title: Multiracial people

text: Myanmar (formerly Burma) was a British colony from 1826 until 1948. Other European nationals were active in the country before the British arrived. Intermarriage and relationships took place among such settlers and merchants with the local Burmese population, and subsequently between British colonists and the Burmese. The local Eurasian population is known as the Anglo-Burmese. This group dominated colonial society and through the early years of independence. After Burma gained independence in 1948, many Anglo-Burmese left the country; the diaspora resides primarily in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. An estimated 52,000 Anglo-Burmese live in Burma.


title: Multiracial people

text: The Philippines was a Spanish colony for almost four centuries, or 333 years. The United States took it over after the Spanish-American War, ruling for 46 years. Many Filipinos are of mixed Spanish Filipino and Philippine-American descent.


title: Multiracial people

text: After the defeat of Spain during the Spanish–American War in 1898, the Philippines and other remaining Spanish colonies were ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. The Philippines was under U.S. sovereignty until 1946, though occupied by Japan during World War II. In 1946, in the Treaty of Manila, the U.S. recognized the Republic of the Philippines as an independent nation. Even after 1946, the U.S. maintained a strong military presence in the Philippines, with as many as 21 U.S. military bases and 100,000 U.S. military personnel stationed there as defense in Asia and during the Vietnam War.


title: Multiracial people

text: After the bases closed in 1992, American troops left, often abandoning partners and their Amerasian children. The Pearl S. Buck International foundation estimates there are 52,000 Amerasians in the Philippines, with 5,000 in the Clark area of Angeles City. An academic research paper presented in 2012 in the U.S. by an Angeles, Pampanga, Philippines Amerasian college research study unit suggests that the number could be much higher.


title: Multiracial people

text: In the United States, intermarriage between Filipinos and other ethnicities is common. They have the highest number of interracial marriages among Asian immigrant groups, as documented in California. Some 21.8% of Philippine-Americans are of mixed ancestry.


title: Multiracial people

text: According to government statistics, the population of Singapore as of September 2007 was 4.68 million. Mixed race people, including Chindians and Eurasians, formed 2.4%.


title: Multiracial people

text: In Singapore and Malaysia, the majority of inter-ethnic marriages are between Chinese and Indians. The offspring of such marriages are informally known as "Chindian". The Malaysian government classifies them only by their father's ethnicity. As the majority of these intermarriages usually involve an Indian groom and Chinese bride, the majority of Chindians in Malaysia are usually classified as "Indian" by the government. As for the Malays, who are predominantly Muslim, legal restrictions in Malaysia make it uncommon for them to intermarry with either the Indians, who are predominantly Hindu, or the Chinese, who are predominantly Buddhist and Taoist. But Muslims and Arabs in Singapore and Malaysia often take local Malay wives, because of their common Islamic faith.


title: Multiracial people

text: The Chitty people, in Singapore and the Malacca state of Malaysia, are Tamils with considerable Malay ancestry. The early Tamil settlers took local wives, as they had not brought their own women at that time.


title: Multiracial people

text: In the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, intermarriage has been common between Chinese and native tribespeople, such as the Murut and Dusun in Sabah, and the Iban and Bisaya in Sarawak. A mixture of cultures has resulted in both states. The offspring of these marriages are called "Sino-(name of tribe)", e.g. Sino-Dusun. Normally, children are strongly affected by the father's ethnicity and culture, being raised in his culture. These Sino-natives usually become fluent in both Malay and English. A smaller number are able to speak Chinese dialects and Mandarin, especially those who have received education in vernacular Chinese schools.


title: Multiracial people

text: Due to its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, the island of Sri Lanka has been a confluence for settlers from various parts of the world. There are several mixed-race ethnicities in the Island. The most notable mixed-race group are the Sri Lankan Moors, who trace their ancestry to Arab traders who settled on the island and intermarried with local women. Today, the Sri Lankan Moors live primarily in urban communities. They preserve Arab-Islamic cultural heritage while adopting many Southern Asian customs.


title: Multiracial people

text: The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group. They are descendants through paternal lines of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries (mostly Portuguese, Dutch, German and British) and with maternal ancestry among local women. Other European minorities in such admixtures include Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish.


title: Multiracial people

text: The Sri Lanka Kaffirs are an ethnic group partially descended from 16th-century Portuguese traders and their enslaved Africans. The Kaffirs spoke a distinctive creole based on Portuguese, the Sri Lanka Kaffir language, which is now extinct. Their cultural heritage includes the dance styles Kaffringna and Manja, as well as the Portuguese Sinhalese, Creole, Afro-Sinhalese varieties.


title: Multiracial people

text: During the 1662 Siege of Fort Zeelandia in which Chinese Ming loyalist forces commanded by Koxinga besieged and defeated the Dutch East India Company and conquered Taiwan, the Chinese took Dutch women and child prisoners. The Dutch missionary Antonius Hambroek, two of his daughters, and his wife were among the Dutch prisoners of war with Koxinga. Koxinga sent Hambroek to Fort Zeelandia demanding Hambroek persuade them to surrender or else he would be killed when he returned. Hambroek returned to the Fort where two of his other daughters were. He urged the Fort not to surrender, and returned to Koxinga's camp. He was then executed by decapitation. In addition to this, a rumor was spreading among the Chinese that the Dutch were encouraging native Taiwan aboriginals to kill the Chinese, so Koxinga ordered the mass execution of Dutch male prisoners in retaliation, in addition to a few women and children also being killed. The surviving Dutch women and children were then turned into slaves. Koxinga took Hambroek's teenage daughter as a concubine, and Dutch women were sold to Chinese soldiers to become their wives. The daily journal of the Dutch fort recorded that "the best were preserved for the use of the commanders, and then sold to the common soldiers. Happy was she that fell to the lot of an unmarried man, being thereby freed from vexations by the Chinese women, who are very jealous of their husbands." In 1684 some of these Dutch wives were still captives of the Chinese.


title: Multiracial people

text: Some Dutch physical traits like auburn and red hair among people in regions of south Taiwan are a consequence of this episode of Dutch women becoming concubines to the Chinese commanders. The Chinese took Dutch women as slave concubines and wives who were never freed: in 1684 some were reported to be living. In Quemoy a Dutch merchant was contacted with an arrangement to release the prisoners, proposed by a son of Koxinga's, but it came to nothing. The Chinese officers used the Dutch women they received as concubines. The Dutch women were used for sexual pleasure by Koxinga's commanders. This event of Dutch women being distributed to the Chinese soldiers and commanders was recorded in the daily journal of the fort.


title: Multiracial people

text: A teenage daughter of the Dutch missionary Anthonius Hambroek became a concubine to Koxinga. She was described by the Dutch commander Caeuw as "a very sweet and pleasing maiden".


title: Multiracial people

text: Dutch language accounts record this incident of Chinese taking Dutch women as concubines and the date of Hambroek's daughter.


title: Multiracial people

text: Under terms of the Geneva Accords of 1954, departing French troops took thousands of Vietnamese wives and children with them after the First Indochina War. Some Eurasians stayed in Vietnam, after independence from French rule.


title: Multiracial people

text: Ottoman slave traders sold slaves in cumulatively large numbers over the centuries throughout the Persian Gulf, Anatolia, Central Asia and the Arab world and communities descended from these slaves can be found throughout these regions.


title: Multiracial people

text: In 1991 an analysis of the census showed that 50% of Black/Mixed Caribbean men born in the UK have white partners, and the 2011 BBC documentary "Mixed Britannia" noted that 1 in 10 British children are growing up in mixed households.


title: Multiracial people

text: In 2000, "The Sunday Times" reported that "Britain has the highest rate of interracial relationships in the world" and certainly the UK has the highest rate in the European Union. The 2001 census showed the population of England to be 1.4% mixed-race, compared with 2.7% in Canada and 1.4% in the U.S. (estimate from 2002), although this U.S. figure did not include mixed-race people who had a black parent. Both the US and UK have fewer people identifying as mixed race, however, than Canada.


title: Multiracial people

text: In the United Kingdom, many mixed race people have Caribbean, African or Asian heritage. For example, supermodel Naomi Campbell, who has Jamaican, African and Asian roots. Some, like 2008 Formula One World Champion, Lewis Hamilton, are referred to or describe themselves as 'mixed'.


title: Multiracial people

text: The 2001 UK Census included a section entitled 'Mixed' to which 1.4% (1.6% by 2005 estimates) of people responded, which was split further into "White and Black Caribbean, White and Asian, White and Black African" and "Other Mixed". In the 2011 census, 2.2% chose 'Mixed' for the question on ethnicity.


title: Multiracial people

text: Mixed race Canadians in 2006 officially totaled 1.5% of the population, up from 1.2% in 2001. The official mixed race population grew by 25% since the previous census. Of these, the most frequent combinations were "multiple visible minorities" (for example, people of mixed black and South Asian heritage form the majority, specifically in Toronto), followed closely by "white-black", "white-Chinese", "white-Arab" and many other smaller mixes.


title: Multiracial people

text: During the time of slavery in the United States, a very large but unknown number of African American slaves escaped to Canada, where slavery was made illegal in 1834, via the Underground Railroad. Many of these people married in with European Canadian and Native Canadian populations, although their precise numbers and the numbers of their descendants, are not known.


title: Multiracial people

text: Another 1.2% of Canadians officially are Métis (descendants of a historical population who were partially Aboriginal—also called "Indian" or "Native"—and European, particularly English, Scottish, Irish and French ethnic groups). Although the term "Métis" stems from the Latin verb , "to mix", the Métis people are a distinct ethnic group within Canada.


title: Multiracial people

text: In the United States, the 2000 census was the first in the history of the country to offer respondents the option of identifying themselves as belonging to more than one race. This mixed race option was considered a necessary adaptation to the demographic and cultural changes that the United States has been experiencing.


title: Multiracial people

text: Mixed race Americans officially numbered 6.1 million in 2006, or 2.0% of the population. There is considerable evidence that an accurate number would be much higher. Prior to the mid-20th century, many people hid their mixed race heritage. The development of binary thinking about race meant that African Americans, a high proportion of whom have also had European ancestry, were classified as black. Some are now reclaiming additional ancestries. Many Americans today are multi-racial without knowing it. According to the Census Bureau, as of 2002, over 75% of all African Americans had mixed ancestries usually European and Native American.


title: Multiracial people

text: In 2010, the number of Americans who checked both "black" and "white" on their census forms was 134 percent higher than it had been a decade earlier. In 2012, those choosing 'Two or more races' on the census was 2.4% of the total.


title: Multiracial people

text: According to James P. Allen and Eugene Turner, by some calculations in the 2000 Census, the mixed race population that is part white is as follows:


title: Multiracial people

text: The stigma of a mixed race heritage, associated with racial discrimination among numerous racial groups, has decreased significantly in the United States. People of mixed-race heritage can identify themselves now in the U.S. Census by any combination of races, whereas before Americans were required to select from only one category. For example, in 2010, they were offered choices of one or more racial categories from the following list:


title: Multiracial people

text: The US has a growing mixed race identity movement, reflective of a desire by people to claim their full identities. Interracial marriage, most notably between whites and blacks, was historically deemed immoral and illegal in most states in the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century because of its long association of blacks with the slave caste. California and the Western United States had similar laws to prohibit European-Asian marriages, which was associated with discrimination against Chinese and Japanese on the West Coast. Many states eventually repealed such laws and a 1967 decision by the US Supreme Court ("Loving v. Virginia") overturned all remaining US anti-miscegenation laws.


title: Multiracial people

text: The United States is one of the most racially diverse countries in the world. Americans are mostly mixed ethnic descendants of various immigrant nationalities culturally distinct in their former countries. Assimilation and integration took place, unevenly at different periods of history, depending on the American region. The "Americanization" of foreign ethnic groups and the inter-racial diversity of millions of Americans has been a fundamental part of its history, especially on frontiers where different groups of people came together.


title: Multiracial people

text: On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as America's first mixed race president, as he is the son of a European American mother and a Luo father from Kenya. He acknowledges both parents. His official White House biography describes him as African American. In Hawai'i, the U.S. state in which he was born, he would be called "hapa", which is the Hawaiian word for "mixed race".


title: Multiracial people

text: Fiji has long been a multi-ethnic country, with a vast majority of people being mixed race even if they do not self-identify in that manner. The indigenous Fijians are of mixed Melanesian and Polynesian ancestry, resulting from years of migration of islanders from various places mixing with each other. Fiji Islanders from the Lau group have intermarried with Tongans and other Polynesians over the years. The overwhelming majority of the rest of the indigenous Fijians, though, can be genetically traced to having mixed Polynesian/Melanesian ancestry.


title: Multiracial people

text: The Indo-Fijian population is also a hodge-podge of South Asian immigrants (called Girmits in Fiji), who came as indentured labourers beginning in 1879. While a few of these labourers managed to bring wives, many of them either took or were given wives once they arrived in Fiji. The Girmits, who are classified as simply "Indians" to this day, came from many parts of the Indian subcontinent of present-day India, Pakistan and to a lesser degree Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is easy to recognize the Indian mixtures present in Fiji and see obvious traces of Southern and Northern Indians and other groups who have been categorised together. To some degree, even more of this phenomenon would have likely happened if the religious groups represented (primarily Hindu, Muslim and Sikh) had not resisted to some degree marriage between religious groups, which tended to be from more similar parts of the Indian subcontinent.


title: Multiracial people

text: Over the years, particularly in the sugar cane-growing regions of Western Viti Levu and parts of Vanua Levu, Indo-Fijians and Indigenous Fijians have mixed. Others have Chinese/Fijian ancestry, Indo-Fijian/Samoan or Rotuman ancestry and European/Fijian ancestry (often called "part Fijians"). The latter are often descendants of shipwrecked sailors and settlers who came during the colonial period. Migration from a dozen or more different Pacific countries (Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa and Wallis and Futuna being the most prevalent) have added to the various ethnicities and intermarriages.


title: Multiracial people

text: Mestizo is the common word used to describe mixed race people in Latin America, especially people with Native American and Spanish or other European ancestry. Mestizos make up a large portion of Latin Americans, comprising a majority in many countries.


title: Multiracial people

text: In Latin America, racial mixture was officially acknowledged from colonial times. There was official nomenclature for every conceivable mixture present in the various countries. Initially, this classification was used as a type of caste system, where rights and privileges were accorded depending on one's official racial classification. Official caste distinctions were abolished in many countries of the Spanish-speaking Americas as they became independent of Spain. Several terms have remained in common usage.


title: Multiracial people

text: Race and racial mixture have played a significant role in the politics of many Latin American countries. In most countries, for example Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Panama, a majority of the population can be described as biracial or mixed race (depending on the country). In Mexico, over 80% of the population is mestizo in some degree or another.


title: Multiracial people

text: The Mexican philosopher and educator José Vasconcelos authored an essay on the subject, "La Raza Cósmica", celebrating racial mixture. Venezuelan ex-president Hugo Chávez, himself of Spanish, indigenous and African ancestry, made positive references to the mixed race ancestry of most Latin Americans from time to time.


title: Multiracial people

text: Colonialism throughout the West Indies has created diverse populations on many islands, including people of mixed race identities. Of note is the mixture of West African communities, most brought to the region as slaves and East Indian settlers most of whom came as indentured labor after the abolition of slavery. Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname claim the highest populations of such mixtures, known locally as "douglas". In addition to such mixtures, many inhabitants of the West Indies can also have any combination of Amerindian, Latino, European, Chinese, Arab and Jewish heritage.


title: Multiracial people

text: According to the 2010 official census, 43.13% of Brazilians identified themselves as pardo skin color. That option is normally marked by people that consider themselves mixed race ("mestiço"). The Mixed Race Day or Mestizo Day (Dia do Mestiço), on 27 June, is official event in States of Amazonas, Roraima e Paraíba and a holiday in two cities. The term "pardo" is formally used in the official census but is not used by the population. In Brazilian society, most people who are mixed race call themselves "moreno": light-"moreno" or dark-"moreno". Those terms are not considered offensive and focus more on skin color than on ethnicity (it is considered more like other human characteristics such as being short or tall).


title: Multiracial people

text: The most common mixed race groups are between European and African ("mulatto") and Amerindian and European ("caboclo" or "mameluco"). But there are also African and Amerindian ("cafuzo") and East Asian (mostly Japanese) and European/other ("ainoko" or more recently, "hāfu"). All groups are more or less found throughout the whole country. Brazilian mixed race people with the following three origins, Amerindian, European and African, make up the majority. It is said today that 89% or even more of the "Pardo" population in Brazil has at least one Amerindian ancestor (most of "brancos" or White Brazilian population have some Amerindian or African ancestry too despite nearly half of the country's population self-labeling as "Caucasian" in the censuses. In Brazil, it is very common for mixed race people to claim that they have no Amerindian ancestry, but studies have found that if a Brazilian mixed race people can trace their ancestry back to nearly eight to nine generations, they will have at least one Amerindian ancestor from their maternal side of the family.


title: Multiracial people

text: Since mixed race relations in Brazilian society have occurred for many generations, some people find it difficult to trace their own ethnic ancestry. Today a majority of mixed-race Brazilians do not really know their ethnic ancestry. Their unique features make them Brazilian-looking in skin color, lips and nose shape or hair texture, but they are aware only that their ancestors were probably Portuguese, African or Amerindian. Also, there was a very large number of other Europeans (counted in the millions) who contributed to the Brazilian racial make up, Japanese (the largest Japanese population outside Japan), Italian (the largest Italian population outside Italy) Lebanese (the largest population of Lebanese outside Lebanon), Germans, Poles and Russians. There is also a high percentage of Brazilians of Jewish descent, perhaps hundreds of thousands, mostly found in the northeast of the country who cannot be sure of their ancestry as they descend from the so-called "Crypto-Jews" (Jews who practiced Judaism in secret but outwardly pretended to be Catholics), also called Marranos or New Christians, often considered Portuguese. According to some sources, one third of families arrived from Portugal during colonization were of Jewish origin.


title: Multiracial people

text: There is a high level of integration between all groups but also a great social and economic difference between European descendants (more common in upper and middle classes) and African, Amerindian and mixed race descendants (more common tin lower classes), which is called Brazilian apartheid.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: Manhunt is a 2003 stealth game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. The first entry in the "Manhunt" series, it was released for the PlayStation 2 in November 2003, followed by Microsoft Windows and Xbox releases in April 2004. Set within the fictional Carcer City, the story follows James Earl Cash, a death row prisoner who is forced to participate in a series of snuff films, earning his freedom by murdering criminal gang members sent to hunt him on camera.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: The game received positive reviews from critics and won several accolades, with particular praise directed at its dark, gritty tone and violent gameplay, although the combat and level design were criticized. "Manhunt" was subject to a significant video game controversy due to the level of graphic violence depicted, banned in several countries, and implicated in a murder by the UK media, although this accusation was later rejected by the police and courts. While not a commercial hit, "Manhunt" developed a substantial cult following and was followed by a stand-alone sequel, "Manhunt 2", in 2007.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: "Manhunt" is a stealth-based urban horror-styled game played from a third-person perspective. The game consists of twenty levels, called "scenes", as well as four unlockable bonus scenes. Players survive the scenes by dispatching enemy gang members, occasionally with firearms, but primarily by stealthily executing them. At the end of each scene, players are graded based on their performance, and awarded one to five stars. Unlockable content becomes available only when the player achieves three or more stars on a certain number of levels. On normal difficulty (called "Fetish"), players can earn only four stars; one is awarded for completing the scene under a certain amount of time, and one to three stars are awarded based on the brutality of the executions carried out during the scene. On hard difficulty (called "Hardcore"), players are graded out of five stars; one for speed, one to three for brutality and one for simply completing the scene. To gain the maximum number of stars, a set number of brutal executions must be carried out over the course of each scene; face-to-face fighting does not award stars.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: To carry out executions, players must approach a hunter from behind, undetected. To facilitate this, each scene is full of "dark spots" (shadows where the player can hide). Enemies cannot see into the shadows (unless they see the player actually entering the area). A standard technique in the game is to hide in the shadows and tap a wall to attract the attention of a nearby hunter. When the hunter has examined the area and is moving away, players can easily ambush and execute them. The game has three levels of execution, with each level progressively more violent and graphic than the last: "hasty" executions are quick and not very bloody, "violent" are considerably more gory, and "gruesome" are over-the-top blood-soaked murders. Players are entirely in control of which level they use; once players have locked onto an enemy, the lock-on reticule changes color over time to indicate the three levels: white, yellow and red.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: Over the course of the game, players can use a wide variety of weapons, including plastic bags, baseball bats, crowbars and a variety of bladed items. Later in the game firearms are avaliable for use when executions become impractical. Should players take damage, their health depletes; health can be restored through the use of painkillers, which are available throughout each scene. Players also have a stamina meter which depletes as they sprint, but automatically replenishes when remaining stationary. "Manhunt" also makes use of the PlayStation 2's optional USB Microphone and the Xbox Live microphone feature on the Xbox in their respective versions of the game. When such a device is connected, players can use the sound of their own voice to distract in-game enemies. This adds an extra element to the stealth aspect of the game, as players must refrain from making noises such as coughing as these sounds too can attract the attention of any nearby hunters.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: "Manhunt" is set in the fictional Carcer City, a dilapidated rust belt city rife with corruption and crime. On the prowl around the city are numerous violent gangs, who seek to find and kill the player. The game is set in a shared universe with the "Grand Theft Auto" series.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: In 2003 in Carcer City, a journalist (Kate Miller) reports about James Earl Cash (Stephen Wilfong), a death row inmate who has been recently executed by lethal injection. However, Cash was only sedated, and awakens to an unknown voice referring to himself as "The Director" (Brian Cox), who gives him instructions through an earpiece. The Director promises Cash his freedom, but only if he murders "Hunters" – gang members sent to hunt him – in special areas around Carcer City filmed by CCTV. Cash's first victims are the Hoods, a gang of dangerous criminals and corrupt police officers patrolling an abandoned area of the city. After eliminating them, he is abducted by the Cerberus, the Director's personal security unit, who take him to another part of Carcer City.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: While the Director monitors his actions, Cash is forced to kill more criminals across various abandoned locations, encountering a Nazi skinhead gang called the Skinz, a sadistic paramilitary called the Wardogs (who have kidnapped Cash's family to use as bait), an outlaw gang called the Innocentz (consisting of the Hispanic occultist Skullyz and the psychopathic Babyfaces), and a group of former asylum inmates called the Smileys. Eventually, the Director betrays Cash and, after ordering his family's deaths, tries to murder him as well, as part of his film's climax. However, Cash survives the trap, and escapes after vowing revenge on the Director.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: The remaining Wardogs, led by the Director's right-hand man Ramirez (Chris McKinney), are sent to re-capture Cash, and they manage to trap him in a game of cat and mouse. However, Cash prevails and kills Ramirez and his men, before being rescued by the journalist reporting on him, who reveals that the Director is Lionel Starkweather, a former film producer from Los Santos who now produces for a snuff film ring. The journalist has acquired enough evidence against Starkweather to get him convicted, but needs Cash to escort her to her apartment to get it. Meanwhile, Starkweather blackmails corrupt police chief Gary Schaffer into sending his men to kill Cash and the journalist, but the two manage to avoid them. After retrieving the evidence, Cash tells the journalist to leave the city with it while he goes after Starkweather.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: Pursued by the police and SWAT throughout the subway and the streets, Cash is eventually cornered in a train yard and almost summarily executed. He is saved by the Cerberus, who kill the police and take Cash to Starkweather's mansion so that they could execute him themselves. The Cerberus are distracted when Piggsy (Hunter Platin), a chainsaw-wielding maniac who wears a pig's head and is normally kept chained up in Starkweather's attic, suddenly breaks free. Cash escapes and confronts Piggsy in the mansion's upper levels. Unable to fight him directly, Cash uses stealth attacks on Piggsy before tricking him into standing on a grate, which collapses under his weight, allowing Cash to take his chainsaw and finish him off with it. After eliminating the remaining Cerberus, Cash finally confronts Starkweather in his office and kills him with the chainsaw.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: Later, the media and police arrive at the mansion as the journalist exposes Starkweather's snuff ring and police complicity, leading to Schaffer being criminally prosecuted for corruption. Cash, however, is nowhere to be found.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: Rockstar North began development of "Manhunt" in the mid-early nineties, building the game with the RenderWare engine that had been used for the "Grand Theft Auto" titles. In September 2003, "GamesMaster" published a preview of "Manhunt", commenting "[Rockstar North has] scraped its imagination to further twist the way games are made in the future and delivers a chiseled, no-apologies assault on gaming standards. [...] it possesses a warped subtlety that questions game reality... It creates a barren, harsh, violent experience and then punctures it with something trippy and darkly comic..." In a retrospective piece, a former Rockstar employee admitted that the game almost caused a mutiny in the company, saying that the team had "already weathered plenty of controversy over "GTA III" and ""—we were no strangers to it—but "Manhunt" felt different. With "GTA", we always had the excuse that the gameplay was untethered—you never had to hurt anybody that wasn't a "bad guy" in one of the missions. You could play completely ethically if you wanted, and the game was parody anyway, so lighten up".


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: "Manhunt" was announced at E3 in May 2003. The game was originally slated for an October release date, but it was instead released for the PlayStation 2 on November 19, 2003, in North America, and two days later in European countries. During its first month on sale, the game only sold 75,000 copies in the United States, "a fraction" of the copies sold by "Grand Theft Auto III" and "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City", games also distributed by Rockstar. In spite of these comparatively poor sales, the game received a port for the Xbox and Microsoft Windows, released in North America on April 20, 2004, and Europe on April 23. Rockstar also released exclusive merchandise, limited editions and pre-order bonuses such as official soundtracks, a Piggsy figure, and a handheld voice changer.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: The game was added to Steam in January 2008. The game was also included for free for players who pre-ordered the PC version of "Manhunt 2" in November 2009. On May 14, 2013, "Manhunt" was made available for purchase on the PlayStation 3 under the PlayStation Network's PS2 Classics category. It was later released again for the PlayStation 4 on March 22, 2016, upscaled to 1080p and with support for trophies.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: The PlayStation 2 and PC versions of "Manhunt" received "generally favorable reviews", while the Xbox version received "mixed or average" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. As of March 26, 2008, the "Manhunt" series has sold 1.7 million copies worldwide. At the 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the game was nominated for "Console Action Adventure Game of the Year". "Manhunt" received a "Gold" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: The game's dark nihilistic tone and violent nature were singled out by many critics as representing something unique in the world of video gaming. "GameSpot" concluded that, "like it or not, the game pushes the envelope of video game violence and shows you countless scenes of wholly uncensored, heavily stylized carnage". "Game Informer" praised the PS2 version's audacity and competent technical capabilities, stating "it's a frightening premise that places gamers in a psychological impasse. The crimes that you commit are unspeakable, yet the gameplay that leads to these horrendous acts is so polished and fierce that it's thrilling." "IGN" complimented the same console version's overall challenge, calling it a "solid, deep experience for seasoned gamers pining for some hardcore, challenging games". "Edge" gave the same console version eight out of ten, saying, "Like "GTA" there's more to this than shock and awe. Within its linear structure there is a lot of freedom within which to act, much more so than both "Splinter Cell" and "", the titles which "Manhunt" most closely resembles."


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: "Toronto Star" writer Ben Rayner, praised the relevance of the game, defending its violence and graphic nature as very much a product of its time, and condemning calls to have it banned;


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: As entertainment and cultural artefact, "Manhunt" is totally disturbing. But so is the evening news, the "I'll eat anything for money" lunacy of "Fear Factor" and the unfettered, misanthropic gunplay of "Bad Boys II", so I will defend until my last breath Rockstar's right to sell this stuff to me and anyone else who wants it. ... Do I think games such as these could have dire psychological consequences, particularly for young people? As always, I remain agnostic on the matter. Who knows, really? The debate will never be resolved. The American military obviously thinks there's something there: The troubling new TV ad campaign for the U.S. reserves lures potential young soldiers with tales of adventure accompanied by blatant, video-game-styled animation. And, curiously, no one has complained about or tried to ban "SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs", in which stealth and killing figure even more heavily than in "Manhunt".


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: The "Chicago Tribune" was especially complimentary of the game, arguing that it marked a significant moment in video gaming history;


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: "Manhunt" is easily the most violent game ever made. It will likely be dismissed by many as a disgusting murder simulator with no reason to exist. But "Manhunt" also is the "Clockwork Orange" of video games, holding your eyes open so as to not miss a single splatter – asking you, is this really what you enjoy watching? Had "Manhunt" been poorly made, using the snuff film angle as a cheap gimmick, the game would have been shameful and exploitative. What elevates it to a grotesque, chilling work of art is both presentation and game play. "Manhunt" is solid as a game; it's engaging to use stealth as you creep through the streets of this wicked city, using your smarts to avoid death, while dishing out much of your own. It's Ubisoft's "Splinter Cell" meets the cult "Faces of Death" videos [...] If "Manhunt" succeeds at retail, it will say more about America's fascination with violence than any political discourse or social debate. That makes "Manhunt" the most important video game of the last five years.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: The game also received some criticism. Certain gameplay elements, such as the shooting mechanics, were called "frustrating" by "Eurogamer", who claimed that "more than half the time the targeting reticule refuses to acknowledge an oncoming enemy until they're virtually in front of you." "GameSpot" concurred, noting that the "AI is much worse in the more action-oriented levels". "1UP.com" said that one quickly became "tired of [the] violence ... AI quirks [and] repetitive level design."


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: The controversy surrounding the game stems primarily from the graphic manner in which the player executes enemies. In 2007, former Rockstar employee Jeff Williams revealed that even the game's staff were somewhat uncomfortable about the level of violence; "there was almost a mutiny at the company over that game." Williams explained that the game "just made us all feel icky. It was all about the violence, and it was realistic violence. We all knew there was no way we could explain away that game. There was no way to rationalize it. We were crossing a line."


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: The violence in the game drew the attention of U.S. Representative Joe Baca, who was the sponsor of a legislation to fine those who sell adult-themed games to players younger than 17. Baca said of "Manhunt", "it's telling kids how to kill someone, and it uses vicious, sadistic and cruel methods to kill". The media was also drawn into the debate. For example, "The Globe and Mail" wrote ""Manhunt" is a venal disconnect for the genre. There's no challenge, just assembly-line, ritualistic slaughter. It's less a video game and more a weapon of personal destruction. This is about stacking bodies. Perhaps the scariest fact of all: "Manhunt" is so user-friendly that any sharp 12-year-old could navigate through the entire game in one sitting."


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: On July 28, 2004, the game was linked to the murder of 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah by his 17-year-old friend Warren Leblanc in Leicestershire, England. Initial media reports claimed that police had found a copy of the game in Leblanc's bedroom. Giselle Pakeerah, the victim's mother, stated "I think that I heard some of Warren's friends say that he was obsessed by this game. To quote from the website that promotes it, it calls it a psychological experience, not a game, and it encourages brutal killing. If he was obsessed by it, it could well be that the boundaries for him became quite hazy." Stefan's father, Patrick, added "they were playing a game called "Manhunt". The way Warren committed the murder this is how the game is set out, killing people using weapons like hammers and knives. There is some connection between the game and what he has done." Patrick continued "The object of "Manhunt" is not just to go out and kill people. It's a point-scoring game where you increase your score depending on how violent the killing is. That explains why Stefan's murder was as horrific as it was. If these games influence kids to go out and kill, then we do not want them in the shops." A spokesman for the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers' Association (ELSPA) responded to the accusations by stating "We sympathize enormously with the family and parents of Stefan Pakeerah. However, we reject any suggestion or association between the tragic events and the sale of the video game "Manhunt". The game in question is classified 18 by the British Board of Film Classification and therefore its copies should not be in the possession of a minor."


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: During the subsequent media coverage, the game was removed from shelves by some vendors, including both UK and international branches of Game and Dixons. Rockstar responded to this move by rejecting any "association between the tragic events and the sale of "Manhunt"." Rockstar also reiterated that the game was intended for adults only. As the media speculated that the game could be banned completely, there was a "significantly increased" demand for it both from retailers and on Internet auction sites. Giselle Pakeerah responded to this by saying "it doesn't really come as surprise, they say no publicity is bad publicity. But I must say I'm saddened and disappointed. The content of this game is contemptible. It's a societal hazard and my concern is to get it off the shelves as there's enough violence in society already."


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: Shortly after the murder, later-disbarred American attorney Jack Thompson, who has campaigned against violence in video games, claimed that he had written to Rockstar after the game was released, warning them that the nature of the game could inspire copycat killings; "We have had dozens of killings in the U.S. by children who had played these types of games. This is not an isolated incident. These types of games are basically murder simulators. There are people being killed over here almost on a daily basis". Soon thereafter, the Pakeerah family hired Thompson with the aim of suing Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Rockstar Games for £50 million in a wrongful death claim.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: However, on the same day that Thompson was hired, the police officially denied any link between the game and the murder, citing drug-related robbery as the motive and revealing that the game had been found in Pakeerah's bedroom, not Leblanc's, as originally reported in the media. The presiding judge also placed sole responsibility with Leblanc in his summing up, after sentencing him to life. The Pakeerahs' case against SCE and Rockstar was dropped soon thereafter.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: Three years later, in the build-up to the release of "Manhunt 2", the controversy re-ignited. Two days after announcing the game, which was set for release in July, Take-Two Interactive (Rockstar's parent company) issued a statement which read, in part: "At sentencing the Judge, defense, prosecution and Leicester police all emphasized that "Manhunt" played no part in the case." Later that day, however, Patrick and Giselle Pakeerah condemned the decision to release a sequel, and insisted that "Manhunt" was a factor in their son's murder.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: Several weeks later, Jack Thompson vowed to have "Manhunt 2" banned, claiming that the police were incorrect in asserting the game had belonged to Pakeerah, and that Take-Two were lying about the incident: "The original "Manhunt" was responsible for the bludgeoning death of a British youth by his friend who obsessively played the game. The killer used a hammer just as in the game he played. Take-Two/Rockstar, anticipating the firestorm of criticism with the release of the murder simulator sequel, is lying to the public on both sides of the pond in stating this week that the game had nothing to do with the murder." His efforts to have "Manhunt 2" banned were unsuccessful.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: Leblanc was approved for release on parole in early 2020. This decision was unsuccessfully appealed by the victim's family.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: In New Zealand, the game was banned on December 11, 2003, with possession deemed an offence. Bill Hastings, the Chief Censor, stated "it's a game where the only thing you do is kill everybody you see ... You have to at least acquiesce in these murders and possibly tolerate, or even move towards enjoying them, which is injurious to the public good." In Australia, the game was initially allowed under a MA15+ classification, but this decision was reversed by the Australian Classification Board in September 2004, after an appeal by the Attorney-General Philip Ruddock. As a consequence, the game was effectively banned, mandating a recall of all copies still being sold in stores. Before its recall, "Manhunt" had already sold 18,000 units in Australia.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: In Canada, following a meeting in Toronto on December 22, 2003, between Hastings and officials from the Ontario Ministry of Consumer and Business Services, "Manhunt" became the first computer game in Ontario to be classified as a film and was restricted to adults on February 3, 2004. Apart from Ontario, however, "Manhunt" had little or no classification problems elsewhere in North America. The British Columbia Film Classification Office reviewed the game after the controversy in Ontario and deemed the Mature rating by the ESRB to be appropriate. In Germany, the Amtsgericht in Munich confiscated all versions of "Manhunt" on July 19, 2004, for violation of ("representation of violence"). According to the court, the game portrays the killing of humans as fun. They also said it glorified vigilantism, which they considered harmful.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: "Manhunt" has garnered a cult following among fans, and was cited by a "Vice" article in March 2016 as one of Rockstar's "very best" games. Likewise, "Game Informer" considered the game a "dark, underappreciated masterpiece". It was recognised as an example of the "best of gaming horror" by VentureBeat in October 2011, included in the "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die" in 2010, and listed at #85 in "IGN"s "Top 100 PlayStation 2 Games" that same year.


title: Manhunt (video game)

text: A sequel, "Manhunt 2", was released in October 2007 in the United States and October 2008 in Europe. Although the sequel retains many of the stealth elements used in its predecessor, "Manhunt 2"s storyline is completely unrelated to the first game.


title: Japan during World War II

text: Japan during World War II refers to the history of the Empire of Japan during World War II. This includes the invasion of the Republic of China, the annexation of French-indo-china and the subsequent invasion of British India, the Pacific War and the Surrender of Japan.


title: Japan during World War II

text: The Empire of Japan had been expanding its territory since before World War I. In 1931, Japan invaded and conquered Manchuria in northeast China. The bordering Chinese territory of Jehol was also taken in 1933, and in 1936, Japan created a similar puppet state in Inner Mongolia.


title: Japan during World War II

text: The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Theater of the Second World War. The beginning of the war is conventionally dated to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937, when a dispute between Japanese and Chinese troops in Peking escalated into a full-scale invasion. This full-scale war between the Chinese and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. (However, according to the Chinese Ministry of Education, it marked only a phase in a 14-year war that began with the 1931 invasion of Manchuria.)


title: Japan during World War II

text: As part of its operations against China, on 22 September 1940 Japan invaded French Indochina. On 27 September it signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. War with the U.S. and other Western allies of World War II began with the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Over the course of seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island, the Dutch Empire in the Dutch East Indies, Thailand and on the British Empire in Borneo, Malaya and Hong Kong. The strategic goals of the offensive were to destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet, capture oil fields in the Dutch East Indies, and maintain their sphere of influence in East Asia. It was also to expand the outer reaches of the Japanese Empire to create a formidable defensive perimeter around newly acquired territory.


title: Japan during World War II

text: China fought Japan with aid from the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attacks on Malaya and Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged with other conflicts which are generally categorized under those conflicts of World War II as a major sector known as the China Burma India Theater. Some scholars consider the European War and the Pacific War to be entirely separate, albeit concurrent, wars. Other scholars consider the start of the full-scale Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to have been the beginning of World War II. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. It accounted for the majority of civilian and military casualties in the Pacific War, with between 10 and 25 million Chinese civilians and over 4 million Chinese and Japanese military personnel missing or dying from war-related violence, famine, and other causes. The war has been called "the Asian holocaust."


title: Japan during World War II

text: The decision by Japan to attack the United States remains controversial. Study groups in Japan had predicted ultimate disaster in a war between Japan and the U.S., and the Japanese economy was already straining to keep up with the demands of the war with China. However, the U.S. had placed an oil embargo on Japan and Japan felt that the United States' demands of unconditional withdrawal from China and non-aggression pacts with other Pacific powers were unacceptable. Facing an oil embargo by the United States as well as dwindling domestic reserves, the Japanese government decided to execute a plan developed by the military branch largely led by Osami Nagano and Isoroku Yamamoto to bomb the United States naval base in Hawaii, thereby bringing the United States to World War II on the side of the Allies. On 4 September 1941, the Japanese Cabinet met to consider the war plans prepared by Imperial General Headquarters, and decided:


title: Japan during World War II

text: Our Empire, for the purpose of self-defense and self-preservation, will complete preparations for war ... <nowiki>[</nowiki>and is<nowiki>]</nowiki> ... resolved to go to war with the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands if necessary. Our Empire will concurrently take all possible diplomatic measures vis-a-vis the United States and Great Britain, and thereby endeavor to obtain our objectives ... In the event that there is no prospect of our demands being met by the first ten days of October through the diplomatic negotiations mentioned above, we will immediately decide to commence hostilities against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands.


title: Japan during World War II

text: The Vice Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the chief architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, had strong misgivings about war with the United States. Yamamoto had spent time in the United States during his youth when he studied as a language student at Harvard University (1919–1921) and later served as assistant naval attaché in Washington, D.C. Understanding the inherent dangers of war with the United States, Yamamoto warned his fellow countrymen: "We can run wild for six months or maybe a year, but after that, I have utterly no confidence."


title: Japan during World War II

text: Since early 1941 the United States and Japan had been engaged in negotiations in an attempt to improve their strained relations and end the war in China. During these negotiations, Japan advanced a number of proposals which were dismissed by the Americans as inadequate. At the same time the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands engaged in secret discussions for the joint defence of their territories, in the event of a Japanese attack against any of them. Roosevelt reinforced the Philippines (an American protectorate scheduled for independence in 1946) and warned Japan that the United States would react to Japanese attacks against any "neighboring countries".


title: Japan during World War II

text: Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American–British–Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. On 20 November, a new government under Hideki Tojo presented an interim proposal as its final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and for lifting the embargo on the supply of oil and other resources to Japan. In exchange, Japan promised not to launch any attacks in Southeast Asia and to withdraw its forces from southern Indochina. The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers. That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in China, or seizing the natural resources it needed in the Dutch East Indies by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.


title: Japan during World War II

text: Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific. The Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war. To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter, it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet and the American military presence in the Philippines from the outset.


title: Japan during World War II

text: On 7 December 1941 (8 December in Asian time zones), Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific. These included an attack on the American fleets at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, landings in Malaya, Thailand and the Battle of Hong Kong.


title: Japan during World War II

text: The Imperial Japanese Navy made its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii Territory, on Sunday morning, 7 December 1941. The Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces sustained significant losses. The primary objective of the attack was to incapacitate the United States long enough for Japan to establish its long-planned Southeast Asian empire and defensible buffer zones. However, as Admiral Yamamoto feared, the attack produced little lasting damage to the US Navy with priority targets like the Pacific Fleet's three aircraft carriers out at sea and vital shore facilities, whose destruction could have destroyed the fleet on their own, were ignored. Of more serious consequences, the U.S. public saw the attack as a barbaric and treacherous act and rallied against the Empire of Japan.


title: Japan during World War II

text: The Japanese invasion of Thailand led to Thailand's decision to ally itself with Japan and the other Japanese attacks led the United States, United Kingdom, China, Australia, and several other states to formally declare war on Japan, whereas the Soviet Union, being heavily involved in large-scale hostilities with European Axis countries, maintained its neutrality agreement with Japan. Germany, followed by the other Axis states, declared war on the United States in solidarity with Japan, citing as justification the American attacks on German war vessels that had been ordered by Roosevelt.


title: Japan during World War II

text: The United States entered the European Theatre and Pacific Theater in full force. Four days later, Adolf Hitler of Germany, and Benito Mussolini of Italy declared war on the United States, merging the separate conflicts. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched offensives against Allied forces in East and Southeast Asia, with simultaneous attacks on British Hong Kong, Thailand, British Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Guam, Wake Island, Gilbert Islands, Borneo and the Philippines.


title: Japan during World War II

text: By 1942, the Japanese Empire had launched offensives in New Guinea, Singapore, Burma, Yunnan and India, the Solomons, Timor, Aleutian Islands, Christmas Island and the Andaman Islands.


title: Japan during World War II

text: By the time World War II was in full swing, Japan had the most interest in using biological warfare. Japan's Air Force dropped massive amounts of ceramic bombs filled with bubonic plague-infested fleas in Ningbo, China. These attacks would eventually lead to thousands of deaths years after the war would end. In Japan's relentless and indiscriminate research methods on biological warfare, they poisoned more than 1,000 Chinese village wells to study cholera and typhus outbreaks. These diseases are caused by bacteria that with today's technology could potentially be weaponized.</ref>


title: Japan during World War II

text: The South-East Asian campaign was preceded by years of propaganda and espionage activities carried out in the region by the Japanese Empire. The Japanese espoused their vision of a Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and an Asia for Asians to the people of Southeast Asia, who had lived under European rule for generations. As a result, many inhabitants in some of the colonies (particularly Indonesia) actually sided with the Japanese invaders for anti-colonial reasons. However, the ethnic Chinese, who had witnessed the effects of Japanese occupation in their homeland, did not side with the Japanese.


title: Japan during World War II

text: Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese on December 25. In Malaya the Japanese overwhelmed an Allied army composed of British, Indian, Australian and Malay forces. The Japanese were quickly able to advance down the Malayan Peninsula, forcing the Allied forces to retreat towards Singapore. The Allies lacked air cover and tanks; the Japanese had air supremacy. The sinking of HMS "Prince of Wales" and HMS "Repulse" on December 10, 1941, led to the east coast of Malaya being exposed to Japanese landings and the elimination of British naval power in the area. By the end of January 1942, the last Allied forces crossed the strait of Johore and into Singapore. In the Philippines, the Japanese pushed the combined Filipino-American force towards the Bataan Peninsula and later the island of Corregidor. By January 1942, General Douglas MacArthur and President Manuel L. Quezon were forced to flee in the face of Japanese advance. This marked one of the worst defeats suffered by the Americans, leaving over 70,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war in the custody of the Japanese.


title: Japan during World War II

text: On February 15, 1942, Singapore, due to the overwhelming superiority of Japanese forces and encirclement tactics, fell to the Japanese, causing the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. An estimated 80,000 Indian, Australian and British troops were taken as prisoners of war, joining 50,000 taken in the Japanese invasion of Malaya (modern day Malaysia). Many were later used as forced labour constructing the Burma Railway, the site of the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai. Immediately following their invasion of British Malaya, the Japanese military carried out a purge of the Chinese population in Malaya and Singapore.


title: Japan during World War II

text: The Japanese then seized the key oil production zones of Borneo, Central Java, Malang, Cepu, Sumatra, and Dutch New Guinea of the late Dutch East Indies, defeating the Dutch forces. However, Allied sabotage had made it difficult for the Japanese to restore oil production to its pre-war peak. The Japanese then consolidated their lines of supply through capturing key islands of the Pacific, including Guadalcanal.


title: Japan during World War II

text: Japanese military strategists were keenly aware of the unfavorable discrepancy between the industrial potential of the Japanese Empire and that of the United States. Because of this they reasoned that Japanese success hinged on their ability to extend the strategic advantage gained at Pearl Harbor with additional rapid strategic victories. The Japanese Command reasoned that only decisive destruction of the United States' Pacific Fleet and conquest of its remote outposts would ensure that the Japanese Empire would not be overwhelmed by America's industrial might. In April 1942, Japan was bombed for the first time in the Doolittle Raid. In May 1942, failure to decisively defeat the Allies at the Battle of the Coral Sea, in spite of Japanese numerical superiority, equated to a strategic defeat for Imperial Japan. This setback was followed in June 1942 by the catastrophic loss of four fleet carriers at the Battle of Midway, the first decisive defeat for the Imperial Japanese Navy. It proved to be the turning point of the war as the Navy lost its offensive strategic capability and never managed to reconstruct the critical mass' of both large numbers of carriers and well-trained air groups".


title: Japan during World War II

text: Australian land forces defeated Japanese Marines in New Guinea at the Battle of Milne Bay in September 1942, which was the first land defeat suffered by the Japanese in the Pacific. Further victories by the Allies at Guadalcanal in September 1942, and New Guinea in 1943 put the Empire of Japan on the defensive for the remainder of the war, with Guadalcanal in particular sapping their already-limited oil supplies. During 1943 and 1944, Allied forces, backed by the industrial might and vast raw material resources of the United States, advanced steadily towards Japan. The Sixth United States Army, led by General MacArthur, landed on Leyte on October 20, 1944. In the subsequent months, during the Philippines Campaign (1944–45), the combined United States forces, together with the native guerrilla units, liberated the Philippines. By 1944, the Allies had seized or bypassed and neutralized many of Japan's strategic bases through amphibious landings and bombardment. This, coupled with the losses inflicted by Allied submarines on Japanese shipping routes began to strangle Japan's economy and undermine its ability to supply its army. By early 1945, the U.S. Marines had wrested control of the Ogasawara Islands in several hard-fought battles such as the Battle of Iwo Jima, marking the beginning of the fall of the islands of Japan.


title: Japan during World War II

text: After securing airfields in Saipan and Guam in the summer of 1944, the United States Army Air Forces undertook an intense strategic bombing campaign, using incendiary bombs, burning Japanese cities in an effort to pulverize Japan's industry and shatter its morale. The Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo on the night of March 9–10, 1945, led to the deaths of approximately 100,000 civilians. Approximately 350,000–500,000 civilians died in 66 other Japanese cities as a result of the incendiary bombing campaign on Japan. Concurrent to these attacks, Japan's vital coastal shipping operations were severely hampered with extensive aerial mining by the U.S.'s Operation Starvation. Regardless, these efforts did not succeed in persuading the Japanese military to surrender. In mid-August 1945, the United States dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These atomic bombings were the first and only such weapons used against another nation in warfare. These two bombs killed approximately 120,000 to 140,000 people in a matter of minutes, and as many as a result of nuclear radiation in the following weeks, months and years. The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945.


title: Japan during World War II

text: In spite of Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, at the Yalta agreement in February 1945, the US, the UK, and the USSR had agreed that the USSR would enter the war on Japan within three months of the defeat of Germany in Europe. This Soviet–Japanese War led to the fall of Japan's Manchurian occupation, Soviet occupation of South Sakhalin island, and a real, imminent threat of Soviet invasion of the home islands of Japan. This was a significant factor for some internal parties in the Japanese decision to surrender to the US and gain some protection, rather than face simultaneous Soviet invasion as well as defeat by the US. Likewise, the superior numbers of the armies of the Soviet Union in Europe was a factor in the US decision to demonstrate the use of atomic weapons to the USSR, just as the Allied victory in Europe was evolving into division of Germany and Berlin, the division of Europe with the Iron Curtain and the subsequent Cold War.


title: Japan during World War II

text: Having ignored (mokusatsu) the Potsdam Declaration, the Empire of Japan surrendered and ended World War II, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the declaration of war by the Soviet Union. In a national radio address on August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender to the Japanese people by "Gyokuon-hōsō". A period known as Occupied Japan followed after the war, largely spearheaded by United States General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to revise the Japanese constitution and de-militarize Japan. The Allied occupation, with economic and political assistance, continued well into the 1950s. Allied forces ordered Japan to abolish the Meiji Constitution and enforce the Constitution of Japan, then rename the Empire of Japan as Japan on May 3, 1947. Japan adopted a parliamentary-based political system, while the Emperor changed to symbolic status.


title: Japan during World War II

text: American General of the Army Douglas MacArthur later commended the new Japanese government that he helped establish and the new Japanese period when he was about to send the American forces to the Korean War:


title: Japan during World War II

text: The Japanese people, since the war, have undergone the greatest reformation recorded in modern history. With a commendable will, eagerness to learn, and marked capacity to understand, they have, from the ashes left in war's wake, erected in Japan an edifice dedicated to the supremacy of individual liberty and personal dignity; and in the ensuing process there has been created a truly representative government committed to the advance of political morality, freedom of economic enterprise, and social justice. Politically, economically, and socially Japan is now abreast of many free nations of the earth and will not again fail the universal trust. ... I sent all four of our occupation divisions to the Korean battlefront without the slightest qualms as to the effect of the resulting power vacuum upon Japan. The results fully justified my faith. I know of no nation more serene, orderly, and industrious, nor in which higher hopes can be entertained for future constructive service in the advance of the human race.


title: Japan during World War II

text: In retrospect, apart from the military officer corps, the purge of alleged militarists and ultranationalists that was conducted under the Occupation had relatively small impact on the long-term composition of men of influence in the public and private sectors. The purge initially brought new blood into the political parties, but this was offset by the return of huge numbers of formerly purged conservative politicians to national as well as local politics in the early 1950s. In the bureaucracy, the purge was negligible from the outset. ... In the economic sector, the purge similarly was only mildly disruptive, affecting less than sixteen hundred individuals spread among some four hundred companies. Everywhere one looks, the corridors of power in postwar Japan are crowded with men whose talents had already been recognized during the war years, and who found the same talents highly prized in the 'new' Japan.


title: Japan during World War II

text: There was a significant level of emigration to the overseas territories of the Japanese Empire during the Japanese colonial period, including Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, and Karafuto. Unlike emigrants to the Americas, Japanese going to the colonies occupied a higher rather than lower social niche upon their arrival.


title: Japan during World War II

text: In 1938, there were 309,000 Japanese in Taiwan. By the end of World War II, there were over 850,000 Japanese in Korea and more than 2 million in China, most of whom were farmers in Manchukuo (the Japanese had a plan to bring in 5 million Japanese settlers into


title: Japan during World War II

text: In the census of December 1939, the total population of the South Seas Mandate was 129,104, of which 77,257 were Japanese. By December 1941, Saipan had a population of more than 30,000 people, including 25,000 Japanese. There were over 400,000 people living on Karafuto (southern Sakhalin) when the Soviet offensive began in early August 1945. Most were of Japanese or Korean extraction. When Japan lost the Kuril Islands, 17,000 Japanese were expelled, most from the southern islands.


title: Japan during World War II

text: After World War II, most of these overseas Japanese repatriated to Japan. The Allied powers repatriated over six million Japanese nationals from colonies throughout Asia. On the other hand, some remained overseas involuntarily, as in the case of orphans in China or prisoners of war captured by the Red Army and forced to work in Siberia.


title: Japan during World War II

text: Many political and military Japanese leaders were convicted for war crimes before the Tokyo tribunal and other Allied tribunals in Asia. However, all members of the imperial family implicated in the war, such as Emperor Shōwa, were excluded from criminal prosecutions by Douglas MacArthur. The Japanese military before and during World War II committed numerous atrocities against civilian and military personnel. Its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, prior to a declaration of war and without warning killed 2,403 neutral military personnel and civilians and wounded 1,247 others. Large scale massacres, rapes, and looting against civilians were committed, most notably the Sook Ching and the Nanjing Massacre, and the use of around 200,000 "comfort women", who were forced to serve as prostitutes for the Japanese military.


title: Japan during World War II

text: The Imperial Japanese Army also engaged in the execution and harsh treatment of Allied military personnel and POWs. Biological experiments were conducted by Unit 731 on prisoners of war as well as civilians; this included the use of biological and chemical weapons authorized by Emperor Shōwa himself. According to the 2002 "International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare", the number of people killed in Far East Asia by Japanese germ warfare and human experiments was estimated to be around 580,000. The members of Unit 731, including Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii, received immunity from General MacArthur in exchange for germ warfare data based on human experimentation. The deal was concluded in 1948. The Imperial Japanese Army frequently used chemical weapons. Because of fear of retaliation, however, those weapons were never used against Westerners, but against other Asians judged "inferior" by imperial propaganda. For example, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions during the Battle of Wuhan from August to October 1938.


title: Galician language

text: Galician (, ; ), also known as Galego and Gallego, is a Western Ibero-Romance language. Around 2.4 million people have at least some degree of competence in the language, mainly in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Spanish. The language is also spoken in some border zones of the neighbouring Spanish regions of Asturias and Castile and León, as well as by Galician migrant communities in the rest of Spain, in Latin America including Puerto Rico, the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.


title: Galician language

text: Modern Galician is part of the West Iberian languages group, a family of Romance languages that includes the Portuguese language. Galician evolved locally from Vulgar Latin and developed, by the 13th century, into what modern scholars have called Galician-Portuguese. The earliest document written integrally in the local Galician variety dates back to 1230, although the subjacent Romance permeates most written Latin local charters since the High Middle Ages, being specially noteworthy in personal and place names recorded in those documents, as well as in terms originated in languages other than Latin. The earliest reference to Galician-Portuguese as an international language of culture dates to 1290, in the "Regles de Trobar" by Catalan author Jofre de Foixà, where it is simply called Galician ("gallego").


title: Galician language

text: Dialectal divergences are observable between the northern and southern forms of Galician-Portuguese in 13th-century texts but the two dialects were similar enough to maintain a high level of cultural unity until the middle of the 14th century, producing the medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric. The divergence has continued to this day, most frequently due to innovations in Portuguese, producing the modern languages of Galician and Portuguese.


title: Galician language

text: The lexicon of Galician is predominantly of Latin extraction, although it also contains a moderate number of words of Germanic and Celtic origin, among other substrates and adstrates, having also received, mainly via Spanish, a number of nouns from Andalusian Arabic.


title: Galician language

text: The language is officially regulated in Galicia by the Royal Galician Academy. Other organizations without institutional support, such as the Galician Association of Language and the Galician Academy of the Portuguese Language, include Galician as part of the Portuguese language.


title: Galician language

text: Modern Galician and Portuguese originated from a common medieval ancestor designated variously by modern linguists as Galician-Portuguese (or as Medieval Galician, Medieval Portuguese, Old Galician or Old Portuguese). This common ancestral stage developed from Vulgar Latin in the territories of the old Kingdom of Galicia, Galicia and Northern Portugal, as a Western Romance language. In the century it became a written and cultivated language with two main varieties, but during the century the standards of these varieties, Galician and Portuguese, began to diverge, as Portuguese became the official language of the independent kingdom of Portugal and its chancellery, while Galician was the language of the scriptoria of the lawyers, noblemen and churchmen of the Kingdom of Galicia, then integrated in the crown of Castile and open to influence from Spanish language, culture, and politics. During the 16th century the Galician language stopped being used in legal documentation, becoming de facto an oral language spoken by the vast majority of the Galicians, but having just some minor written use in lyric, theatre and private letters.


title: Galician language

text: It was not until the century that linguists elaborated the first Galician dictionaries, and the language did not recover a proper literature until the century; only since the last quarter of the century is it taught in schools and used in lawmaking. The first complete translation of the Bible from the original languages dates from 1989. Currently, at the level of rural dialects, Galician forms a dialect continuum with Portuguese in the south, and with Astur-Leonese in the east. Mutual intelligibility (estimated at 85% by Robert A. Hall Jr., 1989) is very high between Galicians and northern Portuguese.


title: Galician language

text: The current linguistic status of Galician with respect to Portuguese is controversial in Galicia, and the issue sometimes carries political overtones. There are linguists who deal with modern Galician and Portuguese as norms or varieties of the same language. Some authors, such as Lindley Cintra, consider that they are still co-dialects of a common language in spite of differences in phonology and vocabulary, while others, argue that they have become separate languages due to differences in phonetics and vocabulary usage, and, to a lesser extent, morphology and syntax. Fernández Rei in 1990 stated that the Galician language is, with respect to Portuguese, an "ausbau" language, a language through elaboration, and not an "abstand" language, a language through detachment.


title: Galician language

text: With respect to the external and internal perception of this relation, for instance in past editions of the "Encyclopædia Britannica", Galician was defined as a Portuguese dialect spoken in northwestern Spain. On the other hand, the director of the Instituto Camões declared in 2019 that Galician and Portuguese were close kin, but different languages. According to the Galician government, universities and main cultural institutions, such as the Galician Language Institute or the Royal Galician Academy, Galician and Portuguese are independent languages that stemmed from medieval Galician-Portuguese, and modern Galician must be considered an independent Romance language belonging to the group of Ibero-Romance languages having strong ties with Portuguese and its northern dialects. The standard orthography has its roots in the writing of relatively modern Rexurdimento authors, who largely adapted Spanish orthography to the then mostly unwritten language. Most Galician speakers do not regard Galician as a variety of Portuguese, but as a different language, which evolved without interruption and in situ from Latin, both languages maintaining separate literary traditions since the 14th century.


title: Galician language

text: Portuguese Early Modern Era grammars and scholars, at least since Duarte Nunes de Leão in 1606, considered Portuguese and Galician two different languages derived from old Galician, understood as the language spoken in the Northwest before the establishment of the Kingdom of Portugal in the 12th century. The surge of the two languages would be the result of both the elaboration of Portuguese, through the royal court, its internationalization and its study and culture; and of the stagnation of Galician.


title: Galician language

text: The earliest internal attestation of the expression "Galician language" ("lingoajen galego") dates from the 14th century. In Spanish "lenguaje gallego" is already documented in this same century, "circa" 1330; in Occitan "circa" 1290, in the "Regles de Trobar" by Catalan author Jofre de Foixà: ""si tu vols far un cantar en frances, no·s tayn que·y mescles proençal ne cicilia ne "gallego" ne altre lengatge que sia strayn a aquell"" ["If you want to compose a song in French, you should not admix Provençal nor Sicilian nor Galician nor other language which is different from it"].


title: Galician language

text: Private cultural associations, not endorsed by Galician or Portuguese governments, such as the Galician Language Association ("Associaçom Galega da Língua") and Galician Academy of the Portuguese Language ("Academia Galega da Língua Portuguesa"), advocates of the minority Reintegrationist movement, support the idea that differences between Galician and Portuguese speech are not enough to justify considering them as separate languages: Galician would be simply one variety of Galician-Portuguese, along with European Portuguese; Brazilian Portuguese; African Portuguese; the Galician-Portuguese still spoken in Spanish Extremadura, Fala; and other dialects. They have adopted slightly-modified or actual Portuguese orthography, which has its roots in medieval Galician-Portuguese poetry as later adapted by the Portuguese Chancellery.


title: Galician language

text: According to Reintegrationists, considering Galician as an independent language reduces contact with Portuguese culture, leaving Galician as a minor language with less capacity to counterbalance the influence of Spanish, the only official language between the 18th century and 1975. On the other hand, viewing Galician as a part of the Lusophony, while not denying its own characteristics (cf. Swiss German), shifts cultural influence from the Spanish domain to the Portuguese. Although it is difficult to clarify the political positions of those who favor one view or the other, Reintegrationism is usually associated with the more radical spectrum of Galician independentism. Some scholars have described the situation as properly a continuum, from the Galician variants of Portuguese in one extreme to the Spanish language in the other (which would represent the complete linguistic shift from Galician to Spanish); reintegrationist points of view are closer to the Portuguese extreme, and so-called isolationist ones would be closer to the Spanish one; however, the major Galician nationalist parties, Anova–Nationalist Brotherhood and Galician Nationalist Bloc, do not use reintegrationist orthographical conventions.


title: Galician language

text: In 2014, the parliament of Galicia unanimously approved Law 1/2014 regarding the promotion of the Portuguese language and links with the Lusophony. Similarly, on 20 October 2016, the city of Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia, approved by unanimity a proposal to become an observer member of the Union of Portuguese-Speaking Capitals (UCCLA). Also, on 1 November 2016, the Council of Galician Culture ("Consello da Cultura Galega", an official institution of defence and promotion of the Galician culture and language) was admitted as a consultative observer of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP).


title: Galician language

text: A "friendship and cooperation" protocol was signed between the Royal Galician Academy (RAG) and the Brazilian Academy of Letters on 10 January 2019. Víctor F. Freixanes, president of the RAG, stated during the ceremony that "there is a conscience that the Galician language is part of a family which includes our brothers from Portugal, Brasil, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique... a territory full of possibilities also for Galician. We always said that Galician is not a regional language, but is in fact part of that international project".


title: Galician language

text: Galician is spoken by some three million people, including most of the population of Galicia and the numerous Galician communities established elsewhere, in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Biscay), in other European cities (Andorra la Vella, Geneva, London, Paris), and in the Americas (New York, New Jersey, Buenos Aires, Córdoba/Argentina, Montevideo, Mexico City, Havana, Caracas, San Juan in Puerto Rico, São Paulo, Managua, Mayagüez, Ponce, Panama City).


title: Galician language

text: Galician is today official, together with the Spanish language, in the autonomous community of Galicia, where it is recognized as the autochthonous language ("lingua propia"), being by law the first language of the local administrations and governments. It is supposed by law to be taught bilingually, alongside Spanish, in both primary and secondary education, although the accomplishment of this law is allegedly doubted. It is also used at the three universities established in Galicia, having also the consideration of official language of the three institutions. Galician has also legal recognition in the Bierzo region in León, and in four municipalities in Zamora. The other languages with official status elsewhere in Spain are Spanish, Catalan (or Valencian), Basque and Aranese. Galician has also been accepted orally as Portuguese in the European Parliament, being used by some Galician representatives, among others: José Posada, Camilo Nogueira and Xosé Manuel Beiras.


title: Galician language

text: Controversy exists regarding the inclusion of Eonavian (spoken in the western end of Asturias, bordering Galicia) into the Galician language, as it has some traits in common with Western Asturian (spoken in the middle west of Asturias). There are those defending these linguistic varieties as dialects of transition to the Astur-Leonese group on the one hand, and those defending it as clearly Galician varieties on the other (actually both views are compatible). The recent edition of the cartularies of Oscos in Old Common Council of Castropol and cartularies of Obona, Cornellana, Corias and Belmonte in middle west of Asturias have shown a huge difference in the medieval speech between both banks of the Navia river. An examination of the old documents of the Eonavian monastery of Oscos, written from the late 12th to early 14th century to 16th century, shows a clear identification of this language with the Galician-Portuguese linguistic group; while contemporary parchments elsewhere in Asturias are written in Spanish. The two most important traits of those commonly used to tell apart Galician-Portuguese and Asturian-Leonese varieties are the preservation of the mid-open vowels and , which became diphthongs in Asturian-Leonese, and the loss of intervocalic , preserved in the latter language.


title: Galician language

text: Latinate Galician charters from the century onward show that the local written Latin was heavily influenced by local spoken Romance, yet is not until the century that there is evidence for the identification of the local language as a language different from Latin itself. During this same century there are full Galician sentences being inadvertently used inside Latin texts, while its first reckoned use as a literary language dates to the last years of this same century.


title: Galician language

text: The linguistic stage from the to the centuries is usually known as Galician-Portuguese (or "Old Portuguese", or "Old Galician") as an acknowledgement of the cultural and linguistic unity of Galicia and Portugal during the Middle Ages, as the two linguistic varieties differed only in dialectal minor phenomena.


title: Galician language

text: This language flourished during the and centuries as a language of culture, developing a rich lyric tradition of which some 2000 compositions ("cantigas", meaning 'songs') have been preserved—a few hundred even with their musical score—in a series of collections, and belonging to four main genres: cantigas de amor, love songs, where a man sings for his ladylove; "cantigas de amigo", where a woman sings for her boyfriend; cantigas de escarnio, crude, taunting, and sexual songs of scorn; cantigas de maldecir, where the poet vents his spleen openly; and also the Cantigas de Santa María, which are religious songs.


title: Galician language

text: The oldest known document is the poem "Ora faz ost'o Senhor de Navarra" by Joam Soares de Paiva, written around 1200. The first non-literary documents in Galician-Portuguese date from the early century, the Noticia de Torto (1211) and the Testamento of Afonso II of Portugal (1214), both samples of medieval notarial prose.


title: Galician language

text: Its most notable patrons—themselves reputed authors—were king Dom Dinis in Portugal, and king Alfonso X the Learned in Galicia, Castile and León, who was a great promoter of both Galician and Castilian Spanish languages. Not just the kings encouraged literary creation in Galician-Portuguese, but also the noble houses of Galicia and Portugal, as being an author or bringing reputed troubadours into one's home became a way of promoting social prestige; as a result many noblemen, businessmen and clergymen of the and centuries became notable authors, such as Paio Gomes Charinho, lord of Rianxo, and the aforementioned kings.


title: Galician language

text: Aside from the lyric genres, Galicia developed also a minor tradition on literary prose, most notably in translation of European popular series, as those dealing with King Arthur written by Chretien de Troyes, or those based on the war of Troy, usually paid and commissioned by noblemen who desired to read those romances in their own language. Other genres include history books (either translation of Spanish ones, or original creations like the "Chronicle of St. Mary of Iria", by Rui Vasques), religious books, legal studies, and a treaty on horse breeding. Most prose literary creation in Galician had stopped by the century, when printing press became popular; the first complete translation of the Bible was not printed until the century.


title: Galician language

text: As for other written uses of Galician, legal charters (last wills, hirings, sales, constitutional charters, city council book of acts, guild constitutions, books of possessions, and any type of public or private contracts and inventories) written in Galicia are to be found from 1230 to 1530—the earliest one probably a document from the monastery of Melón, dated in 1231—being Galician by far the most used language during the , and centuries, in substitution of Latin.


title: Galician language

text: Galician-Portuguese lost its political unity when the County of Portugal obtained its independence from the Kingdom of León, a transition initiated in 1139 and completed in 1179, establishing the Kingdom of Portugal. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Galicia was united with the Kingdom of León, and later with the Kingdom of Castile, under kings of the House of Burgundy. The Galician and Portuguese standards of the language diverged over time, following independent evolutionary paths. Portuguese was the official language of the Portuguese chancellery, while Galician was the usual language not only of troubadours and peasants, but also of local noblemen and clergy, and of their officials, so forging and maintaining two slightly different standards.


title: Galician language

text: During the reign of Alfonso X, Spanish became the official language of the chancellery of the Kingdom of Castile. However, in Galicia and neighboring regions of Asturias and León in 1200–1500, the local languages remained the usual written languages in any type of document, either legal or narrative, public or private. Spanish was progressively introduced through Royal decrees and the edicts of foreign churchmen and officials. This led, from the late 15th century on, to the end of legal documents in Galician; the last ones were issued around 1530. Also, from 1480 on, notaries of the Crown of Castile were required to obtain their licenses in Toledo, where they had to prove their mastery of Spanish.


title: Galician language

text: In spite of Galician being the most spoken language, during the 17th century the elites of the Kingdom began speaking Spanish, most notably in towns and cities. The linguistic situation in Galicia became one of diglossia, with Galician as the low variety and Spanish as the high one. In reaction to the relegation of the autochthonous language, a series of literary and historical works (always written in Spanish) appeared in the 17th century through 19th century, meant to vindicate the history, language, people, and culture of Galicia. The period from the 16th century to the early 19th century, when Galician had little literary—and no legal—use, is considered the dark age of Galician language. The Galician spoken and written then is usually referred to as "Middle Galician".


title: Galician language

text: Middle Galician is known mostly through popular literature (songs, carols, proverbs, theatrical scripts, personal letters), but also through the frequent apparition of Galician interferences and personal and place names in local works and documents otherwise written in Spanish. Other important sources are a number of sonnets and other lyric poetry, as well as other literate productions, including the forgery of allegedly mediaeval scriptures or chronicles under diverse pretensions—usually to show the ancient nobility of the forger's family—being these writings elaborated in an archaic looking Galician which nevertheless could not conceal the state of the language during this period.


title: Galician language

text: Middle Galician is characterized by a series of phonetic processes which led to a further separation from Portuguese, and to the apparition of some of the more noteworthy dialectal features, among other phenomenons: emergence of the "gheada" or pronunciation of as a pharyngeal fricative; denasalization of nasal vowels in most of Galicia, becoming oral vowels in the east, or a group formed by an oral vowels plus a nasal in the west; reduction of the sibilant system, with the confluence (except in the "Baixa Limia" region) of voiced and voiceless fricatives, followed by a process of de-affrication which led to different results in the west and in the east.


title: Galician language

text: The most important author during this period of the language was the enlightened scholar Martín Sarmiento, unconditional defender and the first researcher of Galician language (history, evolution, lexicon, etymology, onomastics). His "Elementos etimológicos segun el método de Euclides" (1766), written in Spanish but dealing with Galician, was in fact one of the first comprehensive studies on sound change and evolution of any European language.


title: Galician language

text: During the 19th century a thriving literature developed, in what was called the "Rexurdimento" (Resurgence), of the Galician language. It was headed by three main authors: Rosalia de Castro, an intimist poet; Eduardo Pondal, of nationalist ideology, who championed a Celtic revival; and Manuel Curros Enríquez, a liberal and anticlerical author whose ideas and proclamations were scandalous for part of the 19th-century society.


title: Galician language

text: An important landmark was the establishment of the Seminario de Estudos Galegos in 1923, devoted to research and study of Galician culture. It was created by a group of students: Fermín Bouza Brey, Xosé Filgueira Valverde, Lois Tobío Fernández, with the collaboration of Ricardo Carvalho Calero, Antón Fraguas and Xaquín Lorenzo Fernández.


title: Galician language

text: Following the victory of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War, the written or public use of the Galician language was outlawed.


title: Galician language

text: With the advent of democracy, Galician has been brought into the country's institutions, and it is now co-official with Spanish in Galicia. Galician is taught in schools, and there is a public Galician-language television channel, Televisión de Galicia.


title: Galician language

text: Today, the most common language for everyday use in the largest cities of Galicia is Spanish rather than Galician, as a result of this long process of language shift. However, Galician is still the main language in rural areas.


title: Galician language

text: The Royal Galician Academy and other Galician institutions celebrate each 17 May as Galician Literature Day (), dedicated each year to a deceased Galician-language writer chosen by the academy.


title: Galician language

text: Use of Galician splits by age, with over half of those over 45 indicating that Galician is their primary language, with lower numbers for the younger population. Those under 45 were more likely than those over 45 to answer that they never use Galician.


title: Galician language

text: Use of Galician also varies greatly depending on the regions and municipalities of Galicia. While in two areas of the Province of A Coruña (Costa da Morte and the Southeast) more than 90% of the population always or mostly speaks in Galician, only the 15,2% of the population does the same in the city of Vigo.


title: Galician language

text: Some authors are of the opinion that Galician possesses no real dialects. Despite this, Galician local varieties are collected in three main dialectal blocks, each block comprising a series of areas, being local linguistic varieties that are all mutually intelligible. Some of the main features which distinguish the three blocks are:


title: Galician language

text: Standard Galician is usually based on Central Galician characteristics, but it also incorporates western and eastern traits and features.


title: Galician language

text: Galician allows pronominal clitics to be attached to indicative and subjunctive forms, as does Portuguese, unlike modern Spanish. After many centuries of close contact between the two languages, Galician has also adopted many loan words from Spanish, and some calques of Spanish syntax.


title: Galician language

text: Galician usually makes the difference according to gender and categorizes words as masculine "o rapaz" (the young man) or feminine "a rapaza" (the young woman). This difference is present in the articles "o / a / os / as" (the), nouns "o can / a cadela" (the dog / the (female) dog), pronouns "el / ela", (he / she) and adjectives "bonitiño / bonitiña" (pretty, beautiful). There is also a neuter set of demonstrative pronouns "isto, iso, aquilo" (this / that). The most typical ending for masculine words is -o, whereas the most typical ending for feminine is -a "o prato / a tixola" (the plate / the frying pan). The difference in the grammatical gender of a word may correspond to a real gender difference in the physical world "xuicioso / xuiciosa" (sensible); the former adjective will qualify a male, and the latter, a female. However, there is no particular reason for objects to be ascribed to a particular grammatical gender or another, it has to do with the gender having been ascribed by tradition and the use of speakers as in the following examples: "o xis / o samba / a mesa / a caricatura" (chalk / the samba / the table / the caricature).


title: Galician language

text: Galician expresses the difference in number with a form for the singular and another for the plural. The most typical suffix to express a plural number is "s", "cantiga / cantigas".