerners (mainly from Hanoi, Haiphong, and the surrounding Red River Delta areas) moved south (mainly to Saigon and heavily to Biên Hòa and Vũng Tàu and the surrounding areas) as part of Operation Passage to Freedom. About 180,000 moved in the reverse direction ("Tập kết ra Bắc", literally "go to the North".)


title: Vietnamese language

text: After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, Northern and North-Central speakers from the densely-populated Red River Delta and the traditionally-poorer provinces of Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh, and Quảng Bình have continued to move south to look for better economic opportunities since the new government's New Economic Zones, a program that lasted from 1975 to 1985. The first half of the program (1975–1980) resulted in 1.3 million people sent to the New Economic Zones (NEZs), most of which were relocated to the southern half of the country in previously-uninhabited areas, and 550,000 of them were Northerners. The second half (1981–1985) saw almost 1 million Northerners relocated to the New Economic Zones. Government and military personnel from Northern and North-Central Vietnam are also posted to various locations throughout the country that were often away from their home regions. More recently, the growth of the free market system has resulted in increased interregional movement and relations between distant parts of Vietnam through business and travel. The movements have also resulted in some blending of dialects and more significantly have made the Northern dialect more easily understood in the South and vice versa. Most Southerners, when singing modern/old popular Vietnamese songs or addressing the public, do so in the standardized accent if possible, which uses the Northern pronunciation. That is true in both Vietnam and overseas Vietnamese communities.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Modern Standard Vietnamese is based on the Hanoi dialect. Nevertheless, the major dialects are still predominant in their respective areas and have also evolved over time with influences from other areas. Historically, accents have been distinguished by how each region pronounces the letters "d" ([z] in the Northern dialect and [j] in the Central and Southern dialect) and "r" ([z] in the Northern dialect and [r] in the Central and Southern dialects). Thus, the Central and the Southern dialects can be said to have retained a pronunciation closer to Vietnamese orthography and resemble how Middle Vietnamese sounded, in contrast to the modern Northern (Hanoi) dialect, which has since undergone pronunciation shifts.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Although regional variations developed over time, most of those words can be used interchangeably and be understood well, albeit with more or less frequency then others or with slightly different but often discernible word choices and pronunciations. Some accents may mix, with words such "dạ vâng" combining "dạ" and "vâng," being created"."


title: Vietnamese language

text: The syllable-initial "ch" and "tr" digraphs are pronounced distinctly in the North-Central, Central, and Southern varieties but are merged in Northern varieties, which pronounce them the same way). Many North-Central varieties preserve three distinct pronunciations for "d", "gi", and "r", but the Northern varieties have a three-way merger, and the Central and the Southern varieties have a merger of "d" and "gi" but keep "r" distinct. At the end of syllables, the palatals "ch" and "nh" have merged with the alveolars "t" and "n", which, in turn, have also partially merged with velars "c" and "ng" in the Central and the Southern varieties.


title: Vietnamese language

text: In addition to the regional variation described above, there is a merger of "l" and "n" in certain rural varieties in the North:


title: Vietnamese language

text: Variation between "l" and "n" can be found even in mainstream Vietnamese in certain words. For example, the numeral "five" appears as "năm" by itself and in compound numerals like "năm mươi" "fifty," but it appears as in "fifteen" (see Vietnamese grammar#Cardinal). In some northern varieties, the numeral appears with an initial "nh" instead of "l": "twenty-five", instead of the mainstream .


title: Vietnamese language

text: The consonant clusters that were originally present in Middle Vietnamese (in the 17th century) have been lost in almost all modern Vietnamese varieties although they have been retained in other closely-related Vietic languages. However, some speech communities have preserved some of these archaic clusters: "sky" is with a cluster in Hảo Nho (Yên Mô, Ninh Bình Province) but "trời" in Southern Vietnamese and in Hanoi Vietnamese (initial single consonants , respectively).


title: Vietnamese language

text: Although there are six tones in Vietnamese, some tones may slightly merge but are still highly distinguishable from the context of the speech. The "hỏi" and "ngã" tones are distinct in North and some North-Central varieties (although often with different pitch contours) but have somewhat merged in the Central, Southern, and some North-Central varieties (also with different pitch contours). Some North-Central varieties (such as Vietnamese) have a slight merger of the "ngã" and "nặng" tones but keep the "hỏi" tone distinct. Still, other North-Central varieties have a three-way merger of "hỏi", "ngã", and "nặng" and so have a four-tone system. In addition, there are several phonetic differences (mostly in pitch contour and phonation type) in the tones among the dialects.


title: Vietnamese language

text: The table above shows the pitch contour of each tone using Chao tone number notation in which 1 represents the lowest pitch, and 5 the highest; glottalization (creaky, stiff, harsh) is indicated with the symbol; murmured voice with ; glottal stop with ; sub-dialectal variants are separated with commas. (See also the tone section below.)


title: Vietnamese language

text: A basic form of word play in Vietnamese involves disyllabic words in which the last syllable forms the first syllable of the next word in the chain. This game involves two members versing each other until the opponent is unable to think of another word. For instance:


title: Vietnamese language

text: Another language game known as "nói lái" is used by Vietnamese speakers. "Nói lái" involves switching, adding or removing the tones in a pair of words and may also involve switching the order of words or the first consonant and the rime of each word. Some examples:


title: Vietnamese language

text: The resulting transformed phrase often has a different meaning but sometimes may just be a nonsensical word pair. "Nói lái" can be used to obscure the original meaning and thus soften the discussion of a socially sensitive issue, as with "dấm đài" and "hoảng chưa" (above), or when implied (and not overtly spoken), to deliver a hidden subtextual message, as with "bồi tây". Naturally, "nói lái" can be used for a humorous effect.


title: Vietnamese language

text: Another word game somewhat reminiscent of pig latin is played by children. Here a nonsense syllable (chosen by the child) is prefixed onto a target word's syllables, then their initial consonants and rimes are switched with the tone of the original word remaining on the new switched rime.


title: Vietnamese language

text: This language game is often used as a "secret" or "coded" language useful for obscuring messages from adult comprehension.


title: Electric current

text: An electric current is a stream of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is measured as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface or into a control volume. The moving particles are called charge carriers, which may be one of several types of particles, depending on the conductor. In electric circuits the charge carriers are often electrons moving through a wire. In semiconductors they can be electrons or holes. In an electrolyte the charge carriers are ions, while in plasma, an ionized gas, they are ions and electrons.


title: Electric current

text: The SI unit of electric current is the ampere, or "amp", which is the flow of electric charge across a surface at the rate of one coulomb per second. The ampere (symbol: A) is an SI base unit. Electric current is measured using a device called an ammeter.


title: Electric current

text: Electric currents create magnetic fields, which are used in motors, generators, inductors, and transformers. In ordinary conductors, they cause Joule heating, which creates light in incandescent light bulbs. Time-varying currents emit electromagnetic waves, which are used in telecommunications to broadcast information.


title: Electric current

text: The conventional symbol for current is , which originates from the French phrase "intensité du courant", (current intensity). Current intensity is often referred to simply as "current". The symbol was used by André-Marie Ampère, after whom the unit of electric current is named, in formulating Ampère's force law (1820). The notation travelled from France to Great Britain, where it became standard, although at least one journal did not change from using to until 1896.


title: Electric current

text: The conventional direction of current, also known as electric polarity, is arbitrarily defined as the direction in which charges flow. In a conductive material, the moving charged particles that constitute the electric current are called charge carriers. In metals, which make up the wires and other conductors in most electrical circuits, the positively charged atomic nuclei of the atoms are held in a fixed position, and the negatively charged electrons are the charge carriers, free to move about in the metal. In other materials, notably the semiconductors, the charge carriers can be positive "or" negative, depending on the dopant used. Positive and negative charge carriers may even be present at the same time, as happens in an electrolyte in an electrochemical cell.


title: Electric current

text: A flow of positive charges gives the same electric current, and has the same effect in a circuit, as an equal flow of negative charges in the opposite direction. Since current can be the flow of either positive or negative charges, or both, a convention is needed for the direction of current that is independent of the type of charge carriers. Negatively charged carriers, such as the electrons (the charge carriers in metal wires and many other electronic circuit components), therefore flow in the opposite direction of conventional current flow in an electrical circuit.


title: Electric current

text: A current in a wire or circuit element can flow in either of two directions. When defining a variable formula_1 to represent the current, the direction representing positive current must be specified, usually by an arrow on the circuit schematic diagram. This is called the "reference direction" of the current formula_1. When analyzing electrical circuits, the actual direction of current through a specific circuit element is usually unknown until the analysis is completed. Consequently, the reference directions of currents are often assigned arbitrarily. When the circuit is solved, a negative value for the current implies the actual direction of current through that circuit element is opposite that of the chosen reference direction.


title: Electric current

text: Ohm's law states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential difference across the two points. Introducing the constant of proportionality, the resistance, one arrives at the usual mathematical equation that describes this relationship:


title: Electric current

text: where "I" is the current through the conductor in units of amperes, "V" is the potential difference measured "across" the conductor in units of volts, and "R" is the resistance of the conductor in units of ohms. More specifically, Ohm's law states that the "R" in this relation is constant, independent of the current.


title: Electric current

text: In alternating current (AC) systems, the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. AC is the form of electric power most commonly delivered to businesses and residences. The usual waveform of an AC power circuit is a sine wave, though certain applications use alternative waveforms, such as triangular or square waves. Audio and radio signals carried on electrical wires are also examples of alternating current. An important goal in these applications is recovery of information encoded (or "modulated") onto the AC signal.


title: Electric current

text: In contrast, direct current (DC) refers to a system in which the movement of electric charge in only one direction (sometimes called unidirectional flow). Direct current is produced by sources such as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Alternating current can also be converted to direct current through use of a rectifier. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through semiconductors, insulators, or even through a vacuum as in electron or ion beams. An old name for direct current was "galvanic current".


title: Electric current

text: Natural observable examples of electric current include lightning, static electric discharge, and the solar wind, the source of the polar auroras.


title: Electric current

text: Man-made occurrences of electric current include the flow of conduction electrons in metal wires such as the overhead power lines that deliver electrical energy across long distances and the smaller wires within electrical and electronic equipment. Eddy currents are electric currents that occur in conductors exposed to changing magnetic fields. Similarly, electric currents occur, particularly in the surface, of conductors exposed to electromagnetic waves. When oscillating electric currents flow at the correct voltages within radio antennas, radio waves are generated.


title: Electric current

text: In electronics, other forms of electric current include the flow of electrons through resistors or through the vacuum in a vacuum tube, the flow of ions inside a battery, and the flow of holes within metals and semiconductors.


title: Electric current

text: A biological example of current is the flow of ions in neurons and nerves, responsible for both thought and sensory perception.


title: Electric current

text: Electric current can be directly measured with a galvanometer, but this method involves breaking the electrical circuit, which is sometimes inconvenient.


title: Electric current

text: Current can also be measured without breaking the circuit by detecting the magnetic field associated with the current.


title: Electric current

text: Joule heating, also known as "ohmic heating" and "resistive heating", is the process of power dissipation by which the passage of an electric current through a conductor increases the internal energy of the conductor, converting thermodynamic work into heat. The phenomenon was first studied by James Prescott Joule in 1841. Joule immersed a length of wire in a fixed mass of water and measured the temperature rise due to a known current through the wire for a 30 minute period. By varying the current and the length of the wire he deduced that the heat produced was proportional to the square of the current multiplied by the electrical resistance of the wire.


title: Electric current

text: This relationship is known as Joule's Law. The SI unit of energy was subsequently named the joule and given the symbol "J". The commonly known SI unit of power, the watt (symbol: W), is equivalent to one joule per second.


title: Electric current

text: In an electromagnet a coil of wires behaves like a magnet when an electric current flows through it. When the current is switched off, the coil loses its magnetism immediately.


title: Electric current

text: Electric current produces a magnetic field. The magnetic field can be visualized as a pattern of circular field lines surrounding the wire that persists as long as there is current.


title: Electric current

text: Magnetic fields can also be used to make electric currents. When a changing magnetic field is applied to a conductor, an electromotive force (EMF) is induced, which starts an electric current, when there is a suitable path.


title: Electric current

text: When an electric current flows in a suitably shaped conductor at radio frequencies, radio waves can be generated. These travel at the speed of light and can cause electric currents in distant conductors.


title: Electric current

text: In metallic solids, electric charge flows by means of electrons, from lower to higher electrical potential. In other media, any stream of charged objects (ions, for example) may constitute an electric current. To provide a definition of current independent of the type of charge carriers, "conventional current" is defined as moving in the same direction as the positive charge flow. So, in metals where the charge carriers (electrons) are negative, conventional current is in the opposite direction to the overall electron movement. In conductors where the charge carriers are positive, conventional current is in the same direction as the charge carriers.


title: Electric current

text: In a vacuum, a beam of ions or electrons may be formed. In other conductive materials, the electric current is due to the flow of both positively and negatively charged particles at the same time. In still others, the current is entirely due to positive charge flow. For example, the electric currents in electrolytes are flows of positively and negatively charged ions. In a common lead-acid electrochemical cell, electric currents are composed of positive hydronium ions flowing in one direction, and negative sulfate ions flowing in the other. Electric currents in sparks or plasma are flows of electrons as well as positive and negative ions. In ice and in certain solid electrolytes, the electric current is entirely composed of flowing ions.


title: Electric current

text: In a metal, some of the outer electrons in each atom are not bound to the individual molecules as they are in molecular solids, or in full bands as they are in insulating materials, but are free to move within the metal lattice. These conduction electrons can serve as charge carriers, carrying a current. Metals are particularly conductive because there are many of these free electrons. With no external electric field applied, these electrons move about randomly due to thermal energy but, on average, there is zero net current within the metal. At room temperature, the average speed of these random motions is 10 metres per second. Given a surface through which a metal wire passes, electrons move in both directions across the surface at an equal rate. As George Gamow wrote in his popular science book, "One, Two, Three...Infinity" (1947), "The metallic substances differ from all other materials by the fact that the outer shells of their atoms are bound rather loosely, and often let one of their electrons go free. Thus the interior of a metal is filled up with a large number of unattached electrons that travel aimlessly around like a crowd of displaced persons. When a metal wire is subjected to electric force applied on its opposite ends, these free electrons rush in the direction of the force, thus forming what we call an electric current."


title: Electric current

text: When a metal wire is connected across the two terminals of a DC voltage source such as a battery, the source places an electric field across the conductor. The moment contact is made, the free electrons of the conductor are forced to drift toward the positive terminal under the influence of this field. The free electrons are therefore the charge carrier in a typical solid conductor.


title: Electric current

text: For a steady flow of charge through a surface, the current "I" (in amperes) can be calculated with the following equation:


title: Electric current

text: where "Q" is the electric charge transferred through the surface over a time "t". If "Q" and "t" are measured in coulombs and seconds respectively, "I" is in amperes.


title: Electric current

text: More generally, electric current can be represented as the rate at which charge flows through a given surface as:


title: Electric current

text: Electric currents in electrolytes are flows of electrically charged particles (ions). For example, if an electric field is placed across a solution of Na and Cl (and conditions are right) the sodium ions move towards the negative electrode (cathode), while the chloride ions move towards the positive electrode (anode). Reactions take place at both electrode surfaces, neutralizing each ion.


title: Electric current

text: Water-ice and certain solid electrolytes called proton conductors contain positive hydrogen ions ("protons") that are mobile. In these materials, electric currents are composed of moving protons, as opposed to the moving electrons in metals.


title: Electric current

text: In certain electrolyte mixtures, brightly coloured ions are the moving electric charges. The slow progress of the colour makes the current visible.


title: Electric current

text: In air and other ordinary gases below the breakdown field, the dominant source of electrical conduction is via relatively few mobile ions produced by radioactive gases, ultraviolet light, or cosmic rays. Since the electrical conductivity is low, gases are dielectrics or insulators. However, once the applied electric field approaches the breakdown value, free electrons become sufficiently accelerated by the electric field to create additional free electrons by colliding, and ionizing, neutral gas atoms or molecules in a process called avalanche breakdown. The breakdown process forms a plasma that contains enough mobile electrons and positive ions to make it an electrical conductor. In the process, it forms a light emitting conductive path, such as a spark, arc or lightning.


title: Electric current

text: Plasma is the state of matter where some of the electrons in a gas are stripped or "ionized" from their molecules or atoms. A plasma can be formed by high temperature, or by application of a high electric or alternating magnetic field as noted above. Due to their lower mass, the electrons in a plasma accelerate more quickly in response to an electric field than the heavier positive ions, and hence carry the bulk of the current. The free ions recombine to create new chemical compounds (for example, breaking atmospheric oxygen into single oxygen [O → 2O], which then recombine creating ozone [O]).


title: Electric current

text: Since a "perfect vacuum" contains no charged particles, it normally behaves as a perfect insulator. However, metal electrode surfaces can cause a region of the vacuum to become conductive by injecting free electrons or ions through either field electron emission or thermionic emission. Thermionic emission occurs when the thermal energy exceeds the metal's work function, while field electron emission occurs when the electric field at the surface of the metal is high enough to cause tunneling, which results in the ejection of free electrons from the metal into the vacuum. Externally heated electrodes are often used to generate an electron cloud as in the filament or indirectly heated cathode of vacuum tubes. Cold electrodes can also spontaneously produce electron clouds via thermionic emission when small incandescent regions (called "cathode spots" or "anode spots") are formed. These are incandescent regions of the electrode surface that are created by a localized high current. These regions may be initiated by field electron emission, but are then sustained by localized thermionic emission once a vacuum arc forms. These small electron-emitting regions can form quite rapidly, even explosively, on a metal surface subjected to a high electrical field. Vacuum tubes and sprytrons are some of the electronic switching and amplifying devices based on vacuum conductivity.


title: Electric current

text: Superconductivity is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic fields occurring in certain materials when cooled below a characteristic critical temperature. It was discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes on April 8, 1911 in Leiden. Like ferromagnetism and atomic spectral lines, superconductivity is a quantum mechanical phenomenon. It is characterized by the Meissner effect, the complete ejection of magnetic field lines from the interior of the superconductor as it transitions into the superconducting state. The occurrence of the Meissner effect indicates that superconductivity cannot be understood simply as the idealization of "perfect conductivity" in classical physics.


title: Electric current

text: In a semiconductor it is sometimes useful to think of the current as due to the flow of positive "holes" (the mobile positive charge carriers that are places where the semiconductor crystal is missing a valence electron). This is the case in a p-type semiconductor. A semiconductor has electrical conductivity intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 10 to 10 siemens per centimeter (S⋅cm).


title: Electric current

text: In the classic crystalline semiconductors, electrons can have energies only within certain bands (i.e. ranges of levels of energy). Energetically, these bands are located between the energy of the ground state, the state in which electrons are tightly bound to the atomic nuclei of the material, and the free electron energy, the latter describing the energy required for an electron to escape entirely from the material. The energy bands each correspond to many discrete quantum states of the electrons, and most of the states with low energy (closer to the nucleus) are occupied, up to a particular band called the "valence band". Semiconductors and insulators are distinguished from metals because the valence band in any given metal is nearly filled with electrons under usual operating conditions, while very few (semiconductor) or virtually none (insulator) of them are available in the "conduction band", the band immediately above the valence band.


title: Electric current

text: The ease of exciting electrons in the semiconductor from the valence band to the conduction band depends on the band gap between the bands. The size of this energy band gap serves as an arbitrary dividing line (roughly 4 eV) between semiconductors and insulators.


title: Electric current

text: With covalent bonds, an electron moves by hopping to a neighboring bond. The Pauli exclusion principle requires that the electron be lifted into the higher anti-bonding state of that bond. For delocalized states, for example in one dimensionthat is in a nanowire, for every energy there is a state with electrons flowing in one direction and another state with the electrons flowing in the other. For a net current to flow, more states for one direction than for the other direction must be occupied. For this to occur, energy is required, as in the semiconductor the next higher states lie above the band gap. Often this is stated as: full bands do not contribute to the electrical conductivity. However, as a semiconductor's temperature rises above absolute zero, there is more energy in the semiconductor to spend on lattice vibration and on exciting electrons into the conduction band. The current-carrying electrons in the conduction band are known as "free electrons", though they are often simply called "electrons" if that is clear in context.


title: Electric current

text: Current density is the rate at which charge passes through a chosen unit area. It is defined as a vector whose magnitude is the current per unit cross-sectional area. As discussed in Reference direction, the direction is arbitrary. Conventionally, if the moving charges are positive, then the current density has the same sign as the velocity of the charges. For negative charges, the sign of the current density is opposite to the velocity of the charges. In SI units, current density (symbol: j) is expressed in the SI base units of amperes per square metre.


title: Electric current

text: In linear materials such as metals, and under low frequencies, the current density across the conductor surface is uniform. In such conditions, Ohm's law states that the current is directly proportional to the potential difference between two ends (across) of that metal (ideal) resistor (or other ohmic device):


title: Electric current

text: where formula_1 is the current, measured in amperes; formula_9 is the potential difference, measured in volts; and formula_10 is the resistance, measured in ohms. For alternating currents, especially at higher frequencies, skin effect causes the current to spread unevenly across the conductor cross-section, with higher density near the surface, thus increasing the apparent resistance.


title: Electric current

text: The mobile charged particles within a conductor move constantly in random directions, like the particles of a gas. (More accurately, a Fermi gas.) To create a net flow of charge, the particles must also move together with an average drift rate. Electrons are the charge carriers in most metals and they follow an erratic path, bouncing from atom to atom, but generally drifting in the opposite direction of the electric field. The speed they drift at can be calculated from the equation:


title: Electric current

text: Typically, electric charges in solids flow slowly. For example, in a copper wire of cross-section 0.5 mm, carrying a current of 5 A, the drift velocity of the electrons is on the order of a millimetre per second. To take a different example, in the near-vacuum inside a cathode-ray tube, the electrons travel in near-straight lines at about a tenth of the speed of light.


title: Electric current

text: Any accelerating electric charge, and therefore any changing electric current, gives rise to an electromagnetic wave that propagates at very high speed outside the surface of the conductor. This speed is usually a significant fraction of the speed of light, as can be deduced from Maxwell's equations, and is therefore many times faster than the drift velocity of the electrons. For example, in AC power lines, the waves of electromagnetic energy propagate through the space between the wires, moving from a source to a distant load, even though the electrons in the wires only move back and forth over a tiny distance.


title: Electric current

text: The ratio of the speed of the electromagnetic wave to the speed of light in free space is called the velocity factor, and depends on the electromagnetic properties of the conductor and the insulating materials surrounding it, and on their shape and size.


title: Electric current

text: The magnitudes (not the natures) of these three velocities can be illustrated by an analogy with the three similar velocities associated with gases. (See also hydraulic analogy.)


title: Absurdism

text: Absurdism is the philosophical theory that existence in general is absurd. This implies that the world lacks meaning or a higher purpose and is not fully intelligible by reason. The term "absurd" also has a more specific sense in the context of absurdism: it refers to a conflict or a discrepancy between two things but there are several disagreements about their exact nature. These disagreements have various consequences for whether absurdism is true and for the arguments cited in favor and against it. Popular accounts characterize the conflict as a collision between rational man and an irrational universe, between intention and outcome, or between subjective assessment and objective worth. An important aspect of absurdism is its claim that the world "as a whole" is absurd. It differs in this regard from the uncontroversial and less global thesis that some "particular" situations, persons, or phases in life are absurd.


title: Absurdism

text: Various components of the absurd are discussed in the academic literature and different theorists frequently concentrate their definition and research on different components. On the practical level, the conflict underlying the absurd is characterized by the individual's struggle to find meaning in a meaningless world. The theoretical component, on the other hand, emphasizes more the epistemic inability of reason to penetrate and understand reality. Traditionally, the conflict is characterized as a collision between an internal component, belonging to human nature, and an external component, belonging to the nature of the world. However, some later theorists have suggested that both components may be internal: the capacity to see through the arbitrariness of any ultimate purpose, on the one hand, and the incapacity to stop caring about such purposes, on the other hand. Certain accounts also involve a metacognitive component by holding that an awareness of the conflict is necessary for the absurd to arise.


title: Absurdism

text: Some arguments in favor of absurdism focus on the human insignificance in the universe, on the role of death, or on the implausibility or irrationality of positing an ultimate purpose. Objections to absurdism often contend that life is in fact meaningful or point out certain problematic consequences or inconsistencies of absurdism. Defenders of absurdism often complain that it does not receive the attention of professional philosophers it merits in virtue of the topic's importance and its potential psychological impact on the affected individuals in the form of existential crises. Various possible responses to deal with absurdism and its impact have been suggested. The three responses discussed in the traditional absurdist literature are suicide, religious belief in a higher purpose, and rebellion against the absurd. Of these, rebellion is usually presented as the recommended response since, unlike the other two responses, it does not escape the absurd and instead recognizes it for what it is. Later theorists have suggested additional responses, like using irony to take life less seriously or remaining ignorant of the responsible conflict. Some absurdists argue that whether and how one responds is insignificant. This is based on the idea that if nothing really matters then the human response toward this fact does not matter either.


title: Absurdism

text: The term "absurdism" is most closely associated with the philosophy of Albert Camus. However, important precursors and discussions of the absurd are also found in the works of Søren Kierkegaard. Absurdism is intimately related to various other concepts and theories. Its basic outlook is inspired by existentialist philosophy. However, existentialism includes additional theoretical commitments and often takes a more optimistic attitude toward the possibility of finding or creating meaning in one's life. Absurdism and nihilism share the belief that life is meaningless. But absurdists do not treat this as an isolated fact and are instead interested in the conflict between the human desire for meaning and the world's lack thereof. Being confronted with this conflict may trigger an existential crisis, in which unpleasant experiences like anxiety or depression may push the affected to find a response for dealing with the conflict. Recognizing the absence of objective meaning, however, does not preclude the conscious thinker from finding subjective meaning in arbitrary places.


title: Absurdism

text: Absurdism is the philosophical thesis that life, or the world in general, is absurd. There is wide agreement that the term "absurd" implies a lack of meaning or purpose but there is also significant dispute concerning its exact definition and various versions have been suggested. The choice of one's definition has important implications for whether the thesis of absurdism is correct and for the arguments cited for and against it: it may be true on one definition and false on another.


title: Absurdism

text: In a general sense, the absurd is that which lacks a sense, often because it involves some form of contradiction. The absurd is paradoxical in the sense that it cannot be grasped by reason. But in the context of absurdism, the term is usually used in a more specific sense. According to most definitions, it involves a conflict, discrepancy, or collision between two things. Opinions differ on what these two things are. For example, it is traditionally identified as the confrontation of rational man with an irrational world or as the attempt to grasp something based on reasons even though it is beyond the limits of rationality. Similar definitions see the discrepancy between intention and outcome, between aspiration and reality, or between subjective assessment and objective worth as the source of absurdity. Other definitions locate both conflicting sides within man: the ability to apprehend the arbitrariness of final ends and the inability to let go of commitments to them. In regard to the conflict, absurdism differs from nihilism since it is not just the thesis that nothing matters. Instead, it includes the component that things seem to matter to us nonetheless and that this impression cannot be shaken off. This difference is expressed in the relational aspect of the absurd in that it constitutes a conflict between two sides.


title: Absurdism

text: Various components of the absurd have been suggested and different researchers often focus their definition and inquiry on one of these components. Some accounts emphasize the practical components concerned with the individual seeking meaning while others stress the theoretical components about being unable to know the world or to rationally grasp it. A different disagreement concerns whether the conflict exists only internal to the individual or is between the individual's expectations and the external world. Some theorists also include the metacognitive component that the absurd entails that the individual is aware of this conflict.


title: Absurdism

text: An important aspect of absurdism is that the absurd is not limited to particular situations but encompasses life as a whole. There is a general agreement that people are often confronted with absurd situations in everyday life. They often arise when there is a serious mismatch between one's intentions and reality. For example, a person struggling to break down a heavy front door is absurd if the house they are trying to break into lacks a back wall and could easily be entered on this route. But the philosophical thesis of absurdism is much more wide-reaching since it is not restricted to individual situations, persons, or phases in life. Instead, it asserts that life, or the world as a whole, is absurd. The claim that the absurd has such a global extension is controversial, in contrast to the weaker claim that some situations are absurd.


title: Absurdism

text: The perspective of absurdism usually comes into view when the agent takes a step back from their individual everyday engagements with the world to assess their importance from a bigger context. Such an assessment can result in the insight that the day-to-day engagements matter a lot to us despite the fact that they lack real meaning when evaluated from a wider perspective. This assessment reveals the conflict between the significance seen from the internal perspective and the arbitrariness revealed through the external perspective. The absurd becomes a problem since there is a strong desire for meaning and purpose even though they seem to be absent. In this sense, the conflict responsible for the absurd often either constitutes or is accompanied by an existential crisis.


title: Absurdism

text: An important component of the absurd on the practical level concerns the seriousness people bring toward life. This seriousness is reflected in many different attitudes and areas, for example, concerning fame, pleasure, justice, knowledge, or survival, both in regard to ourselves as well as in regard to others. But there seems to be a discrepancy between how serious we take our lives and the lives of others on the one hand, and how arbitrary they and the world at large seem to be on the other hand. This can be understood in terms of importance and caring: it is absurd that people continue to care about these matters even though they seem to lack importance on an objective level. The collision between these two sides can be defined as the absurd. This is perhaps best exemplified when the agent is seriously engaged in choosing between arbitrary options, none of which truly matters.


title: Absurdism

text: Some theorists characterize the ethical sides of absurdism and nihilism in the same way as the view that it does not matter how we act or that "everything is permitted". On this view, an important aspect of the absurd is that whatever higher end or purpose we choose to pursue, it can also be put into doubt since, in the last step, it always lacks a higher-order justification. But usually, a distinction between absurdism and nihilism is made since absurdism involves the additional component that there is a conflict between man's desire for meaning and the absence of meaning.


title: Absurdism

text: On a more theoretical view, absurdism is the belief that the world is, at its core, indifferent and impenetrable toward human attempts to uncover its deeper reason or that it cannot be known. According to this theoretical component, it involves the epistemological problem of the human limitations of knowing the world. This includes the thesis that the world is in critical ways ungraspable to humans, both in relation to what to believe and how to act. This is reflected in the chaos and irrationality of the universe, which acts according to its own laws in a manner indifferent to human concerns and aspirations. It is closely related to the idea that the world remains silent when we ask why things are the way they are. This silence arises from the impression that, on the most fundamental level, all things exist without a reason: they are simply there. An important aspect of these limitations to knowing the world is that they are essential to human cognition, i.e. they are not due to following false principles or accidental weaknesses but are inherent in the human cognitive faculties themselves.


title: Absurdism

text: Some theorists also link this problem to the circularity of human reason, which is very skilled at producing chains of justification linking one thing to another while trying and failing to do the same for the chain of justification as a whole when taking a reflective step backward. This implies that human reason is not just too limited to grasp life as a whole but that, if one seriously tried to do so anyway, its ungrounded circularity might collapse and lead to madness.


title: Absurdism

text: An important disagreement within the academic literature about the nature of absurdism and the absurd focuses specifically on whether the components responsible for the conflict are internal or external. According to the traditional position, the absurd has both internal and external components: it is due to the discrepancy between man's internal desire to lead a meaningful life and the external meaninglessness of the world. On this view, humans have among their desires some transcendent aspirations that seek a higher form of meaning in life. The absurd arises since these aspirations are ignored by the world, which is indifferent to our "need for validation of the importance of our concerns". This implies that the absurd "is not in man ... nor in the world, but in their presence together". This position has been rejected by some later theorists, who hold that the absurd is purely internal because it "derives not from a collision between our expectations and the world, but from a collision within ourselves".


title: Absurdism

text: The distinction is important since, on the latter view, the absurd is built into human nature and would prevail no matter what the world was like. So it is not just that absurdism is true in the actual world. Instead, any possible world, even one that was designed by a divine god and guided by them according to their higher purpose, would still be equally absurd to man. In this sense, absurdity is the product of the power of our consciousness to take a step back from whatever it is considering and reflect on the reason of its object. When this process is applied to the world as a whole including God, it is bound to fail its search for a reason or an explanation, no matter what the world is like. In this sense, absurdity arises from the conflict between features of ourselves: "our capacity to recognize the arbitrariness of our ultimate concerns and our simultaneous incapacity to relinquish our commitment to them". This view has the side-effect that the absurd depends on the fact that the affected person recognizes it. For example, people who fail to apprehend the arbitrariness or the conflict would not be affected.


title: Absurdism

text: According to some researchers, a central aspect of the absurd is that the agent is aware of the existence of the corresponding conflict. This means that the person is conscious both of the seriousness they invest and of how it seems misplaced in an arbitrary world. It also implies that other entities that lack this form of consciousness, like non-organic matter or lower life forms, are not absurd and are not faced with this particular problem. Some theorists also emphasize that the conflict remains despite the individual's awareness of it, i.e. that the individual continues to care about their everyday concerns despite their impression that, on the large scale, these concerns are meaningless. Defenders of the metacognitive component have argued that it manages to explain why absurdity is primarily ascribed to human aspirations but not to lower animals: because they lack this metacognitive awareness. However, other researchers reject the metacognitive requirement based on the fact that it would severely limit the scope of the absurd to only those possibly few individuals who clearly recognize the contradiction while sparing the rest. Thus, opponents have argued that not recognizing the conflict is just as absurd as consciously living through it.


title: Absurdism

text: Various popular arguments are often cited in favor of absurdism. Some focus on the future by pointing out that nothing we do today will matter in a million years. A similar line of argument points to the fact that our lives are insignificant because of how small they are in relation to the universe as a whole, both concerning their spatial and their temporal dimensions. The thesis of absurdism is also sometimes based on the problem of death, i.e. that there is no final end for us to pursue since we are all going to die. In this sense, death is said to destroy all our hard-earned achievements like career, wealth, or knowledge. This argument is mitigated to some extent by the fact that we may have positive or negative effects on the lives of other people as well. But this does not fully solve the issue since the same problem, i.e. the lack of an ultimate end, applies to their lives as well. Thomas Nagel has objected to these lines of argument based on the claim that they are circular: they assume rather than establish that life is absurd. For example, the claim that our actions today will not matter in a million years does not directly imply that they do not matter today. And similarly, the fact that a process does not reach a meaningful ultimate goal does not entail that the process as a whole is worthless since some parts of the process may contain their justification without depending on a justification external to them.


title: Absurdism

text: Another argument proceeds indirectly by pointing out how various great thinkers have obvious irrational elements in their systems of thought. These purported mistakes of reason are then taken as signs of absurdism that were meant to hide or avoid it. From this perspective, the tendency to posit the existence of a benevolent God may be seen as a form of defense mechanism or wishful thinking to avoid an unsettling and inconvenient truth. This is closely related to the idea that humans have an inborn desire for meaning and purpose, which is dwarfed by a meaningless and indifferent universe. For example, René Descartes aims to build a philosophical system based on the absolute certainty of the "I think, therefore I am" just to introduce without a proper justification the existence of a benevolent and non-deceiving God in a later step in order to ensure that we can know about the external world. A similar problematic step is taken by John Locke, who accepts the existence of a God beyond sensory experience, despite his strict empiricism, which demands that all knowledge be based on sensory experience.


title: Absurdism

text: Other theorists argue in favor of absurdism based on the claim that meaning is relational. In this sense, for something to be meaningful, it has to stand in relation to something else that is meaningful. For example, a word is meaningful because of its relation to a language or someone's life could be meaningful because this person dedicates her efforts to a higher meaningful project, like serving God or fighting poverty. An important consequence of this characterization of meaning is that it threatens to lead to an infinite regress: at each step, something is meaningful because something else is meaningful, which in its turn has meaning only because it is related to yet another meaningful thing, and so on. This infinite chain and the corresponding absurdity could be avoided if some things had intrinsic or ultimate meaning, i.e. if their meaning did not depend on the meaning of something else. For example, if things on the large scale, like God or fighting poverty, had meaning, then our everyday engagements could be meaningful by standing in the right relation to them. However, if these wider contexts themselves lack meaning then they are unable to act as sources of meaning for other things. This would lead to the absurd when understood as the conflict between the impression that our everyday engagements are meaningful even though they lack meaning because they do not stand in a relation to something else that is meaningful.


title: Absurdism

text: Another argument for absurdism is based on the attempt of assessing standards of what matters and why it matters. It has been argued that the only way to answer such a question is in reference to these standards themselves. This means that, in the end, it depends only on us, that "what seems to us important or serious or valuable would not seem so if we were differently constituted". The circularity and groundlessness of these standards themselves are then used to argue for absurdism.


title: Absurdism

text: The most common criticism of absurdism is to argue that life in fact has meaning. Supernaturalist arguments to this effect are based on the claim that God exists and acts as the source of meaning. Naturalist arguments, on the other hand, contend that various sources of meaning can be found in the natural world without recourse to a supernatural realm. Some of them hold that meaning is subjective. On this view, whether a given thing is meaningful varies from person to person based on their subjective attitude toward this thing. Others find meaning in objective values, for example, in morality, knowledge, or beauty. All these different positions have in common that they affirm the existence of meaning, in contrast to absurdism.


title: Absurdism

text: Another criticism of absurdism focuses on its negative attitude toward moral values. In the absurdist literature, the moral dimension is sometimes outright denied, for example, by holding that value judgments are to be discarded or that the rejection of God implies the rejection of moral values. On this view, absurdism brings with it a highly controversial form of moral nihilism. This means that there is a lack, not just of a higher purpose in life, but also of moral values. These two sides can be linked by the idea that without a higher purpose, nothing is worth pursuing that could give one's life meaning. This worthlessness seems to apply to morally relevant actions equally as to other issues. In this sense, "[b]elief in the meaning of life always implies a scale of values" while "[b]elief in the absurd ... teaches the contrary". Various objections to such a position have been presented, for example, that it violates common sense or that it leads to numerous radical consequences, like that no one is ever guilty of any blameworthy behavior or that there are no ethical rules.


title: Absurdism

text: But this negative attitude toward moral values is not always consistently maintained by absurdists and some of the suggested responses on how to deal with the absurd seem to explicitly defend the existence of moral values. Due to this ambiguity, other critics of absurdism have objected to it based on its inconsistency. The moral values defended by absurdists often overlap with the ethical outlook of existentialism and include traits like sincerity, authenticity, and courage as virtues. In this sense, absurdists often argue that it matters how the agent faces the absurdity of their situation and that the response should exemplify these virtues. This aspect is particularly prominent in the idea that the agent should rebel against the absurd and live their life authentically as a form of passionate revolt.


title: Absurdism

text: Some see the latter position as inconsistent with the idea that there is no meaning in life: if nothing matters then it should also not matter how we respond to this fact. So absurdists seem to be committed both to the claim that moral values exist and that they do not exist. Defenders of absurdism have tried to resist this line of argument by contending that, in contrast to other responses, it remains true to the basic insight of absurdism and the "logic of the absurd" by acknowledging the existence of the absurd instead of denying it. But this defense is not always accepted. One of its shortcomings seems to be that it commits the is-ought fallacy: absurdism presents itself as a descriptive claim about the existence and nature of the absurd but then goes on to posit various normative claims. Another defense of absurdism consists in weakening the claims about how one should respond to the absurd and which virtues such a response should exemplify. On this view, absurdism may be understood as a form of self-help that merely provides prudential advice. Such prudential advice may be helpful to certain people without pretending to have the status of universally valid moral values or categorical normative judgments. So the value of the prudential advice may merely be relative to the interests of some people but not valuable in a more general sense. This way, absurdists have tried to resolve the apparent inconsistency in their position.


title: Absurdism

text: According to absurdism, life in general is absurd: the absurd is not just limited to a few specific cases. Nonetheless, some cases are more paradigmatic examples than others. The myth of Sisyphus is often treated as a key example of the absurd. In it, Zeus punishes King Sisyphus by compelling him to roll a massive boulder up a hill. Whenever the boulder reaches the top, it rolls down again, thereby forcing Sisyphus to repeat the same task all over again throughout eternity. This story may be seen as an absurdist parable for the hopelessness and futility of human life in general: just like Sisyphus, man in general is condemned to toil day in and day out in the attempt to fulfill pointless tasks, which will be replaced by new pointless tasks once they are completed. It has been argued that a central aspect of Sisyphus' situation is not just the futility of his labor but also his awareness of the futility.


title: Absurdism

text: Another example of the absurdist aspect of the human condition is given in Franz Kafka's The Trial. In it, the protagonist Josef K. is arrested and prosecuted by an inaccessible authority even though he is convinced that he has done nothing wrong. Throughout the story, he desperately tries to discover what crimes he is accused of and how to defend himself. But in the end, he lets go of his futile attempts and submits to his execution without ever finding out what he was accused of. The absurd nature of the world is exemplified by the mysterious and impenetrable functioning of the judicial system, which seems indifferent to Josef K. and resists all of his attempts of making sense of it.


title: Absurdism

text: Philosophers of absurdism often complain that the topic of the absurd does not receive the attention of professional philosophers it merits, especially when compared to other perennial philosophical areas of inquiry. It has been argued, for example, that this can be seen in the tendency of various philosophers throughout the ages to include the epistemically dubitable existence of God in their philosophical systems as a source of ultimate explanation of the mysteries of existence. In that regard, this tendency may be seen as a form of defense mechanism or wishful thinking constituting a side-effect of the unacknowledged and ignored importance of the absurd. While some discussions of absurdism happen explicitly in the philosophical literature, it is often presented in a less explicit manner in the form of novels or plays. These presentations usually happen by telling stories that exemplify some of the key aspects of absurdism even though they may not explicitly discuss the topic.


title: Absurdism

text: It has been argued that acknowledging the existence of the absurd has important consequences for epistemology, especially in relation to philosophy but also when applied more widely to other fields. The reason for this is that acknowledging the absurd includes becoming aware of human cognitive limitations and may lead to a form of epistemic humbleness.


title: Absurdism

text: The impression that life is absurd may in some cases have serious psychological consequences like triggering an existential crisis. In this regard, an awareness both of absurdism itself and the possible responses to it can be central to avoiding or resolving such consequences.


title: Absurdism

text: Most researchers argue that the basic conflict posed by the absurd cannot be truly resolved. This means that any attempt to do so is bound to fail even though their protagonists may not be aware of their failure. On this view, there are still several possible responses, some better than others, but none able to solve the fundamental conflict. Traditional absurdism, as exemplified by Albert Camus, holds that there are three possible responses to absurdism: suicide, religious belief, or revolting against the absurd. Later researchers have suggested more ways of responding to absurdism.


title: Absurdism

text: A very blunt and simple response, though quite radical, is to commit suicide. According to Camus, for example, the problem of suicide is the only "really serious philosophical problem". It consists in seeking an answer to the question "Should I kill myself". This response is motivated by the insight that, no matter how hard the agent tries, they may never reach their goal of leading a meaningful life, which can then justify the rejection of continuing to live at all. Most researchers acknowledge that this is one form of response to the absurd but reject it due to its radical and irreversible nature and argue instead for a different approach.


title: Absurdism

text: One such alternative response to the apparent absurdity of life is to assume that there is some higher ultimate purpose in which the individual may participate, like service to society, progress of history, or God's glory. While the individual may only play a small part in the realization of this overarching purpose, it may still act as a source of meaning. This way, the individual may find meaning and thereby escape the absurd. One serious issue with this approach is that the problem of absurdity applies to this alleged higher purpose as well. So just like the aims of a single individual life can be put into doubt, this applies equally to a larger purpose shared by many. And if this purpose is itself absurd, it fails to act as a source of meaning for the individual participating in it. Camus identifies this response as a form of suicide as well, pertaining not to the physical but to the philosophical level. It is a philosophical suicide in the sense that the individual just assumes that the chosen higher purpose is meaningful and thereby fails to reflect on its absurdity.


title: Absurdism

text: Traditional absurdists usually reject both physical and philosophical suicide as the recommended response to the absurd, usually with the argument that both these responses constitute some form of escape that fails to face the absurd for what it is. Despite the gravity and inevitability of the absurd, they recommend that we should face it directly, i.e. not escape from it by retreating into the illusion of false hope or by ending one's life. In this sense, accepting the reality of the absurd means rejecting any hopes for a happy afterlife free of those contradictions. Instead, the individual should acknowledge the absurd and engage in a rebellion against it. Such a revolt usually exemplifies certain virtues closely related to existentialism, like the affirmation of one's freedom in the face of adversity as well as accepting responsibility and defining one's own essence. An important aspect of this lifestyle is that life is lived passionately and intensely by inviting and seeking new experiences. Such a lifestyle might be exemplified by an actor, a conqueror, or a seduction artist who is constantly on the lookout for new roles, conquests, or attractive people despite their awareness of the absurdity of these enterprises. Another aspect lies in creativity, i.e. that the agent sees themselves as and acts as the creator of their own works and paths in life. This constitutes a form of rebellion in the sense that the agent remains aware of the absurdity of the world and their part in it but keeps on opposing it instead of resigning and admitting defeat. But this response does not solve the problem of the absurd at its core: even a life dedicated to the rebellion against the absurd is itself still absurd. Defenders of the rebellious response to absurdism have pointed out that, despite its possible shortcomings, it has one important advantage over many of its alternatives: it manages to accept the absurd for what it is without denying it by rejecting that it exists or by stopping one's own existence. Some even hold that it is the only philosophically coherent response to the absurd.


title: Absurdism

text: While these three responses are the most prominent ones in the traditional absurdist literature, various other responses have also been suggested. Instead of rebellion, for example, absurdism may also lead to a form of irony. This irony is not sufficient to escape the absurdity of life altogether, but it may mitigate it to some extent by distancing oneself to some degree from the seriousness of life. According to Thomas Nagel, there may be, at least theoretically, two responses to actually resolving the problem of the absurd. This is based on the idea that the absurd arises from the consciousness of a conflict between two aspects of human life: that humans care about various things and that the world seems arbitrary and does not merit this concern. The absurd would not arise if either of the conflicting elements would cease to exist, i.e. if the individual would stop caring about things, as some Eastern religions seem to suggest, or if one could find something that possesses a non-arbitrary meaning that merits the concern. For theorists who give importance to the consciousness of this conflict for the absurd, a further option presents itself: to remain ignorant of it to the extent that this is possible.