title: Austroasiatic languages

text: John Peterson (2017) suggests that "pre-Munda" ("proto-" in regular terminology) languages may have once dominated the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain, and were then absorbed by Indo-Aryan languages at an early date as Indo-Aryan spread east. Peterson notes that eastern Indo-Aryan languages display many morphosyntactic features similar to those of Munda languages, while western Indo-Aryan languages do not.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: Other than Latin-based alphabets, many Austroasiatic languages are written with the Khmer, Thai, Lao, and Burmese alphabets. Vietnamese divergently had an indigenous script based on Chinese logographic writing. This has since been supplanted by the Latin alphabet in the 20th century. The following are examples of past-used alphabets or current alphabets of Austroasiatic languages.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: Austroasiatic is an integral part of the controversial Austric hypothesis, which also includes the Austronesian languages, and in some proposals also the Kra–Dai languages and the Hmong–Mien languages.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: Several lexical resemblances are found between the Hmong-Mien and Austroasiatic language families (Ratliff 2010), some of which had earlier been proposed by Haudricourt (1951). This could imply a relation or early language contact along the Yangtze.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: According to Cai (et al. 2011), Hmong–Mien is at least partially related to Austroasiatic but was heavily influenced by Sino-Tibetan, especially Tibeto-Burman languages.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: It is suggested that the Austroasiatic languages have some influence on Indo-Aryan languages including Sanskrit and middle Indo-Aryan languages. Indian linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji pointed that a specific number of substantives in languages such as Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali were borrowed from Munda languages. Additionally, French linguist Jean Przyluski suggested a similarity between the tales from the Austroasiatic realm and the Indian mythological stories of Matsyagandha (from "Mahabharata") and the Nāgas.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: suggests that Haplogroup O1b1, which is common in Austroasiatic people and some other ethnic groups in southern China, and haplogroup O1b2, which is common in today's Japanese, Koreans and some Manchu, are the carriers of early rice-agriculturalists from Indochina. Another study suggests that the haplogroup O1b1 is the major Austroasiatic paternal lineage and O1b2 the "para-Austroasiatic" lineage of the Manchu, Korean and Yayoi people.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: A 2021 study by Tagore et al. found that the proto-Austroasiatic speakers split from an Basal East Asian source population, native to Mainland Southeast Asia and Northeast India, which also gave rise to other East Asian-related populations, including Northeast Asians and Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The proto-Austroasiatic speakers can be linked to the Hoabinhian material culture. From Mainland Southeast Asia, the Austroasiatic speakers expanded into the Indian-subcontinent and Maritime Southeast Asia. There is evidence that later back migration from more northerly East Asian groups (such as Kra-Dai speakers) merged with indigenous Southeast Asians, contributing to the fragmentation observed among modern day Austroasiatic-speakers. In the Indian subcontinent, Austroasiatic speakers, specifically Mundari, intermixed with the local population. Furthermore they concluded that their results do not support a genetic relationship between Ancient Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers (Hoabinhians) with Papuan-related groups, as previously suggested by McColl et al. 2018, but that these Ancient Southeast Asians are characterized by Basal East Asian ancestry. The authors finally concluded that genetics do not necessarily correspond with linguistic identity, pointing to the fragmentation of modern Austroasiatic speakers.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: Larena et al. 2021 could reproduce the genetic evidence for the origin of Basal East Asians in Mainland Southeast Asia, which are estimated to have formed about 50kya years ago, and expanded through multiple migration waves southwards and northwards. Early Austroasiatic speakers are estimated to have originated from an lineage, which split from Ancestral East Asians between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago, and were among the first wave to replace distinct Australasian-related groups in Insular Southeast Asia. East Asian-related ancestry became dominant in Insular Southeast Asia already between 15,000 years to 12,000 years ago, and may be associated with Austroasiatic groups, which however got again replaced by later Austronesian groups some 10,000 to 7,000 years ago. Early Austroasiatic people were found to be best represented by the Mlabri people in modern day Thailand. Proposals for Austroasiatic substratum among later Austronesian languages in Western Indonesia, noteworthy among the Dayak languages, is strengthened by genetic data, suggesting Austroasiatic speakers were assimilated by Austronesian speakers.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: A study in November 2021 (Guo et al.) found that modern East-Eurasians can be modeled from four ancestry components, which descended from a common ancestor in Mainland Southeast Asia, one being the "Ancestral Austroasiatic" component (AAA), which is more prevalent among modern Southeast Asians, and making up the exclusive ancestry among Austroasiatic-speaking Lua and Mlabri people. The early Austroasiatic speakers are suggested to have been hunter-gatherers but became rice-agriculturalists quite early, spreading from Mainland Southeast Asia northwards to the Yangtze river, westwards into the Indian subcontinent, and southwards into Insular Southeast Asia. Evidence for these migrations are Austroasiatic loanwords related to rice-agriculture found among non-Austroasiatic languages, and the presence of Austroasiatic genetic ancestry.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: According to a recent genetic study, Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese, has almost an equal ratio of genetic marker shared between Austronesian and Austroasiatic heritages.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: According to Chaubey et al., "Austro-Asiatic speakers in India today are derived from dispersal from Southeast Asia, followed by extensive sex-specific admixture with local Indian populations." According to Riccio et al., the Munda people are likely descended from Austroasiatic migrants from Southeast Asia.


title: Austroasiatic languages

text: According to Zhang et al., Austroasiatic migrations from Southeast Asia into India took place after the last Glacial maximum, circa 10,000 years ago. Arunkumar et al., suggest Austroasiatic migrations from Southeast Asia occurred into Northeast India 5.2 ± 0.6 kya and into East India 4.3 ± 0.2 kya.


title: Lombards

text: The Lombards () or Langobards () were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774.


title: Lombards

text: The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the "History of the Lombards" (written between 787 and 796) that the Lombards descended from a small tribe called the Winnili, who dwelt in southern Scandinavia ("Scadanan") before migrating to seek new lands. By the time of the Roman-era - historians wrote of the Lombards in the 1st century AD, as being one of the Suebian peoples, in what is now northern Germany, near the Elbe river. They continued to migrate south. By the end of the fifth century, the Lombards had moved into the area roughly coinciding with modern Austria and Slovakia north of the Danube, where they subdued the Heruls and later fought frequent wars with the Gepids. The Lombard king Audoin defeated the Gepid leader Thurisind in 551 or 552, and his successor Alboin eventually destroyed the Gepids in 567. The Lombards settled in modern-day Hungary in Pannonia. Archaeologists have unearthed burial sites in the area of Szólád of Lombard men and women buried together as families, a practice that was uncommon for Germanic peoples at the time. Traces have also been discovered of Mediterranean Greeks and of a woman whose skull suggests French ancestry, possibly indicating that migrations into the Lombard territory occurred from Greece and France.


title: Lombards

text: Following Alboin's victory over the Gepids, he led his people into North Eastern Italy, which had become severely depopulated and devastated after the long Gothic War (535–554) between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom. The Lombards were joined by numerous Saxons, Heruls, Gepids, Bulgars, Thuringians and Ostrogoths, and their invasion of Italy was almost unopposed. By late 569, they had conquered all of northern Italy and the principal cities north of the Po River, except Pavia, which fell in 572. At the same time, they occupied areas in central and southern Italy. They established a Lombard Kingdom in north and central Italy, later named "Regnum Italicum" ("Kingdom of Italy"), which reached its zenith under the eighth-century ruler Liutprand. In 774, the kingdom was conquered by the Frankish king Charlemagne and integrated into the Frankish Empire. However, Lombard nobles continued to rule southern parts of the Italian peninsula well into the 11th century, when they were conquered by the Normans and added to the County of Sicily. In this period, the southern part of Italy still under Lombard domination was known to foreigners by the name Langbarðaland (Land of the Lombards), as inscribed in the Norse runestones. Their legacy is also apparent in the name of the region of Lombardy in northern Italy.


title: Lombards

text: According to their own traditions, the Lombards initially called themselves the "Winnili". After a reported major victory against the Vandals in the first century, they changed their name to "Lombards". The name "Winnili" is generally translated as 'the wolves', related to the Proto-Germanic root "*wulfaz" 'wolf'."" The name "Lombard" was reportedly derived from the distinctively long beards of the Lombards. It is probably a compound of the Proto-Germanic elements *"langaz" (long) and *"bardaz" (beard).


title: Lombards

text: According to their own legends, the Lombards originated in southern Scandinavia including modern-day Denmark. The Northern European origins of the Lombards is supported by genetic, anthropological, archaeological and earlier literary evidence.


title: Lombards

text: A legendary account of Lombard origins, history, and practices is the "Historia Langobardorum" ("History of the Lombards") of Paul the Deacon, written in the eighth century. Paul's chief source for Lombard origins, however, is the seventh-century "Origo Gentis Langobardorum" ("Origin of the Lombard People").


title: Lombards

text: The "Origo Gentis Langobardorum" tells the story of a small tribe called the "Winnili" dwelling in southern Scandinavia ("Scadanan") (the "Codex Gothanus" writes that the Winnili first dwelt near a river called "Vindilicus" on the extreme boundary of Gaul). The Winnili were split into three groups and one part left their native land to seek foreign fields. The reason for the exodus was probably overpopulation. The departing people were led by Gambara and her sons Ybor and Aio and arrived in the lands of "Scoringa", perhaps the Baltic coast or the Bardengau on the banks of the Elbe. Scoringa was ruled by the Vandals and their chieftains, the brothers Ambri and Assi, who granted the Winnili a choice between tribute or war.


title: Lombards

text: The Winnili were young and brave and refused to pay tribute, saying "It is better to maintain liberty by arms than to stain it by the payment of tribute." The Vandals prepared for war and consulted Godan (the god Odin), who answered that he would give the victory to those whom he would see first at sunrise. The Winnili were fewer in number and Gambara sought help from Frea (the goddess Frigg), who advised that all Winnili women should tie their hair in front of their faces like beards and march in line with their husbands. At sunrise, Frea turned her husband's bed so that he was facing east, and woke him. So Godan spotted the Winnili first and asked, "Who are these long-beards?," and Frea replied, "My lord, thou hast given them the name, now give them also the victory." From that moment onwards, the Winnili were known as the "Longbeards" (Latinised as "Langobardi", Italianised as "Longobardi", and Anglicized as "Langobards" or "Lombards").


title: Lombards

text: When Paul the Deacon wrote the "Historia" between 787 and 796 he was a Catholic monk and devoted Christian. He thought the pagan stories of his people "silly" and "laughable". Paul explained that the name "Langobard" came from the length of their beards. A modern theory suggests that the name "Langobard" comes from "Langbarðr", a name of Odin. Priester states that when the Winnili changed their name to "Lombards", they also changed their old agricultural fertility cult to a cult of Odin, thus creating a conscious tribal tradition. Fröhlich inverts the order of events in Priester and states that with the Odin cult, the Lombards grew their beards in resemblance of the Odin of tradition and their new name reflected this. Bruckner remarks that the name of the Lombards stands in close relation to the worship of Odin, whose many names include "the Long-bearded" or "the Grey-bearded", and that the Lombard given name "Ansegranus" ("he with the beard of the gods") shows that the Lombards had this idea of their chief deity. The same Old Norse root Barth or Barði, meaning "beard", is shared with the Heaðobards mentioned in both "Beowulf" and in "Widsith", where they are in conflict with the Danes. They were possibly a branch of the Langobards.


title: Lombards

text: Alternatively some etymological sources suggest an Old High German root, barta, meaning “axe” (and related to English halberd), while Edward Gibbon puts forth an alternative suggestion which argues that:


title: Lombards

text: …Börde (or Börd) still signifies “a fertile plain by the side of a river,” and a district near Magdeburg is still called the lange Börde. According to this view Langobardi would signify “inhabitants of the long bord of the river;” and traces of their name are supposed still to occur in such names as Bardengau and Bardewick in the neighborhood of the Elbe.


title: Lombards

text: According to the Gallaecian Christian priest, historian and theologian Paulus Orosius (translated by Daines Barrington), the Lombards or Winnili lived originally in the Vinuiloth (Vinovilith) mentioned by Jordanes, in his masterpiece Getica, to the north of Uppsala, Sweden. Scoringa was near the province of Uppland, so just north of Östergötland.


title: Lombards

text: The shores of Uppland and Östergötland are covered with small rocks and rocky islands, which are called in German Schæren and in Swedish Skiaeren. Heal signifies a port in the northern languages; consequently, Skiæren-Heal is the port of the Skiæren, a name well adapted to the port of Stockholm, in the Upplandske Skiæren, and the country may be justly called Scorung or Skiærunga.


title: Lombards

text: The legendary king Sceafa of Scandza was an ancient Lombardic king in Anglo-Saxon legend. The Old English poem Widsith, in a listing of famous kings and their countries, has Sceafa [weold] Longbeardum, so naming Sceafa as ruler of the Lombards.


title: Lombards

text: Similarities between Langobardic and Gothic migration traditions have been noted among scholars. These early migration legends suggest that a major shifting of tribes occurred sometime between the first and second century BC, which would coincide with the time that the Teutoni and Cimbri left their homelands in Scandinavia and migrated through Germany, eventually invading Roman Italy.


title: Lombards

text: The first mention of the Lombards occurred between AD 9 and 16, by the Roman court historian Velleius Paterculus, who accompanied a Roman expedition as prefect of the cavalry. Paterculus says that under Tiberius the "power of the Langobardi was broken, a race surpassing even the Germans in savagery".


title: Lombards

text: From the combined testimony of Strabo (AD 20) and Tacitus (AD 117), the Lombards dwelt near the mouth of the Elbe shortly after the beginning of the Christian era, next to the Chauci. Strabo states that the Lombards dwelt on both sides of the Elbe. He treats them as a branch of the Suebi, and states that:


title: Lombards

text: Now as for the tribe of the Suebi, it is the largest, for it extends from the Rhenus to the Albis; and a part of them even dwells on the far side of the Albis, as, for instance, the Hermondori and the Langobardi; and at the present time these latter, at least, have, to the last man, been driven in flight out of their country into the land on the far side of the river.


title: Lombards

text: Suetonius wrote that Roman general Nero Claudius Drusus defeated a large force of Germans and drove some “to the farther side of the Albis (Elbe)” river. It is conceivable that these refugees were the Langobardi and the Hermunduri mentioned by Strabo not long after.


title: Lombards

text: The German archaeologist Willi Wegewitz defined several Iron Age burial sites at the Lower Elbe as "Langobardic". The burial sites are crematorial and are usually dated from the sixth century BC through the third century AD, so a settlement breakoff seems unlikely. The lands of the lower Elbe fall into the zone of the Jastorf Culture and became Elbe-Germanic, differing from the lands between Rhine, Weser, and the North Sea. Archaeological finds show that the Lombards were an agricultural people.


title: Lombards

text: Tacitus also counted the Lombards as a remote and aggressive Suebian tribe, one of those united in worship of the deity Nerthus, whom he referred to as "Mother Earth", and also as subjects of Marobod the King of the Marcomanni. Marobod had made peace with the Romans, and that is why the Lombards were not part of the Germanic confederacy under Arminius at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD 9. In AD 17, war broke out between Arminius and Marobod. Tacitus records:


title: Lombards

text: In 47, a struggle ensued amongst the Cherusci and they expelled their new leader, the nephew of Arminius, from their country. The Lombards appeared on the scene with sufficient power to control the destiny of the tribe that had been the leader in the struggle for independence thirty-eight years earlier, for they restored the deposed leader to sovereignty.


title: Lombards

text: To the south, Cassius Dio reported that just before the Marcomannic Wars, 6,000 Lombards and Obii (sometimes thought to be Ubii) crossed the Danube and invaded Pannonia. The two tribes were defeated, whereupon they ceased their invasion and sent Ballomar, King of the Marcomanni, as ambassador to Aelius Bassus, who was then administering Pannonia. Peace was made and the two tribes returned to their homes, which in the case of the Lombards was the lands of the lower Elbe. At about this time, in his "Germania" Tacitus says that "their scanty numbers are a distinction" because "surrounded by a host of most powerful tribes, they are safe, not by submitting, but by daring the perils of war".


title: Lombards

text: In the mid-2nd century, the Lombards supposedly appeared in the Rhineland, because according to Claudius Ptolemy, the Suebic Lombards lived "below" the Bructeri and Sugambri, and between these and the Tencteri. To their east stretching northwards to the central Elbe are the Suebi Angili. But Ptolemy also mentions the "Laccobardi" to the north of the above-mentioned Suebic territories, east of the Angrivarii on the Weser, and south of the Chauci on the coast, probably indicating a Lombard expansion from the Elbe to the Rhine. This double mention has been interpreted as an editorial error by Gudmund Schütte, in his analysis of Ptolemy. However, the "Codex Gothanus" also mentions "Patespruna" (Paderborn) in connection with the Lombards.


title: Lombards

text: From the second century onwards, many of the Germanic tribes recorded as active during the Principate started to unite into bigger tribal unions, such as the Franks, Alamanni, Bavarii, and Saxons. The Lombards are not mentioned at first, perhaps because they were not initially on the border of Rome, or perhaps because they were subjected to a larger tribal union, like the Saxons. It is, however, highly probable that, when the bulk of the Lombards migrated, a considerable part remained behind and afterwards became absorbed by the Saxon tribes in the Elbe region, while the emigrants alone retained the name of Lombards. However, the "Codex Gothanus" states that the Lombards were subjected by the Saxons around 300 but rose up against them under their first king, Agelmund, who ruled for 30 years. In the second half of the fourth century, the Lombards left their homes, probably due to bad harvests, and embarked on their migration.


title: Lombards

text: The migration route of the Lombards in 489, from their homeland to "Rugiland", encompassed several places: "Scoringa" (believed to be their land on the Elbe shores), "Mauringa", "Golanda", "Anthaib", "Banthaib", and "Vurgundaib" ("Burgundaib"). According to the Ravenna Cosmography, Mauringa was the land east of the Elbe.


title: Lombards

text: The crossing into Mauringa was very difficult. The Assipitti (possibly the Usipetes) denied them passage through their lands and a fight was arranged for the strongest man of each tribe. The Lombard was victorious, passage was granted, and the Lombards reached Mauringa.


title: Lombards

text: The Lombards departed from Mauringa and reached Golanda. Scholar Ludwig Schmidt thinks this was further east, perhaps on the right bank of the Oder. Schmidt considers the name the equivalent of Gotland, meaning simply "good land". This theory is highly plausible; Paul the Deacon mentions the Lombards crossing a river, and they could have reached "Rugiland" from the Upper Oder area via the Moravian Gate.


title: Lombards

text: Moving out of Golanda, the Lombards passed through Anthaib and Banthaib until they reached Vurgundaib, believed to be the old lands of the Burgundes. In Vurgundaib, the Lombards were stormed in camp by "Bulgars" (probably Huns) and were defeated; King Agelmund was killed and Laimicho was made king. He was in his youth and desired to avenge the slaughter of Agelmund. The Lombards themselves were probably made subjects of the Huns after the defeat but rose up and defeated them with great slaughter, gaining great booty and confidence as they "became bolder in undertaking the toils of war." During the reign of King Claffo, the Langobards occupied parts of modern-day Upper and Lower Austria and converted to Arian Christianity. In 505 the Herulians attacked and defeated them, obliging them to pay tax and withdraw to Northern Bohemia. In 508, King Rodulf sent his brother to the Lombard court to collect tribute and extend the truce, however he was stabbed by Rometrud, sister of King Tato. Rodulf personally led his forces against Tato, but was ambushed and killed from a hill.


title: Lombards

text: In the 540s, Audoin (ruled 546–560) led the Lombards across the Danube once more into Pannonia. Thurisind, King of the Gepids attempted to expel them, and both peoples asked for help from the Byzantines. Justinian I sent his army against the Gepids, however it was routed on the way by the Herulians and the sides signed a two-year truce. Revenging what he felt as a betrayal, Thurisind made an alliance with the Kutrigurs who devastated Moesia before end of the armistice. The Langobard and Roman army joined together and defeated the Gepids in 551. In the battle, Audoin's son, Alboin killed Thurisind's son, Turismod.


title: Lombards

text: In 552, the Byzantines, aided by a large contingent of Foederati, notably Lombards, Heruls and Bulgars, defeated the last Ostrogoths led by Teia in the Battle of Taginae.


title: Lombards

text: In approximately 560, Audoin was succeeded by his son Alboin, a young and energetic leader who defeated the neighboring Gepidae and made them his subjects; in 566, he married Rosamund, daughter of the Gepid king Cunimund. In the same year, he made a pact with Khagan Bayan. Next year the Lombards and the Avars destroyed the Gepid kingdom in the Lombard-Gepid War, the allies halved the prize of war and the nomads settled in Transylvania. In the spring of 568, Alboin, now fearing the aggressive Avars, led the Lombard migration into Italy, which he planned for years. According to the "History of the Lombards," "Then the Langobards, having left Pannonia, hastened to take possession of Italy with their wives and children and all their goods." The Avars have agreed to give them shelter if they wish to come back.


title: Lombards

text: Various other peoples who either voluntarily joined or were subjects of King Alboin were also part of the migration. Whence, even until today, we call the villages in which they dwell Gepidan, Bulgarian, Sarmatian, Pannonian, Suabian, Norican, or by other names of this kind." At least 20,000 Saxon warriors, old allies of the Lombards, and their families joined them in their new migration.


title: Lombards

text: The first important city to fall was "Forum Iulii" (Cividale del Friuli) in northeastern Italy, in 569. There, Alboin created the first Lombard duchy, which he entrusted to his nephew Gisulf. Soon Vicenza, Verona and Brescia fell into Germanic hands. In the summer of 569, the Lombards conquered the main Roman centre of northern Italy, Milan. The area was then recovering from the terrible Gothic Wars, and the small Byzantine army left for its defence could do almost nothing. Longinus, the Exarch sent to Italy by Emperor Justin II, could only defend coastal cities that could be supplied by the powerful Byzantine fleet. Pavia fell after a siege of three years, in 572, becoming the first capital city of the new Lombard kingdom of Italy.In the following years, the Lombards penetrated further south, conquering Tuscany and establishing two duchies, Spoleto and Benevento under Zotto, which soon became semi-independent and even outlasted the northern kingdom, surviving well into the 12th century. Wherever they went, they were joined by the Ostrogothic population, which was allowed to live peacefully in Italy with their Rugian allies under Roman sovereignty. The Byzantines managed to retain control of the area of Ravenna and Rome, linked by a thin corridor running through Perugia.


title: Lombards

text: When they entered Italy, some Lombards retained their native form of paganism, while some were Arian Christians. Hence they did not enjoy good relations with the Early Christian Church. Gradually, they adopted Roman or Romanized titles, names, and traditions, and partially converted to orthodoxy (in the seventh century), though not without a long series of religious and ethnic conflicts. By the time Paul the Deacon was writing, the Lombard language, dress and even hairstyles had nearly all disappeared "in toto".


title: Lombards

text: The whole Lombard territory was divided into 36 duchies, whose leaders settled in the main cities. The king ruled over them and administered the land through emissaries called "gastaldi". This subdivision, however, together with the independent indocility of the duchies, deprived the kingdom of unity, making it weak even when compared to the Byzantines, especially since these had begun to recover from the initial invasion. This weakness became even more evident when the Lombards had to face the increasing power of the Franks. In response, the kings tried to centralize power over time, but they definitively lost control over Spoleto and Benevento in the attempt.


title: Lombards

text: In 572, Alboin was murdered in Verona in a plot led by his wife, Rosamund, who later fled to Ravenna. His successor, Cleph, was also assassinated, after a ruthless reign of 18 months. His death began an interregnum of years (the "Rule of the Dukes") during which the dukes did not elect any king, a period regarded as a time of violence and disorder. In 586, threatened by a Frankish invasion, the dukes elected Cleph's son, Authari, as king. In 589, he married Theodelinda, daughter of Garibald I of Bavaria, the Duke of Bavaria. The Catholic Theodelinda was a friend of Pope Gregory I and pushed for Christianization. In the meantime, Authari embarked on a policy of internal reconciliation and tried to reorganize royal administration. The dukes yielded half their estates for the maintenance of the king and his court in Pavia. On the foreign affairs side, Authari managed to thwart the dangerous alliance between the Byzantines and the Franks.


title: Lombards

text: Authari died in 591 and was succeeded by Agilulf, the duke of Turin, who also married Theodelinda in the same year. Agilulf successfully fought the rebel dukes of northern Italy, conquering Padua in 601, Cremona and Mantua in 603, and forcing the Exarch of Ravenna to pay tribute. Agilulf died in 616; Theodelinda reigned alone until 628 when she was succeeded by Adaloald. Arioald, the head of the Arian opposition who had married Theodelinda's daughter Gundeperga, later deposed Adaloald.


title: Lombards

text: Arioald was succeeded by Rothari, regarded by many authorities as the most energetic of all Lombard kings. He extended his dominions, conquering Liguria in 643 and the remaining part of the Byzantine territories of inner Veneto, including the Roman city of "Opitergium" (Oderzo). Rothari also made the famous edict bearing his name, the "Edictum Rothari", which established the laws and the customs of his people in Latin: the edict did not apply to the tributaries of the Lombards, who could retain their own laws. Rothari's son Rodoald succeeded him in 652, still very young, and was killed by his opponents.


title: Lombards

text: At the death of King Aripert I in 661, the kingdom was split between his children Perctarit, who set his capital in Milan, and Godepert, who reigned from Pavia (Ticinum). Perctarit was overthrown by Grimoald, son of Gisulf, duke of Friuli and Benevento since 647. Perctarit fled to the Avars and then to the Franks. Grimoald managed to regain control over the duchies and deflected the late attempt of the Byzantine emperor Constans II to conquer southern Italy. He also defeated the Franks. At Grimoald's death in 671 Perctarit returned and promoted tolerance between Arians and Catholics, but he could not defeat the Arian party, led by Arachi, duke of Trento, who submitted only to his son, the philo-Catholic Cunincpert.


title: Lombards

text: The Lombards engaged in fierce battles with Slavic peoples during these years: from 623 to 626 the Lombards unsuccessfully attacked the Carantanians, and, in 663–64, the Slavs raided the Vipava Valley and the Friuli.


title: Lombards

text: Religious strife and the Slavic raids remained a source of struggle in the following years. In 705, the Friuli Lombards were defeated and lost the land to the west of the Soča River, namely the Gorizia Hills and the Venetian Slovenia. A new ethnic border was established that has lasted for over 1200 years up until the present time.


title: Lombards

text: The Lombard reign began to recover only with Liutprand the Lombard (king from 712), son of Ansprand and successor of the brutal Aripert II. He managed to regain a certain control over Spoleto and Benevento, and, taking advantage of the disagreements between the Pope and Byzantium concerning the reverence of icons, he annexed the Exarchate of Ravenna and the duchy of Rome. He also helped the Frankish marshal Charles Martel drive back the Arabs. The Slavs were defeated in the Battle of Lavariano, when they tried to conquer the Friulian Plain in 720. Liutprand's successor Aistulf conquered Ravenna for the Lombards for the first time but had to relinquish it when he was subsequently defeated by the king of the Franks, Pippin III, who was called by the Pope.


title: Lombards

text: After the death of Aistulf, Ratchis attempted to become king of Lombardy, but he was deposed by Desiderius, duke of Tuscany, the last Lombard to rule as king. Desiderius managed to take Ravenna definitively, ending the Byzantine presence in northern Italy. He decided to reopen struggles against the Pope, who was supporting the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento against him, and entered Rome in 772, the first Lombard king to do so. But when Pope Hadrian I called for help from the powerful Frankish king Charlemagne, Desiderius was defeated at Susa and besieged in Pavia, while his son Adelchis was forced to open the gates of Verona to Frankish troops. Desiderius surrendered in 774, and Charlemagne, in an utterly novel decision, took the title "King of the Lombards". Before then the Germanic kingdoms had frequently conquered each other, but none had adopted the title of King of another people. Charlemagne took part of the Lombard territory to create the Papal States.


title: Lombards

text: The Lombardy region in Italy, which includes the cities of Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, and the old capital Pavia, is a reminder of the presence of the Lombards.


title: Lombards

text: Though the kingdom centred on Pavia in the north fell to Charlemagne and the Franks in 774, the Lombard-controlled territory to the south of the Papal States was never subjugated by Charlemagne or his descendants. In 774, Duke Arechis II of Benevento, whose duchy had only nominally been under royal authority, though certain kings had been effective at making their power known in the south, claimed that Benevento was the successor state of the kingdom. He tried to turn Benevento into a "secundum Ticinum": a second Pavia. He tried to claim the kingship, but with no support and no chance of a coronation in Pavia.


title: Lombards

text: Charlemagne came down with an army, and his son Louis the Pious sent men, to force the Beneventan duke to submit, but his submission and promises were never kept and Arechis and his successors were "de facto" independent. The Beneventan dukes took the title "prínceps" (prince) instead of that of king.


title: Lombards

text: The Lombards of southern Italy were thereafter in the anomalous position of holding land claimed by two empires: the Carolingian Empire to the north and west and the Byzantine Empire to the east. They typically made pledges and promises of tribute to the Carolingians, but effectively remained outside Frankish control. Benevento meanwhile grew to its greatest extent yet when it imposed a tribute on the Duchy of Naples, which was tenuously loyal to Byzantium and even conquered the Neapolitan city of Amalfi in 838. At one point in the reign of Sicard, Lombard control covered most of southern Italy save the very south of Apulia and Calabria and Naples, with its nominally attached cities. It was during the ninth century that a strong Lombard presence became entrenched in formerly Greek Apulia. However, Sicard had opened up the south to the invasive actions of the Saracens in his war with Andrew II of Naples and when he was assassinated in 839, Amalfi declared independence and two factions fought for power in Benevento, crippling the principality and making it susceptible to external enemies.


title: Lombards

text: The civil war lasted ten years and ended with a peace treaty imposed in 849 by Emperor Louis II, the only Frankish king to exercise actual sovereignty over the Lombard states. The treaty divided the kingdom into two states: the Principality of Benevento and the Principality of Salerno, with its capital at Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea.


title: Lombards

text: Andrew II of Naples hired Islamic mercenaries and formed a Muslim-Christian alliance for his war with Sicard of Benevento in 836; Sicard responded with other Muslim mercenaries. The Saracens initially concentrated their attacks on Sicily and Byzantine Italy, but soon Radelchis I of Benevento called in more mercenaries, who destroyed Capua in 841. Landulf the Old founded the present-day Capua, "New Capua", on a nearby hill. In general, the Lombard princes were less inclined to ally with the Saracens than with their Greek neighbours of Amalfi, Gaeta, Naples, and Sorrento. Guaifer of Salerno, however, briefly put himself under Muslim suzerainty.


title: Lombards

text: In 847 a large Muslim force seized Bari, until then a Lombard gastaldate under the control of Pandenulf. Saracen incursions proceeded northwards until Adelchis of Benevento sought the help of his suzerain, Louis II, who allied with the Byzantine emperor Basil I in an effort to expel the Arabs from Bari in 869. An Arab landing force was defeated by the emperor in 871. Adelchis and Louis remained at war until the death of Louis in 875. Adelchis regarded himself as the true successor of the Lombard kings, and in that capacity he amended the "Edictum Rothari", the last Lombard ruler to do so.


title: Lombards

text: After the death of Louis, Landulf II of Capua briefly flirted with a Saracen alliance, but Pope John VIII convinced him to break it off. Guaimar I of Salerno fought the Saracens with Byzantine troops. Throughout this period the Lombard princes swung in allegiance from one party to another. Finally, towards 915, Pope John X managed to unite the Christian princes of southern Italy against the Saracen establishments on the Garigliano river. The Saracens were ousted from Italy in the Battle of the Garigliano in 915.


title: Lombards

text: The independent state of Salerno inspired the gastalds of Capua to move towards independence, and by the end of the century they were styling themselves "princes" and as a third Lombard state. The Capuan and Beneventan states were united by Atenulf I of Capua in 900. He subsequently declared them to be in perpetual union, and they were separated only in 982, on the death of Pandulf Ironhead. With all of the Lombard south under his control, except Salerno, Atenulf felt safe to use the title "Princeps Gentis Langobardorum" ("prince of the Lombard people"), which Arechis II had begun using in 774. Among Atenulf's successors the principality was ruled jointly by fathers, sons, brothers, cousins, and uncles for the greater part of the century. Meanwhile, the prince Gisulf I of Salerno began using the title "Langobardorum Gentis Princeps" around mid-century, but the ideal of a united Lombard principality was realised only in December 977, when Gisulf died and his domains were inherited by Pandulf Ironhead, who temporarily held almost all Italy south of Rome and brought the Lombards into alliance with the Holy Roman Empire. His territories were divided upon his death.


title: Lombards

text: Landulf the Red of Benevento and Capua tried to conquer the principality of Salerno with the help of John III of Naples, but with the aid of Mastalus I of Amalfi, Gisulf repulsed him. The rulers of Benevento and Capua made several attempts on Byzantine Apulia at this time, but late in the century, the Byzantines, under the stiff rule of Basil II, gained ground on the Lombards.


title: Lombards

text: The principal source for the history of the Lombard principalities in this period is the "Chronicon Salernitanum", composed late in the tenth century at Salerno.


title: Lombards

text: The diminished Beneventan principality soon lost its independence to the papacy and declined in importance until it fell in the Norman conquest of southern Italy. The Normans, first called in by the Lombards to fight the Byzantines for control of Apulia and Calabria (under the likes of Melus of Bari and Arduin, among others), had become rivals for hegemony in the south. The Salernitan principality experienced a golden age under Guaimar III and Guaimar IV, but under Gisulf II, the principality shrank to insignificance and fell in 1078 to Robert Guiscard, who had married Gisulf's sister Sichelgaita. The Capua principality was hotly contested during the reign of the hated Pandulf IV, the "Wolf of the Abruzzi", and, under his son, it fell, almost without contest, to the Norman Richard Drengot (1058). The Capuans revolted against Norman rule in 1091, expelling Richard's grandson Richard II and setting up one Lando IV.


title: Lombards

text: Capua was again put under Norman rule after the Siege of Capua of 1098 and the city quickly declined in importance under a series of ineffective Norman rulers. The independent status of these Lombard states is in general attested by the ability of their rulers to switch suzerains at will. Often the legal vassal of the pope or the emperor (either Byzantine or Holy Roman), they were the real power-brokers in the south until their erstwhile allies, the Normans, rose to preeminence. The Lombards regarded the Normans as barbarians and the Byzantines as oppressors. Regarding their own civilisation as superior, the Lombards did indeed provide the environment for the illustrious Schola Medica Salernitana.


title: Lombards

text: A genetic study published in "Nature Communications" in September 2018 found strong genetic similarities between Lombards of Italy and earlier Lombards of Central Europe. The Lombards of Central Europe displayed no genetic similarities with earlier populations of this region, but were on the other hand strikingly similar genetically to Bronze Age Scandinavians. Lombard males were primarily carriers of subclades of haplogroup R1b and I2a2a1, both of which are common among Germanic peoples. Lombard males were found to be more genetically homogenous than Lombard females. The evidence suggested that the Lombards originated in Northern Europe, and were a patriarchal people who settled Central Europe and then later Italy through a migration from the north.


title: Lombards

text: A genetic study published in "Science Advances" in September 2018 examined the remains of a Lombard male buried at an Alemannic graveyard. He was found to be a carrier of the paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1c2b2b and the maternal haplogroup H65a. The graveyard also included the remains of a Frankish and a Byzantine male, both of whom were also carriers of subclades of the paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a1. The Lombard, Frankish and Byzantine males were all found to be closely related, and displayed close genetic links to Northern Europe, particularly Lithuania and Iceland.


title: Lombards

text: A genetic study published in the "European Journal of Human Genetics" in January 2019 examined the mtDNA of a large number of early medieval Lombard remains from Central Europe and Italy. These individuals were found to be closely related and displayed strong genetic links to Northern Europe. The evidence suggested that the Lombard settlement of Italy was the result of a migration from the north involving both males and females.


title: Lombards

text: The Lombardic language is extinct (unless Cimbrian and Mocheno represent surviving dialects). It declined beginning in the seventh century, but may have been in scattered use until as late as about the year 1000. Only fragments of the language have survived, the main evidence being individual words quoted in Latin texts. In the absence of Lombardic texts, it is not possible to draw any conclusions about the language's morphology and syntax. The genetic classification of the language depends entirely on phonology. Since there is evidence that Lombardic participated in, and indeed shows some of the earliest evidence for, the High German consonant shift, it is usually classified as an Elbe Germanic or Upper German dialect.


title: Lombards

text: Lombardic fragments are preserved in runic inscriptions. Primary source texts include short inscriptions in the Elder Futhark, among them the "bronze capsule of Schretzheim" (c. 600) and the silver belt buckle found in Pforzen, Ostallgäu (Schwaben). A number of Latin texts include Lombardic names, and Lombardic legal texts contain terms taken from the legal vocabulary of the vernacular. In 2005, Emilia Denčeva argued that the inscription of the Pernik sword may be Lombardic.


title: Lombards

text: The Italian language preserves a large number of Lombardic words, although it is not always easy to distinguish them from other Germanic borrowings such as those from Gothic or from Frankish. They often bear some resemblance to English words, as Lombardic was akin to Old Saxon. For instance, "landa" from "land", "guardia" from "wardan" (warden), "guerra" from "werra" (war), "ricco" from "rikki" (rich), and "guadare" from "wadjan" (to wade).


title: Lombards

text: The "Codice diplomatico longobardo", a collection of legal documents, makes reference to many Lombardic terms, some of them still in use in the Italian language:


title: Lombards

text: "barba" (beard), "marchio" (mark), "maniscalco" (blacksmith), "aia" (courtyard), "braida" (suburban meadow), "borgo" (burg, village), "fara" (fundamental unity of Lombard social and military organization, presently used as toponym), "picco" (peak, mountain top, also used as toponym), "sala" (hall, room, also used as toponym), "staffa" (stirrup), "stalla" (stable), "sculdascio", "faida" (feud), "manigoldo" (scoundrel), "sgherro" (henchman); "fanone" (baleen), "stamberga" (hovel); "anca" (hip), "guancia" (cheek), "nocca" (knuckle), "schiena" (back); "gazza" (magpie), "martora" (marten); "gualdo" (wood, presently used as toponym), "pozza" (pool); verbs like "bussare" (to knock), "piluccare" (to peck), "russare" (to snore).


title: Lombards

text: During their stay at the mouth of the Elbe, the Lombards came into contact with other western Germanic populations, such as the Saxons and the Frisians. From these populations, which had long been in contact with the Celts (especially the Saxons), they adopted a rigid social organization into castes, rarely present in other Germanic peoples.


title: Lombards

text: The Lombard kings can be traced back as early as c. 380 and thus to the beginning of the Great Migration. Kingship developed among the Germanic peoples when the unity of a single military command was found necessary. Schmidt believed that the Germanic tribes were divided into cantons and that the earliest government was a general assembly that selected canton chiefs and war leaders in times of conflict. All such figures were probably selected from a caste of nobility. As a result of the wars of their wanderings, royal power developed such that the king became the representative of the people, but the influence of the people on the government did not fully disappear. Paul the Deacon gives an account of the Lombard tribal structure during the migration:


title: Lombards

text: . . . in order that they might increase the number of their warriors, [the Lombards] confer liberty upon many whom they deliver from the yoke of bondage, and that the freedom of these may be regarded as established, they confirm it in their accustomed way by an arrow, uttering certain words of their country in confirmation of the fact.


title: Lombards

text: Lombard society was divided into classes comparable to those found in the other Germanic successor states of Rome, Frankish Gaul and Spain under the Visigoths. There was a noble class, a class of free persons beneath them, a class of unfree non-slaves (serfs), and finally slaves. The aristocracy itself was poorer, more urbanised, and less landed than elsewhere. Aside from the richest and most powerful of the dukes and the king himself, Lombard noblemen tended to live in cities (unlike their Frankish counterparts) and hold little more than twice as much in land as the merchant class (a far cry from provincial Frankish aristocrats who held vast swathes of land, hundreds of times larger than those beneath his status). The aristocracy by the eighth century was highly dependent on the king for means of income related especially to judicial duties: many Lombard nobles are referred to in contemporary documents as "iudices" (judges) even when their offices had important military and legislative functions as well.


title: Lombards

text: The freemen of the Lombard kingdom were far more numerous than in Frankish lands, especially in the eighth century, when they are almost invisible in surviving documentary evidence. Smallholders, owner-cultivators, and rentiers are the most numerous types of person in surviving diplomata for the Lombard kingdom. They may have owned more than half of the land in Lombard Italy. The freemen were "exercitales" and "viri devoti", that is, soldiers and "devoted men" (a military term like "retainers"); they formed the levy of the Lombard army, and they were sometimes, if infrequently, called to serve, though this seems not to have been their preference. The small landed class, however, lacked the political influence necessary with the king (and the dukes) to control the politics and legislation of the kingdom. The aristocracy was more thoroughly powerful politically if not economically in Italy than in contemporary Gaul and Spain.


title: Lombards

text: The urbanisation of Lombard Italy was characterised by the (or "city as islands"). It appears from archaeology that the great cities of Lombard Italy—Pavia, Lucca, Siena, Arezzo, Milan—were themselves formed of small urban cores within the old Roman city walls. The cities of the Roman Empire had been partially destroyed in the series of wars of the fifth and sixth centuries. Many sectors were left in ruins and ancient monuments became fields of grass used as pastures for animals, thus the Roman Forum became the "Campo Vaccino", the field of cows. The portions of the cities that remained intact were small, modest, contained a cathedral or major church (often sumptuously decorated), and a few public buildings and townhouses of the aristocracy. Few buildings of importance were stone, most were wood. In the end, the inhabited parts of the cities were separated from one another by stretches of pasture even within the city walls.


title: Lombards

text: The legend from Origo may hint that initially, before the passage from Scandinavia to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, the Lombards worshiped the Vanir. Later, in contact with other Germanic populations, they adopted the worship of the Æsir: an evolution that marked the passage from the adoration of deities related to fertility and the earth to the cult of warlike gods.


title: Lombards

text: In chapter 40 of his "Germania", Roman historian Tacitus, discussing the Suebian tribes of Germania, writes that the Lombards were one of the Suebian tribes united in worship of the deity Nerthus, who is often identified with the Norse goddess Freyja. The other tribes were the Reudigni, Aviones, Anglii, Varini, Eudoses, Suarines and Nuitones.


title: Lombards

text: St. Barbatus of Benevento observed many pagan rituals and traditions among the Lombards authorised by the Duke Romuald, son of King Grimoald:


title: Lombards

text: The Lombards first adopted Christianity while still in Pannonia, but their conversion and Christianisation was largely nominal and far from complete. During the reign of Wacho, they were Orthodox Catholics allied with the Byzantine Empire, but Alboin converted to Arianism as an ally of the Ostrogoths and invaded Italy. All these Christian conversions primarily affected the aristocracy, while the common people remained pagan.


title: Lombards

text: In Italy, the Lombards were intensively Christianised, and the pressure to convert to Catholicism was great. With the Bavarian queen Theodelinda, a Catholic, the monarchy was brought under heavy Catholic influence. After initial support for the anti-Rome party in the Schism of the Three Chapters, Theodelinda remained a close contact and supporter of Pope Gregory I. In 603, Adaloald, the heir to the throne, received Catholic baptism. However, the lack of spiritual involvement of most of the Lombards in religious disputes remained constant, so much so that the opposition between Catholics, on the one hand, and pagans, Arians and schismatics, on the other, soon took on political significance. The supporters of Roman orthodoxy, led by the Bavarian dynasty, were politically the proponents of greater integration with the Romans, accompanied by a strategy of preserving the status quo with the Byzantines. Arians, pagans and schismatics, rooted above all in the north-eastern regions of the kingdom (Austria), were instead interpreters of the preservation of the warlike and aggressive spirit of the people. Thus, to the "pro-Catholic" phase of Agilulf, Theodolinda and Adaloald followed, from 626 (Arioald's accession to the throne) to 690 (definitive defeat of the rebel Alahis), a long phase of revival of Arianism, embodied by militarily aggressive kings like Rothari and Grimoald. However, tolerance towards Catholics was never questioned by the various kings, also safeguarded by the influential contribution of the respective queens (largely chosen, for reasons of dynastic legitimacy, among the Catholic princesses of the Bavarian dynasty).


title: Lombards

text: In the seventh century, the nominally Christian aristocracy of Benevento was still practising pagan rituals such as sacrifices in "sacred" woods. By the end of the reign of Cunincpert, however, the Lombards were more or less completely Catholicised. Under Liutprand Catholicism became tangible as the king sought to justify his title "rex totius Italiae" by uniting the south of the peninsula with the north, thereby bringing together his Italo-Roman and Germanic subjects into one Catholic State.


title: Lombards

text: The Duchy and eventually Principality of Benevento in southern Italy developed a unique Christian rite in the seventh and eighth centuries. The Beneventan rite is more closely related to the liturgy of the Ambrosian rite than to the Roman rite. The Beneventan rite has not survived in its complete form, although most of the principal feasts and several feasts of local significance are extant. The Beneventan rite appears to have been less complete, less systematic, and more liturgically flexible than the Roman rite.


title: Lombards

text: Characteristic of this rite was the Beneventan chant, a Lombard-influenced chant that bore similarities to the Ambrosian chant of Milan. The Beneventan chant is largely defined by its role in the liturgy of the Beneventan rite; many Beneventan chants were assigned multiple roles when inserted into Gregorian chantbooks, appearing variously as antiphons, offertories, and communions, for example. It was eventually supplanted by the Gregorian chant in the 11th century.


title: Lombards

text: The chief centre of the Beneventan chant was Montecassino, one of the first and greatest abbeys of Western monasticism. Gisulf II of Benevento had donated a large swathe of land to Montecassino in 744, and that became the basis for an important state, the "Terra Sancti Benedicti", which was a subject only to Rome. The Cassinese influence on Christianity in southern Italy was immense. Montecassino was also the starting point for another characteristic of Beneventan monasticism, the use of the distinct Beneventan script, a clear, angular script derived from the Roman cursive as used by the Lombards.


title: Lombards

text: During their nomadic phase, the Lombards primarily created art that was easily carried with them, like arms and jewellery. Though relatively little of this has survived, it bears resemblance to the similar endeavours of other Germanic tribes of northern and central Europe from the same era.


title: Lombards

text: The first major modifications to the Germanic style of the Lombards came in Pannonia and especially in Italy, under the influence of local, Byzantine, and Christian styles. The conversions from nomadism and paganism to settlement and Christianity also opened up new arenas of artistic expression, such as architecture (especially churches) and its accompanying decorative arts (such as frescoes).


title: Lombards

text: Few Lombard buildings have survived. Most have been lost, rebuilt, or renovated at some point, so they preserve little of their original Lombard structure. Lombard architecture was well-studied in the 20th century, and the four-volume "Lombard Architecture" (1919) by Arthur Kingsley Porter is a "monument of illustrated history".


title: Lombards

text: The small Oratorio di Santa Maria in Valle in Cividale del Friuli is probably one of the oldest preserved examples of Lombard architecture, as Cividale was the first Lombard city in Italy. Parts of Lombard constructions have been preserved in Pavia (San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, crypts of Sant'Eusebio and San Giovanni Domnarum) and Monza (cathedral). The "Basilic autariana" in Fara Gera d'Adda near Bergamo and the church of San Salvatore in Brescia also have Lombard elements. All these buildings are in northern Italy (Langobardia major), but by far the best-preserved Lombard structure is in southern Italy (Langobardia minor). The Church of Santa Sofia in Benevento was erected in 760 by Duke Arechis II, and it preserves Lombard frescoes on the walls and even Lombard capitals on the columns.


title: Lombards

text: Lombard architecture flourished under the impulse provided by the Catholic monarchs like Theodelinda, Liutprand, and Desiderius to the foundation of monasteries to further their political control. Bobbio Abbey was founded during this time.


title: Lombards

text: Some of the late Lombard structures of the ninth and tenth centuries have been found to contain elements of style associated with Romanesque architecture and so have been dubbed "first Romanesque". These edifices are considered, along with some similar buildings in southern France and Catalonia, to mark a transitory phase between the Pre-Romanesque and full-fledged Romanesque.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Rahul Dev Burman (27 June 1939 – 4 January 1994) was an Indian music director who is considered one of the most influential composers of India. From the 1960s to the 1990s, Burman composed musical scores for 331 films. Burman did major work with his wife, Asha Bhosle, and Kishore Kumar and scored many of the songs that made these singers famous. He also worked extensively and scored approximately 331 songs including some of the most memorable numbers in his career for his sister-in-law, Lata Mangeshkar. Nicknamed Pancham, he was the only son of the composer Sachin Dev Burman.


title: R. D. Burman

text: He was mainly active in the Hindi film industry as a composer, and also provided vocals for a few compositions. He served as an influence to the next generation of Indian music directors, and his songs continue to be popular in India and overseas.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman was born to the Hindi film composer and singer, Sachin Dev Burman, and his lyricist wife Meera Dev Burman (née Dasgupta), in Calcutta. Initially, he was nicknamed Tublu by his maternal grandmother, although he later became known by the nickname Pancham. According to some stories, he was nicknamed "Pancham" because, as a child, whenever he cried, it sounded in the fifth note ("Pa"), G scale, of music notation; in Hindustani Classical Music, "Pancham" is the name of the fifth scale degree: (IAST: Ṣaḍja, Ṛṣabha, Gandhāra, Madhyama, Pañcama, Dhaivata, Niṣāda). Another theory says that the baby was nicknamed Pancham because he could cry in five different notes. Yet another version is that when the veteran Indian actor Ashok Kumar saw a newborn Rahul uttering the syllable "Pa" repeatedly, he nicknamed the boy "Pancham".


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman received his early education in West Bengal from Tirthapati Institution in Kolkata. His father S. D. Burman was a noted music director in Hindi language films, the Mumbai-based Hindi film industry. When he was seventeen years old, R. D. Burman composed his first song, "Aye meri topi palat ke aa", which his father used in the film "Funtoosh" (1956). The tune of the song "Sar jo tera chakraaye" was also composed by him as a child; his father included it in the soundtrack of Guru Dutt's "Pyaasa" (1957).


title: R. D. Burman

text: In Mumbai, Burman was trained by Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (sarod) and Samta Prasad (tabla). He also considered Salil Chowdhury his guru. He served as an assistant to his father and often played harmonica in his orchestras.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Some of the notable films in which Burman is credited as the music assistant include "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi" (1958), "Kaagaz Ke Phool" (1959), "Tere Ghar Ke Samne" (1963), "Bandini" (1963), "Ziddi" (1964), "Guide" (1965) and "Teen Devian" (1965). Burman also played mouth organ for his father's hit composition "Hai Apna Dil To Aawara", which was featured in the film "Solva Saal", and sung by Hemanta Mukhopadhyay.


title: R. D. Burman

text: In 1959, Burman signed up as a music director for the film "Raaz", directed by Guru Dutt's assistant Niranjan. However, the film was never completed. The lyrics of this Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman-starrer film were written by Shailendra. Burman recorded two songs for the film before it was shelved. The first song was sung by Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle, and the second one had vocals by Shamshad Begum.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman's first released film as an independent music director was "Chhote Nawab" (1961). When the noted Hindi film comedian Mehmood decided to produce "Chhote Nawab", he first approached Burman's father Sachin Dev Burman for the music. However, S. D. Burman declined the offer, advising he was unavailable. At this meeting, Mehmood noticed Rahul playing tabla, and signed him as the music director for "Chhote Nawab". Burman later developed a close association with Mehmood, and made a cameo in Mehmood's "Bhoot Bangla" (1965).


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman's first hit film as a film music director was "Teesri Manzil" (1966). Burman gave credit to lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri for recommending him to Nasir Hussain, the producer and writer of the film. Vijay Anand also said that he had arranged a music session for Burman before Nasir Hussain. "Teesri Manzil" had six songs, all of which were written by Majrooh Sultanpuri, and sung by Mohammed Rafi. Four of these were duets with Asha Bhosle, whom Burman later married. Nasir Hussain went on to sign Burman and lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri for six of his films including "Baharon Ke Sapne" (1967), "Pyar Ka Mausam" (1969) and "Yaadon Ki Baaraat" (1973). Burman's score for "Padosan" (1968) was well received. Meanwhile, he continued to work as his father's assistant for films including "Jewel Thief" (1967) and "Prem Pujari" (1970).


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman's first wife was Rita Patel, whom he had met in Darjeeling. Rita, a fan, had bet her friends that she would be able to get a film-date with Burman. The two married in 1966, and divorced in 1971. The song "Musafir Hoon Yaaron" ("I'm a Traveller") from "Parichay" (1972) was composed while he was at a hotel after the separation.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman married Asha Bhosle in 1980. Together, they recorded many hit songs and also staged many live performances. However, towards the end of his life, they did not live together. Burman had financial difficulties, particularly later in his life. His mother Meera died in 2007, thirteen years after his death. She had been suffering from Alzheimer's even before her son's death. Just before her death she had been moved to an old age home, and moved back to her son's residence after the issue became a controversy.


title: R. D. Burman

text: In the 1970s, Burman became highly popular with the Kishore Kumar songs in Rajesh Khanna-starrer films. "Kati Patang" (1970), a musical hit, was the beginning of a series of the 1970s films directed by Shakti Samanta of "Aradhana" fame. Its songs "Yeh Shaam Mastani" and "Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai", sung by Kishore Kumar, became instant hits. Apart from Kishore Kumar, Burman also composed several of the popular songs sung by Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhosle.


title: R. D. Burman

text: In 1970, Burman composed the music for Dev Anand's "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" (1971). The Asha Bhosle song "Dum Maro Dum" from this film proved to be a seminal rock number in Hindi film music. The filmmaker Dev Anand did not include the complete version of "Dum Maro Dum" in the film, because he was worried that the song would overshadow the film. In the same year, Burman composed the music for "Amar Prem". The Lata Mangeshkar song "Raina Beeti Jaaye" from this soundtrack is regarded as a classical music gem in Hindi film music. Burman's other hits in 1971 included the romantic song "Raat kali ek khwab mein" from "Buddha Mil Gaya" and the Helen-starrer cabaret song "Piya Tu Ab To Aaja" from "Caravan". He received his first Filmfare Award nomination for "Caravan".


title: R. D. Burman

text: In 1972, Burman composed music for several films, including "Seeta Aur Geeta", "Rampur Ka Lakshman", "Mere Jeevan Saathi", "Bombay To Goa", "Apna Desh" and "Parichay". His success continued with hits such as "Yaadon Ki Baaraat" (1973), "Aap Ki Kasam" (1974), "Sholay" (1975) and "Aandhi" (1975). He also composed a song for a small documentary film called "Maa Ki Pukaar", in 1975. After his father S. D. Burman went into coma, Burman also completed the music of "Mili" (1975).


title: R. D. Burman

text: Mohammed Rafi received the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer for the song "Kya Hua Tera Wada" from "Hum Kisise Kum Naheen " (1977), composed by Burman. He continued to compose several popular songs for films such as "Kasme Vaade" (1978), "Ghar" (1978), "Gol Maal" (1979) and "Khubsoorat" (1980). He received his first Filmfare Best Music Director Award for "Sanam Teri Kasam" (1981). In 1981, he also composed hit music for "Rocky", "Satte Pe Satta" and "Love Story".


title: R. D. Burman

text: Abhijeet was given his major break by Burman in "Anand Aur Anand" (1984). Although he made his debut a long time ago, Hariharan was first noticed in a duet with Kavita Krishnamurthy in "Hai Mubarak Aaj ka Din" from "Boxer" (1984), which was composed by Burman. In 1985, Mohammed Aziz made his debut with "Shiva Ka Insaaf" (1985) under Burman.


title: R. D. Burman

text: The trio Kishore Kumar-Rajesh Khanna-R.D.Burman have worked together in 32 films, and these films and songs continue to be popular till date. The trio were close friends. R.D.Burman composed for 40 films for Rajesh Khanna.


title: R. D. Burman

text: During the late 1980s, he was overshadowed by Bappi Lahiri and other disco music composers. Many filmmakers stopped patronizing him, as films featuring his compositions flopped at the box office one after the other. Nasir Hussain, who had signed him up for every single one of his productions since "Teesri Manzil" (1966), did not sign him up for "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak" (1988). Hussain defended Burman in the press, saying that the latter did not give weak music in "Zamane Ko Dikhana Hai" (1982) and "Manzil Manzil" (1984). He also said that the composer was going through a lean phase during the recording of "Zabardast" (1985). But after these three films flopped, Hussain stepped down as a director, and his son and successor Mansoor Khan switched to other composers. The filmmaker Subhash Ghai promised Burman "Ram Lakhan" (1989), but gave it instead to Laxmikant–Pyarelal.


title: R. D. Burman

text: In 1986, Burman composed songs for "Ijaazat"; the score is regarded as one of his best. However, the film belonged to the Parallel Cinema genre of (art films), so it did not stop the decline of Burman's commercial film career. All four songs in "Ijaazat" were sung by Asha Bhosle and written by Gulzar. Burman was greatly appreciated by the critics for setting the non-rhyming lyrics of the song "Mera Kuchh Saamaan" to music. While both Asha Bhosle (Best Female Playback) and Gulzar (Best Lyrics) received National Awards for the score, Burman received none.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman suffered from a heart attack in 1988, and underwent heart bypass surgery a year later at The Princess Grace Hospital in London. During this period, he composed many tunes, which were never released. He composed music for Vidhu Vinod Chopra's film "Parinda" in 1989. He composed one song called "Chhod Ke Na Jaana" which was sung by Asha Bhosle for the film "Gang". But since the film took too long to release and due to his untimely death, director Mazhar Khan signed in the then little known Anu Malik for the music of the film. The film got released later in 2000, even after Mazhar Khan died."Thenmavin Kombath", a Malayalam film by Priyadarshan was the last film he signed, but he died before he could score for the film. The music of "" (1994), which was released after his death, was highly successful. It posthumously won him the third and last of his Filmfare Awards. As per Lata Mangeshkar, he died too young and unhappy.


title: R. D. Burman

text: R. D. Burman was a prolific contributor to the Bengali tradition of composing songs for the Durga Puja festival, many of which he later adapted for Hindi films. This includes hit songs such as "Meri bheegi bheegi si" from the film Anamika, "Pyar diwaana hota hai" from Kati Patang and "Tere bina zindagi se koi" from Aandhi. Even there was a sequel to the song "Phire eso Anuradha" sung by himself. However, the sequel had Asha Bhosle's vocals too "Phire Elam Dure Giye". Both versions were superhits.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman has been credited with revolutionizing Hindi film music. He incorporated a wide range of influences from several genres in his scores though his primary inspiration was Bengali folk. Burman's career coincided with the rise of Rajesh Khanna-starrer youth love stories. He made electronic rock popular in these popular love stories. He often mixed disco and rock elements with Bengali folk music. He also used jazz elements, which had been introduced to him by the studio pianist Kersi Lord.


title: R. D. Burman

text: According to Douglas Wolk, Burman "wrapped sugary string swoops around as many ideas as he could squeeze in at once". Biswarup Sen describes his popular music as one featuring multicultural influences, and characterized by "frenetic pacing, youthful exuberance and upbeat rhythms".


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman was influenced by Western, Latin, Oriental and Arabic music, and incorporated elements from these in his own music. He also experimented with different musical sounds produced from methods such as rubbing sandpaper and knocking bamboo sticks together. He blew into beer bottles to produce the opening beats of "Mehbooba, Mehbooba". Similarly, he used cups and saucers to create the tinkling sound for the song "Chura Liya Hai" from the film "Yaadon Ki Baaraat" (1973). For "Satte Pe Satta" (1982), he made the singer Annette Pinto gargle to produce a background sound. He also rubbed a comb on a rough surface to produce a whooshing sound in the song "Meri Samne Wali Khidki Main" from the film "Padosan" (1968)


title: R. D. Burman

text: On multiple occasions, Burman experimented with recording the same song with different singers. For "Kudrat" (1981), he recorded the light semi-classical version of the song "Hume tumse pyar kitna" in the voice of Kishore Kumar, while the classical version was recorded in the voice of Parveen Sultana.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman sometimes used Western dance music as a source of inspiration for his compositions. As was common in Hindi films, some of his songs featured the tunes of popular foreign songs. Often, the filmmakers forced him to copy these tunes for the soundtracks, resulting in allegations of plagiarism. For example, Ramesh Sippy insisted that the tune of the traditional Cyprus song "Say You Love Me" (arranged and sung by Demis Roussos) be used for "Mehbooba Mehbooba" ("Sholay", 1975), and Nasir Hussain wanted to use ABBA's "Mamma Mia" for "Mil gaya hum ko sathi". Other examples of Burman songs inspired by foreign songs including "Aao twist karein" from "Bhoot Bangla" (Chubby Checker's "Let's twist again"), "Tumse milke" (Leo Sayer's "When I Need You"), and "Zindagi milke bitaayenge" (Paul Anka's "The Longest Day") and "Jahan teri yeh nazar hai" (Persian artist Zia Atabi's "Heleh maali") and "Dilbar mere" (Alexandra's "Zigeunerjunge").


title: R. D. Burman

text: Several Hindi films made after Burman's death contain his original songs or their remixed versions. "Dil Vil Pyar Vyar" (2002), which contains several re-arranged hit songs of Burman, was made as a tribute to him. "Jhankaar Beats" (2003), which catapulted the music director duo Vishal–Shekhar into the limelight, is also a tribute to him. In "Khwahish" (2003), Mallika Sherawat's character is a Burman fan; the film features repeated references to him. In 2010, Brahmanand Singh released a 113-minute documentary titled "Pancham Unmixed: Mujhe Chalte Jaana Hai", which received critical acclaim. The music of "Lootera" (2013) is a tribute to Burman. Other films which credit R. D. Burman include "Gang" (2000) and "Monsoon Wedding" (2001), for "Chura liya hai".


title: R. D. Burman

text: A number of Indian remix albums feature Burman's songs, which are also popular in the country's pubs and discos. Several of his compositions were re-mixed by the South Asian DJs in the United Kingdom and North America, and feature in popular albums such as Bally Sagoo's "Bollywood Flashback". Kronos Quartet's "You've Stolen My Heart" (2005) contains Burman's compositions sung by his wife Asha Bhosle. In the 2012 film "Khiladi 786", Himesh Reshammiya-composed song "Balma" is also a tribute to R.D. Burman.


title: R. D. Burman

text: In 1995, Filmfare Awards constituted the Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent in his memory. The award is given to upcoming music talent in Hindi cinema. In 2009, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation named a public square in Santa Cruz after Burman.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman inspired many later Hindi film music composers, such as Vishal–Shekhar. Jatin–Lalit are considered to have carried on Burman's legacy through the 1990s. Notable musical assistants to Burman include Manohari Singh and Sapan Chakraborty. His instrumentalists included Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Louis Banks, Bhupinder Singh and Kersi Lord. He is also noted for his partnership with the lyricist Gulzar, who wrote the words for several of his finest compositions.


title: R. D. Burman

text: "Pancham Unmixed", a winner of 2 National Awards, is a 113-minute biopic on Burman, directed by Brahmanand Singh. A postage stamp, bearing Burman's likeness was released by India Post to honour him on 3 May 2013.


title: R. D. Burman

text: In India, "Pancham Magic" from Pune and Euphony from Kolkata hosts shows most likely on 4th Jan and 27 June every year with musicians, artists or otherwise worked with Burman every year. Besides this many events are celebrated in various parts of India every now or then with new talents or people who worked with Burman.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Out of Burman's 331 released film scores, 292 were in Hindi, 31 in Bengali, 3 in Telugu, 2 each in Tamil and Oriya, and 1 in Marathi. Burman also composed for 5 TV Serials in Hindi and Marathi.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Pancham's non-film music comprises a few albums, including "Pantera" (1987), a Latin Rock album produced by Pete Gavankar (father of Janina Gavankar). The album was an international collaboration, for which Burman partnered with Jose Flores in San Francisco. In 1987, Burman, Gulzar and Asha Bhosle worked on an album titled "Dil Padosi Hai", which was released on 8 September 1987, Asha Bhosle's birthday. Burman and Asha Bhosle also recorded the song "Bow Down Mister" with Boy George. In addition, he scored a large number of non-film songs in Bengali, which are available in different albums, and from which many numbers were later adapted in Hindi films. Burman also did playback singing in eighteen films for which he himself composed the scores.


title: R. D. Burman

text: Burman laid the foundation for numerous Hindi film music directors to pave the path for the future of music in Hindi language cinema.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé Le Pew is an animated character from the Warner Bros. "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" series of cartoons, introduced in 1945. Depicted as a French striped skunk, Pepé is constantly on the quest for love. However, his offensive skunk odor and his aggressive pursuit of romance typically cause other characters to run away from him.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé Le Pew storylines typically involve Pepé in pursuit of a female black cat, whom Pepé mistakes for a skunk ("la belle femme skunk fatale"). The cat, who was retroactively named Penelope Pussycat, often has a white stripe painted down her back, usually by accident (such as by squeezing under a fence with wet white paint). Penelope frantically races to get away from him because of his putrid odor, his overly aggressive manner or both, while Pepé hops after her at a leisurely pace.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: The setting is always a mise-en-scène echoing with fractured French. They include Paris in the springtime, the Matterhorn, or the little village of N'est-ce Pas in the French Alps. The exotic locales, such as Algiers, are drawn from the story of the 1937 film "Pépé le Moko". Settings associated in popular culture with romance, such as the Champs-Élysées or the Eiffel Tower, are sometimes present. One episode was in the Sahara Desert, with Pepe seeking to work as a Legionnaire at a French military outpost.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé describes Penelope as lucky to be the object of his affections and uses a romantic paradigm to explain his failures to seduce her. For example, he describes a hammer blow to his head as a form of flirtation rather than rejection. Accordingly, he shows no sign of narcissistic injury or loss of confidence, no matter how many times he is rebuffed.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: In a role-reversal, the Academy Award-winning 1949 short "For Scent-imental Reasons" ended with an accidentally painted blue (and now terrified) Pepé being pursued by a madly smitten Penelope (who has been dunked in dirty water, leaving her with a ratty appearance and a developing head cold, completely clogging up her nose). It turns out that Pepé's new color is just right for her (plus the fact that the blue paint now covers his putrid scent). Penelope locks him up inside a perfume shop, hiding the key down her chest, and proceeds to chase the now-imprisoned and effectively odorless Pepé.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: In another short, "Little Beau Pepé", Pepé, attempting to find the most arousing cologne with which to impress Penelope, sprays a combination of perfumes and colognes upon himself. This resulted in something close to a love potion, leading Penelope to fall madly in love with Pepé in an explosion of hearts. Pepé is revealed to be extremely frightened of overly-affectionate women ("But Madame!"), much to his dismay, as Penelope quickly captures him and smothers him in more love than even "he" could imagine.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: And yet again, in "Really Scent", Pepé removes his odor by locking himself in a deodorant plant so Penelope (known in this short as 'Fabrette'; a black cat with an unfortunate marking) would like him (this is also the only episode that Pepé is acutely aware of his own odor, having checked the word "pew" in the dictionary). However, Penelope (who in this picture is actually "trying" to have a relationship with Pepé because all the male cats of New Orleans take her to be a skunk and run like blazes, but is appalled by his odor) had decided to make her own odor match her appearance and had locked herself in a Limburger cheese factory. Now more forceful and demanding, Penelope quickly corners the terrified Pepé, who, after smelling her new stench, wants nothing more than to escape the amorous female cat. Unfortunately, now "she" will not take "no" for an answer and proceeds to chase Pepé off into the distance, with no intention of letting him escape.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Although Pepé usually mistakes Penelope for a female skunk, in "Past Perfumance", he realizes that she is a cat when her stripe washes off. Undeterred, he proceeds to cover his white stripe with black paint, taking the appearance of a cat before resuming the chase.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: To emphasize Pepé's cheerful dominance of the situation, Penelope is always mute (or more precisely, makes only natural cat sounds, albeit with a stereotypical "le" before each one) in these stories; only the self-deluded Pepé speaks (several non-recurring human characters are given minimal dialogue, often nothing more than a repulsed "Le pew!").


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Sometimes this formula is varied. In his initial cartoon, "Odor-able Kitty", Pepé (who was revealed to be a French-American skunk named Henri in this short) unwittingly pursues a red tabby cat who has intentionally disguised himself as a skunk (complete with the scent of Limburger cheese) in order to scare off a bunch of characters who have mistreated him. "Scent-imental Over You" has Pepé pursuing a female Chihuahua who has donned a skunk pelt (mistaking it for a fur coat). In the end, she removes her pelt, revealing that she is a dog. However, he then reveals to the audience that he is a real skunk. In "Wild Over You", Pepé attempts to seduce a female wildcat who had escaped a zoo (during what is called "Le grande tour du Zoo" at a 1900 exhibition) and painted herself to look like a skunk to escape her keepers. This cartoon is notable for not only diverging from the Pepé/female-black-cat dynamic, but also rather cheekily showing that Pepé likes to be beaten up, considering the wildcat thrashes him numerous times. "Really Scent" is also a subversion with Penelope (here called Fabrette) attracted to him from the beginning, removing the need for Pepé to chase her as "she" goes to "him". But Pepé's scent still causes a problem for her as they try to build a relationship.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé was created at Warner Bros. Cartoons by animation director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese. Animation producer Eddie Selzer, who was then Jones' bitterest foe at the studio, once profanely commented that no one would laugh at the Pepé cartoons. However, this did not keep Selzer from accepting an award for one of Pepé's pictures several years later.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Jones wrote that Pepé was based (loosely) on the personality of his Termite Terrace colleague, writer Tedd Pierce, a self-styled "ladies' man" who reportedly always assumed that his infatuations were reciprocated. In a short documentary film, "Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood", Jones told an interviewer (perhaps jokingly) that Pepé was actually based on himself, except that he was very shy with girls.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: The 1944 WB short, "I Got Plenty of Mutton", directed by Frank Tashlin and written by Melvin Millar, features a hungry wolf dressing up as a ewe to fool a ram guarding a flock of sheep (a gag later adapted by Jones in his Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog cartoons). The infatuated ram proceeds to aggressively romance the horrified wolf in a style identical to Pepé's, with Mel Blanc using the same faux-French accent and endearments featured in the later Pepé cartoons--the ram even employs the same prancing gait later associated with Pepé for his pursuit. A prototype of Pepé appeared in 1947's "Bugs Bunny Rides Again", but sounded similar to Porky Pig. When the character of Pepé was more fully developed for cartoons of his own, Mel Blanc based Pepé's voice on Charles Boyer's Pépé le Moko from "Algiers" (1938), a remake of the 1937 French film "Pépé le Moko". Blanc's voice for the character closely resembled a voice he had used for "Professor Le Blanc", a harried violin instructor on "The Jack Benny Program". There have also been theories that Pepé's voice was based on singer Maurice Chevalier.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: In Pepé's short cartoons, a kind of pseudo-French or Franglais is spoken and written primarily by adding the French article "le" to English words (as in ""le" skunk "de" pew") or by more creative mangling of English expressions and French syntax, such as ""Sacré maroon!"", ""My sweet peanut of brittle"", ""Come to me, my little melon-baby collie!"", ""Ah, my little darling, it is love at first sight, is it not, no?"", and ""It is love at sight first!"" The writer responsible for these malapropisms was Michael Maltese.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: An example of dialogue from the Oscar-winning 1949 short "For Scent-imental Reasons" illustrates the use of French and broken French:


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé Le Pew's cartoons have been translated and dubbed in French. In the French version, the voice of "Pépé "le putois"" was dubbed by François Tavares, using a heavy Italian accent in a vocal caricature of Yves Montand.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Chuck Jones first introduced the character (originally named Stinky) in the 1945 short "Odor-able Kitty" (see "Variations"), in which he was revealed to be a French skunk named Henri who had been speaking in that accent. For the remaining cartoons Jones directed, Pepé retained his accent, nationality, and purported bachelor status throughout, and the object of his pursuit was (almost) always female.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: A possible second cameo appearance is at the end of "Fair and Worm-er" (Chuck Jones, 1946). This skunk does not speak, but looks identical (or is a close relation) and shares the same mode of travel and a slight variation of Pepé's hopping music. His function here is to chase a string of characters who had all been chasing each other (à la "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly").


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: A skunk often identified as Pepé appears in the Art Davis-directed cartoon "Odor of the Day" (1948); in this entry, the theme of romantic pursuit is missing as the skunk (in a non-speaking role, save for a shared "Gesundheit!" at the finish) vies with a male dog for lodging accommodations on a cold winter day. This is one of the two cartoons where the character, if this is indeed Pepé, uses his scent-spray as a deliberate weapon: shot from his tail as if it were a machine gun. The other one is "Touché and Go", where he frees himself from the jaws of a shark by releasing his odor into the shark's mouth.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé makes a more obvious cameo in "Dog Pounded" (1954), where he is attracted to Sylvester after the latter tried to get around a pack of guard dogs, in his latest attempt to capture and eat Tweety, by painting a white stripe down his back (in Pepé's only appearance in a Freleng short).


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé makes a cameo in the 1994 Super NES video game "", based on several Bugs Bunny cartoons. He is seen in the audience along with several other Looney Tunes characters when Bugs fights Toro the Bull and the Crusher in different stages. Pepé is waving a pennant reading "El Toro" or "Le Crusher", dependent on the stage.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé appeared with several other Looney Tunes characters in Filmation's 1972 made-for-TV special "Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies". In the King Arthur film Daffy Duck's studio was producing in the story, Pepé played assistant to Mordred (played by Yosemite Sam).


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé was going to have a cameo in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", but was later dropped for unknown reasons.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé made several cameo appearances on the 1990 series "Tiny Toon Adventures" (voiced by Greg Burson) as a professor at Acme Looniversity and the mentor to the female skunk character Fifi La Fume. He appeared briefly in "The Looney Beginning" and had a more extended cameo in "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toon Adventures Christmas Special". The segment "Out of Odor" from the episode "Viewer Mail Day" saw character Elmyra disguise herself as Pepé in an attempt to lure Fifi into a trap, only to have Fifi begin aggressively wooing her.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé also made cameo appearances in the "Histeria!" episode "When America Was Young" and in the Goodfeathers segment, "We're No Pigeons", on "Animaniacs".


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: In the 1995 animated short "Carrotblanca", a parody/homage of the classic film "Casablanca", both Pepé and Penelope appear: Pepé (voiced again by Greg Burson) as Captain Renault and Penelope (voiced by Tress MacNeille) as "Kitty Ketty" (modeled after Ingrid Bergman's performance as Ilsa). Unlike the character's other appearances in cartoons, Penelope (as Kitty) has extensive speaking parts in "Carrotblanca".


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: In "The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries", in the episode, "Platinum Wheel of Fortune", when Sylvester gets a white stripe on his back, a skunk immediately falls in love with him. This is not Pepé, but a similar character identified as "Pitu Le Pew" (voiced by Jeff Bennett). However, he does say, "What can I say, Pepé Le Pew is my third cousin. It runs in the family." Pepé would later appear in the episode "Is Paris Stinking" (voiced once again by Greg Burson), where he pursues Sylvester who is unintentionally dressed in drag. Pepé would appear once more in "Tweety's High-Flying Adventure" (voiced by Joe Alaskey), falling in love with both Sylvester and Penelope (Sylvester had gotten a white stripe on his back from Penelope while they fought over Tweety).


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé was, at one point, integral to the storyline for the movie "" (voiced by Bruce Lanoil). Originally, once Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, DJ, and Kate arrived in Paris, Pepé was to give them a mission briefing inside a gift shop. Perhaps because of the group receiving their equipment in Area 52, Pepé's scene was cut, and in the final film, he plays only a bit part, dressed like a police officer, who tries to help DJ (played by Brendan Fraser) after Kate (played by Jenna Elfman) is kidnapped. However, some unused animation of him and Penelope appears during the end credits, thus giving viewers a rare glimpse at his cut scene, and his cut scene appears in the movie's print adaptations. Pepé also appears in "Space Jam" (voiced by Maurice LaMarche), where his voice has curiously been changed into an approximation of Maurice Chevalier, as opposed to more traditional vocalization.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: In "Loonatics Unleashed", a human based on Pepé Le Pew called Pierre Le Pew (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) has appeared as one of the villains of the second season of the show. Additionally, Pepé and Penelope Pussycat appear as cameos in a display of Otto the Odd in the episode "The Hunter". In the episode "The World is My Circus", Lexi Bunny complains that "this Pepé Le Pew look is definitely not me" after being mutated into a skunk-like creature.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé also appeared on the 2006 direct-to-DVD movie "Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas" (voiced again by Joe Alaskey) as one of Daffy's employees.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: A 2009 Valentine's Day-themed AT&T commercial brings Pepé (voiced once again by Joe Alaskey) and Penelope's relationship up to date, depicting Penelope not as repulsed by Pepé, but madly in love with him. The commercial begins with Penelope deliberately painting a white stripe on her own back; when her cell phone rings and displays Pepé's picture, Penelope's lovestruck beating heart bulges beneath her chest in a classic cartoon image.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: A baby version of Pepé Le Pew appeared in "Baby Looney Tunes", voiced by Terry Klassen. In the episode "New Cat in Town", everyone thought that he was a cat. Sylvester was the only one who knew the truth. When Daffy was playing with a laptop, Sylvester removed the battery because he was afraid that everybody would avoid him. We also see a grown-up version of him on the laptop. In another episode, titled "Stop and Smell Up the Flowers", Pepé Le Pew is shown to be good friends with a baby Gossamer and seemed slightly older than his previous appearance.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé Le Pew has appeared in "The Looney Tunes Show" episode "Members Only", voiced by René Auberjonois in season one and by Jeff Bergman in season two. He was present at the arranged marriage of Bugs Bunny and Lola Bunny, in which Lola eventually fell in love with Pepé. He also made a short cameo appearance with Penelope Pussycat in the Merrie Melodies segment "Cock of the Walk" sung by Foghorn Leghorn. He appeared in his own music video "Skunk Funk" in the 16th episode "That's My Baby". He also appeared again in another Merrie Melodies segment "You Like/I Like" sung by Mac and Tosh. His first appearance in the second season was in the second episode entitled "You've Got Hate Mail", reading a hate-filled email accidentally sent by Daffy Duck. He also had a short appearance in the Christmas special "A Christmas Carol" where he takes part in the song "Christmas Rules." In "Gribbler's Quest," Pepé Le Pew is shown to be in the same group therapy with Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian, and Yosemite Sam.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé made a cameo in a MetLife commercial in 2012 titled "Everyone". He is seen standing in the forest, then sees his love interest Penelope Pussycat riding on the back of Battle Cat with He-Man, and immediately hops after her.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé appeared in "", voiced again by Jeff Bergman, as the head of a major perfumery for whom Lola wants to create a signature scent.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé also appeared in "New Looney Tunes" (formerly called "Wabbit"), voiced by Eric Bauza, in the role of a James Bond-like secret agent.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé makes a cameo in the "Looney Tunes Cartoons" episode "Happy Birthday Bugs Bunny!". The character was removed in the Annecy Festival 60th-anniversary version of the episode.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: The character appeared in the video games "The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout", "Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage", "Space Jam", "", "Bugs Bunny: Crazy Castle 4", "", "", and "Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem".


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: The character's antics have been criticized due to his antics being perceived as normalizing rape culture, and perpetuating stereotypes of French culture. Amber E. George, in her 2017 essay "Pride or Prejudice? Exploring Issues of Queerness, Speciesism, and Disability in Warner Bros. Looney Tunes", describes Pepé's actions towards Penelope Pussycat as "sexual harassment, stalking, and abuse" and noted that Pepé's qualities mock the French people and their culture.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: In a 2021 column for "The New York Times", Charles M. Blow wrote that Pepé normalized rape culture. Linda Jones Clough, the daughter of Pepé's creator, says she does not think anyone would watch Pepé cartoons and be inspired to rape someone, but she saw the choice to give him a break for a while as an appropriate decision. Clough also suggested something that reflected her father's vision, to write him as a job-seeker who keeps getting rejected, but changes up his routine thinking he is perfect. Gabriel Iglesias, voice of Speedy Gonzales in "Space Jam: A New Legacy", said that he could not say that he ever saw the character in a negative light and that growing up watching the original cartoons, he said that it was just from a different time. At the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, a slideshow named "Woman in U.S. Animation" shows cartoons that shows "imagery that implies sexual assault", including Pepé Le Pew.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: In March 2021, as a result of controversy surrounding the character, Pepé Le Pew was reported to be removed from modern Warner Bros. projects until further notice, starting with "". However, the character has been seen in later projects.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Mark Evanier observed that even Pepé's co-creator Maltese "wasn't (...) too fond of him", and reported Maltese's claim that later Pepé cartoons were the result of the success of the first one.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: In October 2010, it was reported that Mike Myers would voice Pepé Le Pew in a feature-length live-action/animated film based on the character, although no information about this project has surfaced since. In July 2016, it was revealed at San Diego Comic-Con that Max Landis was writing a fully-animated Pepé Le Pew feature film for Warner Bros. There has been no new information since then due to sexual assault allegations against Landis in 2017, and a report that the character has not yet been planned to appear in future Warner Bros. productions leaves the feature film in doubt.


title: Pepé Le Pew

text: Pepé Le Pew was referenced in the song "Beeswax" by popular American rock band Nirvana. On April 3, 2021, an SNL cold opening aired called "Oops, You Did It Again" (a pun on the Britney Spears song "Oops!... I Did It Again"), which stars celebrities acting as controversial figures including Kate McKinnon playing a cigar smoking Le Pew.


title: 2018 Russian presidential election

text: Presidential elections were held in Russia on 18 March 2018. Incumbent president Vladimir Putin was eligible to run. He declared his intent to do so on 6 December 2017, being widely expected to win. This came following several months of speculation throughout the second half of 2017 as, although he was widely expected to run for another term, Putin made evasive comments including that he had still not decided whether he would like to "step down" from the post of president, that he would "think about running", and that he "hadn't yet decided whether to run for another term". Different sources predicted that he would run as an independent to capitalize more support from the population, and although he could also have been nominated by the United Russia party as in 2012, Putin chose to run as an independent. Among registered voters in Russia, 67.5% voted in this election.


title: 2018 Russian presidential election

text: Incumbent Vladimir Putin won reelection for his second consecutive (fourth overall) term in office with 77% of the vote. Vladimir Zhirinovsky from the Liberal Democratic Party was the perennial candidate, having unsuccessfully run in five previous presidential elections. Other candidates included Pavel Grudinin (Communist Party), Sergey Baburin (Russian All-People's Union), Ksenia Sobchak (Civic Initiative), Maxim Suraykin (Communists of Russia), Boris Titov (Party of Growth) and Grigory Yavlinsky (Yabloko). Anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny announced his intent to run in December 2016 but was barred from doing so due to a prior criminal conviction, which is widely seen as politically motivated, for corruption. Consequently, Navalny called for a boycott of the election. He had previously organized several public rallies against corruption among members of Putin's government.