Classification and related languages.

Macedonian belongs to the eastern group of the South Slavic branch of Slavic languages in the Indo-European language family, together with Bulgarian and the extinct Old Church Slavonic. Some authors also classify the Torlakian dialects in this group. Macedonian's closest relative is Bulgarian followed by Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, although the last is more distantly related. Together, South Slavic languages form a dialect continuum.  Macedonian, like the other Eastern South Slavic idioms has characteristics that make it part of the Balkan sprachbund, a group of languages that share typological, grammatical and lexical features based on areal convergence, rather than genetic proximity. In that sense, Macedonian has experienced convergent evolution with other languages that belong to this group such as Greek, Aromanian, Albanian and Romani due to cultural and linguistic exchanges that occurred primarily through oral communication.  Macedonian and Bulgarian are divergent from the remaining South Slavic languages in that they do not use noun cases (except for the vocative, and apart from some traces of once productive inflections still found scattered throughout these two) and have lost the infinitive. They are also the only Slavic languages with any definite articles (unlike standard Bulgarian, which uses only one article, standard Macedonian as well as some south-eastern Bulgarian dialects have a set of three deictic articles: unspecified, proximal and distal definite article). Macedonian and Bulgarian are the only Indo-European languages that make use of the narrative mood.

History.

Slavic people who settled on the Balkans, spoke their own dialects and used other dialects or languages to communicate with other people. The "canonical" Old Church Slavonic period of the development of Macedonian started during the 9th century and lasted until the first half of the 11th century. It saw translation of Greek religious texts. The Macedonian recension of Old Church Slavonic also appeared around that period in the Bulgarian Empire and was referred to as such due to works of the Ohrid Literary School. Towards the end of the 13th century, the influence of the Serbian language increased as Serbia expanded its borders southward. During the five centuries of Ottoman rule, from the 15th to the 20th century, the vernacular spoken in the territory of current-day North Macedonia witnessed grammatical and linguistic changes that came to characterize Macedonian as a member of the Balkan sprachbund. This period saw the introduction of many Turkish loanwords into the language.  The latter half of the 18th century saw the rise of modern literary Macedonian through the written use of Macedonian dialects referred to as "Bulgarian" by writers. The first half of the 19th century saw the rise of nationalism among the South Slavic people in the Ottoman Empire. This period saw proponents of creating a common church for Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavs which would use a common modern Macedo-Bulgarian literary standard. The period between 1840 and 1870, saw a struggle to define the dialectal base of the common language called simply "Bulgarian", with two opposing views emerging. One ideology was to create a Bulgarian literary language based on Macedonian dialects, but such proposals were rejected by the Bulgarian codifiers. That period saw poetry written in the Struga dialect with elements from Russian. Textbooks also used either spoken dialectal forms of the language or a mixed Macedo-Bulgarian language. Subsequently, proponents of the idea of using a separate Macedonian language emerged.  Krste Petkov Misirkov's book "Za makedonckite raboti" ("On Macedonian Matters") published in 1903, was the first attempt to formalize a separate literary language. With the book, the author proposed a Macedonian grammar and expressed the goal of codifying the language and using it in schools. The author postulated the principle that the Prilep-Bitola dialect be used as a dialectal basis for the formation of the Macedonian standard language; his idea however was not adopted until the 1940s. On 2 August 1944 at the first Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) meeting, Macedonian was declared an official language. With this, it became the last of the major Slavic languages to achieve a standard literary form. As such, Macedonian served as one of the three official languages of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1991.

Geographical distribution.

Although the precise number of native and second language speakers of Macedonian is unknown due to the policies of neighboring countries and emigration of the population, estimates ranging between 1.4 million and 3.5 million have been reported. According to the 2002 census, the total population of North Macedonia was 2,022,547, with 1,344,815 citizens declaring Macedonian their native language. Macedonian is also studied and spoken to various degrees as a second language by all ethnic minorities in the country.  Outside North Macedonia, there are small ethnic Macedonian minorities that speak Macedonian in neighboring countries including 4.697 in Albania (1989 census), 1,609 in Bulgaria (2011 census) and 12,706 in Serbia (2011 census). The exact number of speakers of the Macedonian language in Greece is difficult to ascertain due to the country's policies. Estimates of Slavophones ranging anywhere between 50,000 and 300,000 in the last decade of the 20th century have been reported. Approximately 580,000 Macedonians live outside North Macedonia per 1964 estimates with Australia, Canada, and the United States being home to the largest emigrant communities. Consequently, the number of speakers of Macedonian in these countries include 66,020 (2016 census), 15,605 (2016 census) and 22,885 (2010 census), respectively. Macedonian also has more than 50,000 native speakers in countries of Western Europe, predominantly in Germany, Switzerland and Italy.  The Macedonian language has the status of an official language only in North Macedonia, and is a recognized minority and official language in parts of Albania (Pustec), Romania, Serbia (Jabuka and Plandište) and Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are provisions to learn the Macedonian language in Romania as Macedonians are an officially recognized minority group. Macedonian is studied and taught at various universities across the world and research centers focusing on the language are found at universities across Europe (France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia) as well as Australia, Canada and the United States (Chicago and North Carolina).

Dialects.

During the standardization process of the Macedonian language, the dialectal base selected was primarily based on the West-Central dialects, which spans the triangle of the communities Makedonski Brod, Kičevo, Demir Hisar, Bitola, Prilep, and Veles. These were considered the most widespread and most likely to be adopted by speakers from other regions. The initial idea to select this region as a base was first proposed in Krste Petkov Misirkov's works as he believed the Macedonian language should abstract on those dialects that are distinct from neighboring Slavic languages, such as Bulgarian and Serbian. Likewise, this view does not take into account the fact that a Macedonian koiné language was already in existence.  Based on a large group of features, Macedonian dialects can be divided into Eastern, Western and Northern groups. The boundary between them geographically runs approximately from Skopje and Skopska Crna Gora along the rivers Vardar and Crna. There are numerous isoglosses between these dialectal variations, with structural differences in phonetics, prosody (accentuation), morphology and syntax. The Western group of dialects can be subdivided into smaller dialectal territories, the largest group of which includes the central dialects. The linguistic territory where Macedonian dialects were spoken also span outside the country and within the region of Macedonia, including Pirin Macedonia into Bulgaria and Aegean Macedonia into Greece.  Variations in consonant pronunciation occur between the two groups, with most Western regions losing the /x/ and the /v/ in intervocalic position ("глава" (head): /ɡlava/ = /ɡla/: "глави" (heads): /ɡlavi/ = /ɡlaj/) while Eastern dialects preserve it. Stress in the Western dialects is generally fixed and falls on the antepenultimate syllable while Eastern dialects have non-fixed stress systems that can fall on any syllable of the word, that is also reminiscent of Bulgarian dialects. Additionally, Eastern dialects are distinguishable by their fast tonality, elision of sounds and the suffixes for definiteness. The Northern dialectal group is close to South Serbian and Torlakian dialects and is characterized by 46–47 phonetic and grammatical isoglosses.  In addition, a more detailed classification can be based on the modern reflexes of the Proto-Slavic reduced vowels (yers), vocalic sonorants, and the back nasal *ǫ. That classification distinguishes between the following 6 groups:  Western Dialects:  Eastern Dialects:

Phonology.

The phonological system of Standard Macedonian is based on the Prilep-Bitola dialect. Macedonian possesses five vowels, one semivowel, three liquid consonants, three nasal stops, three pairs of fricatives, two pairs of affricates, a non-paired voiceless fricative, nine pairs of voiced and unvoiced consonants and four pairs of stops. Out of all the Slavic languages, Macedonian has the most frequent occurrence of vowels relative to consonants with a typical Macedonian sentence having on average 1.18 consonants for every one vowel.

Vowels.

The Macedonian language contains 5 vowels which are /a/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /o/, and /u/. For the pronunciation of the middle vowels /"е"/ and /"о"/ by native Macedonian speakers, various vowel sounds can be produced ranging from [ɛ] to [ẹ] and from [o] to [ọ]. Unstressed vowels are not reduced, although they are pronounced more weakly and shortly than stressed ones, especially if they are found in a stressed syllable. The five vowels and the letter "р" (/r/) which acts as a semivowel when found between two consonants (e.g. "црква", "church"), can be syllable-forming.  The schwa is phonemic in many dialects (varying in closeness to or ) but its use in the standard language is marginal. When writing a dialectal word and keeping the schwa for aesthetic effect, an apostrophe is used; for example,,, etc. When spelling words letter-by-letters, each consonant is followed by the schwa sound. The individual letters of acronyms are pronounced with the schwa in the same way: (). The lexicalized acronyms () and () (a brand of cigarettes), are among the few exceptions. Vowel length is not phonemic. Vowels in stressed open syllables in disyllablic words with stress on the penultimate can be realized as long, e.g. 'Veles'. The sequence is often realized phonetically as ; e.g. "'colloq." hour', - snakes. In other words, two vowels appearing next to each other can also be pronounced twice separately (e.g. "пооди" - to walk).

Consonants.

The consonant inventory of the Macedonian language consists of 26 letters and distinguishes three groups of consonants ("согласки"): voiced ("звучни"), voiceless ("безвучни") and sonorant consonants ("сонорни"). Typical features and rules that apply to consonants in the Macedonian language include assimilation of voiced and voiceless consonants when next to each other, devoicing of vocal consonants when at the end of a word, double consonants and elision. At morpheme boundaries (represented in spelling) and at the end of a word (not represented in spelling), voicing opposition is neutralized.

Orthography.

Similar to the Macedonian alphabet, Macedonian orthography was officially codified on 7 June 1945 at an ASNOM meeting. Rules about the orthography and orthoepy (correct pronunciation of words) were first collected and outlined in the book "Правопис на македонскиот литературен јазик" ("Orthography of the Macedonian standard language") published in 1945. Updated versions have subsequently appeared with the most recent one published in 2016. Macedonian orthography is consistent and phonemic in practice, an approximation of the principle of one grapheme per phoneme. This one-to-one correspondence is often simply described by the principle, "write as you speak and read as it is written". There is only one exception to this rule with the letter /"л"/ which is pronounced as /l/ before front vowels (e.g. "лист" (leaf); pronounced as [list]) and /j/ (e.g. "полјанка" (meadow); pronounced as [poljanka]) but velar /ł/ elswhere (e.g. "бела" (white) pronounced as [beła]). Another sound that is not represented in the written form but is pronounced in words is the schwa.

Political views on the language.

Politicians and scholars from North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece have opposing views about the existence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian language. Through history and especially before its codification, Macedonian has been referred to as a variant of Bulgarian, Serbian or a distinct language of its own. Historically, after its codification, the use of the language has been a subject of different views and internal policies in Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. Some international scholars also maintain Macedo-Bulgarian was a single pluricentric language until the 20th century and argue that the idea of linguistic separatism emerged in the late 19th century with the advent of Macedonian nationalism and the need for a separate Macedonian standard language subsequently appeared in the early 20th century. Different linguists have argued that during its codification, the Macedonian standard language was Serbianized with regards to its orthography and vocabulary.  The government of Bulgaria, Bulgarian academics, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the general public have and continue to widely consider Macedonian part of the Bulgarian dialect area. Dialect experts of the Bulgarian language refer to the Macedonian language as "македонска езикова норма" (Macedonian linguistic norm) of the Bulgarian language. As of 2019, disputes regarding the language and its origins are ongoing in academic and political circles in the two countries. The international consensus outside of Bulgaria is that Macedonian is an autonomous language within the Eastern South Slavic dialect continuum.  The Greek scientific and local community was opposed to using the denomination Macedonian to refer to the language in light of the Greek-Macedonian naming dispute. Instead, the language is often called "Slavic", "Slavomacedonian" (translated to "Macedonian Slavic" in English), "makedonski", "makedoniski" ("Macedonian"), "slaviká" (Greek: "Slavic"), "dópia" or "entópia" (Greek: "local/indigenous [language]"), "balgàrtzki" (Bulgarian) or "Macedonian" in some parts of the region of Kastoria, "bògartski" ("Bulgarian") in some parts of Dolna Prespa along with "naši" ("our own") and "stariski" ("old"). With the Prespa agreement signed in 2018 between the Government of North Macedonia and the Government of Greece, the latter country accepted the use of the adjective Macedonian to refer to the language using a footnote to describe it as Slavic.

Sample text.

The following is the Lord's Prayer in standard Macedonian.

Macedonian (;,, ) is an Eastern South Slavic language. Spoken as a first language by around two million people, it serves as the official language of North Macedonia. Most speakers can be found in the country and its diaspora, with a smaller number of speakers throughout the transnational region of Macedonia. Macedonian is also a recognized minority language in parts of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Serbia and it is spoken by emigrant communities predominantly in Australia, Canada and the United States.

马其顿语(),又称斯拉夫马其顿语,属于斯拉夫语族南斯拉夫语支之一,是北马其顿的官方语言。马其顿语亦在塞尔维亚、阿尔巴尼亚、保加利亚、希腊、斯洛文尼亚、克罗地亚,以及在西欧、北美和澳大利亚的马其顿人的聚居地使用,以马其顿语为母语的使用者大约有200万人。马其顿语使用改造过的塞尔维亚语西里尔字母表。但尽管都属于印欧语系,现今所使用的马其顿语与古马其顿语是两种不同的语言,与希腊文化和希腊语亦无直接关系。马其顿语有时会被认为是保加利亚语的一支。


Family.

A Titanide, or Titaness, Mnemosyne was the daughter of Uranus and Gaia. Mnemosyne was the mother of the nine Muses, fathered by her nephew, Zeus:

Mythology.

In Hesiod's "Theogony", kings and poets receive their powers of authoritative speech from their possession of Mnemosyne and their special relationship with the Muses.  Zeus, in a form of a mortal shepherd, and Mnemosyne slept together for nine consecutive nights, thus conceiving the nine Muses. Mnemosyne also presided over a pool in Hades, counterpart to the river Lethe, according to a series of 4th-century BC Greek funerary inscriptions in dactylic hexameter. Dead souls drank from Lethe so they would not remember their past lives when reincarnated. In Orphism, the initiated were taught to instead drink from the Mnemosyne, the river of memory, which would stop the transmigration of the soul.

Appearance in oral literature.

Although she was categorized as one of the Titans in the "Theogony", Mnemosyne did not quite fit that distinction. Titans were hardly worshiped in Ancient Greece, and were thought of as so archaic as to belong to the ancient past. They resembled historical figures more than anything else. Mnemosyne, on the other hand, traditionally appeared in the first few lines of many oral epic poems—she appears in both the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey", among others—as the speaker called upon her aid in accurately remembering and performing the poem they were about to recite. Mnemosyne is thought to have been given the distinction of "Titan" because memory was so important and basic to the oral culture of the Greeks that they deemed her one of the essential building blocks of civilization in their creation myth.  Later, once written literature overtook the oral recitation of epics, Plato made reference in his "Euthydemus" to the older tradition of invoking Mnemosyne. The character Socrates prepares to recount a story and says "ὥστ ̓ ἔγωγε, καθάπερ οἱ (275d) ποιηταί, δέομαι ἀρχόμενος τῆς διηγήσεως Μούσας τε καὶ Μνημοσύνην ἐπικαλεῖσθαι." which translates to "Consequently, like the poets, I must needs begin my narrative with an invocation of the Muses and Memory" (emphasis added). Aristophanes also harked back to the tradition in his play "Lysistrata" when a drunken Spartan ambassador invokes her name while prancing around pretending to be a bard from times of yore.

Cult.

While not one of the most popular divinities, Mnemosyne was the subject of some minor worship in Ancient Greece. Statues of her are mentioned in the sanctuaries of other gods, and she was often depicted alongside her daughters the Muses. She was also worshipped in Lebadeia in Boeotia, at Mount Helicon in Boeotia, and in the cult of Asclepius.  There was a statue of Mnemosyne in the shrine of Dionysos at Athens, alongside the statues of the Muses, Zeus and Apollo, as well as a statue with her daughters the Muses in the Temple of Athena Alea. Pausanias described the worship of Mnemosyne in Lebadeia in Boeotia, where she played an important part in the oracular sanctuary of Trophonios:  Mnemosyne was also sometime regarded as being not the mother of the Muses but as one of them, and as such she was worshiped in the sanctuary of the Muses at Mount Helicon in Boeotia:

Cult of Asclepius.

Mnemosyne was one of the deities worshiped in the cult of Asclepius that formed in Ancient Greece around the 5th century BC. Asclepius, a Greek hero and god of medicine, was said to have been able to cure maladies, and the cult incorporated a multitude of other Greek heroes and gods in its process of healing. The exact order of the offerings and prayers varied by location, and the supplicant often made an offering to Mnemosyne. After making an offering to Asclepius himself, in some locations, one last prayer was said to Mnemosyne as the supplicant moved to the holiest portion of the asclepeion to incubate. The hope was that a prayer to Mnemosyne would help the supplicant remember any visions had while sleeping there.

Mnemosyne (;, ) is the goddess of memory in Greek mythology. "Mnemosyne" is derived from the same source as the word "mnemonic", that being the Greek word "mnēmē", which means "remembrance, memory".

谟涅摩叙涅/宁默辛妮(希腊语:)希腊神话中司记忆的提坦女神。


Origin.

Napster was founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. Initially, Napster was envisioned by Fanning as an independent peer-to-peer file sharing service. The service operated between June 1999 and July 2001. Its technology allowed people to easily share their MP3 files with other participants. Although the original service was shut down by court order, the Napster brand survived after the company's assets were liquidated and purchased by other companies through bankruptcy proceedings.

History.

Although there were already networks that facilitated the distribution of files across the Internet, such as IRC, Hotline, and Usenet, Napster specialized in MP3 files of music and a user-friendly interface. At its peak the Napster service had about 80 million registered users. Napster made it relatively easy for music enthusiasts to download copies of songs that were otherwise difficult to obtain, such as older songs, unreleased recordings, studio recordings, and songs from concert bootleg recordings. Napster paved the way for streaming media services and transformed music into a public good for a brief period of time.  High-speed networks in college dormitories became overloaded, with as much as 61% of external network traffic consisting of MP3 file transfers. Many colleges blocked its use for this reason, even before concerns about liability for facilitating copyright violations on campus.

Macintosh version.

The service and software program began as Windows-only. However, in 2000, Black Hole Media wrote a Macintosh client called Macster. Macster was later bought by Napster and designated the official Mac Napster client ("Napster for the Mac"), at which point the Macster name was discontinued. Even before the acquisition of Macster, the Macintosh community had a variety of independently-developed Napster clients. The most notable was the open source client called MacStar, released by Squirrel Software in early 2000 and Rapster, released by Overcaster Family in Brazil. The release of MacStar's source code paved the way for third-party Napster clients across all computing platforms, giving users advertisement-free music distribution options.

Legal challenges.

Heavy metal band Metallica discovered a demo of their song "I Disappear" had been circulating across the network before it was released. This led to it being played on several radio stations across the United States and alerted Metallica to the fact that their entire back catalogue of studio material was also available. On March 13, 2000, they filed a lawsuit against Napster. A month later, rapper and producer Dr. Dre, who shared a litigator and legal firm with Metallica, filed a similar lawsuit after Napster refused his written request to remove his works from its service. Separately, Metallica and Dr. Dre later delivered to Napster thousands of usernames of people who they believed were pirating their songs. In March 2001, Napster settled both suits, after being shut down by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a separate lawsuit from several major record labels (see below). In 2000, Madonna's single "Music" was leaked out onto the web and Napster prior to its commercial release, causing widespread media coverage. Verified Napster use peaked with 26.4 million users worldwide in February 2001.  In 2000, the American musical recording company A&M Records along with several other recording companies, through the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), sued Napster ("A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.") on grounds of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Napster was faced with the following allegations from the music industry:  Napster lost the case in the District Court but then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Although it was clear that Napster could have commercially significant non-infringing uses, the Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court's decision. Immediately after, the District Court commanded Napster to keep track of the activities of its network and to restrict access to infringing material when informed of that material's location. Napster wasn't able to comply and thus had to close down its service in July 2001. In 2002, Napster announced that it was bankrupt and sold its assets to a third party. In a 2018 Rolling Stones article, Kirk Hammett of Metallica upheld the band's opinion that suing Napster was the "right" thing to do.

Promotional power.

Along with the accusations that Napster was hurting the sales of the record industry, there were those who felt just the opposite, that file trading on Napster stimulated, rather than hurt, sales. Some evidence may have come in July 2000 when tracks from English rock band Radiohead's album "Kid A" found their way to Napster three months before the album's release. Unlike Madonna, Dr. Dre or Metallica, Radiohead had never hit the top 20 in the US. Furthermore, "Kid A" was an album without any singles released, and received relatively little radio airplay. By the time of the album's release, the album was estimated to have been downloaded for free by millions of people worldwide, and in October 2000 "Kid A" captured the number one spot on the "Billboard" 200 sales chart in its debut week. According to Richard Menta of MP3 Newswire, the effect of Napster in this instance was isolated from other elements that could be credited for driving sales, and the album's unexpected success suggested that Napster was a good promotional tool for music.  Since 2000, many musical artists, particularly those not signed to major labels and without access to traditional mass media outlets such as radio and television, have said that Napster and successive Internet file-sharing networks have helped get their music heard, spread word of mouth, and may have improved their sales in the long term. One such musician to publicly defend Napster as a promotional tool for independent artists was Dj Xealot, who became directly involved in the 2000 A&M Records Lawsuit. Chuck D from Public Enemy also came out and publicly supported Napster.

Lawsuit.

Napster's facilitation of transfer of copyrighted material raised the ire of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which almost immediately—on December 6, 1999—filed a lawsuit against the popular service. The service would only get bigger as the trial, meant to shut down Napster, also gave it a great deal of publicity. Soon millions of users, many of whom were college students, flocked to it. After a failed appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court, an injunction was issued on March 5, 2001 ordering Napster to prevent the trading of copyrighted music on its network.  Lawrence Lessig claimed, however, that this decision made little sense from the perspective of copyright protection: "When Napster told the district court that it had developed a technology to block the transfer of 99.4 percent of identified infringing material, the district court told counsel for Napster 99.4 percent was not good enough. Napster had to push the infringements 'down to zero.' If 99.4 percent is not good enough," Lessig concluded, "then this is a war on file-sharing technologies, not a war on copyright infringement."

Shutdown.

On July 11, 2001, Napster shut down its entire network in order to comply with the injunction. On September 24, 2001, the case was partially settled. Napster agreed to pay music creators and copyright owners a $26 million settlement for past, unauthorized uses of music, and as an advance against future licensing royalties of $10 million. In order to pay those fees Napster attempted to convert its free service into a subscription system, and thus traffic to Napster was reduced. A prototype solution was tested in 2002: the Napster 3.0 Alpha, using the ".nap" secure file format from PlayMedia Systems and audio fingerprinting technology licensed from Relatable. Napster 3.0 was, according to many former Napster employees, ready to deploy, but it had significant trouble obtaining licenses to distribute major-label music. On May 17, 2002, Napster announced that its assets would be acquired by German media firm Bertelsmann for $85 million with the goal of transforming Napster into an online music subscription service. The two companies had been collaborating since the middle of 2000 where Bertelsmann became the first major label to drop its copyright lawsuit against Napster. Pursuant to the terms of the acquisition agreement, on June 3 Napster filed for Chapter 11 protection under United States bankruptcy laws. On September 3, 2002, an American bankruptcy judge blocked the sale to Bertelsmann and forced Napster to liquidate its assets.

Reuse of name.

Napster's brand and logos were acquired at bankruptcy auction by Roxio which used them to re-brand the Pressplay music service as Napster 2.0. In September 2008, Napster was purchased by US electronics retailer Best Buy for US $121 million. On December 1, 2011, pursuant to a deal with Best Buy, Napster merged with Rhapsody, with Best Buy receiving a minority stake in Rhapsody. On July 14, 2016, Rhapsody phased out the Rhapsody brand in favor of Napster and has since branded its service internationally as Napsterand expand toward other markets by providing music on-demand as a service to other brands like the iHeartRadio app and their All Access music subscription service that provides subscribers with an on-demand music experience as well as premium radio.

Napster is a set of three music-focused online services. It was founded in 1999 as a pioneering peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing Internet software that emphasized sharing digital audio files, typically audio songs, encoded in MP3 format. As the software became popular, the company ran into legal difficulties over copyright infringement. It ceased operations and was eventually acquired by Roxio. In its second incarnation, Napster became an online music store until it was acquired by Rhapsody from Best Buy on December 1, 2011.

Napster是一种提供线上音乐服务的软体,最初由约翰·范宁、肖恩·范宁和西恩·帕克共同创立的档案共享服务。Napster是第一个被广泛应用的点对点(Peer-to-Peer,P2P)音乐共享服务,它极大幅度地影响了人们,特别是对于大学生使用互联网的方式。而它的出现,也使得音乐爱好者间共享MP3歌曲变得容易,却也因此招致了影音界对其大规模侵权行为的指责。尽管在法庭的责令下该服务已经终止,但它却为其他点对点文件共享程序——如Kazaa,Limewire和BearShare——的拓展铺好了路,且对这种方式的文件共享的控制,亦变得愈加困难。如今Napster以经营付费服务为主,而免费的Napster的流行和回响使其在电脑界和娱乐业里成为一个传奇的象征。


Etymology.

The word "manga" comes from the Japanese word 漫画, composed of the two kanji 漫 (man) meaning "whimsical or impromptu" and 画 (ga) meaning "pictures". The same term is the root of the Korean word for comics, ""manhwa"", and the Chinese word ""manhua"".  The word first came into common usage in the late 18th century with the publication of such works as Santō Kyōden's picturebook "Shiji no yukikai" (1798), and in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa's "Manga hyakujo" (1814) and the celebrated "Hokusai Manga" books (1814–1834) containing assorted drawings from the sketchbooks of the famous ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. Rakuten Kitazawa (1876–1955) first used the word "manga" in the modern sense.  In Japanese, "manga" refers to all kinds of cartooning, comics, and animation. Among English speakers, "manga" has the stricter meaning of "Japanese comics", in parallel to the usage of "anime" in and outside Japan. The term "ani-manga" is used to describe comics produced from animation cels.

History and characteristics.

The history of manga is said to originate from scrolls dating back to the 12th century, and it is believed they represent the basis for the right-to-left reading style. During the Edo period (1603–1867), "Toba Ehon" embedded the concept of manga. The word itself first came into common usage in 1798, with the publication of works such as Santō Kyōden's picturebook "Shiji no yukikai" (1798), and in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa's "Manga hyakujo" (1814) and the "Hokusai Manga" books (1814–1834). Adam L. Kern has suggested that "kibyoshi", picture books from the late 18th century, may have been the world's first comic books. These graphical narratives share with modern manga humorous, satirical, and romantic themes. Some works were mass-produced as serials using woodblock printing.  Writers on manga history have described two broad and complementary processes shaping modern manga. One view represented by other writers such as Frederik L. Schodt, Kinko Ito, and Adam L. Kern, stress continuity of Japanese cultural and aesthetic traditions, including pre-war, Meiji, and pre-Meiji culture and art. The other view, emphasizes events occurring during and after the Allied occupation of Japan (1945–1952), and stresses U.S. cultural influences, including U.S. comics (brought to Japan by the GIs) and images and themes from U.S. television, film, and cartoons (especially Disney).  Regardless of its source, an explosion of artistic creativity occurred in the post-war period, involving manga artists such as Osamu Tezuka ("Astro Boy") and Machiko Hasegawa ("Sazae-san"). "Astro Boy" quickly became (and remains) immensely popular in Japan and elsewhere, and the anime adaptation of "Sazae-san" drawing more viewers than any other anime on Japanese television in 2011. Tezuka and Hasegawa both made stylistic innovations. In Tezuka's "cinematographic" technique, the panels are like a motion picture that reveals details of action bordering on slow motion as well as rapid zooms from distance to close-up shots. This kind of visual dynamism was widely adopted by later manga artists. Hasegawa's focus on daily life and on women's experience also came to characterize later "shōjo manga". Between 1950 and 1969, an increasingly large readership for manga emerged in Japan with the solidification of its two main marketing genres, "shōnen manga" aimed at boys and "shōjo manga" aimed at girls.  In 1969 a group of female manga artists (later called the "Year 24 Group", also known as "Magnificent 24s") made their "shōjo" manga debut ("year 24" comes from the Japanese name for the year 1949, the birth-year of many of these artists). The group included Moto Hagio, Riyoko Ikeda, Yumiko Ōshima, Keiko Takemiya, and Ryoko Yamagishi. Thereafter, primarily female manga artists would draw "shōjo" for a readership of girls and young women. In the following decades (1975–present), "shōjo" manga continued to develop stylistically while simultaneously evolving different but overlapping subgenres. Major subgenres include romance, superheroines, and "Ladies Comics" (in Japanese, "redisu", "redikomi", and "josei" ).  Modern "shōjo" manga romance features love as a major theme set into emotionally intense narratives of self-realization. With the superheroines, "shōjo" manga saw releases such as Pink Hanamori's "Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch" Reiko Yoshida's "Tokyo Mew Mew", And, Naoko Takeuchi's "Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon", which became internationally popular in both manga and anime formats. Groups (or "sentais") of girls working together have also been popular within this genre. Like Lucia, Hanon, and Rina singing together, and Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter, and Sailor Venus working together.  Manga for male readers sub-divides according to the age of its intended readership: boys up to 18 years old ("shōnen" manga) and young men 18 to 30 years old ("seinen" manga); as well as by content, including action-adventure often involving male heroes, slapstick humor, themes of honor, and sometimes explicit sex. The Japanese use different kanji for two closely allied meanings of "seinen"— for "youth, young man" and for "adult, majority"—the second referring to pornographic manga aimed at grown men and also called "seijin" ("adult" ) manga. "Shōnen", "seinen", and "seijin" manga share a number of features in common.  Boys and young men became some of the earliest readers of manga after World War II. From the 1950s on, "shōnen" manga focused on topics thought to interest the archetypal boy, including subjects like robots, space-travel, and heroic action-adventure. Popular themes include science fiction, technology, sports, and supernatural settings. Manga with solitary costumed superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man generally did not become as popular.  The role of girls and women in manga produced for male readers has evolved considerably over time to include those featuring single pretty girls ("bishōjo") such as Belldandy from "Oh My Goddess!", stories where such girls and women surround the hero, as in "" and "Hanaukyo Maid Team", or groups of heavily armed female warriors ("sentō bishōjo")  With the relaxation of censorship in Japan in the 1990s, an assortment of explicit sexual material appeared in manga intended for male readers, and correspondingly continued into the English translations. However, in 2010 the Tokyo Metropolitan Government passed a bill to restrict such content.  The "gekiga" style of storytelling—thematically somber, adult-oriented, and sometimes deeply violent—focuses on the day-in, day-out grim realities of life, often drawn in a gritty and unvarnished fashion. "Gekiga" such as Sampei Shirato's 1959–1962 "Chronicles of a Ninja's Military Accomplishments" ("Ninja Bugeichō") arose in the late 1950s and 1960s partly from left-wing student and working-class political activism and partly from the aesthetic dissatisfaction of young manga artists like Yoshihiro Tatsumi with existing manga.

Publications and exhibition.

In Japan, manga constituted an annual 40.6 billion yen (approximately US$395 million) publication-industry by 2007. In 2006 sales of manga books made up for about 27% of total book-sales, and sale of manga magazines, for 20% of total magazine-sales. The manga industry has expanded worldwide, where distribution companies license and reprint manga into their native languages.  Marketeers primarily classify manga by the age and gender of the target readership. In particular, books and magazines sold to boys ("shōnen") and girls ("shōjo") have distinctive cover-art, and most bookstores place them on different shelves. Due to cross-readership, consumer response is not limited by demographics. For example, male readers may subscribe to a series intended for female readers, and so on. Japan has manga cafés, or "manga kissa" ("kissa" is an abbreviation of "kissaten"). At a "manga kissa", people drink coffee, read manga and sometimes stay overnight.  The Kyoto International Manga Museum maintains a very large website listing manga published in Japanese.

Magazines.

Manga magazines usually have many series running concurrently with approximately 20–40 pages allocated to each series per issue. Other magazines such as the anime fandom magazine "Newtype" featured single chapters within their monthly periodicals. Other magazines like "Nakayoshi" feature many stories written by many different artists; these magazines, or "anthology magazines", as they are also known (colloquially "phone books"), are usually printed on low-quality newsprint and can be anywhere from 200 to more than 850 pages thick. Manga magazines also contain one-shot comics and various four-panel "yonkoma" (equivalent to comic strips). Manga series can run for many years if they are successful. Manga artists sometimes start out with a few "one-shot" manga projects just to try to get their name out. If these are successful and receive good reviews, they are continued. Magazines often have a short life.

Collected volumes.

After a series has run for a while, publishers often collect the episodes together and print them in dedicated book-sized volumes, called "tankōbon". These can be hardcover, or more usually softcover books, and are the equivalent of U.S. trade paperbacks or graphic novels. These volumes often use higher-quality paper, and are useful to those who want to "catch up" with a series so they can follow it in the magazines or if they find the cost of the weeklies or monthlies to be prohibitive. "Deluxe" versions have also been printed as readers have gotten older and the need for something special grew. Old manga have also been reprinted using somewhat lesser quality paper and sold for 100 yen (about $1 U.S. dollar) each to compete with the used book market.

History.

Kanagaki Robun and Kawanabe Kyōsai created the first manga magazine in 1874: "Eshinbun Nipponchi". The magazine was heavily influenced by "Japan Punch", founded in 1862 by Charles Wirgman, a British cartoonist. "Eshinbun Nipponchi" had a very simple style of drawings and did not become popular with many people. "Eshinbun Nipponchi" ended after three issues. The magazine "Kisho Shimbun" in 1875 was inspired by "Eshinbun Nipponchi", which was followed by "Marumaru Chinbun" in 1877, and then "Garakuta Chinpo" in 1879. "Shōnen Sekai" was the first "shōnen" magazine created in 1895 by Iwaya Sazanami, a famous writer of Japanese children's literature back then. "Shōnen Sekai" had a strong focus on the First Sino-Japanese War.  In 1905 the manga-magazine publishing boom started with the Russo-Japanese War, "Tokyo Pakku" was created and became a huge hit. After "Tokyo Pakku" in 1905, a female version of "Shōnen Sekai" was created and named "Shōjo Sekai", considered the first "shōjo" magazine. "Shōnen Pakku" was made and is considered the first children's manga magazine. The children's demographic was in an early stage of development in the Meiji period. "Shōnen Pakku" was influenced from foreign children's magazines such as "Puck" which an employee of Jitsugyō no Nihon (publisher of the magazine) saw and decided to emulate. In 1924, "Kodomo Pakku" was launched as another children's manga magazine after "Shōnen Pakku". During the boom, "Poten" (derived from the French "potin") was published in 1908. All the pages were in full color with influences from "Tokyo Pakku" and "Osaka Puck". It is unknown if there were any more issues besides the first one. "Kodomo Pakku" was launched May 1924 by Tokyosha and featured high-quality art by many members of the manga artistry like Takei Takeo, Takehisa Yumeji and Aso Yutaka. Some of the manga featured speech balloons, where other manga from the previous eras did not use speech balloons and were silent.  Published from May 1935 to January 1941, "Manga no Kuni" coincided with the period of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). "Manga no Kuni" featured information on becoming a mangaka and on other comics industries around the world. "Manga no Kuni" handed its title to "Sashie Manga Kenkyū" in August 1940.

"Dōjinshi".

"Dōjinshi", produced by small publishers outside of the mainstream commercial market, resemble in their publishing small-press independently published comic books in the United States. Comiket, the largest comic book convention in the world with around 500,000 visitors gathering over three days, is devoted to "dōjinshi". While they most often contain original stories, many are parodies of or include characters from popular manga and anime series. Some "dōjinshi" continue with a series' story or write an entirely new one using its characters, much like fan fiction. In 2007, "dōjinshi" sales amounted to 27.73 billion yen (US$245 million). In 2006 they represented about a tenth of manga books and magazines sales.

Digital manga.

Thanks to the advent of the internet, there have been new ways for aspiring mangaka to upload and sell their manga online. Before, there were two main ways in which a mangaka's work could be published: taking their manga drawn on paper to a publisher themselves, or submitting their work to competitions run by magazines.

Web manga.

In recent years, there has been a rise in manga released digitally. Web manga, as it's known in Japan, has a seen an increase thanks in part to image hosting websites where anyone can upload pages from their works for free. Although released digitally, almost all web manga stick to the conventional black-and-white format despite some never getting physical publications. Pixiv is the most popular site where a host of amateur and professional works get published on the site. It has grown to be the most visited site for artwork in Japan. Twitter has also become a popular place for web manga with many artists releasing pages weekly on their accounts in the hopes of their works getting picked up or published professionally. One of the best examples of an amateur work becoming professional is One-Punch Man which was released online and later got a professional remake released digitally and an anime adaptation soon there after.  Many of the big print publishers have also released digital only magazines and websites where web manga get published alongside their serialized magazines. Shogakukan for instance has two websites, "Sunday Webry" and "Ura Sunday", that release weekly chapters for web manga and even offer contests for mangaka to submit their work. Both Sunday Webry and Ura Sunday have become one of the top web manga sites in Japan. Some have even released apps that teach how to draw professional manga and learn how to create them. Weekly Shōnen Jump released "Jump Paint", an app that guides users on how to make their own manga from making storyboards to digitally inking lines. It also offers more than 120 types of pen tips and more than 1,000 screentones for artists to practice. Kodansha has also used the popularity of web manga to launch more series and also offer better distribution of their officially translated works under Kodansha Comics thanks in part to the titles being released digitally first before being published physically.  The rise web manga has also been credited to smartphones and computers as more and more readers read manga on their phones rather than from a print publication. While paper manga has seen a decrease overtime, digital manga have been growing in sales each year. The Research Institute for Publications reports that sales of digital manga books excluding magazines jumped 27.1 percent to ¥146 billion in 2016 from the year before while sales of paper manga saw a record year-on-year decline of 7.4 percent to ¥194.7 billion. They have also said that if the digital and paper keep the same growth and drop rates, web manga will exceed their paper counterparts.

Webtoons.

While webtoons have caught on in popularity as a new medium for comics in Asia, Japan has been slow to adopt webtoons as the traditional format and print publication still dominate the way manga is created and consumed. Despite this, one of the biggest webtoon publishers in the world, Comico, has had success in the traditional Japanese manga market. Comico was launched by NHN Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of Korean company, NHN Entertainment. As of now, there are only two webtoon publishers that publish Japanese webtoons: Comico and Naver Webtoon (under the name "XOY" in Japan). Kakao has also had success by offering licensed manga and translated Korean webtoons with their service Piccoma. All three companies credit their success to the webtoon pay model where users can purchase each chapter individually instead of having to buy the whole book while also offering some chapters for free for a period of time allowing anyone to read a whole series for free if they wait long enough. The added benefit of having all of their titles in color and some with special animations and effects have also helped them succeed. Some popular Japanese webtoons have also gotten anime adaptations and print releases, the most notable being "ReLIFE" and "Recovery of an MMO Junkie".

International markets.

By 2007, the influence of manga on international comics had grown considerably over the past two decades. "Influence" is used here to refer to effects on the comics markets outside Japan and to aesthetic effects on comics artists internationally.  Traditionally, manga stories flow from top to bottom and from right to left. Some publishers of translated manga keep to this original format. Other publishers mirror the pages horizontally before printing the translation, changing the reading direction to a more "Western" left to right, so as not to confuse foreign readers or traditional comics-consumers. This practice is known as "flipping". For the most part, criticism suggests that flipping goes against the original intentions of the creator (for example, if a person wears a shirt that reads "MAY" on it, and gets flipped, then the word is altered to "YAM"), who may be ignorant of how awkward it is to read comics when the eyes must flow through the pages and text in opposite directions, resulting in an experience that's quite distinct from reading something that flows homogeneously. If the translation is not adapted to the flipped artwork carefully enough it is also possible for the text to go against the picture, such as a person referring to something on their left in the text while pointing to their right in the graphic. Characters shown writing with their right hands, the majority of them, would become left-handed when a series is flipped. Flipping may also cause oddities with familiar asymmetrical objects or layouts, such as a car being depicted with the gas pedal on the left and the brake on the right, or a shirt with the buttons on the wrong side, but these issues are minor when compared to the unnatural reading flow, and some of them could be solved with an adaptation work that goes beyond just translation and blind flipping.

Europe.

Manga has influenced European cartooning in a way that is somewhat different from in the U.S. Broadcast anime in France and Italy opened the European market to manga during the 1970s. French art has borrowed from Japan since the 19th century (Japonism) and has its own highly developed tradition of bande dessinée cartooning. In France, beginning in the mid-1990s, manga has proven very popular to a wide readership, accounting for about one-third of comics sales in France since 2004. According to the Japan External Trade Organization, sales of manga reached $212.6 million within France and Germany alone in 2006. France represents about 50% of the European market and is the second worldwide market, behind Japan. In 2013, there were 41 publishers of manga in France and, together with other Asian comics, manga represented around 40% of new comics releases in the country, surpassing Franco-Belgian comics for the first time. European publishers marketing manga translated into French include Asuka, Casterman, Glénat, Kana, and Pika Édition, among others. European publishers also translate manga into Dutch, German, Italian, and other languages. In 2007, about 70% of all comics sold in Germany were manga.  Manga publishers based in the United Kingdom include Gollancz and Titan Books. Manga publishers from the United States have a strong marketing presence in the United Kingdom: for example, the Tanoshimi line from Random House.

United States.

Manga made their way only gradually into U.S. markets, first in association with anime and then independently. Some U.S. fans became aware of manga in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, anime was initially more accessible than manga to U.S. fans, many of whom were college-age young people who found it easier to obtain, subtitle, and exhibit video tapes of anime than translate, reproduce, and distribute "tankōbon"-style manga books. One of the first manga translated into English and marketed in the U.S. was Keiji Nakazawa's "Barefoot Gen", an autobiographical story of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima issued by Leonard Rifas and Educomics (1980–1982). More manga were translated between the mid-1980s and 1990s, including "Golgo 13" in 1986, "Lone Wolf and Cub" from First Comics in 1987, and "Kamui", "Area 88", and "Mai the Psychic Girl", also in 1987 and all from Viz Media-Eclipse Comics. Others soon followed, including "Akira" from Marvel Comics' Epic Comics imprint, "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" from Viz Media, and "Appleseed" from Eclipse Comics in 1988, and later "Iczer-1" (Antarctic Press, 1994) and Ippongi Bang's "F-111 Bandit" (Antarctic Press, 1995).  In the 1980s to the mid-1990s, Japanese animation, like "Akira", "Dragon Ball", "Neon Genesis Evangelion", and "Pokémon", made a bigger impact on the fan experience and in the market than manga. Matters changed when translator-entrepreneur Toren Smith founded Studio Proteus in 1986. Smith and Studio Proteus acted as an agent and translator of many Japanese manga, including Masamune Shirow's "Appleseed" and Kōsuke Fujishima's "Oh My Goddess!", for Dark Horse and Eros Comix, eliminating the need for these publishers to seek their own contacts in Japan. Simultaneously, the Japanese publisher Shogakukan opened a U.S. market initiative with their U.S. subsidiary Viz, enabling Viz to draw directly on Shogakukan's catalogue and translation skills.  Japanese publishers began pursuing a U.S. market in the mid-1990s due to a stagnation in the domestic market for manga. The U.S. manga market took an upturn with mid-1990s anime and manga versions of Masamune Shirow's "Ghost in the Shell" (translated by Frederik L. Schodt and Toren Smith) becoming very popular among fans. An extremely successful manga and anime translated and dubbed in English in the mid-1990s was "Sailor Moon". By 1995–1998, the "Sailor Moon" manga had been exported to over 23 countries, including China, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, North America and most of Europe. In 1997, Mixx Entertainment began publishing "Sailor Moon", along with CLAMP's "Magic Knight Rayearth", Hitoshi Iwaaki's "Parasyte" and Tsutomu Takahashi's "Ice Blade" in the monthly manga magazine "MixxZine". Mixx Entertainment, later renamed Tokyopop, also published manga in trade paperbacks and, like Viz, began aggressive marketing of manga to both young male and young female demographics.  During this period, Dark Horse Manga was a major publisher of translated manga. In addition to "Oh My Goddess!", the company published "Akira", "Astro Boy", "Berserk", "Blade of the Immortal", "Ghost in the Shell", "Lone Wolf and Cub", Yasuhiro Nightow's "Trigun" and "Blood Blockade Battlefront", "Gantz", Kouta Hirano's "Hellsing" and "Drifters", "Blood+", "Multiple Personality Detective Psycho", "FLCL", "Mob Psycho 100", and "Oreimo". The company received 13 Eisner Award nominations for its manga titles, and three of the four manga creators admitted to The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame — Osamu Tezuka, Kazuo Koike, and Goseki Kojima — were published in Dark Horse translations.  In the following years, manga became increasingly popular, and new publishers entered the field while the established publishers greatly expanded their catalogues. The "Pokémon" manga "Electric Tale of Pikachu" issue #1 sold over 1million copies in the United States, making it the best-selling single comic book in the United States since 1993. By 2008, the U.S. and Canadian manga market generated $175 million in annual sales. Simultaneously, mainstream U.S. media began to discuss manga, with articles in "The New York Times", "Time" magazine, "The Wall Street Journal", and "Wired" magazine. As of 2017, manga distributor Viz Media is the largest publisher of graphic novels and comic books in the United States, with a 23% share of the market. BookScan sales show that manga is one of the fastest-growing areas of the comic book and narrative fiction markets. From January 2019 to May 2019, the manga market grew 16%, compared to the overall comic book market's 5% growth. The NPD Group noted that, compared to other comic book readers, manga readers are younger (76% under 30) and more diverse, including a higher female readership (16% higher than other comic books).

Localized manga.

A number of artists in the United States have drawn comics and cartoons influenced by manga. As an early example, Vernon Grant drew manga-influenced comics while living in Japan in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Others include Frank Miller's mid-1980s "Ronin", Adam Warren and Toren Smith's 1988 "The Dirty Pair", Ben Dunn's 1987 "Ninja High School" and "Manga Shi 2000" from Crusade Comics (1997).  By the 21st century several U.S. manga publishers had begun to produce work by U.S. artists under the broad marketing-label of manga. In 2002 I.C. Entertainment, formerly Studio Ironcat and now out of business, launched a series of manga by U.S. artists called "Amerimanga". In 2004 eigoMANGA launched the "Rumble Pak" and "Sakura Pakk" anthology series. Seven Seas Entertainment followed suit with "World Manga". Simultaneously, TokyoPop introduced original English-language manga (OEL manga) later renamed "Global Manga".  Francophone artists have also developed their own versions of manga ("manfra"), like Frédéric Boilet's "la nouvelle manga". Boilet has worked in France and in Japan, sometimes collaborating with Japanese artists.

Awards.

The Japanese manga industry grants a large number of awards, mostly sponsored by publishers, with the winning prize usually including publication of the winning stories in magazines released by the sponsoring publisher. Examples of these awards include:  The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has awarded the International Manga Award annually since May 2007.

University education.

Kyoto Seika University in Japan has offered a highly competitive course in manga since 2000. Then, several established universities and vocational schools (専門学校: "Semmon gakkou") established a.  Shuho Sato, who wrote "Umizaru" and "Say Hello to Black Jack", has created some controversy on Twitter. Sato says, "Manga school is meaningless because those schools have very low success rates. Then, I could teach novices required skills on the job in three months. Meanwhile, those school students spend several million yen, and four years, yet they are good for nothing." and that, "For instance, Keiko Takemiya, the then professor of Seika Univ., remarked in the Government Council that 'A complete novice will be able to understand where is "Tachikiri" (i.e., margin section) during four years.' On the other hand, I would imagine that, It takes about thirty minutes to completely understand that at work."

Manga (, ; Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, though the art form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term "manga" (katakana: ; hiragana: ) is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning. Outside Japan, the word is typically used to refer to comics originally published in the country.

日本漫画(,英文:Manga或Japanese comics)指日本于18世纪以后从12世纪戯画()延伸发展出的漫画艺术,相当于英文的「Cartoon」,可参见「卡通」。当代日本漫画为故事连环画和四幅一组的组画,它是画面组合作品的总称。


Life.

Born on October 31, 1959 in Fort Meade, Maryland, Stephenson came from a family of engineers and scientists; his father is a professor of electrical engineering while his paternal grandfather was a physics professor. His mother worked in a biochemistry laboratory, and her father was a biochemistry professor. Stephenson's family moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1960 and then in 1966 to Ames, Iowa. He graduated from Ames High School in 1977.  Stephenson studied at Boston University, first specializing in physics, then switching to geography after he found that it would allow him to spend more time on the university mainframe. He graduated in 1981 with a B.A. in geography and a minor in physics. Since 1984, Stephenson has lived mostly in the Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Seattle with his family.

Career.

Stephenson's first novel, "The Big U", published in 1984, was a satirical take on life at American Megaversity, a vast, bland, and alienating research university beset by chaotic riots. His next novel, "Zodiac" (1988), was a thriller following the exploits of a radical environmentalist protagonist in his struggle against corporate polluters. Neither novel attracted much critical attention on first publication, but showcased concerns that Stephenson would further develop in his later work.  Stephenson's breakthrough came in 1992 with "Snow Crash", a novel in the late cyberpunk or post-cyberpunk tradition fusing memetics, computer viruses, and other high-tech themes with Sumerian mythology, along with a sociological extrapolation of extreme laissez-faire capitalism and collectivism. "Snow Crash" was the first of Stephenson's epic science fiction novels. Stephenson at this time would later be described by Mike Godwin as "a slight, unassuming grad-student type whose soft-spoken demeanor gave no obvious indication that he had written the manic apotheosis of cyberpunk science fiction." In 1994, Stephenson joined with his uncle, J. Frederick George, to publish a political thriller, "Interface", under the pen name "Stephen Bury"; they followed this in 1996 with "The Cobweb".  Stephenson's next solo novel, published in 1995, was "The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer", which introduced many of today's real-world technological discoveries. Seen back then as futuristic, Stephenson's novel includes broad-range universal self-learning nanotechnology, dynabooks, robotics, cybernetics, and cyber cities. In a plot involving weapons implanted in characters' skulls, near-limitless replicators for everything from mattresses to foods, smartpaper, air and blood-sanitizing nanobots, set in a grim future world of limited resources populated by hard-edged survivalists, an amalgamation hero is accidentally conceptualized by a few powerful and wealthy creatives, programmers, and hackers.  This was followed by "Cryptonomicon" in 1999, a novel concerned with concepts ranging from computing and Alan Turing's research into codebreaking and cryptography during the Second World War at Bletchley Park, to a modern attempt to set up a data haven. It has subsequently been reissued in three separate volumes in some countries, including in French and Spanish translations. In 2013, "Cryptonomicon" won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award.  "The Baroque Cycle" is a series of historical novels set in the 17th and 18th centuries, and is in some respects a prequel to "Cryptonomicon". It was originally published in three volumes of two or three books each – "Quicksilver" (2003), "The Confusion", (2004) and "The System of the World" (2004) – but was subsequently republished as eight separate books: "Quicksilver", "King of the Vagabonds", "Odalisque", "Bonanza", "Juncto", "Solomon's Gold", "Currency", and "System of the World". (The titles and exact breakdown vary in different markets.) "The System of the World" won the Prometheus Award in 2005.  Stephenson worked at Blue Origin—Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company—for seven years in the early 2000s when its focus was on "novel alternate approaches to space, alternate propulsion systems, and business models", but left after Blue became a more standard aerospace company.  Following this, Stephenson wrote "Anathem" (2008), a long and detailed novel of speculative fiction. It is set in an Earthlike world (perhaps in an alternative reality), deals with metaphysics, and refers heavily to Ancient Greek philosophy, while at the same time being a complex commentary on the insubstantiality of today's society.  In May 2010, the Subutai Corporation, of which Stephenson was named chairman, announced the production of an experimental multimedia fiction project called "The Mongoliad", which centered upon a narrative written by Stephenson and other speculative fiction authors.  Stephenson's novel "REAMDE" was released on September 20, 2011. The title is a play on the common filename README. This thriller, set in the present, centers around a group of MMORPG developers caught in the middle of Chinese cyber-criminals, Islamic terrorists, and Russian mafia.  On August 7, 2012, Stephenson released a collection of essays and other previously published fiction entitled "Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing". This collection also includes a new essay and a short story created specifically for this volume.  In 2012, Stephenson launched a Kickstarter campaign for CLANG, a realistic sword-fighting fantasy game. The concept of the game was to use motion control to provide an immersive experience. The campaign's funding goal of $500,000 was reached by the target date of July 9, 2012 on Kickstarter, but funding options remained open and the project continued to accept contributions on its official site. The project ran out of money in September 2013. This, and the circumstances around it, has angered some backers. There has even been talk, among the backers, of a potential class-action lawsuit. The project to develop the game ended in September 2014 without the game being completed. Stephenson took part of the responsibility for the project's failure, stating, "I probably focused too much on historical accuracy and not enough on making it sufficiently fun to attract additional investment".  In late 2013, Stephenson stated that he was working on a multi-volume work of historical novels that would "have a lot to do with scientific and technological themes and how those interact with the characters and civilisation during a particular span of history". He expected the first two volumes to be released in mid-to-late 2014. However, at about the same time, he shifted his attention to a science fiction novel, "Seveneves", which was completed about a year later and was published in May 2015. On June 8, 2016, plans were announced to adapt "Seveneves" for the screen.  In 2014, Stephenson was hired as Chief Futurist by the Florida-based company Magic Leap. Magic Leap claims to be developing a revolutionary form of augmented reality, not too different from technologies Stephenson previously has described in his science fiction books.  In May 2016, as part of a video discussion with Bill Gates, Stephenson revealed that he had just submitted the manuscript for a new historical novel—"a time travel book"—co-written with Nicole Galland, one of his "Mongoliad" coauthors. This was released as "The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O." on June 13, 2017.  In June 2019 his next novel "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell" was published. It is a near-future novel that explores mind uploading into the cloud, and contains characters from 2011's "Reamde", 1999's "Cryptonomicon", and other books.

Style.

In his earlier novels Stephenson deals heavily in pop culture–laden metaphors and imagery and in quick, hip dialogue, as well as in extended narrative monologues. The tone of his books is generally more irreverent and less serious than that of previous cyberpunk novels such as those of William Gibson.  Stephenson's books tend to have elaborate, inventive plots drawing on numerous technological and sociological ideas at the same time. The discursive nature of his writing, together with significant plot and character complexity and an abundance of detail suggests a baroque writing style, which Stephenson brought fully to bear in the three-volume "Baroque Cycle". His book "The Diamond Age" follows a simpler plot but features "neo-Victorian" characters and employs Victorian-era literary conceits. In keeping with the baroque style, Stephenson's books have become longer as he has gained recognition. For example, the paperback editions of "Cryptonomicon" are over eleven hundred pages long with the novel containing various digressions, including a lengthy erotic story about antique furniture and stockings.

Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.

尼尔·唐恩·斯蒂芬森(英语:Neal Town Stephenson,1959年-10月31日)出生于美国马里兰州米德堡,为美国著名的小说家,因推想小说而闻名全美。


History.

Pythagoras and other philosophers of the time believed that because mathematical concepts were more "practical" (easier to regulate and classify) than physical ones, they had greater actuality. St. Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354–430), wrote: "Numbers are the Universal language offered by the deity to humans as confirmation of the truth." Similar to Pythagoras, he too believed that everything had numerical relationships and it was up to the mind to seek and investigate the secrets of these relationships or have them revealed by divine grace. See Numerology and the Church Fathers for early Christian beliefs on the subject.  In 325 AD, following the First Council of Nicaea, departures from the beliefs of the state church were classified as civil violations within the Roman Empire. Numerology had not found favor with the Christian authority of the day and was assigned to the field of unapproved beliefs along with astrology and other forms of divination and "magic". Despite this religious purging, the spiritual significance assigned to the heretofore "sacred" numbers had not disappeared; several numbers, such as the "Jesus number" have been commented and analyzed by Dorotheus of Gaza and numerology still is used at least in conservative Greek Orthodox circles. However, despite the church's resistance to numerology, there have been arguments made for the presence of numerology in the Bible and religious architecture. For example, the numbers 3 and 7 hold strong spiritual meaning in the Bible. The most obvious example would be the creation of the world in 7 days. Jesus asked God 3 times if he could avoid crucifixion and was crucified at 3 in the afternoon. 7 is the length of famine and other God-imposed events and is sometimes followed by the number 8 as a symbol of change.  Some alchemical theories were closely related to numerology. For example, Persian-Arab alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan framed his experiments in an elaborate numerology based on the names of substances in the Arabic language.  Numerology is prominent in Sir Thomas Browne's 1658 literary Discourse "The Garden of Cyrus". Throughout its pages, the author attempts to demonstrate that the number five and the related Quincunx pattern can be found throughout the arts, in design, and in nature – particularly botany.  Modern numerology has various antecedents. Ruth A. Drayer's book, "Numerology, The Power in Numbers" says that around the start of the 20th century Mrs. L. Dow Balliett combined Pythagoras' work with Biblical reference. Balliett's student, Juno Jordan, helped numerology become the system known today as Pythagorean, although Pythagoras himself had nothing to do with the system, by publishing "The Romance in Your Name" in 1965, provided a system for identifying what he called key numerological influences in names and birth dates that remains used today. Other 'numerologists' including Florence Campbell (1931), Lynn Buess (1978), Mark Gruner (1979), Faith Javane and Dusty Bunker (1979), Kathleen Roquemore (1985) expanded on the use of numerology for assessing personality or events. These different schools of numerology give various methods for using numerology.

Lack of evidence.

Skeptics argue that numbers have no occult significance and cannot by themselves influence a person's life. Skeptics therefore regard numerology as a superstition and a pseudoscience that uses numbers to give the subject a veneer of scientific authority.  At least two studies have investigated numerological claims, both producing negative results: one in the UK in 1993, and one in 2012 in Israel. The UK experiment involved 96 people and found no correlation between the number seven and a self-reported psychic ability. The experiment in Israel involved a professional numerologist and 200 participants, and was designed to examine the validity of a numerological diagnosis of learning disabilities, like dyslexia and ADHD, and autism. The experiment was repeated twice and still produced negative results.

Methods.

Alphabetic systems.

There are various numerology systems which assign numerical value to the letters of an alphabet. Examples include the Abjad numerals in Arabic, the Hebrew numerals, Armenian numerals, and Greek numerals. The practice within Jewish tradition of assigning mystical meaning to words based on their numerical values, and on connections between words of equal value, is known as "gematria".

Latin alphabet systems.

There are various systems of numerology that use the Latin alphabet. Different methods of interpretation exist, including Chaldean, Pythagorean, Hebraic, Helyn Hitchcock's method, Phonetic, Japanese, Arabic and Indian.

Pythagorean system.

This method can be referred to as either Western Numerology or Pythagorean Numerology. Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician and philosopher who lived from 569-470 B.C., is known as the father of Western Numerology. Pythagoras began his theory of numbers by discovering the numerical relationship between numbers and musical notes. He found that the vibrations in stringed instruments could be mathematically explained. The Pythagorean method uses an individual's name and date of birth. The name number reveals the individual's outer nature. This is the personality that they present to the outside world. To start, you need to use the individual's full name as written on their birth certificate. Then, each letter is assigned to a number one to nine, based on the ancient Pythagorean system. The numbers are assigned to letters of the Latin alphabet as follows:  Next, add together all of the numbers associated for each letter in your full birth name. Then, the number is reduced until you obtain a single digit.  Example: James Duncan Helpert  Then, Jim Duncan Helpert's name number is 9.  A quicker way to arrive at a single-digit summation (the digital root) is simply to take the value modulo 9, substituting a 0 result with 9 itself. As mentioned before, the single digit then arrived at is assigned a particular significance according to the method used.  When someone changes their name they will get a new name number. This is believed to change certain parts of the individual's personality and destiny. Next, the birth number is viewed as an extension of the name number. This number represents the traits/talents that you desire to have. It is believed that your birth number reveals your inner nature and life purpose. To find your birth number you add together all the numbers in the month, day, and year you were born. Then, you reduce that number to a single digit number.  Example: In the Pythagorean system, there are three master numbers (11, 22, 33) which do not get reduced to a single number. Hence, if your name number or birth number comes out to one of these master numbers, then you do not combine the numbers to form a single digit. Finally, the single digit name number and birth number are assigned a particular meaning and significance based on the Pythagorean system.

Chaldean system.

The Chaldeans were ancient people who ruled Babylonia from 625–539 BC. Therefore, this system is also known as the Babylonian numerology system. Chaldean numerology is used to recognize the energy changes that occur when you or someone else speaks or thinks. The sound of someone speaking comes out in vibrations of different frequencies that affect the speaker and those around them. The Chaldean system uses the numbers 1-8. The number 9 is not used in the system because it is regarded as sacred due to its connection to infinity. The Chaldean system uses this 1-8 number system on the name that the individual is currently using because that is the energy that would currently be projected. Then, each letter is assigned to a number one to eight, based on the Chaldean numerology chart. The numbers are assigned to letters of the Latin alphabet as follows:  Example: Assume James Duncan Helpert normally goes by Jim. Then, Jim Duncan Helpert's name numbers are 6, 6, and 5.  The Chaldean system recognizes the same master numbers that were present in the Pythagorean system. These master numbers are 11, 22, and 33. The master numbers do not get reduced to single digits. In the Chaldean system, an individual's first name is their social persona and how they present themselves in public and the energy that comes with that. The first name also indicates the individual's personal interests and habits. The middle name is the soul energy and it reveals the truth about your inner soul and the deepest parts of yourself. The middle name shows the hidden talents, desires, and what your soul is trying to reach for. The last name is related to the domestic influence of the family.

Abjad system.

The Arabic system of numerology is known as Abjad notation or Abjad numerals. In this system each letter of Arabic alphabet has a numerical value. This system is the foundation of "ilm-ul-cipher", the Science of Cipher, and "ilm-ul-huroof", the Science of Alphabet:  ط=9 ح=8 ز=7 و=6 ه=5 د=4 ج=3 ب=2 أ=1  ص=90 ف=80 ع=70 س=60 ن=50 م=40 ل=30 ك=20 ي=10  ظ=900 ض=800 ذ=700 خ=600 ث=500 ت=400 ش=300 ر=200 ق=100  غ=1000

Chinese numerology.

Some Chinese assign a different set of meanings to the numbers and certain number combinations are considered luckier than others. In general, even numbers are considered lucky, since it is believed that good luck comes in pairs.  Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and its associated fields such as acupuncture, base their system on mystical numerical associations, such as the “12 vessels circulating blood and air corresponding to the 12 rivers flowing toward the Central Kingdom; and 365 parts of the body, one for each day of the year” being the basis of locating acupuncture points.

Chinese number definitions.

Cantonese frequently associate numbers with the following connotations (based on its sound), which may differ in other varieties of Chinese:  Some "lucky number" combinations include: There is no assignment for the number 9. Numerologists analyze double-digit numbers from 10 to 99.

Other uses of the term.

In science.

Scientific theories are sometimes labeled "numerology" if their primary inspiration appears to be a set of patterns rather than scientific observations. This colloquial use of the term is quite common within the scientific community and it is mostly used to dismiss a theory as questionable science.  The best known example of "numerology" in science involves the coincidental resemblance of certain large numbers that intrigued such eminent men as mathematical physicist Paul Dirac, mathematician Hermann Weyl and astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington. These numerical coincidences refer to such quantities as the ratio of the age of the universe to the atomic unit of time, the number of electrons in the universe, and the difference in strengths between gravity and the electric force for the electron and proton. ("Is the Universe Fine Tuned for Us?", Stenger, V.J., page 3).  The discovery of atomic triads, an early attempt to sort the elements into some logical order by their physical properties, was once considered a form of numerology, and yet ultimately led to the construction of the periodic table. Here the atomic weight of the lightest element and the heaviest are summed, and averaged, and the average is found to be very close to that of the intermediate weight element. This didn't work with every triplet in the same group, but worked often enough to allow later workers to create generalizations.  Large number co-incidences continue to fascinate many mathematical physicists. For instance, James G. Gilson has constructed a "Quantum Theory of Gravity" based loosely on Dirac's large number hypothesis.  Wolfgang Pauli was also fascinated by the appearance of certain numbers, including 137, in physics.  British mathematician I. J. Good wrote:

In gambling.

Some players apply methods that are sometimes called numerological in games which involve numbers but no skill, such as bingo, roulette, keno, or lotteries. Although no strategy can be applied to increase odds in such games, players may employ "lucky numbers" to find what they think will help them. There is no evidence that any such "numerological strategy" yields a better outcome than pure chance, but the methods are sometimes encouraged, e.g. by casino owners.

In popular culture.

Numerology is a popular plot device in fiction. Sometimes it is a casual element used for comic effect, such as in an episode titled "The Séance" of the 1950s TV sitcom "I Love Lucy", where Lucy dabbles in numerology. Sometimes it is a central motif of the storyline, such as the movie "π", in which the protagonist meets a numerologist searching for hidden numerical patterns in the Torah; the TV show "Touch" which focuses almost entirely on the role of numerology in the events and coincidences of any person's life; and the movie "The Number 23", based on claimed mysteries of the number 23 (itself based on the Law of Fives).  Numerology is a topic taught in Arithmancy class in the "Harry Potter" series of books. In "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", the third book of the series, Arithmancy is offered as an elective course. In "Harry Potter"s world, Arithmancy was used as the practice of assigning numerical value to words in order to predict the future.

Numerology is any belief in the divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value of the letters in words, names, and ideas. It is often associated with the paranormal, alongside astrology and similar divinatory arts.

数秘术,是指物象化成数字的占卜,如姓名学是用笔画数。


Etymology.

The first European visitor to New Zealand, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, named the islands "Staten Land", believing they were part of the Staten Landt that Jacob Le Maire had sighted off the southern end of South America. Hendrik Brouwer proved that the South American land was a small island in 1643, and Dutch cartographers subsequently renamed Tasman's discovery "Nova Zeelandia," from Latin, after the Dutch province of Zeeland. This name was later anglicised to "New Zealand".  "Aotearoa" (pronounced ; often translated as "land of the long white cloud") is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the whole country before the arrival of Europeans, with "Aotearoa" originally referring to just the North Island. Māori had several traditional names for the two main islands, including "Te Ika-a-Māui" (the fish of Māui) for the North Island and "Te Waipounamu" (the waters of greenstone) or "Te Waka o Aoraki" (the canoe of Aoraki) for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North (North Island), Middle (South Island) and South (Stewart Island / Rakiura). In 1830, mapmakers began to use "North" and "South" on their maps to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907 this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised, and names and alternative names were formalised in 2013. This set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu. For each island, either its English or Māori name can be used, or both can be used together.

History.

New Zealand is one of the last major landmasses settled by humans. Radiocarbon dating, evidence of deforestation and mitochondrial DNA variability within Māori populations suggest that Eastern Polynesians first settled the New Zealand archipelago between 1250 and 1300, although newer archaeological and genetic research points to a date no earlier than about 1280, with at least the main settlement period between about 1320 and 1350, consistent with evidence based on genealogical traditions. This represented a culmination in a long series of voyages through the Pacific islands. Over the centuries that followed, the Polynesian settlers developed a distinct culture now known as Māori. The population formed different "iwi" (tribes) and "hapū" (subtribes) which would sometimes cooperate, sometimes compete and sometimes fight against each other. At some point a group of Māori migrated to "Rēkohu", now known as the Chatham Islands, where they developed their distinct Moriori culture. The Moriori population was all but wiped out between 1835 and 1862, largely because of Taranaki Māori invasion and enslavement in the 1830s, although European diseases also contributed. In 1862 only 101 survived, and the last known full-blooded Moriori died in 1933.  The first Europeans known to have reached New Zealand were the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman and his crew in 1642. In a hostile encounter, four crew members were killed and at least one Māori was hit by canister shot. Europeans did not revisit New Zealand until 1769 when British explorer James Cook mapped almost the entire coastline. Following Cook, New Zealand was visited by numerous European and North American whaling, sealing and trading ships. They traded European food, metal tools, weapons and other goods for timber, Māori food, artefacts and water. The introduction of the potato and the musket transformed Māori agriculture and warfare. Potatoes provided a reliable food surplus, which enabled longer and more sustained military campaigns. The resulting intertribal Musket Wars encompassed over 600 battles between 1801 and 1840, killing 30,000–40,000 Māori. From the early 19th century, Christian missionaries began to settle New Zealand, eventually converting most of the Māori population. The Māori population declined to around 40% of its pre-contact level during the 19th century; introduced diseases were the major factor.  In 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip assumed the position of Governor of the new British colony of New South Wales which according to his commission included New Zealand. The British Government appointed James Busby as British Resident to New Zealand in 1832 following a petition from northern Māori. In 1835, following an announcement of impending French settlement by Charles de Thierry, the nebulous United Tribes of New Zealand sent a Declaration of Independence to King William IV of the United Kingdom asking for protection. Ongoing unrest, the proposed settlement of New Zealand by the New Zealand Company (which had already sent its first ship of surveyors to buy land from Māori) and the dubious legal standing of the Declaration of Independence prompted the Colonial Office to send Captain William Hobson to claim sovereignty for the United Kingdom and negotiate a treaty with the Māori. The Treaty of Waitangi was first signed in the Bay of Islands on 6 February 1840. In response to the New Zealand Company's attempts to establish an independent settlement in Wellington and French settlers purchasing land in Akaroa, Hobson declared British sovereignty over all of New Zealand on 21 May 1840, even though copies of the Treaty were still circulating throughout the country for Māori to sign. With the signing of the Treaty and declaration of sovereignty the number of immigrants, particularly from the United Kingdom, began to increase.  New Zealand, still part of the colony of New South Wales, became a separate Colony of New Zealand on 1 July 1841. Armed conflict began between the Colonial government and Māori in 1843 with the Wairau Affray over land and disagreements over sovereignty. These conflicts, mainly in the North Island, saw thousands of imperial troops and the Royal Navy come to New Zealand and became known as the New Zealand Wars. Following these armed conflicts, large amounts of Māori land was confiscated by the government to meet settler demands. The colony gained a representative government in 1852 and the first Parliament met in 1854. In 1856 the colony effectively became self-governing, gaining responsibility over all domestic matters other than native policy. (Control over native policy was granted in the mid-1860s.) Following concerns that the South Island might form a separate colony, premier Alfred Domett moved a resolution to transfer the capital from Auckland to a locality near Cook Strait. Wellington was chosen for its central location, with Parliament officially sitting there for the first time in 1865.  In 1891 the Liberal Party came to power as the first organised political party. The Liberal Government, led by Richard Seddon for most of its period in office, passed many important social and economic measures. In 1893 New Zealand was the first nation in the world to grant all women the right to vote and in 1894 pioneered the adoption of compulsory arbitration between employers and unions.  In 1907, at the request of the New Zealand Parliament, King Edward VII proclaimed New Zealand a Dominion within the British Empire, reflecting its self-governing status. In 1947 the country adopted the Statute of Westminster, confirming that the British Parliament could no longer legislate for New Zealand without the consent of New Zealand.  Early in the 20th century, New Zealand was involved in world affairs, fighting in the First and Second World Wars and suffering through the Great Depression. The depression led to the election of the First Labour Government and the establishment of a comprehensive welfare state and a protectionist economy. New Zealand experienced increasing prosperity following the Second World War and Māori began to leave their traditional rural life and move to the cities in search of work. A Māori protest movement developed, which criticised Eurocentrism and worked for greater recognition of Māori culture and of the Treaty of Waitangi. In 1975, a Waitangi Tribunal was set up to investigate alleged breaches of the Treaty, and it was enabled to investigate historic grievances in 1985. The government has negotiated settlements of these grievances with many iwi, although Māori claims to the foreshore and seabed proved controversial in the 2000s.

Government and politics.

New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy, although its constitution is not codified. Elizabeth II is the queen of New Zealand and thus the head of state. The queen is represented by the governor-general, whom she appoints on the advice of the prime minister. The governor-general can exercise the Crown's prerogative powers, such as reviewing cases of injustice and making appointments of ministers, ambassadors and other key public officials, and in rare situations, the reserve powers (e.g. the power to dissolve parliament or refuse the royal assent of a bill into law). The powers of the monarch and the governor-general are limited by constitutional constraints and they cannot normally be exercised without the advice of ministers.  The New Zealand Parliament holds legislative power and consists of the queen and the House of Representatives. It also included an upper house, the Legislative Council, until this was abolished in 1950. The supremacy of parliament over the Crown and other government institutions was established in England by the Bill of Rights 1689 and has been ratified as law in New Zealand. The House of Representatives is democratically elected and a government is formed from the party or coalition with the majority of seats. If no majority is formed, a minority government can be formed if support from other parties during confidence and supply votes is assured. The governor-general appoints ministers under advice from the prime minister, who is by convention the parliamentary leader of the governing party or coalition. Cabinet, formed by ministers and led by the prime minister, is the highest policy-making body in government and responsible for deciding significant government actions. Members of Cabinet make major decisions collectively, and are therefore collectively responsible for the consequences of these decisions.  A parliamentary general election must be called no later than three years after the previous election. Almost all general elections between and were held under the first-past-the-post voting system. Since the, a form of proportional representation called mixed-member proportional (MMP) has been used. Under the MMP system, each person has two votes; one is for a candidate standing in the voter's electorate and the other is for a party. Since the, there have been 71 electorates (which include seven Māori electorates in which only Māori can optionally vote), and the remaining 49 of the 120 seats are assigned so that representation in parliament reflects the party vote, with the threshold that a party must win at least one electorate or 5% of the total party vote before it is eligible for a seat.  Elections since the 1930s have been dominated by two political parties, National and Labour. Between March 2005 and August 2006, New Zealand became the first country in the world in which all the highest offices in the land—head of state, governor-general, prime minister, speaker and chief justice—were occupied simultaneously by women. The current prime minister is Jacinda Ardern, who has been in office since 26 October 2017. She is the country's third female prime minister.  New Zealand's judiciary, headed by the chief justice, includes the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, the High Court, and subordinate courts. Judges and judicial officers are appointed non-politically and under strict rules regarding tenure to help maintain judicial independence. This theoretically allows the judiciary to interpret the law based solely on the legislation enacted by Parliament without other influences on their decisions.  New Zealand is identified as one of the world's most stable and well-governed states., the country was ranked fourth in the strength of its democratic institutions, and first in government transparency and lack of corruption. A 2017 Human Rights Report by the U.S. Department of State noted that the government generally respected the rights of individuals, but voiced concerns regarding the social status of the Māori population. New Zealand ranks highly for civic participation in the political process, with 80% voter turnout during recent elections, compared to an average of 68%.

Foreign relations and military.

Early colonial New Zealand allowed the British Government to determine external trade and be responsible for foreign policy. The 1923 and 1926 Imperial Conferences decided that New Zealand should be allowed to negotiate its own political treaties and the first commercial treaty was ratified in 1928 with Japan. On 3 September 1939 New Zealand allied itself with Britain and declared war on Germany with Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage proclaiming, "Where she goes, we go; where she stands, we stand."  In 1951 the United Kingdom became increasingly focused on its European interests, while New Zealand joined Australia and the United States in the ANZUS security treaty. The influence of the United States on New Zealand weakened following protests over the Vietnam War, the refusal of the United States to admonish France after the sinking of the "Rainbow Warrior", disagreements over environmental and agricultural trade issues and New Zealand's nuclear-free policy. Despite the United States' suspension of ANZUS obligations the treaty remained in effect between New Zealand and Australia, whose foreign policy has followed a similar historical trend. Close political contact is maintained between the two countries, with free trade agreements and travel arrangements that allow citizens to visit, live and work in both countries without restrictions. there were about 650,000 New Zealand citizens living in Australia, which is equivalent to 15% of the resident population of New Zealand. New Zealand has a strong presence among the Pacific Island countries. A large proportion of New Zealand's aid goes to these countries and many Pacific people migrate to New Zealand for employment. Permanent migration is regulated under the 1970 Samoan Quota Scheme and the 2002 Pacific Access Category, which allow up to 1,100 Samoan nationals and up to 750 other Pacific Islanders respectively to become permanent New Zealand residents each year. A seasonal workers scheme for temporary migration was introduced in 2007 and in 2009 about 8,000 Pacific Islanders were employed under it. New Zealand is involved in the Pacific Islands Forum, the Pacific Community, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (including the East Asia Summit). New Zealand has been described as an emerging power.<ref

New Zealand ( ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It comprises two main landmasses—the North Island ("Te Ika-a-Māui") and the South Island ("Te Waipounamu")—and around 600 smaller islands, covering a total area of. New Zealand is about east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland.

新西兰(英语:New Zealand),又称奥特亚罗瓦(),位于太平洋西南部,是主权岛国新西兰王国的主要领域(构成部分),首都为惠灵顿,最大的城市则为奥克兰都会区。新西兰主要由两大岛屿组成,即北岛(Te Ika-a-Māui)和南岛(Te Waipounamu),两岛以库克海峡分隔,首都惠灵顿即位于北岛南端,首都辖境还包含了一些小岛。