title: All-terrain vehicle

text: The United States government maintains a website about the safety of ATVs where safety tips are provided, such as not driving ATVs with a passenger (passengers make it difficult or impossible for the driver to shift their weight, as required to drive an ATV) or not driving ATVs on paved roads (ATVs usually have a solid rear axle with no differential).


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: In 1988, the All-terrain Vehicle Safety Institute (ASI) was formed to provide training and education for ATV riders. The cost of attending the training is minimal and is free for purchasers of new machines that fall within the correct age and size guidelines. Successful completion of a safety training class is, in many states, a minimum requirement for minor-age children to be granted permission to ride on state land. Some states have had to implement their own safety training programs, as the ASI program cannot include those riders with ATVs outside of the age and size guidelines, which may still fall within the states' laws.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Effective January 1, 2019, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission updated ATV lighting requirements, now requiring all categories of ATVs to be equipped with a stop lamp and side reflectors, similar to those required on passenger cars.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: In industry, agriculture workers are disproportionately at risk for ATV accidents. Most fatalities occur in white men over the age of 55.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: A "quad" is recognised by UK law as a vehicle with four wheels and a mass of less than . To drive a quad cycle on a public road, in the UK, requires a category B (car) or B1 (motor vehicles with 4 wheels up to 400 kg unladen or 550 kg if they’re designed for carrying goods) licence as well as tax, insurance and registration.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: In the United Kingdom, the safety issues of cars classed as quad cycles are illustrated by the case of the G-Wiz (REVAi). The electric microcar was given a Euro NCAP specification test, and the results showed that the vehicle's occupants would suffer "serious or life-threatening" injuries in a crash.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: The UK Department for Transport concluded that there were serious safety concerns when the REVA was crashed at .


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: After consultation with stakeholders including farmers and quad cycle manufacturers, Australia's Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities (HWSA) in 2011 released a strategy intended to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries associated with quad-bike use. The development of the report was closely followed by "The Weekly Times" newspaper and ABC television which reviewed the issue through its "7.30" program. Apart from encouraging of standard safety measures such as helmet-wearing, the strategy also recommend development of a national training curriculum, point of sale material for purchasers and, controversially, a recommendation that owners consider fitting of an after-market anti-crush device which may offer added protection in the event of a roll-over.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: When the report was released the only model of anti-crush protection on the market was the Australian-made "Quad bar" which was vigorously opposed by the industry through media activity and a poster campaign at regional events for farmers which are often used to showcase new products. The industry argued that the device had not been properly tested and that past studies of tractor-style ROPS such as a full-frame 'cage' around the operator were not only ineffective, but could add to the risk to injury or death.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: In February 2012, the Melbourne-based Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) published a paper which criticised the research claims of the manufacturers in relation to crush protection devices. The paper reviewed research in a number of countries since 1993 in relation to rollover protection and found that the industry's opposition to rollover protection could not be supported because of limitations in past research. It recommended further research on the topic and the development of research tools based on the use of ATV/quadbikes in Australian conditions.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Almost, if not any manufacturer ATV registered at the KBA (Kraftfahrtbundesamt) can be registered for road use in Germany. Vehicle-taxes, insurance and a number plate as well as a MOT (TÜV) are required.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: ATVs, or more commonly "quads" in Germany, can be accredited in two different ways in Germany. Usually they are taxed and insured as a regular automobile, which results in the tax being calculated by emissions and displacement in 100ccm steps. ATVs registered as an automobile have to be restricted to a power output of 20 hp/15 kW and are allowed to be driven with a passenger, provided a passenger seat is registered in the vehicle papers.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: The quad needs at least one rear mirror on the left side, minimum 10x5cm. Right side mirror is optional.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: The vehicle needs a high-/low-beam headlight, brake light, indicators, a number plate mount on front and back, a signal horn and is limited.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: ATVs under do not need a reverse gear. Over empty weight, a reverse gear and reverse light are required.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: On the other hand, ATVs can be registered "as agricultural and silvicultural" (LoF/Land oder Forstwirtschaftlich) giving the owner some benefits: The quad can be driven with power outputs more than 20 hp and tax is much cheaper, being calculated by empty weight. Compared to other agricultural vehicles and ATVs, the insurance cost is much lower.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: However, there are some restrictions and requirements for registering ATVS as an agricultural vehicle:


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Custom builds and engine replacements are possible to get street legal, by undergoing a single-acceptance procedure from the MOT(TÜV). This results in some custom quads popularly sporting 4-cycle motorcycle engines street legal. A common example are Yamaha Raptor 700 Conversions to a Yamaha 1000 cc engine from the early Yamaha Fazer and R1.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: ATVS are mostly treated as a regular automobile in Germany, which means no special-vehicle or motorcycle licence is needed. the regular driving license class B (multiple track motorised vehicles up to 3.5 tons) is sufficient even for LoF registered vehicles. This results in Quads being allowed for people of 18 years or older that have a drivers license. It disallows people under the age of 18 to use, even if they have a 50 cc or 125 cc bike license, due to the fact they are treated as automobiles instead of motorcycles.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: However, since 2013, the class AM was introduced, allowing 16 year olds to drive microcars that do not exceed a speed of 50 km/h (such as the infamous Ellenator) a 16 year old owning the AM licence is allowed to drive an ATV limited to 50 cc and a top speed of 45 km/h


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Being treated as an automobile, wearing a helmet was not required for a long time. Since January 2006, helmets are now required for ATVs, three-wheelers, trikes, etc. No additional protective gear is required.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Officially, driving a quad requires the owner to always carry a hazard triangle and a First Aid Kit, and additionally a reflective vest if the quad is registered as an agricultural vehicle.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Due to the lack of storage room, police usually don't check the back of the vehicle, but if they lack the required equipment, they may be prosecuted.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: ATVs accounted for 58% of the SI (spark ignited) recreational vehicles in the US in the year 2000. That year, recreational SI vehicles produced 0.16% of NOx, 8% of HC, 5% of CO and 0.8% of PM emissions for all vehicles, both highway and nonroad. As a point of comparison, the nonroad SI < 19 kW (~25 hp) category (small spark ignition engines such as lawnmowers) comprised 20% of HC and 23% of CO total emissions. While recreational SI vehicles produce an aggregate of <4% of all HC emissions in the US, based on the relatively small population of ATVs (<1.2M) and small annual usage (<350 hrs), EPA emission regulations now include such engines, starting with the model year 2006. Engines meeting these standards now produce only 3% of the HC emissions that previously unregulated engines did.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: While the deep treads on some ATV tires are effective for navigating rocky, muddy and root covered terrain, these treads are also capable of digging channels that may drain bogs, increase sedimentation in streams at crossings and damage groomed snowmobile trails. Proper trail construction techniques can mitigate these effects.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: In some countries where fencing is not common, such as the US, Canada and Australia, some ATV riders knowingly cross privately owned property in rural areas and travel over public/private properties, where their use is limited only to trails. Subsequently, environmentalists criticize ATV riding as a sport for excessive use in areas which biologists consider to be sensitive, especially wetlands and sand dunes and in much of inland Australia.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Because both scientific studies and U.S. National Forest Service personnel have identified unregulated Off-Road Vehicles (ORVs) as the source of major detrimental impacts on national forests, the U.S. Forest Service is currently engaged in the Travel Management Process, wherein individual forests are restricting all off-road motorized travel to approved trails and roads. This is in contrast to its previously allowed, unregulated cross-country travel across all national forest lands, except for specifically designated wilderness areas. Although ORVs had been identified 30 years ago as a threat to wild ecosystems by the Forest Service, only after pressure by an unlikely alliance of environmentalists, private landowners, hunters, ranchers, fishermen, quiet recreationists and forest rangers themselves (who identified ORVs as a "significant law enforcement problem" in national forests). has action been taken.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: They are used in a variety of industries for their maneuverability and off-roading ability. These include:


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Sport models are built with performance, rather than utility, in mind. To be successful at fast trail riding, an ATV must have light weight, high power, good suspension and a low center of gravity. These machines can be modified for such racing disciplines as motocross, woods racing (also known as cross country), desert racing (also known as Hare Scrambles), hill climbing, ice racing, speedway, Tourist Trophy (TT), flat track, drag racing and others.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Throughout the United States and the United Kingdom there are many quad racing clubs with enduro and quadcross sections. GNCC Racing began around 1980 and includes hare scramble and enduro type races. To date, events are mainly held in the eastern part of the United States. GNCC racing features many types of obstacles such as, hill climbing, creek and log crossings, dirt roads and wooded trails.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: ATV National Motocross Championship was formed around 1985. ATVMX events are hosted at premiere motocross racetracks throughout the United States. ATVMX consists of several groups, including the Pro (AMA Pro) and Amateur (ATVA) series. Friday involves amateur practicing and racing on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday also involves racing for the Pro Am Women and Pro Am Unlimited classes. Sunday involves racing for the Pro and Pro Am production ATVs, but are scored separately. On average weekend over 500 racers will compete.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: The FIM organizes the Quadcross of Nations at the end of the year. The competition involves teams of three riders representing their nations. There are three motos with two riders of each nation competing per moto. The location of the event changes from year to year.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Championship Mud Racing/CMR saw its infancy in 2006 as leaders of the ATV industry recognized a need for uniformity of classes and rules of various local mud bog events. Providing standardized rules created the need for a governing body that both racers and event promoters could turn to and CMR was born. Once unified, a true points series was established and lead to a national championship for what was once nothing more than a hobby for most. In 2007 the finalized board of directors was established and the first races were held in 2008. Currently, the CMR schedule includes eight competition dates spanning from March to November. Points are awarded throughout the season in several different competition classes of ATV and SxS Mud Racing. The 2008 year included Mud Bog and Mudda-Cross competitions, but the 2009 and future seasons will only have Mudda-Cross competitions. Classes range from 0–499 cc to a Super-Modified class which will allow any size ATV in competition. The ultimate goal of The CMR is "to see the growth of ATV Mud Racing as a competitive sport and give competitors a pedestal upon which they can receive the recognition from national media and industry sponsors that they have long deserved."


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: In 2005 the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship started with a Quad Championship and the Dakar Rally added the Quad category in 2008. Because the 2008 Dakar Rally was cancelled, the 2009 Dakar Rally was the first Dakar Rally with Quads.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Amateur and professional three-wheeler racing across the United States has also spiked in popularity once again, at levels not seen since the factory teams raced in the 1980s. Part of the appeal is the cheapness of parts, and how easy it is to get into. Races are held at various local and large venues, particularly in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and California. Payouts are sometimes awarded to winners.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: Each year in June, the world's biggest three-wheeler gathering is held at Haspin Acres, in Laurel, Indiana, for the Trikefest event. Over the course of 3 days complete with camping, hundreds of people gather for the event which features competitive racing such as MX style racing, drag racing, mud racing, hill climbs and other events. For those who wish not to compete, there are also many trails a person can ride. as many as 100 or more three-wheelers show up each year, some built and restored to be raffled off, others brought to ride.


title: All-terrain vehicle

text: The fastest speed recorded on a quad cycle, or ATV given a flying start, is 315.74 km/h (196.19 mph), by Terry Wilmeth (USA), at the Madras Airport in Madras, Oregon, USA, on 15 June 2008.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Deal or No Deal is an American version of the international game show of Dutch origin of the same name. The show is hosted by Howie Mandel, and premiered on December 19, 2005, on NBC. The hour-long show typically aired at least twice a week during its run, and included special extended or theme episodes. The show started its fourth season on August 25, 2008, a day after NBC's coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics ended. A daily syndicated half-hour version of the show debuted on September 8, 2008, and continued for two seasons.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The game is primarily unchanged from the international format: a contestant chooses one briefcase from a selection of 26. Each briefcase contains a cash value from $0.01 to $1,000,000. Over the course of the game, the contestant eliminates cases from the game, periodically being presented with a "deal" from The Banker to take a cash amount to quit the game. Should the contestant refuse every deal, they are given the chance to trade the case they chose at the outset for the only one left in play at the time; they then win the amount in the selected case.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Special variations of the game, including a "Million Dollar Mission" introduced in the third season, were also used, as well as a tie-in with a viewer "Lucky Case Game".


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The show was a success for NBC, typically averaging from 10 to 16 million viewers each episode in the first season, although the subsequent seasons only averaged about 5–9 million viewers each episode. It has led to the creation of tie-in board, card, arcade, and video games, as well as a syndicated series played for smaller dollar amounts.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The show went on hiatus in early 2009, and its Friday night time slot was replaced with Mandel's other series "Howie Do It". The network later announced on that "Deal or No Deal" would return on May 4, 2009, to air its remaining episodes. These remaining four were taped in September 2008, and aired on three consecutive Mondays, May 4, 2009, May 11, 2009, and the final two on May 18, 2009.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: On December 3, 2018, the show returned to NBC as a holiday special with original host Howie Mandel. New episodes of the program began airing on CNBC on December 5, 2018. The show aired its final episode on August 7, 2019.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The contestant chooses one of 26 numbered briefcases at the start of the game. These cases, carried by twenty-six identically dressed female models, each hold a different cash amount from $0.01 to $1,000,000. On the stage is a video wall that displays the amounts still in play at any given moment. The contestant's chosen case is brought onto the stage and placed on a podium before them and the host.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: In the first round, the contestant chooses six cases to eliminate from play, one at a time. Each case is opened as it is chosen, and the amount inside is removed from the board. After the sixth pick, a cordless telephone on the podium rings and the host answers it to speak with "The Banker", visible only as a silhouette, who sits in a skybox overlooking the studio. The Banker's face is never seen, and their voice is never heard. After the call ends, the host relays the Banker's offer to buy the contestant's case. The contestant can accept the offer and end the game by saying "deal" and pressing a red button on the podium, or reject it by saying "no deal" and closing a hinged cover over the button.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Each time an offer is rejected, the contestant must play another round, eliminating progressively fewer cases: five in the second round, four in the third, three in the fourth, two in the fifth. Beyond the fifth round, the contestant eliminates one case at a time, receiving a new offer from the Banker after each. The ninth and final offer comes when there are only two cases left in play: the one originally chosen by the contestant and one other. If the contestant rejects this final offer, they may either keep the chosen case or trade it for the other. The contestant receives the amount in the case taken.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The Banker's offer is typically a percentage of the average of the values still in play at the end of each round. This percentage is small in the early rounds, but increases as the game continues and can even exceed 100% in very late rounds. At times, an offer includes a prize tailored to the contestant's interests, either in addition to cash or instead of it. Also, prizes are occasionally substituted for some of the cash amounts on the board. Starting with the Banker's offer in the second round, the contestant can bring a "cheering section" (e.g., friends, family members or colleagues) to the edge of the stage for advice on case selection and whether to accept offers. However, only the contestant's decisions are counted as part of the game.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: If a contestant accepts one of the Banker's first eight offers, and if time permits, the host encourages the contestant to play through additional rounds to see what would have happened if they had not accepted the offer. If time runs short, the last value that was higher than the contestant's taken offer is eliminated in the proveout, the contestant wasn't going to win much, or if there are only two cases remaining, the host opens the contestant's case to see whether their deal is a good or bad one, and then all of the remaining cases are opened at once.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: For the 2018 revival on CNBC, the Banker was female instead of male and instead of a wireless phone Mandel used an iPhone for the banker calls. Once per game, the contestant could counter the Banker's offer after any round by naming a higher price to stop playing. If the Banker accepted the counter-offer, the contestant received the amount they had stated and the game ended immediately. If the banker rejected the counter-offer, the contestant will have to play onto the next round.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Similar to the syndicated series, there was no option to swap cases after the final round, when only the contestant's case and one other were still in play. If the contestant rejected the Banker's final offer (and the contestant had their own counter-offer rejected, if applicable), they received the amount in the originally chosen case, plus any applicable bonuses.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: On "Deal or No Deal", the values hidden in the 26 briefcases typically range from US$0.01 to US$1,000,000 (all 26 cases total US$3,418,416.01):


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Some special episodes feature a board with doubled values, and others feature multiple increases of possible prizes.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: "Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps. All times mentioned are in the Eastern and Pacific time zones."


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Early ratings for the show were extremely encouraging. According to "Zap2it", "all five shows [during the week beginning December 19, 2005 and ending December 25, 2005] finished in the top 15 among total viewers, peaking with 14.1 million people watching the Wednesday, December 21, 2005 installment. For the week, "Deal or No Deal" averaged about 12.7 million viewers and a solid 4.3 rating in the adults 18–49."


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The show appeared again on NBC each night February 27, 2006 through March 3, 2006 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT with the top prize (and some of the higher-valued cases other than the top prize) escalating until the prize reached $3 million (and the lowest-valued case going up to $.03). As of March 6, 2006, the show settled into regular time slots at 8:00 p.m. Mondays and Fridays, with the top prize returning to its original $1 million. Wednesday episodes were added at 8:00 PM due to the show's consistent ratings success. In something of a ratings coup, the April 3, 2006 episode of the show, a two-hour special, outperformed the NCAA basketball tournament final in a head-to-head competition. During both of the two-hour shows, the second hour scored even higher ratings than the first.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Once it became a regular series, "Deal or No Deal" consistently placed within the 20 most popular programs on television, at times landing the top 10. The June 5, 2006 two-hour season finale, which featured Celine Dion via satellite, marked a series-high rating for the program, bringing in over 18 million viewers and a strong 5.5 share in the 18–49 demographic. The episode was easily the highest-rated show on any network for the week of June 5, 2006 through June 11, 2006, outdistancing the number-two show, a repeat episode of "", by almost six million viewers. The finale experienced similar success in Canada, with 1.5 million viewers tuning in. (However, "CSI" and nearly all other fall TV series had completed their seasons two weeks earlier and were either in reruns or pre-empted by this point.)


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The show returned with new episodes in September 2006, airing on Mondays and Fridays at 8:00 p.m. and Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. the latter time slot being perhaps the most competitive in U.S. television, as "Deal or No Deal" faced a pair highly rated programs, "" on CBS, and "Grey's Anatomy" on ABC. Both shows were in the top 10.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: "Deal"'s Thursday time slot had initially been intended for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" when NBC announced its fall schedule. However, the program moved on May 25 from its announced Friday time slot to Thursdays. The drama "Crossing Jordan", which had been planned for a mid-season run, was to be brought into the Friday lineup in what would have been "Deal"s second weekly time slot. However, after "Deal or No Deal" completed airing special episodes in that time slot to success, NBC moved "Crossing Jordan" back to midseason and used "Deal" on Fridays as well to help launch another game show, "1 vs. 100".


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The show premiered with a two-hour edition on September 18, 2006, and one-hour episodes that each aired on September 19, 2006, September 21, 2006, and September 22, 2006. The show used a $21 million prize pot over the first week to kick off season two of the game, coupled with the at-home "Lucky Case Game" for $1 million. During the season premiere week in 2006, the main game had maximum amounts start at $1 million, and increased $1 million for each game, up to $6 million. The top prize case was only chosen once by contestant Matty Sollena on the season premiere. He took the deal for $675,000, but his case contained the top prize of $3,000,000.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: According to final Nielsen ratings for the week of September 18, 2006 to September 24, 2006, the second-season premiere episode of "Deal or No Deal" on Monday, September 18, 2006 with Matty Sollena was the 11th most-watched network prime time show in total audience and NBC's most-watched program in total audience. The Friday episode of the show also did well in the ratings and won its time slot against the other networks. The Tuesday and Thursday episodes suffered from tough competition: "Dancing with the Stars", "Grey's Anatomy", and "CSI".


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The success of "Deal or No Deal" was a factor in NBC's decision to program another Endemol game, "1 vs. 100", which premiered on October 13, 2006 and assumed "Deal"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Friday night time slot on October 27, 2006. Meanwhile, NBC announced the Thursday episodes would end with the November 8, 2006, to be replaced by sitcoms "Scrubs" and "30 Rock". Through all these changes, the Monday night edition of "Deal" continued to win its time slot by a large margin. On Monday, October 30, 2006, for instance, "Deal" won its time slot with a 10.3 household rating and 16 percent share, easily outdistancing second-place "Prison Break" at 5.6/8. During the November sweeps period, the ratings for "Deal or No Deal" on Thursday grew slightly despite heavy competition in the time slot. NBC moved the second weekly episode of "Deal or No Deal" to Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. as of January 2007, and also added a few episodes at 7:00 p.m. Sundays in hopes of giving a boost to its new post-football lineup. NBC announced on February 16, 2007 that the second airing would move from Wednesdays to Sundays at 9:00 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific) starting March 4, 2007.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: In March, the Monday "Deal" fell to second place in the time slot, behind the debuting fourth edition of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars", the first edition of that show to include a Monday episode.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Following a season-premiere episode on Monday, "Deal" vacated its stable Monday night home in a last-second decision by NBC to give the time slot to a drama series, "Chuck", for which it had high hopes. (This move contradicted earlier statements from the network that it had planned to exclusively use unscripted programming in the 8:00 p.m. hour.) "Deal" moved to a Wednesday/Friday schedule, pushing "1 vs. 100" to mid-season. Both airings tended to win their time slot in total viewers, with the Friday edition also winning in Adults 18–49 and the Wednesday edition placing second in that demographic behind ABC's "Pushing Daisies". In another surprising move, NBC replaced the Wednesday airings for five weeks with a short-run reality series, "Phenomenon", starting in late October. The initial ratings for "Phenomenon" were lower than what "Deal" was delivering.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Due to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, "Deal"'s Friday edition moved back to Monday in January 2008, at least temporarily replacing "Chuck". The Friday time slot was filled by the returning "1 vs 100" for seven episodes. "1 vs. 100" has taken another hiatus as of February 22, 2008, and has been replaced in the same time slot by the game show Amnesia, which premiered after "1 vs. 100" on February 22, 2008.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The fourth season began on August 25, 2008, with host Mandel stating prior to the season premiere that there would be at least one millionaire in the season. The beginning of the fourth season also marked the return of an audience competition – the new "Beat the Banker" game brought back the interactivity from past seasons, with home viewers being able to win $10,000 per show.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The following week, Jessica Robinson became the first winner with the $1,000,000 top prize. Robinson appeared during the Million-Dollar Mission, and in her game had five cases containing the $1,000,000 prize. Robinson turned down a final bank offer of $561,000, keeping her case—number 4—and won $1,000,000.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: After Robinson won, the "Million-Dollar Mission" restarted with two $1,000,000 cases on the board, and played until the second $1,000,000 prize was awarded to Tomorrow Rodriguez on October 29, 2008, with nine $1,000,000 cases on the board. Her highest offer was $677,000, with three of the four cases still in play at the time containing $1,000,000 and the other containing $300. By eliminating the $300 case, which was in case number 15, she automatically won the top prize (in case number 7) with fewer than nine offers having been made.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The week before Rodriguez's victory, the October 22, 2008 episode featured the most infamous contestant when Richie Bell of Karns City, Pennsylvania kept his briefcase (case number 11) all the way to the end and turning down multiple banker offers of over $600,000 and it came down to either the $1,000,000 prize or $1. After turning down an offer to switch cases with the remaining case (case number 15), it was revealed that Bell had the $1 case, and only received a consolation prize of $10,001. Bell's blunder turned into an internet meme, though Mandel would later state that Bell was one of his favorite contestants. A 2018 update showed Bell now living with his family in Henderson, Nevada and having lost considerable weight after having successful gastric sleeve surgery.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: "Deal or No Deal" aired its 200th-episode celebration on November 3, 2008, with a series of four speed-round games with four different contestants; however, NBC aired this episode out of order, and in reality only 186 episodes had aired at this point. In the episode, the contestant chose all the cases to open for a round at once and they were opened right away. They only had 20 seconds to accept a bank offer or not. If time ran out, it was an automatic "No Deal". After accepting a bank offer, the contestant's case was immediately opened without playing on to find out what would have happened had he declined the offer.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: On May 19, 2009, it was announced that the fourth season would be the last prime time season of the show. The syndicated show continued for one additional season before it ended its run in 2010.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: On March 13, 2018, it was announced that CNBC would be reviving "Deal or No Deal" for another season. Mandel returned as host and serves as co-executive producer along with Scott St. John, who served in the role for the original series. Thirty one-hour episodes began taping at Universal Orlando in July 2018 and concluded taping on August 11, 2018.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The fifth season began on December 5, 2018, with host Mandel along with several new models. Returning models from the original series include Patricia Kara, Megan Abrigo, and Amanza Smith. Additionally, one of the new models was Mahogany Lox, granddaughter of Motown Records owner Berry Gordy.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: NBC's sister business network, CNBC (Consumer News and Business Channel), aired episodes of the premiere week of "Deal or No Deal" starting on December 26, 2005, scoring above-average ratings for the network. The show has been blacked out in Canada on that station due to programming rights issues in that country, and Canadian viewers were shown CNBC World programming instead. The show began to rerun again on CNBC during the week of February 6, 2006 until June 9, 2006. CNBC also programmed the second week long series of the show, but the sequence started two shows behind the airings on NBC.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: For season two, following a marathon of its premiere week, CNBC announced that "Deal or No Deal" re-airings would be back on Saturday nights starting October 14, 2006 at 8:00 p.m., 11:00 p.m., and 3:00 a.m. (all Eastern). In addition, reruns aired on CNBC every Tuesday and Wednesday at 8:00 p.m., 11:00 p.m., and 1:00 a.m. The reruns are not necessarily repeats of the most recent episodes—many of these episodes are selected at random, and may have been previously seen several months after its initial broadcast. Additionally, reruns have sporadically aired on Game Show Network (GSN) started airing reruns of the show in production order.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: In Canada, DTour also aired the series, starting with the February 2006 premiere week of episodes. The five-episode run of the Canadian show, Deal or No Deal Canada was aired on Global TV in August 2007. The franchise was also hosted by Mandel.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The "Deal or No Deal" channel is a free or value-added channel dedicated to airing reruns of the NBC game show. In the United States, the service is available for free on Plex, Pluto TV, and Xumo. In Canada and the United States, the service is available on LG Channels and Samsung TV Plus, which require a compatible LG or Samsung device. Episodes may air sequentially or in shuffle play, and the episode schedule may be different between each streaming service.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: A daily half-hour syndicated version debuted on September 8, 2008, with Mandel as host, and featuring a format similar to the UK version. The syndicated version offered a top prize of $500,000, hidden in one of the 22 cases available for choosing by contestants rather than the 26 in play in the show's standard format. The show only featured two of the original 26 case models, Tameka Jacobs and Patricia Kara.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The same 22 contestants appeared for the entire week. One contestant played at a time, and five complete games were played per week. Prior to each game, 22 individual dollar amounts ranging from $0.01 to $500,000 were distributed by a third-party among 22 briefcases, and the values were unknown to the host, the Banker or any other entity. The cases were then randomly presented to the 22 contestants by the models.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The game began with the models spinning the "Deal Wheel", a wheel with 22 numbers corresponding to the numbers on the cases. A golden ball was placed into the wheel and as it spun, the ball bounced around inside the wheel to various numbers. When the wheel stopped, whichever number the ball landed is the contestant who competed in the game. Their case was then placed on a podium. The contestant had the opportunity to either keep the case they began the game with or swap with one of the remaining 21 cases.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Through a series of rounds, the contestant was asked to select a number of the other cases still in play. Each case was opened and the value revealed within it taken out of play. A large electronic board was used to track which dollar amounts still remained in the game. After completing the selection of cases for that round, the Banker called the host using a phone on the podium, who then verbally revealed to the contestant of the Banker's "offer", a cash value based upon the remaining values in play, for the contestant to accept and end the game immediately. The game moved in a similar fashion to the broadcast version, which progressively removed cases from the game until the contestant accepted an offer or retained their original case and won the value inside.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Each round progressively removed fewer cases from the game: the first and second round with five cases to be removed; the third round with four; the fourth and fifth rounds with two; and subsequently down to removing one case at a time. If the game progressed to just two cases remaining—the contestant's original and the final unopened case—the contestant was given the choice to take the final offer or win whatever is in the case they kept. There is no opportunity to swap cases in this version. If the contestant took a deal prior to the final round, the host usually encouraged the contestant to play through to the end to see what would have happened.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The syndicated version also has a "Lucky Case Game" called "Deal's $10K Giveaway", playing for $10,000 cash. Unlike the prime-time version, the contest lasts all week (with one winner per week), and viewers participate by calling a toll-free number. There are also 5 regular cases rather than 6 gold cases. The contest is designed as an advertisement for the Deal or No Deal Club, a club where shoppers could get special discounts for a monthly fee at their website.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: In season two, this was changed to "Deal Mania!!!", giving away a $1,000 prize rather than $10,000 cash. The contest works almost exactly like "Deal's $10K Giveaway", except that viewers can enter 5 times a day by calling the toll-free number or an unlimited number of times on the website. "Deal Mania!!!" is also played every weekday and holds weekend sweepstakes as well.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Originally, Mandel planned not to host the syndicated version, as his asking price to host it, in addition to the prime time NBC version, was considered to be outside of the production budget. Arsenio Hall was first considered to be the host, and even taped a pilot for the syndicated version, but was later passed over. According to rumors, Mark Curry and Frank Nicotero were also among the candidates. NBC also had concerns that the syndicated show would harm the prime time show, as "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" had suffered from overexposure. However, the syndicated version debuted September 8, 2008, with Mandel as host.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Initially, NBC planned to package this program with the Program Partners-produced "Merv Griffin's Crosswords" for its first season, as its owned and operated stations were already airing "Crosswords" and were picking up "Deal or No Deal" as well. However, this was later scrapped after "Crosswords" abruptly stopped production after its first season and most, if not all, of the NBC O&Os aired "Deal or No Deal" in a double-run format as a result.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: As "Deal or No Deal" became an exclusively syndicated show for the 2009–10 season, production moved from the Culver Studios in Culver City, California to the Sonalysts Studios in Waterford, Connecticut, as part of a corporate decision in which four NBC Universal Television Distribution shows moved to Connecticut. The show started taping in high-definition.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: On October 18, 2010, GSN picked up the rights to air reruns of the syndicated version of "Deal or No Deal". The show was pulled from the schedule for a short time, but then returned to a weekend run. The network resumed airing reruns of the syndicated version in March 2014. Presently, the network is only airing the NBC version of the show.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The original pilot was produced for ABC in early 2004 with Irish TV personality Patrick Kielty as host and a $2.5 million top prize. It was announced that the show would premiere in March 2004, but ABC decided against airing the series.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: The first season was taped at Sunset Gower Studios; however, early episodes were taped at CBS Television City, both in Los Angeles. Seasons two through four were taped at Culver Studios in Culver City, California. The second syndicated season was taped at the Sonalysts Studio in Waterford, Connecticut. The 2018 revival was based at Universal Orlando in Florida.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: As was stated, episodes had a tendency to be themed around the contestant depending upon information the production team obtained on them. Mandel stated that this was done "to make the contestant feel comfortable" (and was the case since early in Season Two); However, critics cited an over-reliance by the series on contestant-based "theme" shows.


title: Deal or No Deal (American game show)

text: Several states in the U.S. have had some kind of "Deal or No Deal" scratch-off ticket, with the top prize determined by each lottery to the grand prize winner. Non-winning tickets may be used to enter a sweepstakes for a variety of prizes, including a chance to be on the game show.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19,343 were in Lehigh County. It is Pennsylvania's seventh most populous city. The city is located along the Lehigh River, a tributary of the Delaware River.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem lies in the center of the Lehigh Valley, a metropolitan region of with a population of 861,899 people as of the 2020 census that is Pennsylvania's third most populous metropolitan area and the 68th most populated metropolitan area in the U.S. Smaller than Allentown but larger than Easton, Bethlehem is the Lehigh Valley's second most populous city.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: There are four sections to the city: central Bethlehem, the south side, the east side, and the west side. Each of these sections blossomed at different times in the city's development and each contains areas recognized under the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Norfolk Southern Railway's Lehigh Line, formerly the main line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, runs through Bethlehem heading east to Easton and across the Delaware River to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Reading Line runs through Bethlehem and west to Allentown and Reading.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem has a long historical relationship with the celebration of Christmas. The city was christened as Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 1741 by Nicolaus Zinzendorf, a Moravian bishop. In 1747, Bethlehem was the first U.S. city to feature a decorated Christmas tree. On December 7, 1937, at a grand ceremony during the Great Depression, the city adopted the nickname "Christmas City USA" in a large ceremony. It is one of several Lehigh Valley locations, including Emmaus, Egypt, Allentown's Jordan Creek, and Nazareth whose names were inspired by locations referenced in the Bible. The Lehigh River, a tributary of the Delaware River, flows through the city.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The areas along the Delaware River and its tributaries in eastern Pennsylvania were long inhabited by indigenous peoples of various cultures. By the time of European contact, these areas were the historic territory of the Algonquian-speaking Lenape Nation, which had three main divisions, known by the dialects, the Unami, Unalachtigo, and Munsee. They traded with the Dutch and then English colonists in the mid-Atlantic area, in territory ranging from what became Connecticut, Long Island, and the lower Hudson Valley in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: On April 2, 1741, William Allen, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant and political figure, who later founded the city of Allentown, deeded 500 acres along the banks of the Monocacy Creek and Lehigh River to the Moravian Church. On Christmas Eve of that year, David Nitschmann and Nicolaus Zinzendorf, leading a small group of Moravians, founded the mission community of Bethlehem at the confluence of the Monocacy and Lehigh rivers. They came to set up missionary communities among the Native Americans and unchurched German-speaking Christians. They named the settlement after the Biblical town Bethlehem of Judea, said to be the birthplace of Jesus. "Count Zinzendorf said, "Brothers, how more fittingly could we call our new home than to name it in honor of the spot where the event we now commemorate took place. We will call this place Bethlehem.' And so was Bethlehem named after the birthplace of the Man of Peace."


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem was started as a typical Moravian Settlement Congregation, where the Church owned all the property. Until the 1850s, officially only members of the Moravian Church were permitted to lease land plots in Bethlehem. But a member of a group of families who were Huguenots also settled in Bethlehem. In the late 1700s, Bethlehem established grist and saw mills, known as Calvin's Mills. The historic Brethren's House, Sisters' House, Widows' House, and "Gemeinhaus" (Congregation House), with the Old Chapel, are remnants of this period of communal living.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The Moravians ministered to the regional Lenape Native Americans through their mission in the area, as well as further east in the New York colony. In the historic Bethlehem God's Acre cemetery, converted Lenape were buried alongside the Moravians. In 1762, Bethlehem built the first water-works in America to pump water for public use.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: In the autumn of 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, many patriots fled from Philadelphia to Bethlehem and the surrounding area as the British advanced in the east. The Marquis de Lafayette recovered from an injury received at the Battle of Brandywine in Bethlehem. Several of the most prominent members of the Continental Congress fled north to Bethlehem before the congress eventually reconvened in Lancaster. Before, during and after the American Revolution, Bethlehem was visited by George Washington and his wife Martha, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and the Marquis de Lafayette. On September 22, 1777, fourteen members of the Continental Congress signed the Moravian Sun Inn register and stayed overnight.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: George Washington stored his personal effects at the farm of James Burnside in Bethlehem; , this is operated as a historical museum known as James Burnside Plantation.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: In 1845, the prosperous village was incorporated into a free borough in the County of Northampton. After the Unity Synod of 1848, Bethlehem became the headquarters of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church in North America. On March 27, 1900, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem presented the United States debut of German Lutheran composer Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B Minor (1749) in the city's Central Moravian Church. Bethlehem was one of the four leading Moravian communities in the Northeastern United States (Emmaus, Lititz and Nazareth, each in Pennsylvania, were the three others).


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem Township has remained a separate political entity. Even after the merger of the two boroughs, the township initially provided a count for the original sections.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: After the Civil War, the Borough of South Bethlehem was formed. In 1886, the Borough of West Bethlehem (in Lehigh County) was formed. In 1904, the Boroughs of West Bethlehem (in Lehigh County) and Bethlehem (in Northampton County) merged. In 1917, the Borough of South Bethlehem and Bethlehem merged to become the City of Bethlehem. Bethlehem Steel executive Archibald Johnston (1865-1948) was elected as the new city's first mayor.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.88%) is water. Bethlehem is approximately north of Philadelphia and about west of New York City. Because large volumes of water were required in the steelmaking process, the city purchased of land in the Pocono Mountains, where its water is stored in reservoirs. The Lehigh River, a tributary of the Delaware, flows right through Bethlehem. The Monocacy and Saucon creeks empty into the Lehigh in Bethlehem.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem has a humid continental climate ("Dfa"). Summers are typically hot and humid, fall and spring are generally mild, and winter is cold. Precipitation is distributed fairly uniformly throughout the year, with thunderstorms in the summer, showers in spring and fall, and snow in winter. The average high temperature varies widely, from in January to in July. The highest recorded temperature was , while the lowest recorded temperature was .


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem is divided into five main areas: Center City, West Side, East Side, South Side, and North Side. The West Side is located in Lehigh County and the other five neighborhoods are in Northampton County.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: As of the census of 2020, there are 75,781 people living in the city. The racial makeup of the city is 72.7% White, 9.2% African American, 0.3% Native American, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 3.1% Asian American, 9.8% from other races, and 7.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race are 29.9% of the population.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 74,982 people living in the city. There were 31,221 housing units, with 5.9% vacant. The racial makeup of the city was 76.4% White, 6.9% African American, 0.3% Native American, 2.9% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 10.0% from other races, and 3.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 24.4% of the population.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 71,329 people living in the city, including 17,094 families and 28,116 households. The population density was 3,704.4 people per square mile (1,429.9/km). There were 29,631 housing units at an average density of 1,538.8 per square mile (594.0/km). The racial makeup of the city was 81.85% White, 3.64% African American, 0.26% Native American, 2.22% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 9.44% from other races, and 2.56% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 18.23% of the population.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: There were 28,116 households, out of which 26.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.1% were married couples living together, 12.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.2% were non-families. 32.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.34 and the average family size was 2.95.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 21.0% under the age of 18, 14.4% from 18 to 24, 26.6% from 25 to 44, 20.1% from 45 to 64, and 17.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.6 males. The median income for a household in the city was $35,815, and the median income for a family was $45,354. Males had a median income of $35,190 versus $25,817 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,987. About 11.1% of families and 15.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.7% of those under age 18 and 8.8% of those age 65 or over.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem has a lower crime rate than that of Allentown and Easton. In 2008, Bethlehem had an overall crime index of 244.4, while Allentown's crime index was 510.4 and Easton's crime index was 379.2. The United States' average was 320.9.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem became a center of heavy industry and trade during the industrial revolution. Bethlehem Steel (1857–2003), founded and based in Bethlehem, was once the second-largest steel producer in the United States, after Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel. Bethlehem Steel was also one of the largest shipbuilding companies in the world and one of the most powerful symbols of American industrial manufacturing leadership, and it manufactured over 1,100 warships used in World War II.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem Steel began producing the first wide-flange structural shapes made in the United States and they pioneered the production of the now-ubiquitous "I-beam" used in construction of steel-framed buildings, including skyscrapers. It manufactured construction materials for numerous New York City and other city skyscrapers and major bridges.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The company became a major supplier of armor plate and ordnance products during World War I and World War II. After roughly 140 years of metal production at its Bethlehem plant, Bethlehem Steel ceased operations there in 1995, in the face of overseas competition and declining demand, and the company's liquidation was completed in 2003.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: In December 2006, Las Vegas Sands Corp was awarded a Category 2 Slot Machine License by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. LVSC began work on the site, categorized as both the largest brownfield redevelopment project in the nation and the largest casino development investment made to date in the Commonwealth. Its mission was to create reinvestment and urbanization in the area. At a projected cost of $743 million, the historic Bethlehem Steel plant is being redeveloped as a fully integrated resort, to include 3,000 slot machines, over 300 hotel rooms, 9 restaurants, of retail outlet shopping, and of flexible multi-purpose space. In 2007, the casino resort company of Las Vegas Sands began the construction of Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, later rebranded as Wind Creek Bethlehem. The casino has been projected to bring in approximately one million dollars in revenue per day as of 2009.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Another major economic anchor to the city is St. Luke's Hospital located in neighboring Fountain Hill. That Hospital and Health Network is the second largest of its type in the Lehigh Valley. Other major employers include B. Braun, Lehigh University, and the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Other companies in Bethlehem include the candy company Just Born. Zulily also has a large logistics operation in the city and serves the United States.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Over the past two decades, many shops and restaurants have opened in the city's downtown and South Side. In the mid-1970s, West Broad Street between New and Guetter Streets in center city was converted to a pedestrian plaza. The buildings on the south side of the block were torn down and replaced by an enclosed mall and 11-story office tower. The tower, at One Bethlehem Plaza on the corner of Broad and New, continues to operate, but the 80,000-square-foot mall, which was erected in response to the development of suburban shopping malls, failed. Since then, the block has been reopened to traffic, and the mall has been converted into offices for PowerSchool, a major software company based in California, and the Internal Revenue Service.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: In recent years, retail business in downtown Bethlehem, particularly along Main Street south of Broad, has experienced a renaissance, based on the city's historic character. The two-block shopping area is anchored by Moravian University's Main Street Campus and Central Moravian Church at the southern end and The Bethlehem Commons indoor mall and historic Sun Inn (1758) at its northern end. In between, numerous boutiques have opened, selling artwork, gifts, clothing, antiques, crafted beverages, gourmet foods, jewelry, hand cut crystal, holiday decorations, and other specialties. Among the blocks' additional attractions are the Moravian Book Shop (1745), the country's oldest continuously operating bookstore, and the historic Hotel Bethlehem (1922). Meanwhile, on the city's South Side, stores and restaurants have sprung up on Third and Fourth Streets, largely because of the presence of Lehigh University but also tied to the opening of the Sands Casino and the development of the SteelStacks Arts and Cultural campus.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem has a long historical relationship with the celebration of Christmas, which is prominently celebrated in the city annually. The city was christened as Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, 1741 by Nicolaus Zinzendorf, a Moravian bishop. In 1747, Bethlehem was the first U.S. city to feature a decorated Christmas tree.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: On December 7, 1937, at a grand ceremony during the Great Depression, the city adopted the nickname "'Christmas City USA" in a large ceremony that included Marion Brown Grace, the daughter of former South Bethlehem burgess Charles F. Brown and wife of Bethlehem Steel president Eugene Grace. Hundreds of citizens attended the ceremony and thousands more listened to the speeches and musical performances on the radio.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Hotel Bethlehem was chosen for the ceremony because it was built on the site of the first building in Bethlehem, a two-room log house, where the original settlers conducted their evening worship on Christmas Eve 1741. As their benefactor, Count Zinzendorf, observed the farm animals that shared the space and listened to them sing the hymn, "Not Jerusalem, But Lowly Bethlehem", he proclaimed the name of the settlement to be Bethlehem. The people gathered at the 1937 ceremony heard the same words when the Bach Choir sang the old German hymn, "Jesu, Rufe Mich (Jesus, Call Thou Me)", by Adam Drese.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The "Bethlehem Globe-Times" paid for the large wooden star erected on the top of South Mountain, at a cost of $460. The original star was created with four wooden planks, overlapped to create an eight-point star, 60 feet high by 51 feet wide, mounted on two wooden poles, and lit by 150 50-watt light bulbs. The installation of the star was done by PPL Corporation and the Bethlehem Water Department. The star was erected on the top of South Mountain, on property owned by the Water Department, located in Lower Saucon Township.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: In 1939, the wooden star was replaced with a star made of Bethlehem steel, at a cost of $5,000. It had eight rays, with the main horizontal ray 81 feet wide and the main vertical ray 53 feet high. In 1967, the current star, 91 feet high, was installed on the old steel frame and set in a concrete base 25 feet wide by 5 feet deep. Plexiglas was installed to protect the 250 50-watt light bulbs. In the summer of 2006, the city repaired the base. A crew of municipal electricians changes the bulbs every two years. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the star was lit from 4:30 p.m. until midnight, every day of the year.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Since its founding in 1898, The Bach Choir of Bethlehem has been attracting thousands of visitors to the annual Bethlehem Bach Festival, now held largely on the campus of Lehigh University and on the historic grounds of the Moravian Community. Other festivals include The Celtic Classic, which celebrates Celtic culture, food and music, and the SouthSide Film Festival, a non-competitive, not-for-profit film festival. The city has also been the past, and current host of the North East Art Rock Festival, or NEARFest, a popular three-day progressive rock music event.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The Bethlehem Area Public Library is a popular destination for recreation and entertainment. The Banana Factory houses studios of area artists and is open to the public every first Friday of the month. Touchstone Theatre, also on the SouthSide, houses the Valley's only professional resident theatre company, producing and presenting original theatre performances.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The city is famous for hosting Musikfest, the nation's largest free music festival held annually each August. The festival spans ten days, attracts roughly a million attendees from all over the world, and features hundreds of musical acts from all genres.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: In 2011, the city opened Steel Stacks, a ten-acre campus on the former grounds of Bethlehem Steel, that showcases music, art, festivals, films and educational programming throughout the year. It is located in the backdrop of the blast furnaces of the former Bethlehem Steel plant.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Lehigh University's Zoellner Arts Center offers a variety of musical and dramatic events through the year.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: On the first Friday of the month, the businesses of the Southside Shopping District hosts First Friday, a celebration of arts and culture. Stores, restaurants and art galleries stay open late and offer special discounts, refreshments, gallery openings and more. The Lehigh Canal provides hiking and biking opportunities along the canal towpath which follows the Lehigh River in Bethlehem. Both the Lehigh Canal and the Monocacy Creek are popular for sport fishing, and both are stocked annually with trout.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem Steel FC, a United Soccer League team founded in 2015, played at Goodman Stadium at Lehigh University, until 2019, when it moved to Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania after concerns about Goodman Stadium's lighting deficiencies went unaddressed.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The Lehigh Valley Steelhawks, a former Professional Indoor Football League, played home games at Stabler Arena in Bethlehem until they moved to Allentown in 2014.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: From 1996 to 2012, the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League held pre-season training camp each summer at the football facilities of Bethlehem's Lehigh University.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: In the early part of the 20th century, Bethlehem had a corporate soccer team, the Bethlehem Steel F.C., which won the 1918–19 championship in the National Association Football League (NAFL), and then won what amounted to national championships three more times during the next decade (1920–21 in the NAFL; 1926–27 in the American Soccer League I; and in 1928–29 winning the EPSL II). The Bethlehem Steel sides consisted largely of British imported players and also had the distinction of being the first American professional soccer team to play in Europe, which it did during its tour of Sweden in 1919. The team also won the National Challenge Cup, now called the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup after billionaire sports franchise owner Lamar Hunt, five times beginning in 1915, and for the last time in 1926.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem owns 39 park sites, encompassing . Among the city's parks are Buchannan Park, Elmwood Park, Illick's Mill Park, Johnston Park, Monocacy Park, Rockland Park, Rose Garden, Sand Island, Saucon Park, Sell Field, South Mountain Park, Triangle Park, West Side Park, and Yosko Park.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The city government is composed of a mayor and a seven-person city council. Mayor J. William Reynolds was sworn in on January 3, 2022. Federally, Bethlehem is part of Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district, represented by Democrat Susan Wild.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem is home to three institutes of higher education. Lehigh University, located on South Mountain on the Bethlehem's South Side, has 5,000 undergraduates and 2,100 graduate students. The university, which was founded in 1865, was ranked No. 44 in "U.S. News & World Report"s ratings of America's best colleges in 2017.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Moravian University, located in the center city area, is a small, highly respected liberal arts college. Founded in 1742 as Bethlehem Female Seminary, Moravian is the sixth oldest college in the nation. Besides undergraduate programs, the college also includes the Moravian Theological Seminary, a graduate school with approximately 100 students from more than a dozen religious denominations.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The International Institute for Restorative Practices is a graduate school dedicated to the advanced education of professionals and to the conduct of research that can develop the growing field of restorative practices. The IIRP offers two master's degrees: the Master of Restorative Practices and Education (MRPE) and the Master of Restorative Practices and Youth Counseling (MRPYC). The IIRP also offers an 18-credit Graduate Certificate in Restorative Practices.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem public schools are managed by the Bethlehem Area School District, which covers a area that includes the city, the boroughs of Fountain Hill and Freemansburg and two townships, Bethlehem Township, and Hanover Township. The district operates two high schools for grades 9–12, Liberty High School near center city, and Freedom High School in neighboring Bethlehem Township.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: The district also has four public middle schools for grades 6–8: Broughal Middle School, East Hills Middle School, Nitschmann Middle School, and Northeast Middle School. In addition, BASD maintains 16 public elementary schools for grades K-5: Asa Packer Elementary School, Calypso Elementary School, Clearview Elementary School, Donegan Elementary School, Farmersville Elementary School, Fountain Hill Elementary School, Freemansburg Elementary School, Governor Wolf Elementary School, Hanover Elementary School, James Buchanan Elementary School, Lincoln Elementary School, Marvine Elementary School, Miller Heights Elementary School, Spring Garden Elementary School, Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, and William Penn Elementary School. Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts is also operated by the district, though it accepts students in grades 9–12 from throughout Northampton and surrounding counties.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem has two parochial high schools available to students: Bethlehem Catholic High School, which serves grades 9–12, and Moravian Academy, which serves all primary and secondary school grades. Notre Dame High School, located in Easton, serves grades 9 through 12.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Each of Bethlehem's three large high schools, Bethlehem Catholic, Freedom, and Liberty, compete athletically in Pennsylvania's Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and play their home football games at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium, a 14,000-capacity stadium that is one of the largest high school football stadiums in the state and has been labeled "a local football mecca."


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Two daily newspapers currently serve Bethlehem. "The Morning Call", based in Allentown, and "The Express-Times", based in Easton. Other smaller newspapers include "The Bethlehem Press", an award-winning weekly, "Pulse Weekly," based in Allentown, "Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal", based in Bethlehem, and "Lehigh Valley Sports Extra", an all-sports monthly newspaper founded in 2001. A Bethlehem-based daily, "The Globe-Times", founded in 1855, ceased publication in 1991.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Religious broadcaster WBPH is the only television station licensed in Bethlehem, though WLVT Channel 39, a PBS affiliate, has its operations in the city. WFMZ Channel 69, an independent station, is based in neighboring Allentown. Bethlehem is part of the Philadelphia media market, the nation's fourth largest, and its cable systems also receive select radio and television broadcasts from New York City.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Bethlehem has two licensed commercial radio stations, variety WGPA-AM and hard rock WZZO-FM. There is also one non-commercial station, WLVR-FM, operated by Lehigh University. Public radio station WDIY-FM, while licensed in Allentown, maintains its facilities in Bethlehem. There are numerous other stations broadcast from Allentown and Easton, representing a variety of commercial formats and several translators of public stations from Philadelphia and New Jersey.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Lehigh Valley International Airport, the fourth largest commercial airport in Pennsylvania, is located roughly north of Bethlehem in Allentown.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: LANta provides local bus service in Bethlehem, serving points in the city and providing connections to Allentown, Easton, the Lehigh Valley Mall, and other points in the Lehigh Valley. The Bethlehem Transportation Center at Broad and Guetter streets serves as a transit hub for LANTA buses in Bethlehem. Trans-Bridge Lines provides intercity bus service in Bethlehem, stopping at the Bethlehem Transportation Center and the Wind Creek Bethlehem bus terminal. Trans-Bridge Lines provides service from Bethlehem to Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City along two routes, one of which runs from Allentown and Bethlehem to New York City and the other which runs from Bethlehem to New York City via Doylestown, Pennsylvania and Flemington, New Jersey. OurBus provides bus service from Bethlehem to Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Freight rail service in Bethlehem is provided by the Norfolk Southern Railway and Lehigh Valley Rail Management. Norfolk Southern Railway operates the Lehigh Line through the city along the Lehigh River, with the Reading Line splitting from the Lehigh Line in Bethlehem. Bethlehem formerly had passenger rail service at the Bethlehem Union Station, which originally served the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Reading Company and had service along SEPTA's Bethlehem Line south to Philadelphia until 1981, when service was cut back to Quakertown and later Lansdale. The Central Railroad of New Jersey formerly provided passenger rail service to the city at the Bethlehem station.


title: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

text: Electricity in Bethlehem is provided by PPL Corporation. UGI Utilities supplies natural gas to the city. The City of Bethlehem Department of Water & Sewer Resources provides water and sewer service to Bethlehem and parts of 10 adjacent municipalities in Lehigh and Northampton counties, serving 35,000 water customers and 25,000 sewer customers. The city's water supply comes from the Pocono Mountains, with the surface water sources containing 10 billion gallons of freshwater capacity in an area consisting of 23,000 acres of protected watershed. Trash collection in Bethlehem is provided by private haulers while the City of Bethlehem Recycling Department provides recycling collection.


title: Mayan languages

text: The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica, both in the south of Mexico and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million Maya people, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes eight within its territory.


title: Mayan languages

text: The Mayan language family is one of the best-documented and most studied in the Americas. Modern Mayan languages descend from the Proto-Mayan language, thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago; it has been partially reconstructed using the comparative method. The proto-Mayan language diversified into at least six different branches: the Huastecan, Quichean, Yucatecan, Qanjobalan, Mamean and Chʼolan–Tzeltalan branches.


title: Mayan languages

text: Mayan languages form part of the Mesoamerican language area, an area of linguistic convergence developed throughout millennia of interaction between the peoples of Mesoamerica. All Mayan languages display the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area. For example, all use relational nouns instead of prepositions to indicate spatial relationships. They also possess grammatical and typological features that set them apart from other languages of Mesoamerica, such as the use of ergativity in the grammatical treatment of verbs and their subjects and objects, specific inflectional categories on verbs, and a special word class of "positionals" which is typical of all Mayan languages.


title: Mayan languages

text: During the pre-Columbian era of Mesoamerican history, some Mayan languages were written in the logo-syllabic Maya script. Its use was particularly widespread during the Classic period of Maya civilization (c. 250–900). The surviving corpus of over 5,000 known individual Maya inscriptions on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices, combined with the rich post-Conquest literature in Mayan languages written in the Latin script, provides a basis for the modern understanding of pre-Columbian history unparalleled in the Americas.


title: Mayan languages

text: Mayan languages are the descendants of a proto-language called Proto-Mayan or, in Kʼicheʼ Maya, "Nabʼee Mayaʼ Tzij" ("the old Maya Language"). The Proto-Mayan language is believed to have been spoken in the Cuchumatanes highlands of central Guatemala in an area corresponding roughly to where Qʼanjobalan is spoken today. The earliest proposal which identified the Chiapas-Guatemalan highlands as the likely "cradle" of Mayan languages was published by the German antiquarian and scholar Karl Sapper in 1912. Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson have reconstructed more than 3000 lexical items for the proto-Mayan language.


title: Mayan languages

text: According to the prevailing classification scheme by Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman, the first division occurred around 2200 BCE, when Huastecan split away from Mayan proper after its speakers moved northwest along the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Proto-Yucatecan and Proto-Chʼolan speakers subsequently split off from the main group and moved north into the Yucatán Peninsula. Speakers of the western branch moved south into the areas now inhabited by Mamean and Quichean people. When speakers of proto-Tzeltalan later separated from the Chʼolan group and moved south into the Chiapas Highlands, they came into contact with speakers of Mixe–Zoque languages. According to an alternative theory by Robertson and Houston, Huastecan stayed in the Guatemalan highlands with speakers of Chʼolan–Tzeltalan, separating from that branch at a much later date than proposed by Kaufman.


title: Mayan languages

text: In the Archaic period (before 2000 BCE), a number of loanwords from Mixe–Zoquean languages seem to have entered the proto-Mayan language. This has led to hypotheses that the early Maya were dominated by speakers of Mixe–Zoquean languages, possibly the Olmec. In the case of the Xincan and Lencan languages, on the other hand, Mayan languages are more often the source than the receiver of loanwords. Mayan language specialists such as Campbell believe this suggests a period of intense contact between Maya and the Lencan and Xinca people, possibly during the Classic period (250–900).


title: Mayan languages

text: During the Classic period the major branches began diversifying into separate languages. The split between Proto-Yucatecan (in the north, that is, the Yucatán Peninsula) and Proto-Chʼolan (in the south, that is, the Chiapas highlands and Petén Basin) had already occurred by the Classic period, when most extant Maya inscriptions were written. Both variants are attested in hieroglyphic inscriptions at the Maya sites of the time, and both are commonly referred to as "Classic Maya language". Although a single prestige language was by far the most frequently recorded on extant hieroglyphic texts, evidence for at least three different varieties of Mayan have been discovered within the hieroglyphic corpus—an Eastern Chʼolan variety found in texts written in the southern Maya area and the highlands, a Western Chʼolan variety diffused from the Usumacinta region from the mid-7th century on, and a Yucatecan variety found in the texts from the Yucatán Peninsula. The reason why only few linguistic varieties are found in the glyphic texts is probably that these served as prestige dialects throughout the Maya region; hieroglyphic texts would have been composed in the language of the elite.


title: Mayan languages

text: Stephen Houston, John Robertson and David Stuart have suggested that the specific variety of Chʼolan found in the majority of Southern Lowland glyphic texts was a language they dub "Classic Chʼoltiʼan", the ancestor language of the modern Chʼortiʼ and Chʼoltiʼ languages. They propose that it originated in western and south-central Petén Basin, and that it was used in the inscriptions and perhaps also spoken by elites and priests. However, Mora-Marín has argued that traits shared by Classic Lowland Maya and the Chʼoltiʼan languages are retentions rather than innovations, and that the diversification of Chʼolan in fact post-dates the classic period. The language of the classical lowland inscriptions then would have been proto-Chʼolan.


title: Mayan languages

text: During the Spanish colonization of Central America, all indigenous languages were eclipsed by Spanish, which became the new prestige language. The use of Mayan languages in many important domains of society, including administration, religion and literature, came to an end. Yet the Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others, and perhaps for this reason, many Maya communities still retain a high proportion of monolingual speakers. The Maya area is now dominated by the Spanish language. While a number of Mayan languages are moribund or are considered endangered, others remain quite viable, with speakers across all age groups and native language use in all domains of society.


title: Mayan languages

text: As Maya archaeology advanced during the 20th century and nationalist and ethnic-pride-based ideologies spread, the Mayan-speaking peoples began to develop a shared ethnic identity as Maya, the heirs of the Maya civilization.


title: Mayan languages

text: The word "Maya" was likely derived from the postclassical Yucatán city of Mayapan; its more restricted meaning in pre-colonial and colonial times points to an origin in a particular region of the Yucatán Peninsula. The broader meaning of "Maya" now current, while defined by linguistic relationships, is also used to refer to ethnic or cultural traits. Most Maya identify first and foremost with a particular ethnic group, e.g. as "Yucatec" or "Kʼicheʼ"; but they also recognize a shared Maya kinship. Language has been fundamental in defining the boundaries of that kinship. Fabri writes: "The term Maya is problematic because Maya peoples do not constitute a homogeneous identity. Maya, rather, has become a strategy of self-representation for the Maya movements and its followers. The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG) finds twenty-one distinct Mayan languages." This pride in unity has led to an insistence on the distinctions of different Mayan languages, some of which are so closely related that they could easily be referred to as dialects of a single language. But, given that the term "dialect" has been used by some with racialist overtones in the past, as scholars made a spurious distinction between Amerindian "dialects" and European "languages", the preferred usage in Mesoamerica in recent years has been to designate the linguistic varieties spoken by different ethnic group as separate languages.


title: Mayan languages

text: In Guatemala, matters such as developing standardized orthographies for the Mayan languages are governed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG; Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages), which was founded by Maya organisations in 1986. Following the 1996 peace accords, it has been gaining a growing recognition as the regulatory authority on Mayan languages both among Mayan scholars and the Maya peoples.


title: Mayan languages

text: The Mayan language family has no demonstrated genetic relationship to other language families. Similarities with some languages of Mesoamerica are understood to be due to diffusion of linguistic traits from neighboring languages into Mayan and not to common ancestry. Mesoamerica has been proven to be an area of substantial linguistic diffusion.


title: Mayan languages

text: A wide range of proposals have tried to link the Mayan family to other language families or isolates, but none is generally supported by linguists. Examples include linking Mayan with the Uru–Chipaya languages, Mapuche, the Lencan languages, Purépecha, and Huave. Mayan has also been included in various Hokan, Penutian, and Siouan hypotheses. The linguist Joseph Greenberg included Mayan in his highly controversial Amerind hypothesis, which is rejected by most historical linguists as unsupported by available evidence.


title: Mayan languages

text: Writing in 1997, Lyle Campbell, an expert in Mayan languages and historical linguistics, argued that the most promising proposal is the "Macro-Mayan" hypothesis, which posits links between Mayan, the Mixe–Zoque languages and the Totonacan languages, but more research is needed to support or disprove this hypothesis. In 2015, Campbell noted that recent evidence presented by David Mora-Marin makes the case for a relationship between Mayan and Mixe-Zoquean languages "much more plausible".


title: Mayan languages

text: The Mayan family consists of thirty languages. Typically, these languages are grouped into 5-6 major subgroups (Yucatecan, Huastecan, Chʼolan–Tzeltalan, Qʼanjobʼalan, Mamean, and Kʼichean).


title: Mayan languages

text: The Mayan language family is extremely well documented, and its internal genealogical classification scheme is widely accepted and established, except for some minor unresolved differences.


title: Mayan languages

text: One point still at issue is the position of Chʼolan and Qʼanjobalan–Chujean. Some scholars think these form a separate Western branch (as in the diagram below). Other linguists do not support the positing of an especially close relationship between Chʼolan and Qʼanjobalan–Chujean; consequently they classify these as two distinct branches emanating directly from the proto-language. An alternative proposed classification groups the Huastecan branch as springing from the Chʼolan–Tzeltalan node, rather than as an outlying branch springing directly from the proto-Mayan node.


title: Mayan languages

text: Studies estimate that Mayan languages are spoken by more than 6 million people. Most of them live in Guatemala where depending on estimates 40%-60% of the population speaks a Mayan language. In Mexico the Mayan speaking population was estimated at 2.5 million people in 2010, whereas the Belizean speaker population figures around 30,000.


title: Mayan languages

text: The Chʼolan languages were formerly widespread throughout the Maya area, but today the language with most speakers is Chʼol, spoken by 130,000 in Chiapas. Its closest relative, the Chontal Maya language, is spoken by 55,000 in the state of Tabasco. Another related language, now endangered, is Chʼortiʼ, which is spoken by 30,000 in Guatemala. It was previously also spoken in the extreme west of Honduras and El Salvador, but the Salvadorian variant is now extinct and the Honduran one is considered moribund. Chʼoltiʼ, a sister language of Chʼortiʼ, is also extinct. Chʼolan languages are believed to be the most conservative in vocabulary and phonology, and are closely related to the language of the Classic-era inscriptions found in the Central Lowlands. They may have served as prestige languages, coexisting with other dialects in some areas. This assumption provides a plausible explanation for the geographical distance between the Chʼortiʼ zone and the areas where Chʼol and Chontal are spoken.


title: Mayan languages

text: The closest relatives of the Chʼolan languages are the languages of the Tzeltalan branch, Tzotzil and Tzeltal, both spoken in Chiapas by large and stable or growing populations (265,000 for Tzotzil and 215,000 for Tzeltal). Tzeltal has tens of thousands of monolingual speakers.


title: Mayan languages

text: Qʼanjobʼal is spoken by 77,700 in Guatemala's Huehuetenango department, with small populations elsewhere. The region of Qʼanjobalan speakers in Guatemala, due to genocidal policies during the Civil War and its close proximity to the Mexican border, was the source of a number of refugees. Thus there are now small Qʼanjobʼal, Jakaltek, and Akatek populations in various locations in Mexico, the United States (such as Tuscarawas County, Ohio and Los Angeles, California), and, through postwar resettlement, other parts of Guatemala. Jakaltek (also known as Poptiʼ) is spoken by almost 100,000 in several municipalities of Huehuetenango. Another member of this branch is Akatek, with over 50,000 speakers in San Miguel Acatán and San Rafael La Independencia.


title: Mayan languages

text: Chuj is spoken by 40,000 people in Huehuetenango, and by 9,500 people, primarily refugees, over the border in Mexico, in the municipality of La Trinitaria, Chiapas, and the villages of Tziscau and Cuauhtémoc. Tojolabʼal is spoken in eastern Chiapas by 36,000 people.


title: Mayan languages

text: The Quichean–Mamean languages and dialects, with two sub-branches and three subfamilies, are spoken in the Guatemalan highlands.


title: Mayan languages

text: Qʼeqchiʼ (sometimes spelled Kekchi), which constitutes its own sub-branch within Quichean–Mamean, is spoken by about 800,000 people in the southern Petén, Izabal and Alta Verapaz departments of Guatemala, and also in Belize by 9,000 speakers. In El Salvador it is spoken by 12,000 as a result of recent migrations.


title: Mayan languages

text: The Uspantek language, which also springs directly from the Quichean–Mamean node, is native only to the Uspantán "municipio" in the department of El Quiché, and has 3,000 speakers.


title: Mayan languages

text: Within the Quichean sub-branch Kʼicheʼ (Quiché), the Mayan language with the largest number of speakers, is spoken by around 1,000,000 Kʼicheʼ Maya in the Guatemalan highlands, around the towns of Chichicastenango and Quetzaltenango and in the Cuchumatán mountains, as well as by urban emigrants in Guatemala City. The famous Maya mythological document, "Popol Vuh", is written in an antiquated Kʼicheʼ often called Classical Kʼicheʼ (or Quiché). The Kʼicheʼ culture was at its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest. Qʼumarkaj, near the present-day city of Santa Cruz del Quiché, was its economic and ceremonial center. Achi is spoken by 85,000 people in Cubulco and Rabinal, two "municipios" of Baja Verapaz. In some classifications, e.g. the one by Campbell, Achi is counted as a form of Kʼicheʼ. However, owing to a historical division between the two ethnic groups, the Achi Maya do not regard themselves as Kʼicheʼ. The Kaqchikel language is spoken by about 400,000 people in an area stretching from Guatemala City westward to the northern shore of Lake Atitlán. Tzʼutujil has about 90,000 speakers in the vicinity of Lake Atitlán. Other members of the Kʼichean branch are Sakapultek, spoken by about 15,000 people mostly in El Quiché department, and Sipakapense, which is spoken by 8,000 people in Sipacapa, San Marcos.


title: Mayan languages

text: The largest language in the Mamean sub-branch is Mam, spoken by 478,000 people in the departments of San Marcos and Huehuetenango. Awakatek is the language of 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán, another municipality of Huehuetenango. Ixil (possibly three different languages) is spoken by 70,000 in the "Ixil Triangle" region of the department of El Quiché. Tektitek (or Teko) is spoken by over 6,000 people in the municipality of Tectitán, and 1,000 refugees in Mexico. According to the Ethnologue the number of speakers of Tektitek is growing.


title: Mayan languages

text: The Poqom languages are closely related to Core Quichean, with which they constitute a Poqom-Kʼichean sub-branch on the Quichean–Mamean node. Poqomchiʼ is spoken by 90,000 people in Purulhá, Baja Verapaz, and in the following municipalities of Alta Verapaz: Santa Cruz Verapaz, San Cristóbal Verapaz, Tactic, Tamahú and Tucurú. Poqomam is spoken by around 49,000 people in several small pockets in Guatemala.


title: Mayan languages

text: Yucatec Maya (known simply as "Maya" to its speakers) is the most commonly spoken Mayan language in Mexico. It is currently spoken by approximately 800,000 people, the vast majority of whom are to be found on the Yucatán Peninsula. It remains common in Yucatán and in the adjacent states of Quintana Roo and Campeche.


title: Mayan languages

text: The other three Yucatecan languages are Mopan, spoken by around 10,000 speakers primarily in Belize; Itzaʼ, an extinct or moribund language from Guatemala's Petén Basin; and Lacandón or Lakantum, also severely endangered with about 1,000 speakers in a few villages on the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona, in Chiapas.


title: Mayan languages

text: Wastek (also spelled Huastec and Huaxtec) is spoken in the Mexican states of Veracruz and San Luis Potosí by around 110,000 people. It is the most divergent of modern Mayan languages. Chicomuceltec was a language related to Wastek and spoken in Chiapas that became extinct some time before 1982.


title: Mayan languages

text: Proto-Mayan (the common ancestor of the Mayan languages as reconstructed using the comparative method) has a predominant CVC syllable structure, only allowing consonant clusters across syllable boundaries. Most Proto-Mayan roots were "monosyllabic" except for a few disyllabic nominal roots.


title: Mayan languages

text: Due to subsequent vowel loss many Mayan languages now show complex consonant clusters at both ends of syllables. Following the reconstruction of Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman, the Proto-Mayan language had the following sounds. It has been suggested that proto-Mayan was a tonal language, based on the fact that four different contemporary Mayan languages have tone (Yucatec, Uspantek, San Bartolo Tzotzil and Mochoʼ), but since these languages each can be shown to have innovated tone in different ways, Campbell considers this unlikely.


title: Mayan languages

text: The classification of Mayan languages is based on changes shared between groups of languages. For example, languages of the western group (such as Huastecan, Yucatecan and Chʼolan) all changed the Proto-Mayan phoneme * into , some languages of the eastern branch retained (Kʼichean), and others changed it into or, word-finally, (Mamean). The shared innovations between Huastecan, Yucatecan and Chʼolan show that they separated from the other Mayan languages before the changes found in other branches had taken place.


title: Mayan languages

text: The palatalized plosives and are not found in most of the modern families. Instead they are reflected differently in different branches, allowing a reconstruction of these phonemes as palatalized plosives. In the eastern branch (Chujean-Qʼanjobalan and Chʼolan) they are reflected as and . In Mamean they are reflected as and and in Quichean as and . Yucatec stands out from other western languages in that its palatalized plosives are sometimes changed into and sometimes .


title: Mayan languages

text: The Proto-Mayan velar nasal * is reflected as in the eastern branches (Quichean–Mamean), in Qʼanjobalan, Chʼolan and Yucatecan, in Huastecan, and only conserved as in Chuj and Jakaltek.


title: Mayan languages

text: Vowel quality is typically classified as having monophthongal vowels. In traditionally diphthongized contexts, Mayan languages will realize the V-V sequence by inserting a hiatus-breaking glottal stop or glide insertion between the vowels. Some Kʼichean-branch languages have exhibited developed diphthongs from historical long vowels, by breaking /e:/ and /o:/.


title: Mayan languages

text: The morphology of Mayan languages is simpler than that of other Mesoamerican languages, yet its morphology is still considered agglutinating and polysynthetic. Verbs are marked for aspect or tense, the person of the subject, the person of the object (in the case of transitive verbs), and for plurality of person. Possessed nouns are marked for person of possessor. In Mayan languages, nouns are not marked for case, and gender is not explicitly marked.


title: Mayan languages

text: Proto-Mayan is thought to have had a basic verb–object–subject word order with possibilities of switching to VSO in certain circumstances, such as complex sentences, sentences where object and subject were of equal animacy and when the subject was definite. Today Yucatecan, Tzotzil and Tojolabʼal have a basic fixed VOS word order. Mamean, Qʼanjobʼal, Jakaltek and one dialect of Chuj have a fixed VSO one. Only Chʼortiʼ has a basic SVO word order. Other Mayan languages allow both VSO and VOS word orders.


title: Mayan languages

text: In many Mayan languages, counting requires the use of numeral classifiers, which specify the class of items being counted; the numeral cannot appear without an accompanying classifier. Some Mayan languages, such as Kaqchikel, do not use numeral classifiers. Class is usually assigned according to whether the object is animate or inanimate or according to an object's general shape. Thus when counting "flat" objects, a different form of numeral classifier is used than when counting round things, oblong items or people. In some Mayan languages such as Chontal, classifiers take the form of affixes attached to the numeral; in others such as Tzeltal, they are free forms. Jakaltek has both numeral classifiers and noun classifiers, and the noun classifiers can also be used as pronouns.


title: Mayan languages

text: The meaning denoted by a noun may be altered significantly by changing the accompanying classifier. In Chontal, for example, when the classifier "-tek" is used with names of plants it is understood that the objects being enumerated are whole trees. If in this expression a different classifier, "-tsʼit" (for counting long, slender objects) is substituted for "-tek", this conveys the meaning that only sticks or branches of the tree are being counted:


title: Mayan languages

text: The morphology of Mayan nouns is fairly simple: they inflect for number (plural or singular), and, when possessed, for person and number of their possessor. Pronominal possession is expressed by a set of possessive prefixes attached to the noun, as in Kaqchikel "ru-kej" "his/her horse". Nouns may furthermore adopt a special form marking them as possessed. For nominal possessors, the possessed noun is inflected as possessed by a third-person possessor, and followed by the possessor noun, e.g. Kaqchikel "ru-kej ri achin" "the man's horse" (literally "his horse the man"). This type of formation is a main diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area and recurs throughout Mesoamerica.


title: Mayan languages

text: Mayan languages often contrast alienable and inalienable possession by varying the way the noun is (or is not) marked as possessed. Jakaltek, for example, contrasts inalienably possessed ' "my photo (in which I am depicted)" with alienably possessed ' "my photo (taken by me)". The prefix "we-" marks the first person singular possessor in both, but the absence of the "-e" possessive suffix in the first form marks inalienable possession.


title: Mayan languages

text: Mayan languages which have prepositions at all normally have only one. To express location and other relations between entities, use is made of a special class of "relational nouns". This pattern is also recurrent throughout Mesoamerica and is another diagnostic trait of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. In Mayan most relational nouns are metaphorically derived from body parts so that "on top of", for example, is expressed by the word for "head".


title: Mayan languages

text: Mayan languages are ergative in their alignment. This means that the subject of an intransitive verb is treated similarly to the object of a transitive verb, but differently from the subject of a transitive verb.


title: Mayan languages

text: Mayan languages have two sets of affixes that are attached to a verb to indicate the person of its arguments. One set (often referred to in Mayan grammars as set B) indicates the person of subjects of intransitive verbs, and of objects of transitive verbs. They can also be used with adjective or noun predicates to indicate the subject.