title: Gianni Schicchi

text: At the time of the New York premiere, was in rehearsal in Rome in preparation for an Italian premiere at the Teatro Costanzi. Puccini wrote Tito Ricordi that the rehearsals were going slowly, but that the orchestra sounded fine, at least in . The Italian premiere, more important to Puccini than the New York world premiere, took place on 11 January 1919. was again warmly received, more so than the first two operas of . Among those dissatisfied by the triptych was Puccini's friend, the conductor Arturo Toscanini, who was in the audience for the Rome premiere. Toscanini was disgusted by the of , and left the performance after the first curtain. This caused a rift in his relationship with Puccini, who stated that he would not allow "this god" to conduct the London premiere, though the two were later reconciled. At the Rome premiere, the part of Rinuccio was sung by the Canadian tenor Edward Johnson, a future general manager of the Met. Johnson later recalled that, at the composer's request, he had dragged a mock-reluctant Puccini from the wings to acknowledge the house's applause.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: In 1919, Puccini visited London to discuss plans for the following year's Covent Garden premiere of . This took place on 18 June 1920; King George V and Queen Mary were present, and called Puccini to their box to give him their congratulations. With Toscanini not considered, Puccini hoped that Sir Thomas Beecham would conduct the premiere, but he declined and Gaetano Bavagnoli conducted. Once again, only was received with real warmth.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Other early performances included the October 1920 production of in German, at the Vienna State Opera. In the years following the premiere, Puccini made modifications to the three operas, but required few. The principal change was to Rinuccio's arioso, , which was set in a higher pitch to take better advantage of the tenor voice.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: By 1920 Puccini was facing increasing pressure, not only from impresarios but also from his publishing firm, Casa Ricordi, to allow to be broken up and presented separately. Opera houses first wanted to omit , which had proven the least popular of the three, but some wished to omit as well. Puccini had left London confident that would gain a place in the Covent Garden repertoire, but soon learned that the opera house's director, Henry V. Higgins, had removed , feeling that the audience disliked it. In fact, Higgins would never stage it again. Puccini vociferously objected, as did his longtime London friend, Sybil Seligman, to no avail. Higgins then decided to remove , and stage together with a Russian ballet presentation. Puccini retorted, "This is a real betrayal", but in the end gave in and permitted the performance. Puccini, however, was still convinced that the three works should be performed together and that his original conception was being "brutally torn to pieces". The Metropolitan Opera joined in the dismemberment: after 1920, it would not again present the three operas together until 1975.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: returned to the Met in 1926, after Puccini's death, shorn of the other two parts of its operatic triptych, but instead mated to Ruggero Leoncavallo's two-act opera . The 1926 production, by Wilhelm von Wymetal, featured sets by Joseph Novak. In the following years at the Met, would form part of a bill with such diverse works as Engelbert Humperdinck's , Italo Montemezzi's , and even be incestuously mated with Puccini's own . In 1952, Novak's sets were revised by Wilhelm von Wymetal in a production which remained in service until 1958.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Among the leading singers associated with the opera, Tito Gobbi was particularly prominent in the 1950s and 1960s. He first sang the role of Schicchi in the Rome production in 1951; in subsequent years he appeared in further Rome seasons, in Bologna, and at La Scala, Milan, where Renata Scotto sang Lauretta in Carlo Maestrini's production. Gobbi directed and sang in the 1969 production at the Teatro Comunale di Firenze, and later that year performed in and directed the same version at the August 1969 Edinburgh Festival.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: In 1974, the Met gave its first new production since 1926. The production, by Fabrizio Melano, was paired with the Met debut of Bartók's "Bluebeard's Castle". The following year, the Met revived in the original form, combining the Melano production with new productions for the other two operas by the same director. The 1975 performance of featured Renata Scotto as Lauretta. Scotto also played the two other heroines, a feat she repeated later that season, on tour, and when the three operas were again presented by the Met in 1981. When the production was revived again by the Met in 1989, Teresa Stratas sang the " hat-trick". Lili Chookasian sang the mezzo-soprano leads in all three operas (Zita in ) and Cornell MacNeil played Schicchi.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Glyndebourne Festival Opera put on a 2004 double bill of and Rachmaninoff's "The Miserly Knight", in which the sets for the two operas (designed by Vicki Mortimer) are back-to-back on a turntable.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: In 2007, Los Angeles Opera announced that it would be staging in the 2008/2009 season, with Woody Allen making his operatic directing debut in . The production starred baritone Sir Thomas Allen, soprano , and tenor Saimir Pirgu. A 2015 performance, then directed by Matthew Diamond and starring Plácido Domingo in the title role, was filmed for television in association with various international broadcasters, such as Westdeutscher Rundfunk, ARTE, and NHK.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: The 2007 Royal Opera House production by Richard Jones updated the action to a shabby 1940s Italy of "unemptied chamber pots, garish floral wallpaper and damp ceilings", with Bryn Terfel in the title role "a masterpiece of monstrous vulgarity". In the 2009 revival of this production, Schicchi was sung by Thomas Allen, while Gwynne Howell, as Simone, celebrated 40 years with the Royal Opera.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: In reviewing the New York premiere, the critics greeted warmly; most reviewers found it to be the best of the three operas. "New York Herald Tribune" critic Henry Krehbiel described it as "so uproariously funny ... so full of life, humor, and ingenious devices". "The New York Times" reviewer James Huneker considered the opera to be "a rollicking, madcap scherzo, overflowing with merry deviltries ... And the last shall be first." Huneker praised De Luca as "a most engaging rascal, fit for a minor niche in Moliere's gallery". The "Times" critic was also amused by Marto Malatesta as "The 'Kid' Gherardino, who is spanked by the irate family".


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Rome's critics gave as a whole a warmer reception but still saw as the best of the three. Alberto Gasco of noted that, "In terms of harmonic technique, and advance quite startling elements of novelty. Nothing that contemporary art has produced escapes the studious and astute Giacomo Puccini." Gasco also stated that while many critics were waiting for the first two operas with their fists drawn, disarmed these "hired assassins" with a "single glance". An anonymous reviewer in felt that the three works comprised a unified whole, but feared that Puccini was becoming less inventive. was a nationalist newspaper, and praised Puccini for returning to an Italian subject "after so many useless Japanese, American, Parisian digressions".


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Modern productions, including those in an updated context, have been generally well received. Describing the 2004 Glyndebourne pairing with "The Miserly Knight" as "flip sides of the same coin", reviewer Edward Seckerson in "The Independent" found the performance "a triumph of ensemble directing and playing, ... wickedly observed, sharp, focussed and funny". "The New York Times" gave a positive review to the Woody Allen 2008 production, which is set in a crowded tenement in which the boy Gherardino is practising knife thrusts. However, the critic questioned Allen's altered ending, in which Schicchi is stabbed by Zita as he addresses the audience. "Los Angeles Times" critic Mark Swed deemed Allen's production one of the top ten moments in classical music for 2008, and applauded it for "hilarious wit and engaging musicality". Allen Rich of "Variety" praised the piece, though he disliked Allen's idea of beginning the opera with a montage of old film clips, with credits featuring mock-Italian names.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Giuseppe Verdi said of Puccini, early in the latter's career, that "the symphonic element dominates in him", and has been compared by later analysts to that of the final "presto" movement of a three-movement symphony. With the fast-moving pace of the work, the set pieces are given a simpler melodic structure than those in the other two parts of the triptych. On stage, with the references, a humorous atmosphere is established from the very beginning. However, the music itself is of the 20th century; Edward Greenfield refers to its "dissonant modernity", with simultaneous clashing chords suggesting that "Puccini was beginning to think in bi-tonal terms". Alongside these dissonant passages are others which opera scholar Julian Budden calls "bland, schoolroom diatonism".


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Puccini's score is built around a series of motifs that recur through the opera, generally representing characters, situations and moods though sometimes without specific associations. The opening motif is a rapid burst of rhythmic music, described by Greenfield as of "almost Stravinskian sharpness", which quickly transforms into a mock-solemn dirge depicting the hypocritical grief of the Donati relatives. This juxtaposition of the humorous and the solemn pervades the opera; critic Ernest Newman suggests that it "keeps us perpetually suspended between the comic and the tragic". Other principal motifs include the theme associated with the lovers Rinuccio and Lauretta, introduced in Rinuccio's first solo , and a short, formal woodwind statement that represents Donati's will. Rinuccio sings the name "Gianni Schicchi" to a jaunty four-note phrase which becomes Schicchi's personal motif, and it is heard again as Schicchi knocks on the door before his first appearance. The best-known theme in the opera, that associated with Lauretta, is introduced in the second part of Rinuccio's aria . The theme is briefly played on clarinet and violin as Lauretta enters with Schicchi, before its full expression in .


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Budden dismisses the view that Lauretta's aria, at the midpoint of the opera, was a concession to popular taste; rather, "its position at the turning point of the action is precisely calculated to provide a welcome moment of lyrical repose". Andrew Davis, in his book on Puccini's late style, notes that Lauretta's aria and the two interruptions by the young lovers () as Schicchi mulls over the will, constitute interruptions in the Romantic style, delivered during a lengthy sequence of non-Romantic music. Another interruption, both dramatically and musically, is that provided by the appearance of Doctor Spinelloccio. The doctor's dissonant harmonies contrast sharply with the "scena" music for Schicchi and symbolise Spinelloccio's place as an outsider to the dramatic action of the opera.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: The music historian Donald Jay Grout has written that in this opera Puccini's comic skill is "seen at its most spontaneous, incorporating smoothly all the characteristic harmonic devices of his later period." Greenfield remarks on the score's inventiveness, imagination and flawless timing. Several critics have likened to Verdi's "Falstaff", as both are masterpieces of operatic comedy from composers more usually associated with tragedy. Both composers took the conventions of comic opera into consideration, choosing a baritone for the principal role, setting the tenor-soprano love story against family opposition to the marriage, and constructing a hoax that permits the happy ending. Charles Osborne cites in particular the trio for three female voices, , as equal to anything in "Falstaff", "its exquisite harmonies almost turning the unprepossessing women into Wagnerian Rhine maidens", and its lilting melody reminiscent of Rossini.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Although the score is through-composed, within the general structure of the opera there are several identifiable numbers: four solos given to the three main characters, a trio and a brief love duet. Only Lauretta's , the best-known of the solos, is separable from its context and can be sung as a concert piece.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: Despite its popularity as a stage work, was not available as a recording until after the Second World War, a neglect described by a "Gramophone" reviewer as "extraordinary". One of the earliest recordings, a Turin Radio 1950 broadcast performance conducted by , was praised for its lively presentation but was considered by the critic Philip Hope-Wallace to be "too rough a piece of recording to be warmly recommended". By contrast, the 1958 recording under Gabriele Santini, with a cast including Tito Gobbi and Victoria de los Ángeles, was still being discussed nearly 50 years later as the classic performance, with Gobbi's singing at a standard rarely equalled. Among more recent recordings, that of the complete with the London Symphony Orchestra under Antonio Pappano (1998) has been generally recommended. There are numerous video recordings now available.


title: Gianni Schicchi

text: American composer Michael Ching wrote a one-act English-language sequel, "Buoso's Ghost", which had its first full staging with the Pittsburgh Opera in 1996, and its official premiere at Opera Memphis in 1997. Starting where ends, the new opera, with a libretto by the composer, opens with 's final chords and carries the plot forward by following the sinister dealings of Buoso Donati's family, who apparently had poisoned Buoso, and the continued machinations of Schicchi, who tries to exploit this growing suspicion on his part. "Opera News" noted that Ching uses "a more modern musical mode, yet avoiding excessive atonality. The score subtly introduces brief tongue-in-cheek quotations from other works, ranging from Mozart to Sondheim, plus one unmistakable interjection of Shostakovich." It has been performed throughout the U.S., paired with .


title: Sylheti language

text: Sylheti (Sylheti Nāgarī: ; ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by an estimated 11 million people, primarily in the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh and in parts of Northeast India. Besides, there are substantial numbers of Sylheti speakers within diaspora communities in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the Middle East.


title: Sylheti language

text: It is variously perceived as either a dialect of Bengali or a language in its own right. While most linguists consider it an independent language, for many native speakers Sylheti forms the diglossic vernacular, with standard Bengali forming the codified lect. Some incorrectly consider it as a "corrupt" form of Bengali, and there is a reported language shift from Sylheti to Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, India and the diaspora; though Sylheti has more vitality than Standard Bengali in the United Kingdom.


title: Sylheti language

text: "Sylheti" is eponymously named after Sylhet, referring to the dialect or language spoken of that area. According to the vernacular "was" called "Sylhettia" by the Europeans after the town of Sylhet. Though the speakers at that time referred to it as "Jaintiapuri", "Purba Srihattiya", or "Ujania" with the latter meaning "the language of the upper country".


title: Sylheti language

text: Sylheti belongs to the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, that evolved from Magadhi Prakrit. The lowlands around Sylhet were originally inhabited by ancient Khasi people (Austroasiatic); and the earliest known Indo-Aryan settlements were made in the 6th century under Kamarupa king. Sylhet (Srihatta) then emerged as a center of lowland territorialism after the 10th century. The 11th century Bhatera grants from the Srihatta kings Kesavadeva and Isanadeva were written in Sanskrit. Another notable copper plate inscription was found in the village of Paschimbhag in Rajnagar, Moulvibazar that was issued by King Srichandra during the 10th century.


title: Sylheti language

text: The Muslim Conquest of Sylhet in 1303 CE extended the migratory movements of Muslims from western lands, who settled among the native population and greatly influenced the local language. Thus Sylheti derived a large number of words from Persian and Arabic, cultivating the Perso-Arabic influence on the vernacular. A script was developed in the region called Sylheti Nagri, which primarily focused on disseminating Sufi poetry, known as "puthi". Its earliest known work had been written during the 1600s, called "Bhedsar" by Syed Shah Husayn Alam. The literature was transcribed in the standard form of late Middle Bengali, though its phonology and some of its vocabulary was strongly influenced by Sylheti. The script was read and taught culturally among households and was not institutionalised, as the Islamic dynasties who ruled over Bengal established Persian alongside Arabic as the official languages. Printed texts of the script reached its peak during the late 19th century, however its use became obsolete by around the middle of the 20th century.


title: Sylheti language

text: The earliest appearance of a documentation of Sylheti vocabulary was in the "Government Report on the History and Statistics of Sylhet District" by T. Walton, B.C.S. in 1857, which contained a list of peculiar words used in Sylhet. Many terms that were listed here differ from modern Sylheti – highlighting its evolution. In 1868, another short glossary of local terms in various districts of the Dacca Division (which included Sylhet) were written up and compared to standard Bengali to allow ease in understanding local vernaculars. There was an influence of the Assamese language on Sylheti when Sylhet was separated from Bengal and became part of the Assam Province, British India in 1874. This however led to an opposition in Sylhet where demands to be reincorporated with the Bengal Province were not taken heed of by the British. Sylhetis not only felt a historical or cultural affinity with Bengal, but also linguistically. Bengali literature had some influence from Sylheti, popular songwriters or poets such as Hason Raja or Shah Abdul Karim, significantly contributed to the literature. Sylhet was reunited with Bengal following a referendum in 1947.


title: Sylheti language

text: According to Simard, Dopierala and Thaut, Sylheti is a "minoritised, politically unrecognised, and understudied language." It is currently not officially recognised as a language in either Bangladesh or India. Many native speakers too consider it to be an informal version of Standard Bengali and not an independent language; and there is a reported language shift to Standard Bengali and a decrease in the number of native speakers since parents are not teaching it to their children. In Bangladesh there is a diglossia where Sylheti is one among other low status regional dialects while Standard Bengali, the official language, has a high status.


title: Sylheti language

text: In the Indian state of Assam where Assamese is the state language, Standard Bengali serves as an additional official language in its Barak Valley districts; which host a majority Sylheti-speaking population.


title: Sylheti language

text: In the United Kingdom, British schools have begun enlisting Sylheti in their syllabi. BBC News has also broadcast online videos relating to COVID-19 in five major South Asian languages including Sylheti.


title: Sylheti language

text: notes that the language of eastern Sylhet is not intelligible to Bengalis from the west, though he still classed it as Bengali, grouping it under "Eastern Bengali". too calls it a dialect of Bengali and places it in the eastern Vangiya group of Magadhi Prakrit and notes that all Bengali dialects were independent of each other and did not emanate from the literary Bengali called "sadhu bhasha". Among the different dialect groups of the eastern dialects, to which Sylheti belonged, Sylheti and Chittagonian have phonetic and morphological properties that are alien to standard Bengali and other western dialects of Bengali, and these differences are such that Sylheti is more distant to standard Bengali than is Assamese. Recent scholarship notes that these morpho-phonological and mutual intelligibilty differences are significant enough that Sylheti could claim itself as a language on its own right. Ethnologue groups Sylheti in Bengali-Assamese languages; whereas Glotolog gives further subgrouping and places it in the "Eastern Bengali" group alongside Hajong, separately from the Vangiya dialect.


title: Sylheti language

text: The classification of Sylheti is contentious—Chalmers (1996) suggested that it was generally identified as a dialect of Bengali though there were efforts to recognise it as a language. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Sylhetis, who could also speak in Standard Bengali, considered the two languages to be mutually intelligible. On the basis of the anecdotal evidence of mutual intelligibility, regionality and the fact that Sylheti is spoken by a predominantly rural community, concludes that Sylheti could be considered a dialect of Bengali. Simard, Dopierala and Thaut have pointed out that the intelligibility could be an effect of prior exposure of Sylheti speakers to Standard Bengali, and that the academic consensus is that mutual intelligibility ranges from "unintelligible" to "hardly intelligible". On the basis of phonology and phonetics, lexicon, grammatical structure and a lack of mutual intelligibility, some recent linguists claim that Sylheti is not merely a dialectal variation of Bengali but a language in its own right.


title: Sylheti language

text: Phonologically Sylheti is distinguished from Standard Bengali and other regional varieties by significant deaspiration and spirantisation, leading to major restructuring of the consonant inventory and the development of tones. Grierson had classified Sylheti as an Eastern Bengali dialect and had noted that it "possess all the peculiar characteristics of the extreme Eastern Bengali type."


title: Sylheti language

text: As majority of the diaspora in the United Kingdom speak Sylheti, it created an environment that was somewhat uninfluenced by Standard Bengali, inevitably leading some to view Sylheti as a distinct language. During the 1980s there were unsuccessful attempts to recognise Sylheti as a language in its own right by a small group in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which lacked support from the Sylheti community itself.


title: Sylheti language

text: "Halat-un-Nabi", a puthi written by Sadeq Ali is considered to be the most prominent literature in Sylheti Nagri.


title: Sylheti language

text: The presence and influence of Shah Jalal and Shri Chaitanya dev is found in the Sylheti literature. According to Syed Mostafa Kamal, (approximately 1650 AD) the Baul tradition was founded based on the combination of Chaitanyavad and Jaganmohani ideologies, that mystic literature influenced and seen in the Vaishnava Padavali. As a result, Sylhet is considered as the spiritual capital of mysticism and the fertile land of Baul music. A great number of poets enriched Sylheti literature. Among them, Hason Raja, Radha Raman, Syed Shah Noor, Shitalong Shaha, Durbin Shaha are noteworthy. The main theme of the Nagri literature are mainly religious, Islamic history, tradition, stories and Raga, Baul and mystic music. 140 books have been found including 88 printed books (in Nagri script).


title: Sylheti language

text: Sylheti is the primary language of Sylhet region which today comprises the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh and Karimganj district of Assam, India. Within the Sylhet Division, it is primarily spoken in the districts of Sylhet and Moulvibazar, as well as in certain upazilas of Sunamganj and Habiganj. This is contrary to popular belief that Sylheti is spoken everywhere in the Sylhet Division. Anecdotal evidence claims that the people of Sylhet District, when visiting places like Habiganj, are often startled that the locals do not converse in Sylheti but rather in Habiganji, which is transitional to the dialects of Sylhet, Greater Mymensingh and Brahmanbaria.


title: Sylheti language

text: It is also primarily spoken in the districts of Cachar and Hailakandi of Assam, which alongside Karimganj make up the Barak Valley, as well as in the northern parts of Tripura and the western edge of Manipur. There is also a significant population of Sylheti speakers in the Hojai district of Assam (since before Partition), Shillong in Meghalaya, and the state of Nagaland. A few numbers are also located in Kolkata, most of whom are migrants from Assam.


title: Sylheti language

text: Outside the Indian subcontinent, the largest Sylheti diaspora communities reside in the United Kingdom and North America. In the UK, there are around 400,000 Sylheti speakers. The largest concentration live in east London boroughs, such as Tower Hamlets. In the United States, most are concentrated in New York City borough's such as the Bronx, and there are significant numbers in Hamtramck, Michigan where they constitute the majority of Bangladeshis in the city. There are also small numbers located in Toronto, Canada. Significant Sylheti-speaking communities reside in the Middle East of which most are migrant workers, and in many other countries throughout the world.


title: Sylheti language

text: Sylheti currently does not have a standardised writing system. Historically in the Sylhet region, the Sylheti Nagri script was used alongside the Bengali script. Sylheti Nagri was however mostly limited to writing religious poetry. This written form was identical to those written in the Dobhashi register due to both lacking the use of tatsama and using Perso-Arabic vocabulary as a replacement. As per Dobhashi custom, many Sylheti Nagri texts were paginated from right to left. The orthography of the script equates with Sylheti, it has fewer characters as compared with the Bengali script due to fewer phonemes found in Sylheti. An endangered script, it has since seen a revival mostly by academics and linguists.


title: Sylheti language

text: Standard Bengali is the medium of instruction in Bangladesh. some may therefore write in Sylheti using the Bengali–Assamese script. In United Kingdom, publishers use Latin script for Sylheti and according to the Sylheti Translation and Research (STAR), Latin (Roman) script is the most "used" script for writing Sylheti. New Testament in Sylheti was published in the Sylhet Nagri script along with Latin and Bengali–Assamese script, in 2014.


title: Sylheti language

text: The phoneme inventory of Sylheti differs from both the Standard Bengali as well the Bangladeshi Standard. It is characterised by a loss of breathiness and aspiration contrasts, leading to a significant reduction in its phoneme inventory and development of tones. In particular the following developments are seen:


title: Sylheti language

text: Sylheti is tonal. This is rare among the Indo-Aryan languages, being present only in Punjabi, Dogri and Eastern Bengali. There are two types of tonal contrasts in Sylheti: the emergence of high tone in the vowels following the loss of aspiration, and a level tone elsewhere.


title: Sylheti language

text: It is considered that these tones arose when aspirated consonants lost their aspiration. Sylheti continues to have a long history of coexisting with tonal Tibeto-Burman languages such as various dialects of Kokborok, Reang. Even though there is no clear evidence of direct borrowing of lexical items from those languages into Sylheti, there is still a possibility that the emergence of Sylheti tones is due to external influence, as the indigenous speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages by and large use Sylheti as a common medium for interaction.


title: Sylheti language

text: When a definite article such as "-gu/ţa" (singular) or "-guin/ţin" (plural) is added, nouns are also inflected for number. Below are two tables which show the inflections of an animate noun, ('student'), and an inanimate noun, ('shoe').


title: Sylheti language

text: All of the inflected nouns above have an indefinite article preceding their case markers. There are some basic rules to keep in mind about the cases, apart from the "default" nominative.


title: Sylheti language

text: For the genitive case, the ending may change, though never with a definite article attached. A noun (without an article) which ends in a consonant or the inherent vowel, "ô", is inflected by adding -"ôr" to the end of the word (and deleting the inherent vowel if applicable). An example of this would be the genitive of "gus" 'meat' being "gustôr 'of meat' or '(the) meat's'. A noun which ends in any vowel apart from the inherent vowel will just have a -"r" following it, as in the genitive of "fua" being "fuar '(the) boy's'. The genitive ending is also applied to verbs (in their verbal noun forms), which is most commonly seen when using postpositions (for example: "hikar" "lagi", 'for learning').


title: Sylheti language

text: For the locative case, the marker also changes in a similar fashion to the genitive case, with consonants and the inherent vowel having their own ending, -"ô", and all other vowels having another ending, -"t". For example, "silôţô" 'in Sylhet', "dáxát" 'in Dhaka', etc.


title: Sylheti language

text: When counted, nouns must also be accompanied by the appropriate measure word. The noun's measure word (MW) must be used in between the numeral and the noun. Most nouns take the generic measure word "gu/ţa/xán", although there are many more specific measure words, such as "zôn", which is only used to count humans.


title: Sylheti language

text: Measuring nouns in Sylheti without their corresponding measure words (e.g. "aţ mekur" instead of "aţ-ţa mekur" 'eight cats') would typically be considered ungrammatical. However, omitting the noun and preserving the measure word is grammatical and not uncommon to hear. For example, "Xáli êx-zôn táxbô." (lit. 'Only one-MW will remain.') would be understood to mean 'Only one person will remain.', since "zôn" can only be used to count humans.


title: Sylheti language

text: Sylheti personal pronouns are somewhat similar to English pronouns, having different words for first, second, and third person, and also for singular and plural (unlike for verbs, below). Sylheti pronouns, like their English counterparts, do differentiate for gender. Sylheti has different third-person pronouns for proximity. The first are used for someone who is nearby, and the second are for those who are a little further away. The third are usually for those who are not present. In addition, each of the second- and third-person pronouns have different forms for the familiar and polite forms; the second person also has a "very familiar" form (sometimes called "despective"). It may be noted that the "very familiar" form is used when addressing particularly close friends or family as well as for addressing subordinates, or in abusive language. In the following tables, the abbreviations used are as follows: VF=very familiar, F=familiar, and P=polite (honor); H=here, T=there, E=elsewhere (proximity), and I=inanimate.


title: Sylheti language

text: The nominative case is used for pronouns that are the subject of the sentence, such as "I already did that" or "Will you please stop making that noise?"


title: Sylheti language

text: The objective case is used for pronouns serving as the direct or indirect objects, such as "I told him to wash the dishes" or "The teacher gave me the homework assignment". The inanimate pronouns remain the same in the objective case.


title: Sylheti language

text: The possessive case is used to show possession, such as "Where is your coat?" or "Let's go to our house". In addition, sentences such as "I have a book" () or "I need money" () also use the possessive (the literal translation of the Bengali versions of these sentences would be "There is my book" and "There is my need for money" respectively).


title: Sylheti language

text: Bengali has no negative pronouns (such as "no one, nothing, none"). These are typically represented by adding the negative particle ("nae") to indefinite pronouns, which are themselves derived from their corresponding question words. Common indefinite pronouns are listed below.


title: Sylheti language

text: The relative pronoun ("ze") and its different variants, as shown below, are commonly employed in complex sentences. The relative pronouns for animate objects change for number and honour, but those for inanimate objects stay the same.


title: Sylheti language

text: Adjectives do not inflect for case, gender, or number in Sylheti and are placed before the noun they modify.


title: Sylheti language

text: Some adjectives form their opposites by prefixing (before consonants) or (before vowels) or , for example, the opposite of ("shômbôb", 'possible') is ("ôshômbôb", 'impossible'), the opposite of ("matra", 'speaker') is ("nimatra", 'quite').


title: Sylheti language

text: Demonstrative adjectives – "this" and "that" – correspond to and respectively, with the definite article attached to the following noun. Thus, "this book" would translate to , while "those books" would translate to .


title: Sylheti language

text: Sylheti adjectives form their comparative forms with ("arô", 'more'), and their superlative forms with ("shôb táki", 'than all'). Comparisons are formed by using genitive form of the object of comparison, followed by the postposition ("táki/tóne/se", 'than') or the postposition ("laxan", 'like') and then by ("arô", 'more') or ("xôm", 'less'). The word for "more" is optional, but the word for "less" is required, so in its absence "more" is inferred. Adjectives can be additionally modified by using ("bakka/bout/ônex", 'much') or ("ônex beshi", 'much more'), which are especially useful for comparing quantities.


title: Sylheti language

text: Sylheti verbs are highly inflected and are regular with only few exceptions. They consist of a stem and an ending; they are traditionally listed in Sylheti dictionaries in their "verbal noun" form, which is usually formed by adding "-a" to the stem: for instance, ("xôra, to do") is formed from the stem . The stem can end in either a vowel or a consonant. Verbs are conjugated for tense and person by changing the endings, which are largely the same for all verbs. However, the stem vowel can often change as part of the phenomenon known as vowel harmony, whereby one vowel can be influenced by other vowels in the word to sound more harmonious. An example would be the verb "to write", with stem "lex-": ("lexô," 'you all write') but also ("lekí," 'we write'). If verbs are classified by stem vowel and if the stem ends in a consonant or vowel, there are nine basic classes in which most verbs can be placed; all verbs in a class will follow the same pattern. A prototype verb from each of these classes will be used to demonstrate conjugation for that class; bold will be used to indicate mutation of the stem vowel. Additionally, there are irregular verbs, such as ("zaoa," to go) that change the first consonant in their stem in certain conjugations.


title: Sylheti language

text: Like many other Indo-Aryan languages (such as Standard Bengali or Assamese), nouns can be turned into verbs by combining them with select auxiliary verbs. In Sylheti, the most common such auxiliary verb is ("xôra, "'to do'); thus, verbs such as "joke" are formed by combining the noun form of "joke" () with "to do" () to create . When conjugating such verbs the noun part of such a verb is left untouched, so in the previous example, only would be inflected or conjugated (e.g.: "I will make a joke" becomes ; see more on tenses below). Other auxiliary verbs include and , but the verb enjoys significant usage because it can be combined with foreign verbs to form a native version of the verb, even if a direct translation exists. Most often this is done with English verbs: for example, "to vote" is often referred to as (, where is the transliteration of "vote").


title: Sylheti language

text: Verbs are inflected for person and honour, but not for number. There are five forms: first person, second person (very familiar), second person (familiar), third person (familiar), and second/third person (polite). The same sample subject pronouns will be used for all the example conjugation paradigms: (), (), (), (), (), () and (). These have the following plurals respectively: (), (), (), ()/ (), ()/ () and ().


title: Sylheti language

text: A notable characteristic of spoken Sylheti is the correspondence of the and , pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative to the or of Bengali and voiceless glottal fricative to the /x/ of Assamese respectively.


title: Sylheti language

text: which literally means 'one land's obscenity is another land's language', and can be roughly translated to convey that a similar word in one language can mean something very different in another.


The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time by Preston B. Nichols and Peter Moon is the first book in a series detailing fictional time travel experiments at the Montauk Air Force Base at the eastern tip of Long Island as part of the Montauk Project.


title: The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time

text: The 1992 book and its follow up books are written in a first person style and have been classified as science fiction. The real photographs of the base and crude drawings of the project electronics in the book contributes to the authentic feel prompting the project to assume a cult status whereby websites declare it is true or false.


text: Using a time travel theme, the characters alter history with visits to Jesus Christ, as well as altering the outcome of American Civil War and World War II battles.


text: The book's narrative is centered around the Montauk Project, which is believed to be an extension or continuation of the Philadelphia Experiment (also known as Project Rainbow), which supposedly took place in 1943.


text: Sometime in the 1950s, surviving researchers from the original Project Rainbow began to discuss the project with an eye to continuing the research into technical aspects of manipulating the electromagnetic bottle that had been used to make the invisible, and the reasons and possible military applications of the psychological effects of the magnetic field.


text: A report was supposedly prepared and presented to the United States Congress, and was soundly rejected as far too dangerous. So a proposal was made directly to the United States Department of Defense promising a powerful new weapon that could drive an enemy insane, inducing the symptoms of schizophrenia at the touch of a button. Without Congressional approval, the project would have to be top secret and secretly funded. The Department of Defense approved. Funding supposedly came from a cache of US$10 billion in Nazi gold recovered from a train found by U.S. soldiers in a train tunnel in France. The train was blown up and all the soldiers involved were killed. When those funds ran out, additional funding was secured from ITT and Krupp AG in Germany.


text: Work was begun at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York under the name Phoenix Project, but it was soon realized that the project required a large radar dish, and installing one at Brookhaven would compromise the security of the project. Luckily, the U.S. Air Force had a decommissioned base at Montauk, New York, not far from Brookhaven, which had a complete Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) radar installation. The site was large and remote (Montauk was not yet a tourist attraction) and water access would allow equipment to be moved in and out undetected.


text: Equipment was moved to Camp Hero at the Montauk base in the late 1960s, and installed in an underground bunker beneath the base. According to conspiracy theorists, to mask the nature of the project the site was closed in 1969 and donated as a wildlife refuge/park, with the provision that everything underground would remain the property of the Air Force (although, in reality, the base remained in operation until the 1980s).


text: Experiments began in earnest in the early 1970s and during this time one, some or all of the following are claimed to have occurred at the site:


text: The authors have never officially declared their books to be fiction and have encouraged speculation that it is true on their publisher's website. They publish a newsletter "The Pulse" which continues to extend the myth and promises new books. Believers in the project regularly visit Camp Hero.


text: A March 2006 article in the "East Hampton Star" noted that a rock with ornate carvings found just below the base had been pushed over a cliff by a neighbor rather than time traveling.


text: The massive AN/FPS-35 radar (more than wide, weighing 70 to 90 tons), sitting atop an high blast-resistant concrete bunker, was built in the 1960s as part of a coastal defense for New York City during an era when airplane bombers were considered a primary threat. The early computers of this era were massive in size and housed in the bunker. Both the radar and the computers quickly became obsolete. Although the radars were dismantled elsewhere, the Montauk radar was subject to an intense petition drive by boaters on the crowded Long Island Sound who thought it was a more obvious landmark than the nearby Montauk Lighthouse.


text: The site was also full of massive gun emplacements from World War I and World War II, built in blast-resistant concrete bunkers. There is also a modern ghost town of support buildings. All of this was intentionally disguised to hide it from the air.


text: The site was opened to the public on September 18, 2002 as Camp Hero State Park. The radar tower has been placed on the State and National Register of Historic Places. There are plans for a museum and interpretive center focusing on World War II and Cold War era history.


text: The following books have been published by Sky Books which lists its home at Westbury in Nassau County, New York on Long Island.


title: Michael H. Hart

text: Michael H. Hart (born April 27, 1932), is a Jewish American astrophysicist, author, amateur historian, researcher, and white separatist/white nationalist. Since 1978, he has published five books, most notably of the best-selling work, "."


title: Michael H. Hart

text: Hart published in 1975 a detailed examination of the Fermi paradox: the contrast between the extreme likelihood of extraterrestrial life somewhere in the universe and the total absence of any evidence for this. Hart's work has since become a theoretical reference point for much of the research into what is now sometimes known as the "Fermi-Hart paradox". Concerning Hart's contributions to the study of the paradox, Geoffrey A. Landis writes: "A more proper name for [the paradox] would be the Fermi-Hart paradox, since while Fermi is credited with first asking the question, Hart was the first to do a rigorous analysis showing that the problem is not trivial, and also the first to publish his results". Robert H. Gray views Hart as the proper originator of this argument, in Hart's 1975 paper. Gray argues that the term "Fermi paradox" is a misnomer; that it is not the work of Fermi, nor is it an actual paradox (rather an argument). He therefore proposes that, instead of the (standard, but in his view incorrect) name "Fermi paradox", it should be known as the "Hart-Tipler argument" – acknowledging Hart's priority as the argument's originator, but also acknowledging Frank J. Tipler's substantial extension of Hart's arguments in his 1980 paper "Extraterrestrial intelligent beings do not exist".


title: Michael H. Hart

text: Hart is an advocate of the Rare Earth hypothesis; he proposed a very narrow habitable zone based on climate studies. He advocated for this hypothesis in the influential book which he co-edited, "Extraterrestrials: Where are They", in particular in the chapter he contributed to it "Atmospheric Evolution, the Drake Equation and DNA: Sparse Life in an Infinite Universe".


title: Michael H. Hart

text: Hart's first book was "" (1978), which has sold more than 500,000 copies and been translated into many languages. The first person on Hart's list was Muhammad, chosen over Jesus or Moses. Hart attributes this to the fact that Muhammad was "supremely successful" in both the religious and secular realms. He also accredits Muhammad for his role in the development of Islam, far more influential than Jesus' contribution to the development of Christianity. Hart claims that Paul the Apostle was more pivotal than Jesus to the growth of Christianity.


title: Michael H. Hart

text: Hart has described himself as a white separatist and is active in white separatist causes. In 1996, Hart addressed a conference organized by Jared Taylor's white separatist organization, New Century Foundation, publisher of "American Renaissance". He proposed partitioning the United States into four states: a white state, a black state, a Hispanic state, and an integrated mixed-race state.


title: Michael H. Hart

text: At the 2006 American Renaissance conference, Hart, who is Jewish, had a public confrontation with David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and former Louisiana state representative, over Duke's antisemitic remarks. Accounts of the conference say that Hart stood up, called Duke a Nazi (with expletive) and stormed out.


title: Michael H. Hart

text: Hart organized a conference held in Baltimore in 2009 with the title, "Preserving Western Civilization". It was billed as addressing the need to defend "America's Judeo-Christian heritage and European identity." Invited speakers included: Lawrence Auster, Peter Brimelow, Steven Farron, Julia Gorin, Lino A. Graglia, Henry C. Harpending, Roger D. McGrath, Pat Richardson, J. Philippe Rushton, Srdja Trifković, and Brenda Walker.


title: Jayhawker

text: Jayhawkers and red legs are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War. These gangs were guerrillas who often clashed with pro-slavery groups from Missouri, known at the time in Kansas Territory as "Border Ruffians" or "Bushwhackers". After the Civil War, the word "Jayhawker" became synonymous with the people of Kansas, or anybody born in Kansas. Today a modified version of the term, Jayhawk, is used as a nickname for a native-born Kansan,


title: Jayhawker

text: The origin of the term "Jayhawker" may go back as far as the Revolutionary War, when it was reportedly used to describe a group associated with American Founding Father John Jay, who was also the First Chief Justice of the United States. Jay believed in the abolition of slavery and that America should be governed by Christians; he has been described by historians as a "Christian Nationalist" and "among the most orthodox of Christians," according to Cambridge University and Oxford University professor Daniel Dreisbach. In 1816, Jay wrote, "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." In 1776, prior to America's founding, Jay condemned slavery as a moral evil, and would be quoted as saying, "The Holy Gospels are yet to be preached to these western regions, and we have the highest reason to believe that the Almighty will not suffer slavery and the gospel to go hand in hand. It cannot, it will not be."


title: Jayhawker

text: Because of his positions on the immorality of slavery and the need for Christianity in government, many dubbed the political and militia groups that arose over the next century that were largely Christian and militantly anti-slavery as "Jayhawkers."


title: Jayhawker

text: The term did not appear in the first American edition of Burtlett's "Dictionary of Americanisms" (1848), but was entered into the fourth improved and enlarged edition in 1877 as a cant name for a freebooting armed man in the western United States.


title: Jayhawker

text: It was established that the term was adopted as a nickname by a group of emigrants from Illinois traveling to California in 1849, who got stuck in the Death Valley.


title: Jayhawker

text: In 1858–1859, the slang term "Jayhawking" became widely used as a synonym for stealing. Examples include:


title: Jayhawker

text: Men are now at Fort Scott, working by the day for a living as loyal as Gen. Blunt himself, who have had every hoof confiscated, or jayhawked, which is about the same thing, for all the benefit it is to the Government.


title: Jayhawker

text: The term became part of the lexicon of the Missouri–Kansas border in about 1858, during the Kansas territorial period. The term came to be used to describe militant bands nominally associated with the free-state cause. One early Kansas history contained this succinct characterization of the Jayhawkers:


title: Jayhawker

text: Farmer's "Americanisms, old and new" (1889) linked the term with anti-slavery advocates of late 1850s in Kansas.


title: Jayhawker

text: G. Murlin Welch, a historian of the territorial period described the Jayhawkers as bands of men that were willing to fight, kill, and rob for a variety of motives that included defense against pro-slavery "Border Ruffians", abolition, driving pro-slavery settlers from their claims of land, revenge, and/or plunder and personal profit.


title: Jayhawker

text: While the "Bleeding Kansas" era is generally regarded as beginning in 1856, the earliest documented uses of the term "jayhawker" during the Kansas troubles were in the late 1850s, after the issue of slavery in Kansas had essentially been decided in favor of the Free State cause. The earliest dated mention of the name comes from the autobiography of August Bondi, who came to Kansas in 1855. Bondi said he observed General James Lane addressing his forces as Jayhawkers in December 1857.


title: Jayhawker

text: Another early reference to the term (as applied to the Kansas troubles) emerging at that time is provided in the retrospective account of Kansas newspaperman John McReynolds. McReynolds reportedly picked up the term from Pat Devlin, a Free State partisan described as "nothing more nor less than a dangerous bully." In mid-1858, McReynolds asked Devlin where he had acquired two fine horses that he had recently brought into the town of Osawatomie. Devlin replied that he "got them as the Jayhawk gets its birds in Ireland", which he explained as follows: "In Ireland a bird, which is called the Jayhawk, flies about after dark, seeking the roosts and nests of smaller birds, and not only robs nests of eggs, but frequently kills the birds." McReynolds understood Devlin had acquired his horses in the same manner the Jayhawk got its prey, and used the term in a Southern Kansas Herald newspaper column to describe a case of theft in the ongoing partisan violence. The term was quickly picked up by other newspapers, and "Jayhawkers" soon came to denote the militants and thieves affiliated with the Free State cause.


title: Jayhawker

text: The meaning of the jayhawker term evolved in the opening year of the American Civil War. When Charles Jennison, one of the territorial-era jayhawkers, was authorized to raise a regiment of cavalry to serve in the Union army, he characterized the unit as the "Independent Kansas Jay-Hawkers" on a recruiting poster. The regiment was officially termed the 7th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, but was popularly known as "Jennison's Jayhawkers". Thus, the term became associated with Union troops from Kansas. After the regiment was banished from the Missouri–Kansas border in the spring of 1862, it went on to participate in several battles including Union victories of the Battle of Iuka and the Second Battle of Corinth. Late in the war, the regiment returned to Kansas and contributed to Union victory in one of the last major battles in the Missouri–Kansas theater, the Battle of Mine Creek.


title: Jayhawker

text: The Jayhawker term was applied not only to Jennison and his command, but to any Kansas troops engaged in punitive operations against the civilian population of western Missouri, in which the plundering and arson that characterized the territorial struggles were repeated, but on a much larger scale. For example, the term "Jayhawkers" also encompassed Senator Jim Lane and his Kansas Brigade, which sacked and burned Osceola, Missouri, in the opening months of the war after their defeat by Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard in the Battle of Dry Wood Creek.


title: Jayhawker

text: Jayhawking was a prominent aspect of Union military operations in western Missouri during the first year of the war. In addition to Osceola, the smaller Missouri towns of Morristown, Papinsvile, Butler, Dayton, and Columbus and large numbers of rural homes were also pillaged by Kansas troops led by James Lane, Charles R. Jennison, Daniel Read Anthony, and James Montgomery, among others. Scores if not hundreds of Missouri families were burned out of their homes in the middle of the winter of 1862.


title: Jayhawker

text: Union Major General Henry Halleck on January 18, 1862 in a letter to General Lorenzo Thomas described Jennison's regiment as "no better than a band of robbers; they cross the line, rob, steal, plunder, and burn whatever they can lay their hands upon. They disgrace the name and uniform of American soldiers and are driving good Union men into the ranks of the secession army." There were no charges against Lane, Jennison, or other officers under Lane's command for their role in the jayhawking raids of 1861–1862, but Union General David H. Hunter succeeded in curtailing Lane's military role, and units of Kansas troops such as the 7th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry were shuffled off to other theaters of the war.


title: Jayhawker

text: Further compounding confusion over what the term Jayhawker meant along the Missouri–Kansas border was its use in describing outright criminals like Marshall Cleveland, a captain of Jennison's Regiment, who resigned and turned to jayhawking. Cleveland operated under cover of supposed Unionism, but was outside the Union military command.


title: Jayhawker

text: A newspaper reporter traveling through Kansas in 1863 provided definitions of jayhawker and associated terms:


title: Jayhawker

text: The depredations of the Jayhawkers contributed to the descent of the Missouri–Kansas border region into some of the most vicious guerrilla fighting of the Civil War. In the first year of the war, much of the movable wealth in western Missouri had been transferred to Kansas, and large swaths of western Missouri had been laid waste, by an assortment of Kansas Jayhawkers ranging from outlaws and independent military bands to rogue federal troops such as Lane's Brigade and Jennison's Jayhawkers. In February 1862, the Union command instituted martial law due to "the crime of armed depredations or jay-hawking having reached a height dangerous to the peace and posterity to the whole State (Kansas) and seriously compromising the Union cause in the border counties of Missouri."


title: Jayhawker

text: One expert on the Jayhawkers stated that the Border War would have been bad enough given the fighting between secessionist and unionist Missourians, "but it was basically Kansas craving for revenge and Kansas craving for loot that set the tone of the war. Nowhere else, with the grim exception of the East Kentucky and East Tennessee mountains, did the Civil War degenerate so completely into a squalid, murderous, slugging match as it did in Kansas and Missouri." The most infamous event in this war of raids and reprisals was Confederate leader William Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas, known as the Lawrence Massacre. In response to Quantrill's raid, the Union command issued General Order No. 11 (1863), the forced depopulation of specified Missouri border counties.


title: Jayhawker

text: Intended to eliminate sanctuary and sustenance for pro-Confederate guerrilla fighters, it was enforced by troops from Kansas, and provided an excuse for a final round of plundering, arson, and summary execution perpetrated against the civilian population of western Missouri. In the words of one observer, "the Kansas–Missouri border was a disgrace even to barbarism."


title: Jayhawker

text: As the war continued, the "Jayhawker" term came to be used by Confederates as a derogatory term for any troops from Kansas, but the term also had different meanings in different parts of the country. In Arkansas, the term was used by Confederate Arkansans as an epithet for any marauder, robber, or thief regardless of Union or Confederate affiliation. In Louisiana, the term was used to describe anti-Confederate guerrillas; in Texas, free-booting bands of draft dodgers and deserters.


title: Jayhawker

text: Over time, proud of their state's contributions to the end of slavery and the preservation of the Union, Kansans embraced the "Jayhawker" term. The term came to be applied to people or items related to Kansas.


title: Jayhawker

text: When the University of Kansas fielded their first football team in 1890, the team was called the Jayhawkers. Over time, the name was gradually supplanted by its shorter variant, and KU's sports teams are now exclusively known as the Kansas Jayhawks.


title: Jayhawker

text: Historic descriptions of the ornithological origin of the "Jayhawker" term have varied. Writing on the troubles in Kansas Territory in 1859, one journalist stated the jayhawk was a hawk that preys on the jay. One of the "Jayhawkers of '49" recalled that the name sprang from their observation of hawks gracefully sailing in the air until "the audience of jays and other small but jealous and vicious birds sail in and jab him until he gets tired of show life and slides out of trouble in the lower earth." In the Pat Devlin stories, the jayhawk is described more in terms of its behavior (bullying, robbing, and killing) than the type of bird it is.


title: Jayhawker

text: The link between the term "Jayhawkers" and any specific kind of bird, if such an association ever existed, had been lost or at least obscured by the time KU's bird mascot was invented in 1912, which was meant to serve as a visual representation of the Jayhawker movement, an homage by the university to the state's history. The originator of the bird mascot, Henry Maloy, struggled for over two years to create a pictorial symbol for the team, until hitting upon the bird idea. As explained by Maloy, "the term 'jayhawk' in the school yell was a verb and the term 'Jayhawkers' was the noun."


title: Jayhawker

text: In 2011, the city of Osceola, Missouri produced a declaration condemning what city leadership viewed as a connection between the Jayhawk mascot and the historical Jayhawkers who burned the town in 1861.


title: Jayhawker

text: In 2017, the Kansas football team unveiled uniforms with an American flag on the helmet, blue jerseys, and red pants which featured the words "Kansas Jay-Hawkers" above a seal featuring a sword and a rifle. Kansas Athletics stated that the red pants was an homage to the term "Redlegs," another name for Jayhawkers.


title: Hakuna Matata (song)

text: "Hakuna Matata" is a song from Disney's 32nd animated feature "The Lion King". The music was written by Elton John with lyrics by Tim Rice. The song is based on Timon and Pumbaa's catchphrase in the movie, "Hakuna matata", a Swahili phrase meaning "No worry(s)". It is characterized by its simple 4/4 time, upbeat message and catchy lyrics.


title: Hakuna Matata (song)

text: The song's music and melody were composed by Elton John, with lyrics by Tim Rice. In the film the song is sung by Timon the Meerkat (voiced by Nathan Lane), Pumbaa the Warthog (voiced by Ernie Sabella), and Simba, a young lion voiced by Jason Weaver (singing voice as a cub) and Joseph Williams (singing voice as an adult). Taking place after the death of Mufasa, it features Timon and Pumbaa, the two main comedy characters in the film, talking to Simba about moving forward from their troubled pasts and forgetting their worries, and Simba grows from cub to adult as the song progresses. The song also provides a backstory for Pumbaa, explaining that he was ostracized from animal society for his excessive flatulence. It makes use of a large proportion of the orchestra as well as many other more unusual instruments including an elaborate drum kit. Rice is said to have got the idea for the lyrics for the song from watching the comedy series "Bottom" and at one point wanted the show's stars Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson to play Timon and Pumbaa.


title: Hakuna Matata (song)

text: A second version of the song, produced for the companion album "Rhythm of the Pride Lands", was performed by Jimmy Cliff featuring Lebo M. This version has a slightly modified, previously unreleased verse focusing on Timon's past. It was partially rewritten with a different instrument arrangement, but remains very similar to the original. This version of the song was released as a single with "He Lives in You" as a B-side and was ultimately used in the Broadway theatrical version of "The Lion King".


title: Hakuna Matata (song)

text: "Hakuna Matata" replaced another song written early on in the production stage, titled "Warthog Rhapsody". This song was eventually recorded and released on "Rhythm of the Pride Lands", along with several other songs that did not appear in the finished film. The vocal melody of "Warthog Rhapsody" was later used for the song "That's All I Need" in the spinoff film "The Lion King 1½".


title: Hakuna Matata (song)

text: "Hakuna matata" is a phrase in Swahili that is frequently translated as "no worries". In a behind-the-scenes segment on "The Lion King" Special Edition DVD, the film's production team claim that it picked up the term from a tour guide while on safari in Kenya. It was then developed into an ideology that, along with the seemingly antithetical value of duty to the monarchy, is central to the moral content of the film.


title: Hakuna Matata (song)

text: The title phrase is pronounced with American English phonology within the song, including a flapped "t", rather than as it is pronounced in Swahili.


title: Hakuna Matata (song)

text: "Hakuna Matata" has become one of Disney's most celebrated and popular songs, establishing itself as one of the studio's greatest and most iconic. The song was nominated for Best Song at the 67th Academy Awards but lost to "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", one of three "Lion King" song nominations (the third one was "Circle of Life"). It was also ranked 99th in the AFI's list of the 100 best American movie songs of all time, Disney's seventh and last entry of songs on the list (the others being "When You Wish Upon a Star" from "Pinocchio" at #7, "Some Day My Prince Will Come" from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" at #19, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from "Mary Poppins" at #36, "Wind Beneath My Wings" from "Beaches" at #44, "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" from "Song of the South" at #47, and "Beauty and the Beast" from "Beauty and the Beast" at #62).


title: Hakuna Matata (song)

text: A shortened version of "Hakuna Matata" was used as the theme song of the spinoff "Timon & Pumbaa" TV series. Another shortened version of "Hakuna Matata" was used in the TV series "The Lion Guard" in the first-season episode "Bunga and the King" (2016), sung by the cast members.


title: Hakuna Matata (song)

text: The film's 2019 photorealistic CGI remake features a new version performed by Billy Eichner as Timon, Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, JD McCrary as young Simba, and Donald Glover as adult Simba.


title: Bizarro World

text: The Bizarro World (also known as Htrae, which is "Earth" spelled backwards) is a fictional planet appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Introduced in the early 1960s, Htrae is a cube-shaped planet, home to Bizarro and companions, all of whom were initially Bizarro versions of Superman, Lois Lane and their children. Later, other Bizarros were added. Among them was Batzarro, the World's Worst Detective.


title: Bizarro World

text: In popular culture, "Bizarro World" has come to mean a situation or setting which is weirdly inverted or opposite to expectations.


title: Bizarro World

text: In the Bizarro World of "Htrae", society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!" In one episode, for example, a salesman is doing a brisk trade selling Bizarro bonds: "Guaranteed to lose money for you". Later, the mayor appoints Bizarro #1 to investigate a crime, "Because you are stupider than the entire Bizarro police force put together". This is intended and taken as a great compliment.


title: Bizarro World

text: Originally a normal planet, htraE is now cube-shaped. This is due to the intervention of Superman, whoafter being convicted of doing something perfect on htraE, which would normally be a capital offensepointed out that the planet was shaped like a normal spheroid and agreed to cube it if his sentence were commuted.


title: Bizarro World

text: Later stories introduced Bizarro versions of Superman's supporting cast, including Bizarro-Perry White, Bizarro-Jimmy Olsen, Bizarro-Morgan Edge, Bizarro-Lucy Lane, Bizarro-Lana Lang and Bizarro-Krypto, created by using the duplicator ray on characters other than Superman and Lois Lane, as well as the children of Bizarro and Bizarro Lois. There was even a Bizarro-Justice League and Legion of Super-Heroes: the Bizarro League and the Legion of Stupor-Heroes. Bizarro-Batman sported a Futility Belt full of cigarette butts, chewed gum, and other such priceless Bizarro treasures. Yellow Lantern had no power from his powerless Ring, was vulnerable to anything colored green and was the most easily frightened being in the universe. Bizarro-Aquaman could not swim. There is even a Bizarro-Marilyn Monroe, the ugliest of them all.


title: Bizarro World

text: "Tales of the Bizarro World" became a recurring segment in "Adventure Comics" for fifteen issues from writer Jerry Siegel and artist John Forte, running from issue #285–299 (June 1961–August 1962). Animated Blue Kryptonite golems once erupted from the Htrae surface, bent on defeating the Bizarros and were cheered on by the Bizarro Lois duplicates.


title: Bizarro World

text: Despite their differences, Bizarro and Superman have teamed up on occasion. One notable example happened in Superman #379, when a strange creature appeared to be devouring Bizarros. Fearing he would end up alone Bizarro tried to steal Superman's duplicator ray. Superman convinced Bizarro he would be better off trying to stop the monster before making any more Bizarros. The creature eventually devoured Bizarro, but Superman soon figured out that the creature was not trying to kill the Bizarros, but using their combined strength to defeat another creature which was trying to destroy htraE. The first creature was created as part of a plan developed by none other than the Bizarro Lex Luthor, who Bizarro referred to as a "punk hero."


title: Bizarro World

text: In the imaginary story, "", which served as an ending to Silver Age Superman continuity, Bizarro #1 (the original Bizarro and the world's leader/greatest hero), was influenced to bad ends by the now evil Mr. Mxyzptlk. Realizing that to truly fulfill the Bizarro Code he should stop being an "imperfect perfect duplicate" of Superman and be a "perfect imperfect duplicate" of Superman, Bizarro resolves to alter his methods accordingly. To that end, Bizarro #1 deliberately destroyed Bizarro World, reasoning that if Superman's homeworld (Krypton) was destroyed in an accident, Bizarro must destroy his own world on purpose.


title: Bizarro World

text: The Bizarro World's final pre-"Crisis" appearance was in "DC Comics Presents" #97 (September 1986), which was also the final issue of that series. After being empowered by a hideously disfigured Phantom Zone sorcerer, Mr. Mxyzptlk destroys Zrfff and then causes the Bizarro World to implode, killing all its inhabitants. The Bizarros act unusually insane in this account, with Bizarro #1 rocketing his son to the core of the collapsing planet so he would be sure to die.


title: Bizarro World

text: It had been established that there was no "set" future for Earth-One so the "World's Finest" story where it is revealed that sometime in the future, Htrae is transformed into a more normal world (egg-shaped rather than cubical) by the radiation from an exploding celestial body was only a "possible" future. The Bizarroes are changed into normal non-powered people as well, but still retaining vestiges of their Bizarro laws (curtains hung outside the windows of a house, etc.)


title: Bizarro World

text: After the "Crisis on Infinite Earths", John Byrne's "Man of Steel" miniseries rebooted Superman continuity. The editors and writers did not reintroduce Bizarro World in the reboot. Later, in "Superman" (vol. 2) #87, the second Post-Crisis Bizarro clone creates a "Bizarro World" which is a warehouse made to look like a surreal Metropolis.


title: Bizarro World

text: A Bizarro World did appear in a story of this era in the 1998 "Adventure Comics 80-Page Giant" by writer Tom Peyer and artist Kevin O'Neill. There, Bizarro demands that a technician at a SETI-like installation broadcast his diary. Having no choice, the technician looks over the diary, which retells the story of the classic cube-shaped backwards Bizarro World. Superman accidentally finds himself there and, to allay people's fears of him, goes on a "constructive rampage." The original Bizarro, aka Bizarro #1, goes to Earth and attempts to stop Superman with the help of his friends. However, when the other Bizarros try to kill Superman, #1 stops them, saying that killing is the earthly thing that they must, above all, do the opposite of. Realizing that, however strange Bizarro World might be, its inhabitants are safer and happier than those of Earth thanks to Bizarro #1's leadership, Superman apologizes. To show his sincerity he hides a copy of the Bizarro Code where nobody will ever see it. The people hold a parade in #1's honor and with his loving wife Bizarro Lois #1 and their son, Bizarro Junior #1 at his side, Bizarro cries saying "Me am ... happiest creature in universe." When the technician finishes reading the story, he sees Bizarro is gone and, horrified, asks, "What if the journal itself is no exception to the Bizarro Code?". Elsewhere, the truth is revealed; Bizarro, who has no home and has no family and is held in contempt by Superman, weeps because he is the most miserable thing in the universe.


title: Bizarro World

text: The distinctive cube-shaped Earth of Bizarro World briefly appeared in the pages of "Infinite Crisis" alongside the other Earths in space. A close-up, labeled Earth-0, is seen wherein a smiling Bizarro is strangling a smiling Bizarro-Lois, with Bizarros Hawkman, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White standing alongside and laughing. Similarly, in the present day New 52 DC Multiverse, a cube shaped Earth-29 appears, albeit encircled by a ring. This may or may not be a further reiteration of the Bizarro World.


title: Bizarro World

text: A cube-shaped planet, populated by assorted Bizarros, was discovered orbiting a blue sun by a Thanagarian patrol ship.


title: Bizarro World

text: In Escape from Bizarro World (Action Comics #855-857, also published as "Superman: Escape from Bizarro World"), Bizarro captures Jonathan Kent and takes him to the cube-shaped world, prompting Superman to follow him. This version of Bizarro World was created in a star system with a blue star closest to Earth, by Bizarro by smashing asteroids together, with inhabitants created by firing eyebeams at organic life forms (first at himself to create Lois Lane) after gaining new powers from the nearby blue sun.


title: Bizarro World

text: The "DC Universe Halloween Special 2009" features several stories showcasing Bizarro World. The opening shows Bizarro reading a comic book to a large audience of Bizarro men and women clad in halloween costumes. All of the audience members are bound and gagged, implying that they are being read to against their will as opposed to the traditional practice of gathering around to hear a story. Another tale reveals that Halloween in Bizarro World involves trick-or-treaters giving fruit to the houses they visit. The final story also reveals that Bizarro works at a Bizarro version of the Daily Planet, and also shows Bizarro versions of staff members like Jimmy Olsen and Cat Grant.


title: Bizarro World

text: "Superman" #695 has Bizarro fleeing from Mon-El after a battle. In Bizarro-speak, Bizarro informs the hero that he is retreating to Bizarro World, and claims that he will soon return with a Bizarro Mon-El in order to help him defeat the original. This story was never followed up on, as Mon-El was sent into the Phantom Zone shortly after this encounter.


title: Bizarro World

text: Bizarro World was seen again several months later in "Supergirl" #55. In it, Bizarro Supergirl (not the one accidentally created in "Superman" #140) recounts her origin, revealing that she was bound, gagged and locked inside of a spaceship sent from the cube-shaped world to Earth after it was attacked by a being known as the Godship. The issue ended with the modern Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, heading toward the Bizarro World to liberate it from the Godship.


title: Bizarro World

text: Outside mainstream DC continuity, "All-Star Superman" #7-8 featured the return of and Bizarro, in which the sentient cubic attacked Earth until Superman interfered. Manifestations of Earth inhabitants attacked en masse, killing and absorbing many. The duplicates have a weakness against steroids; they cannot absorb people who use them. Superman believed that was a manifestation of an entity called a 'planet eater'. Superman attacks , but experiences the loss of his abilities due to the super-heavy gravity pull of as it retreats back to its own realm, as well as Doppler shift which replicates the effects of red sun radiation, eroding his superpowers. On this revisionist , Superman encounters Bizarro ("Le-Roj") and an imperfect clone of Bizarro himself (Zibarro, who is essentially a powerless, rational human). Superman also encounters Bizarro versions of his fellow heroes, such as Bizarro Green Lantern (whose ring allows him to create anything he thinks of, to which he admits he thinks of everything), Bizarro Flash (who is extremely slow and appears to take an entire issue to get to a certain point), Bizarro Batman (who was shot by his parents) and Bizarro Wonder Woman (who is an ugly fat woman that turned to clay). The area Superman lands in resembles a destroyed city. There is also an imperfect duplicate of the visible in the background, although unnamed. vanishes back into the Underverse, a newly discovered dimension, at story's end.


title: Bizarro World

text: A story about Bizarro in the out-of-continuity digital-first anthology comic book "Adventures of Superman" from 2013 by Christos Gage and Eduardo Francisco ends with Bizarro given the tools to terraform an uninhabited planet to his own tastes. There, he immediately encounters an Amazonian woman with chalky skin who introduces herself as Bizarra.


title: Bizarro World

text: In Grant Morrison's Multiversity series, htraE has been allocated its own alternate universe and is now also known as Earth-29. As well as its imperfect inorganic equivalents of Earth-0's core superheroes, it retains its cubic shape, although now possesses a ring as well. Other planets in its universe are also cuboid in shapeNarr (Rann-29), Raganaht (Thanagar-29) which is home to a flightless Bizarro Manhawk (Hawkman) and an overpopulated Sram (Mars-29) which is home to Smarian Snitch (Martian Manhunter).


title: Bizarro World

text: Instead of focusing on Bizarro's planet, it features alternative interpretations of DC Universe by alternative cartoonists.


title: Bizarro World

text: The concept of "Bizarro" has been ingrained in popular culture where it has come to mean a weirdly mutated version of anything, not confined to characters in DC Comics publications and as such, so has the concept of Bizarro World.


title: Bizarro World

text: "The Bizarro World" was the subject of a sketch which aired during the second episode of season 7 of "Saturday Night Live".


title: Bizarro World

text: In season 1, Joey tells Ross that him kissing Chandler's mom would be no big deal if it happened in "Bizarro World".


title: Bizarro World

text: The concept of "Bizarro World" is a fundamental element in "The Bizarro Jerry", the 137th episode of American sitcom "Seinfeld". In the episode, Elaine makes a new group of friends who represent inverted types of the normal "Seinfeld" gang. Jerry labels his counterpart "Bizarro Jerry", much to Elaine's confusion. These characters are kind, considerate, curious about the world around them, and good citizens. Though Elaine is initially attracted to their friendly ways, she is ultimately turned off by the formality and lack of simple camaraderie which she enjoys with her old, selfish, shortsighted group. A second reason for her leaving the Bizarro group is the fact that she is, in turn, so flawed that the Bizarro group reject her in much the same way that Elaine rejected her old friends. Conceivably, her Bizarro version would be ladylike. To this day, fans still write in and tell the producers of the show of all the things that can be pointed out in the background of the Bizarro apartment. These include a Bizarro figure on an apartment shelf, just as a Superman figure sits on a shelf in Jerry's apartment. Viewers can also see a unicycle hanging from the wall instead of a bicycle, and images of horses instead of cars. The locks on the doors are on the opposite side and actually used. At the end, one of the Bizarro group says: "Me am so happy, me want to cry"—a reference to the way Bizarro speaks.


title: Bizarro World

text: The character Cordelia Chase from the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" referenced the concept on several occasions:


title: Bizarro World

text: Buffy Summers also referenced "Bizarro World" in the season 6 episode "Gone". Following an argument with her then lover Spike, Buffy walks home grumbling to herself "I don't believe this. He threw me out. Did I, like, fall into some backward dimension here? Is this Bizarro World?"


title: Bizarro World

text: The underground comic "Anarchy Comics" #2 story "Kultur Dokuments" by Jay Kinney and Paul Mavrides features the "Political Bizarros" as antagonists of the Picto family. The Political Bizarros are highly dogmatic Marxist-Leninist sectarians who are look and talk like Superman-universe Bizarros, in strong contrast to the pictogram world around them. They belong to two rival political sects, the International Caucus of Political Bizarros (patterned after the then-leftist Lyndon LaRouche group, International Caucus of Labor Committees) and the Progressive Bizarro Party (paterned after the Progressive Labor Party (United States)).


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: A functional neurologic disorder or functional neurological disorder (FND) is a condition in which patients experience neurological symptoms such as weakness, movement disorders, sensory symptoms and blackouts. Symptoms of functional neurological disorders are clinically recognisable, but are not categorically associated with a definable organic disease. The intended contrast is with an organic brain syndrome, where a physiological cause can be identified. Subsets of functional neurological disorders include functional neurological symptom disorder (FNsD), conversion disorder, and psychogenic movement disorder/non-epileptic seizures. The diagnosis is made based on positive signs and symptoms in the history and examination during consultation of a neurologist (see below). Physiotherapy is particularly helpful for patients with motor symptoms (weakness, gait disorders, movement disorders) and tailored cognitive behavioural therapy has the best evidence in patients with dissociative (non-epileptic) attacks.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: There are a great number of symptoms experienced by those with a functional neurological disorder. While these symptoms are very real, their origin is complex, since it can be associated with severe psychological trauma (conversion disorder), and idiopathic neurological dysfunction. The core symptoms are those of motor or sensory dysfunction or episodes of altered awareness:


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Epidemiological studies and meta-analysis have shown higher rates of depression and anxiety in patients with FND compared to the general population, but rates are similar to patients with other neurological disorders such as epilepsy or Parkinson's disease. This is often the case because of years of misdiagnosis and accusations of malingering.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: A systematic review found that stressful life events and childhood neglect were significantly more common in patients with FND than the general population, although many patients (around 70%) report no stressors.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Converging evidence from several studies using different techniques and paradigms has now demonstrated distinctive brain activation patterns associated with functional deficits, unlike those seen in actors simulating similar deficits.  The new findings advance current understanding of the mechanisms involved in this disease, and offer the possibility of identifying markers of the condition and patients' prognosis.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: A diagnosis of a functional neurological disorder is dependent on positive features from the history and examination.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Positive features of functional weakness on examination include Hoover's sign, when there is weakness of hip extension which normalises with contralateral hip flexion. Signs of functional tremor include entrainment and distractibility. The patient with tremor should be asked to copy rhythmical movements with one hand or foot. If the tremor of the other hand entrains to the same rhythm, stops, or if the patient has trouble copying a simple movement this may indicate a functional tremor. Functional dystonia usually presents with an inverted ankle posture or clenched fist.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Positive features of dissociative or non-epileptic seizures include prolonged motionless unresponsiveness, long duration episodes (>2minutes) and symptoms of dissociation prior to the attack. These signs can be usefully discussed with patients when the diagnosis is being made.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Patients with functional movement disorders and limb weakness may experience symptom onset triggered by an episode of acute pain, a physical injury or physical trauma. They may also experience symptoms when faced with a psychological stressor, but this isn't the case for most patients. Patients with functional neurological disorders are more likely to have a history of another illness such as irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pelvic pain or fibromyalgia but this cannot be used to make a diagnosis. FND does not show up on blood tests or structural brain imaging such as MRI or CT scanning. However, this is also the case for many other neurological conditions so negative investigations should not be used alone to make the diagnosis. FND can, however, occur alongside other neurological diseases and tests may show non-specific abnormalities which cause confusion for doctors and patients.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: The International Classification of Disease (ICD-11) which is due to be finalised in 2017 will have functional disorders within the neurology section for the first time.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Treatment requires a firm and transparent diagnosis based on positive features which both health professionals and patients can feel confident about. It is essential that the health professional confirms that this is a common problem which is genuine, not imagined and not a diagnosis of exclusion.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Physiotherapy with someone who understands functional disorders may be the initial treatment of choice for patients with motor symptoms such as weakness, gait (walking) disorder and movement disorders. Nielsen et al. have reviewed the medical literature on physiotherapy for functional motor disorders up to 2012 and concluded that the available studies, although limited, mainly report positive results.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: For many patients with FND, accessing treatment can be difficult. Availability of expertise is limited and they may feel that they are being dismissed or told 'it's all in your head' especially if psychological input is part of the treatment plan. Some medical professionals are uncomfortable explaining and treating patients with functional symptoms. Changes in the diagnostic criteria, increasing evidence, literature about how to make the diagnosis and how to explain it and changes in medical training is slowly changing this.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Dissociative (non-epileptic) seizures account for about 1 in 7 referrals to neurologists after an initial seizure, and functional weakness has a similar prevalence to multiple sclerosis.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: From the 18th century, there was a move from the idea of FND being caused by the nervous system. This led to an understanding that it could affect both sexes. Jean Martin Charcot argued that, what would be later called FND, was caused by "a hereditary degeneration of the nervous system, namely a neurological disorder".


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: In the 18th century, the illness was confirmed as a neurological disorder but a small number of doctors still believed in the previous definition. However, as early as 1874, doctors, including W.B. Carpenter and J.A. Omerod, began to speak out against this other term due to there being no evidence of its existence.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Although the term "conversion disorder" has been used for many years, another term was still being used in the 20th century. However, by this point, it bore little resemblance to the original meaning. It referred instead to symptoms that could not be explained by a recognised organic pathology, and was therefore believed to be the result of stress, anxiety, trauma or depression. The term fell out of favour over time due to the negative connotations. Furthermore, critics pointed out that it can be challenging to find organic pathologies for all symptoms, and so the practice of diagnosing that patients who had such symptoms were imagining them led to the disorder being meaningless, vague and a sham-diagnosis, as it did not refer to any definable disease.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Throughout its history, many patients have been misdiagnosed with conversion disorder when they had organic disorders such as tumours or epilepsy or vascular diseases. This has led to patient deaths, a lack of appropriate care and suffering for the patients. Eliot Slater, after studying the condition in the 1950s, was outspoken against the condition, as there has never been any evidence to prove that it exists. He stated that "The diagnosis of 'hysteria' is a disguise for ignorance and a fertile source of clinical error. It is, in fact, not only a delusion but also a snare".


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: In 1980, the DSM III added 'conversion disorder' to its list of conditions. The diagnostic criteria for this condition are nearly identical to those used for hysteria. The diagnostic criteria were:


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: A. The predominant disturbance is a loss of or alteration in physical functioning suggesting a physical disorder. It is involuntary and medically unexplainable


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: Today, there is a growing understanding that symptoms are real and distressing, and are caused by an incorrect functioning of the brain rather than being imagined or made up.


title: Functional neurologic disorder

text: There was historically much controversy surrounding the FND diagnosis. Many doctors continue to believe that all FND patients have unresolved traumatic events (often of a sexual nature) which are being expressed in a physical way. However, some doctors do not believe this to be the case. Wessely and White have argued that FND may merely be an unexplained somatic symptom disorder.


title: Taishanese

text: Taishanese (), alternatively romanized in Cantonese as Toishanese or Toisanese, in local dialect as Hoisanese or Hoisan-wa, is a dialect of Yue Chinese native to Taishan, Guangdong. Although it is related to Cantonese, Taishanese has little mutual intelligibility with the latter. Taishanese is also spoken throughout Sze Yup (which includes Taishan), located on the western fringe of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong China. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, most of the Chinese emigration to North America originated from Sze Yup (or Siyi in the pinyin romanization of Standard Mandarin Chinese), the area where this variety is natively spoken. Thus, up to the mid-20th century, Taishanese was the dominant variety of the Chinese language spoken in Chinatowns in Canada and the United States. It was formerly the lingua franca of the overseas Chinese residing in the United States.


title: Taishanese

text: The earliest linguistic studies refer to the dialect of Llin-nen or Xinning (). Xinning was renamed Taishan in 1914, and linguistic literature has since generally referred to the local dialect as the Taishan dialect, a term based on the pinyin romanization of Standard Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. Alternative names have also been used. The term Toishan is a convention used by the United States Postal Service, the Defense Language Institute and the 2000 United States Census. The terms "Toishan", "Toisan", and "Toisaan" are all based on Cantonese pronunciation and are also frequently found in linguistic and non-linguistic literature. Hoisan is a term based on the local pronunciation, although it is not generally used in published literature.


title: Taishanese

text: These terms have also been anglicized with the suffix "-ese": Taishanese, Toishanese, and Toisanese. Of the previous three terms, "Taishanese" is most commonly used in academic literature, to about the same extent as the term "Taishan dialect". The terms Hoisanese and Hoisan-wa do appear in print literature, although they are used more on the internet.


title: Taishanese

text: Another term used is Sìyì ("Sze Yup" or "Seiyap" in Cantonese romanization; ). Sìyì or Sze Yup refers to a previous administrative division in the Pearl River Delta consisting of the four counties of Taishan, Kaiping, Enping and Xinhui. In 1983, a fifth county (Heshan) was added to the Jiangmen prefecture; so whereas the term Sìyì has become an anachronism, the older term Sze Yup remains in current use in overseas Chinese communities where it is their ancestral home. The term "Wuyi" (), literally "five counties", refers to the modern administrative region, but this term is not used to refer to Taishanese.


title: Taishanese

text: Taishanese originates from the Taishan region, where it is spoken. Taishanese can also be seen as a group of very closely related, mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the various towns and villages in and around Siyi (the four counties of Toishan, Hoiping, Yanping, Sunwui, phonetized in Cantonese; while "Taishan, Kaiping, Enping and Xinhui" as above, is phonetizied in Mandarin).


title: Taishanese

text: A vast number of Taishanese immigrants journeyed worldwide through the Taishan diaspora. The Taishan region was a major source of Chinese immigrants through continental Americas from the late-19th to mid-20th centuries. Taishanese was the predominant dialect spoken by the 19th-century Chinese builders of railroads in North America. Approximately 1.3 million people are estimated to have origins in Taishan. Prior to the signing of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which allowed new waves of Chinese immigrants, Taishanese was the dominant dialect spoken in Chinatowns across North America.


title: Taishanese

text: Taishanese is still spoken in many Chinatowns throughout North America, including those of San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, and Montreal by older generations of Chinese immigrants and their children, but is today being supplanted by mainstream Cantonese and increasingly by Mandarin in both older and newer Chinese communities alike, across the continent.


title: Taishanese

text: Taishanese is a dialect of the Yue branch of Chinese, which also includes Cantonese. However, due to ambiguities in the meaning of "Cantonese" in the English language, as it can refer to both the greater Yue dialect group or its prestige standard (Standard Cantonese), "Taishanese" and "Cantonese" are commonly used in mutually exclusive contexts, i.e. Taishanese is treated separately from "Cantonese". Despite the closeness of the two, they are hardly mutually intelligible.


title: Taishanese

text: The phonology of Taishanese bears a lot of resemblance to Cantonese, since both of them are part of the same Yue branch. Like other Yue dialects, such as the Goulou dialects, Taishanese pronunciation and vocabulary may sometimes differ greatly from Cantonese. Although Taishan stands only from the city of Guangzhou, they are separated by numerous rivers, and the dialect of Taishan is among the most linguistically distant Yue dialects from the Guangzhou dialect.


title: Taishanese

text: Standard Cantonese functions as a "lingua franca" in Guangdong province, and speakers of other Chinese varieties (such as Chaozhou, Minnan, Hakka) living in Guangdong may also speak Cantonese. On the other hand, Standard Mandarin Chinese is the standard language of the People's Republic of China and the only legally allowed medium for teaching in schools throughout most of the country (except in minority areas), so residents of Taishan speak Mandarin as well. Although the Chinese government has been making great efforts to popularize Mandarin by administrative means, most Taishan residents do not speak Mandarin in their daily lives, but treat it as a second language, with Cantonese being the lingua franca of their region.


title: Taishanese

text: There are 19 to 23 initials consonants (or onsets) in Taishanese, which is shown in the chart below in IPA:


title: Taishanese

text: The final consonant (or rime) occurs after the initial sound, which consists of a medial, a nucleus, and a coda. There are three medial (or glides) in Taishanese that occur after the initial sound: null or no medial, , or . There are five main vowels after the medial: , , , , and null or no vowel. There are nine main codas at the end of the final: null or no coda, , , , , , , , and .


title: Taishanese

text: Taishanese is tonal. There are five contrastive lexical tones: high, mid, low, mid falling, and low falling. In at least one Taishanese dialect, the two falling tones have merged into a low falling tone. There is no tone sandhi.


title: Taishanese

text: Taishanese has four changed tones: mid rising, low rising, mid dipping and low dipping. These tones are called changed tones because they are the product of morphological processes (e.g. pluralization of pronouns) on four of the lexical tones. These tones have been analyzed as the addition of a high floating tone to the end of the mid, low, mid falling and low falling tones. The high endpoint of the changed tone often reaches an even higher pitch than the level high tone; this fact has led to the proposal of an expanded number of pitch levels for Taishanese tones. The changed tone can change the meaning of a word, and this distinguishes the changed tones from tone sandhi, which does not change a word's meaning. An example of a changed tone contrast is 刷 (to brush) and 刷 (a brush).


title: Taishanese

text: The writing system is Chinese. Historically, the common written language of Classical Literary Chinese united and facilitated cross-dialect exchange in dynastic China, as opposed to the spoken dialects which were too different to be mutually intelligible. In the 20th century, standard written Chinese, based on Mandarin, was codified as the new written standard. As Taishanese is primarily used in speech, characters needed specifically for writing Taishanese are not standardized and may vary. Commonly seen alternatives are shown below.


title: Taishanese

text: The sound represented by the IPA symbol (the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative) is particularly challenging, as it has no standard romanization. The digraph "lh" used above to represent this sound is used in Totonac, Chickasaw and Choctaw, which are among several written representations in the languages that include the sound. The alternative "hl" is used in Xhosa and Zulu, while "ll" is used in Welsh. Other written forms occur as well.


title: Taishanese

text: The following chart compares the personal pronouns among Taishanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin. In Taishanese, the plural forms of the pronouns are formed by changing the tone, whereas in Cantonese and Mandarin, a plural marker (地/哋/等 dei6 and / men, respectively) is added.


title: History of golf

text: The origins of golf are unclear and much debated. However, it is generally accepted that modern golf developed in Scotland from the Middle Ages onwards. The game did not find international popularity until the late 19th century, when it spread into the rest of the United Kingdom and then to the British Empire and the United States.


title: History of golf

text: A golf-like game is, apocryphally, recorded as taking place on February 26, 1297, in Loenen aan de Vecht, where the Dutch played a game with a stick and leather ball. The winner was whoever hit the ball with the fewest strokes into a target several hundred yards away. Some scholars argue that this game of putting a small ball in a hole in the ground using "golf clubs" was also played in 17th-century Netherlands and that this predates the game in Scotland.