title: The World's End (film)

text: When Gary pulls the lever to pour himself a pint, the floor lowers into a hidden chamber. A disembodied alien entity, the Network, tells Gary and Andy that the Blank invasion is the first step to humanity joining a galactic community. The Network offers Gary eternal youth if he becomes a Blank, but he refuses and decapitates his Blank self. Along with Andy and Steven, who has survived, Gary demands that humanity be left to its own devices, stating that all but three of Newton Haven residents have been replaced with Blanks, and expressing horror at how humans that have been replaced have been composted. The Network, exasperated, agrees to abandon the invasion. Sam rescues Gary, Andy, and Steven as the town is destroyed, but they are unable to outrun the electromagnetic pulse triggered by the departure of the Network, which deactivates Sam's car. Staring out onto the destruction, Gary tearfully apologises to Andy.


title: The World's End (film)

text: Some time later, Andy relates to other survivors of the pulse that it triggered a worldwide blackout that destroyed all electrical power on Earth, sending humanity back to the Dark Ages and killing an unknown number of humans in the process. The remaining Blanks reactivated a few weeks later and, although they are now independent from the Network, they are mistrusted and shunned by most of the surviving humans. Andy's marriage has recovered, Steven is in a relationship with Sam, and the Blank versions of Peter and Oliver have picked up where their human versions left off. Andy relates that he has no idea what happened to Gary.


title: The World's End (film)

text: In the ruins of Newton Haven, the now-sober Gary enters a pub with the Blank versions of his younger friends and orders water. When the bartender refuses to serve Blanks, Gary leads his friends into a brawl.


title: The World's End (film)

text: "The World's End" began as a screenplay titled "Crawl", about a group of teenagers on a pub crawl, written by Edgar Wright at the age of 21. He later realised the idea could work with adult characters to capture "the bittersweet feeling of returning to your home town and feeling like a stranger". Wright also said he wanted to satirise the "strange homogeneous branding that becomes like a virus", explaining: "This doesn't just extend to pubs, it's the same with cafés and restaurants. If you live in a small town and you move to London, which I did when I was 20, then when you go back out into the other small towns in England you go 'oh my god, it's all the same!' It's like "Bodysnatchers": literally our towns are being changed to death."


title: The World's End (film)

text: In an interview for "Entertainment Weekly", Pegg told Clark Collis, "People think we choose the genre first every time, and it's not true. We find the stories first. The notion of alienation from your hometown taken to its literal conclusion was how we got to science fiction."


title: The World's End (film)

text: After the story was complete, Wright and Pegg examined a list of real pub names and "tried to make them like tarot cards" to foreshadow the events of the story. Wright explained: "So we said, 'OK this one's the Famous Cock, because this is where Gary is trying to puff up his own importance.' ... We did go through and work out in each one how the pub sign was going to relate."


title: The World's End (film)

text: Principal photography for "The World's End" began on 28 September 2012. Filming took place in Hertfordshire, at Elstree Studios and on location in Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City. Part of the film was also shot at High Wycombe railway station, Buckinghamshire.


title: The World's End (film)

text: All twelve pubs in the film use identical signage on menus and walls, reflecting what Wright called "that fake hand-written chalk" common to modern British pubs. The exteriors of the real pubs were shot at locations in Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth Garden City, with altered signage. Letchworth Garden City railway station received a makeover to become the "Hole in the Wall".


title: The World's End (film)

text: Stunts were coordinated by Brad Allen, of martial arts film director Jackie Chan's team. Wright said: "In "Drunken Master", Jackie Chan has to get drunk to fight, but this is more the idea of Dutch courage. You know, when you're kind of drunk and you think 'ah, I can climb up that scaffolding!' Or just that you're impervious to pain. One of the things we talked about is this idea that [the characters] become better fighters the more oiled they get."


title: The World's End (film)

text: The Broadway Cinema, Letchworth, a renovated independent cinema built in the 1930s in the Art Deco style, was used to portray the Mermaid pub. This cinema was also the first outside London to play the film, with a special introduction by Pegg thanking the residents of Letchworth for their help during its making; over 800 viewers watched the film at the cinema on its opening night.


title: The World's End (film)

text: The film uses what the "New York Post"s Kyle Smith called "a brilliant Madchester soundtrack", alternative rock and pop music from the time of the characters' adolescence. Wright explained: "A lot of those songs are ones that really hit me and Simon hard when we were that age... [Gary] is still living by those rules. It's like he decided to take 'Loaded' and 'I'm Free' to heart and thinks the party's never going to end."


title: The World's End (film)

text: The soundtrack for the film was released on 5 August 2013 in the UK and 20 August 2013 in the United States, with the film's score, composed by Steven Price, released on the same day.


title: The World's End (film)

text: The only songs featured in the film that did not make it onto the soundtrack are "The Only One I Know", "Summer's Magic" and "The Only Rhyme That Bites", by The Charlatans, Mark Summers and 808 State respectively. The version of "20 Seconds To Comply" which features in the film is the mix from Silver Bullet's album "Bring Down The Walls No Limit Squad Returns", albeit edited to remove dialogue samples from "RoboCop". On the soundtrack album, it is replaced by the Bomb Squad mix (again re-edited to remove the samples). The original soundtrack tributes the song "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed" by Yes when the young characters reach the hills.


title: The World's End (film)

text: In addition to songs featured in the movie, the album also features dialogue snippets. The track list for the soundtrack is as follows:


title: The World's End (film)

text: "The World's End" premiered on 10 July 2013 at Leicester Square in London and was released on 19 July 2013 in the United Kingdom. It was released in the United States on 23 August 2013.


title: The World's End (film)

text: "The World's End" earned £2,122,288 during its UK opening weekend, losing the top spot to "Monsters University". Its weekend grosses were higher than "Shaun of the Dead"s £1.6 million but lower than "Hot Fuzz"s £5.4 million.


title: The World's End (film)

text: In the United States, the film was released on 23 August and earned $3.5 million on its opening day, outperforming "" and "You're Next". It had the highest per-cinema average out of all films in theatres throughout the country on its opening day. Its opening weekend, the film earned $8,790,237, finishing fourth at the box office behind "Lee Daniels' The Butler", "We're the Millers", and "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones". This total exceeded box office expectations, which had ranged from $7 million to $8.5 million, and was also the biggest opening weekend for any of the films in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy.


title: The World's End (film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 89% approval rating, with a weighted average score of 7.40/10, based on 244 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads: "Madcap and heartfelt, Edgar Wright's apocalypse comedy "The World's End" benefits from the typically hilarious Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, with a plethora of supporting players." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The World's End (film)

text: Chris Nashawaty of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a B+, praising it as "hilarious" and the "best" collaboration of Wright, Pegg and Frost, and saying that "these pint-swilling Peter Pans also know how to work the heart "and" the brain for belly laughs... The finale is a little too shaggy and silly. But what do you expect after a dozen beers?"


title: The World's End (film)

text: Mark Dinning of "Empire" magazine gave the film four stars out of five, writing: "Bravely refusing to rigidly adhere to a formula that has been so successful, Wright, Pegg and Frost's Cornetto Trilogy closer has tonal shifts you won't expect, but the same beating heart you've been craving."


title: The World's End (film)

text: Henry Barnes of "The Guardian" gave the film four stars out of five, writing: "With this final film they've slowed down a bit, grown up a lot. And saved the richest bite until last."


title: The World's End (film)

text: Keith Uhlich of "Time Out New York" named "The World's End" the ninth-best film of 2013, praising Pegg's "hilarious and heartbreaking portrait of over-the-hill deadbeatness."


title: The World's End (film)

text: At the 19th Critics' Choice Awards in January 2014, "The World's End" received two nominations, for Best Actor in a Comedy (for Simon Pegg) and for Best Comedy, but lost to Leonardo DiCaprio and "American Hustle", respectively. The film won Best British Film at the 19th Empire Awards held in London in March 2014.


title: The World's End (film)

text: It received nominations for three awards at the 40th Saturn Awards: Best International Film, Best Writing, and Best Actor for Pegg. At the 2014 MTV Movie Awards it received nominations for: Best Fight (for Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, & Eddie Marsan) & Best Comedic Performance (for Simon Pegg).


title: Adonis

text: One day, Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip and died in Aphrodite's arms as she wept. His blood mingled with her tears and became the anemone flower. Aphrodite declared the Adonia festival commemorating his tragic death, which was celebrated by women every year in midsummer. During this festival, Greek women would plant "gardens of Adonis", small pots containing fast-growing plants, which they would set on top of their houses in the hot sun. The plants would sprout, but soon wither and die. Then the women would mourn the death of Adonis, tearing their clothes and beating their breasts in a public display of grief.


title: Adonis

text: The Greeks considered Adonis's cult to be of Near Eastern origin. Adonis's name comes from a Canaanite word meaning "lord" and most modern scholars consider the story of Aphrodite and Adonis to be derived from the earlier Mesopotamian myth of Inanna (Ishtar) and Dumuzid (Tammuz).


title: Adonis

text: In late 19th and early 20th century scholarship of religion, Adonis was widely seen as a prime example of the archetypal dying-and-rising god. His name is often applied in modern times to handsome youths, of whom he is the archetype.


title: Adonis

text: The worship of Aphrodite and Adonis is probably a Greek continuation of the ancient Sumerian worship of Inanna and Dumuzid. The Greek name (""), ) is derived from the Canaanite word "ʼadōn", meaning "lord". This word is related to "Adonai" (), one of the titles used to refer to the God of the Hebrew Bible and still used in Judaism to the present day. The Syrian name for Adonis is "Gauas".


title: Adonis

text: The cult of Inanna and Dumuzid may have been introduced to the Kingdom of Judah during the reign of King Manasseh. mentions Adonis under his earlier East Semitic name Tammuz and describes a group of women mourning Tammuz's death while sitting near the north gate of the Temple in Jerusalem.


title: Adonis

text: The earliest known Greek reference to Adonis comes from a fragment of a poem by the poet Sappho of Lesbos (c. 630 – c. 570 BC), in which a chorus of young girls asks Aphrodite what they can do to mourn Adonis' death. Aphrodite replies that they must beat their breasts and tear their tunics. The cult of Adonis has also been described as corresponding to the cult of the Phoenician god Baal. As Walter Burkert explains:


title: Adonis

text: The exact date when the worship of Adonis became integrated into Greek culture is still disputed. Walter Burkert questions whether Adonis had not from the very beginning come to Greece along with Aphrodite. "In Greece," Burkert concludes, "the special function of the Adonis legend is as an opportunity for the unbridled expression of emotion in the strictly circumscribed life of women, in contrast to the rigid order of polis and family with the official women's festivals in honour of Demeter." The significant influence of Near Eastern culture on early Greek religion in general, and on the cult of Aphrodite in particular, is now widely recognized as dating to a period of orientalization during the eighth century BC, when archaic Greece was on the fringes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.


title: Adonis

text: In Cyprus, the cult of Adonis gradually superseded that of Cinyras. W. Atallah suggests that the later Hellenistic myth of Adonis represents the conflation of two independent traditions.


title: Adonis

text: The worship of Adonis is associated with the festival of the Adonia, which was celebrated by Greek women every year in midsummer. The festival, which was evidently already celebrated in Lesbos by Sappho's time in the seventh century BC, seems to have first become popular in Athens in the mid-fifth century BC. At the start of the festival, the women would plant a "garden of Adonis", a small garden planted inside a small basket or a shallow piece of broken pottery containing a variety of quick-growing plants, such as lettuce and fennel, or even quick-sprouting grains such as wheat and barley. The women would then climb ladders to the roofs of their houses, where they would place the gardens out under the heat of the summer sun. The plants would sprout in the sunlight, but wither quickly in the heat. While they waited for the plants to first sprout and then wither, the women would burn incense to Adonis. Once the plants had withered, the women would mourn and lament loudly over the death of Adonis, tearing their clothes and beating their breasts in a public display of grief. The women would lay a statuette of Adonis out on a bier and then carry it to the sea along with all the withered plants as a funeral procession. The festival concluded with the women throwing the effigy of Adonis and the withered plants out to sea.


title: Adonis

text: While Sappho does not describe the myth of Adonis, later sources flesh out the details. According to the retelling of the story found in the poem "Metamorphoses" by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17/18 AD), Adonis was the son of Myrrha, who was cursed by Aphrodite with insatiable lust for her own father, King Cinyras of Cyprus, after Myrrha's mother bragged that her daughter was more beautiful than the goddess. It was to her nurse that, with much reluctance, Myrrha revealed her shameful passion. Sometime later, during a festival in honor of Demeter, the nurse found Cinyras half-passed out with wine, and Myrrha's mother nowhere near him. Thus she spoke to him of a girl that truly loved him and desired to sleep with him, giving a fictitious name and simply describing her as Myrrha's age. Cinyras agreed, and the nurse was quick to bring Myrrha to him. Myrrha left her father's room impregnated. After several couplings, Cinyras discovered his lover's identity, and drew his sword to kill her; driven out after becoming pregnant, Myrrha was changed into a myrrh tree, but still gave birth to Adonis. According to classicist William F. Hansen, the story of how Adonis was conceived falls in line with the conventional ideas about sex and gender that were prevalent in the classical world, since the Greeks and Romans believed that women, such as Adonis's mother Myrrha, were less capable of controlling their primal wants and passions than men.


title: Adonis

text: Aphrodite found the baby, and took him to the underworld to be fostered by Persephone. She returned for him once he was grown and discovered him to be strikingly handsome. However Persephone too found Adonis to be exceedingly handsome and wanted to keep Adonis for she too fell in love with him; Zeus settled the dispute by decreeing that Adonis would spend one third of the year with Aphrodite, one third with Persephone, and one third with whomever he chose. Adonis chose Aphrodite, and they remained constantly together. Another version states that both goddesses got to keep him for half the year each at the suggestion of the Muse Calliope. Thus was Adonis' life divided between Aphrodite and Persephone, one goddess who loved him beneath the earth, the other above it. In his comical work "Dialogues of the Gods", the satirical author Lucian features Aphrodite in several dialogues, in one of which she complains to the moon goddess Selene that Eros made Persephone fall in love with Adonis and now she has to share him with her.


title: Adonis

text: Then, one day while Adonis was out hunting, he was wounded by a wild boar, and bled to death in Aphrodite's arms. In different versions of the story, the boar was either sent by Ares, who was jealous that Aphrodite was spending so much time with Adonis, by Artemis, who wanted revenge against Aphrodite for having killed her devoted follower Hippolytus, or by Apollo, to punish Aphrodite for blinding his son Erymanthus. The story also provides an etiology for Aphrodite's associations with certain flowers. Reportedly, as she mourned Adonis's death, she caused anemones to grow wherever his blood fell, and declared a festival on the anniversary of his death.


title: Adonis

text: Adonis was also said to have been loved by other gods such as Apollo, Heracles and Dionysus. He was described as androgynous for he acted like a man in his affections for Aphrodite but as a woman for Apollo. "Androgynous" here means that Adonis took on the passive feminine role in his love with Apollo.


title: Adonis

text: Heracles' love of Adonis is mentioned in passing by Ptolemy Hephaestion. The text states that due to his love of Adonis, Aphrodite taught Nessos the centaur the trap to ensnare him.


title: Adonis

text: In "Idyll" 15 by the early third-century BC Greek bucolic poet Theocritus, Adonis is described as a still an adolescent with down on his cheeks at the time of his love affair with Aphrodite, in contrast to Ovid's "Metamorphoses" in which he is portrayed as a fully mature man. Pseudo-Apollodorus ("Bibliotheke", 3.182) describes Adonis as the son of Cinyras, of Paphos on Cyprus, and Metharme. According to Pseudo-Apollodorus's "Bibliotheke", Hesiod, in an unknown work that does not survive, made of him the son of Phoenix and the otherwise unidentified Alphesiboea.


title: Adonis

text: In one version of the story, Aphrodite injured herself on a thorn from a rose bush and the rose, which had previously been white, was stained red by her blood. In other version an anemone flower grew on the spot where Adonis died, and a red rose where Aphrodite's tears fell. The third century BC poet Euphorion of Chalcis remarked in his "Hyacinth" that "Only Cocytus washed the wounds of Adonis". According to Lucian's "De Dea Syria", each year during the festival of Adonis, the Adonis River in Lebanon (now known as the Abraham River) ran red with blood.


title: Adonis

text: The medieval French poet Jean de Meun retells the story of Adonis in his additions to the "Roman de la Rose", written in around 1275. De Muen moralizes the story, using it as an example of how men should heed the warnings of the women they love. In Pierre de Ronsard's poem "Adonis" (1563), Venus laments that Adonis did not heed her warning, but ultimately blames herself for his death, declaring, "In need my counsel failed you." In the same poem, however, Venus quickly finds another shepherd as her lover, representing the widespread medieval belief in the fickleness and mutability of women.


title: Adonis

text: The story of Venus and Adonis from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" was tremendously influential during the Elizabethan era. In Edmund Spenser's epic poem "The Faerie Queene" (1590), tapestries depicting the story of Adonis decorate the walls of Castle Joyous. Later in the poem, Venus takes the character Amoretta to raise her in the "Garden of Adonis". Ovid's portrayal of Venus's desperate love for Adonis became the inspiration for many literary portrayals in Elizabethan literature of both male and female courtship.


title: Adonis

text: William Shakespeare's erotic narrative poem "Venus and Adonis" (1593), a retelling of the courtship of Aphrodite and Adonis from Ovid's "Metamorphoses", was the most popular of all his works published within his own lifetime. Six editions of it were published before Shakespeare's death (more than any of his other works) and it enjoyed particularly strong popularity among young adults. In 1605, Richard Barnfield lauded it, declaring that the poem had placed Shakespeare's name "in fames immortall Booke". Despite this, the poem has received mixed reception from modern critics. Samuel Taylor Coleridge defended it, but Samuel Butler complained that it bored him and C. S. Lewis described an attempted reading of it as "suffocating".


title: Adonis

text: The story of Adonis was the inspiration for the Italian poet Giambattista Marino to write his mythological epic "L'Adone" (1623), which outsold Shakespeare's "First Folio". Marino's poem focuses on the pleasures of love, which it describes explicitly. It describes Adonis as shooting the boar with Cupid's arrow and proclaims the tusk that crushes his hip a "loving" one. Shakespeare's homoerotic descriptions of Adonis's beauty and Venus's masculine pursuit of him inspired the French novelist and playwright Rachilde (Marguerite Vallette-Eymery) to write her erotic novel "Monsieur Vénus" (1884), about a noblewoman named Raoule de Vénérande who sexually pursues a young, effeminate man named Jacques who works in a flower shop. Jacques is ultimately shot and killed in a duel, thus following the model of Adonis's tragic death.


title: Adonis

text: The late nineteenth-century Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer wrote extensively about Adonis in his monumental study of comparative religion "The Golden Bough" (the first edition of which was published in 1890) as well as in later works. Frazer claimed that Adonis was just one example of the archetype of a "dying-and-rising god" found throughout all cultures. In the mid-twentieth century, some scholars began to criticize the designation of "dying-and-rising god", in some cases arguing that deities like Adonis, previously referred to as "dying and rising", would be better termed separately as "dying gods" and "disappearing gods", asserting that gods who "died" did not return, and those who returned never "really" died.


title: Adonis

text: Biblical scholars Eddy and Boyd (2007) applied this rationale to Adonis based on the fact that his portion of the year spent in the Underworld with Persephone is not really a death and resurrection, but merely an instance of a living person staying in the Underworld. They further argued that Adonis is not explicitly described as rising from the dead in any extant Classical Greek writings, though the fact that such a belief existed is attested by authors in Late Antiquity. For example, Origen discusses Adonis, whom he associates with Tammuz, in his "Selecta in Ezechielem" ( "Comments on Ezekiel"), noting that "they say that for a long time certain rites of initiation are conducted: first, that they weep for him, since he has died; second, that they rejoice for him because he has risen from the dead ("apo nekrôn anastanti")" (cf. J.-P. Migne, "Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca", 13:800).


title: Adonis

text: Some other scholars have continued to cite Adonis/Tammuz as an example of a dying and rising god, suggesting that the descent into and return from the underworld is a functional analogue for death even if no physical cause of death is depicted.


title: Maltese language

text: Maltese (, also "L-Ilsien Malti" or "Lingwa Maltija"), is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata spoken by the Maltese people. It is the national language of Malta and the only official Semitic and Afro-Asiatic language of the European Union. Maltese is a latinised variety of spoken historical Arabic through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect in the Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091. As a result of the Norman invasion of Malta and the subsequent re-Christianisation of the islands, Maltese evolved independently of Classical Arabic in a gradual process of latinisation. It is therefore exceptional as a variety of historical Arabic that has no diglossic relationship with Classical or Modern Standard Arabic. Maltese is thus classified separately from the 30 varieties constituting the modern Arabic macrolanguage. Maltese is also distinguished from Arabic and other Semitic languages since its morphology has been deeply influenced by Romance languages, namely Italian and Sicilian.


title: Maltese language

text: The original Arabic base comprises around one-third of the Maltese vocabulary, especially words that denote basic ideas and the function words, but about half of the vocabulary is derived from standard Italian and Sicilian; and English words make up between 6% and 20% of the vocabulary. A 2016 study shows that, in terms of basic everyday language, speakers of Maltese are able to understand around a third of what is said to them in Tunisian Arabic, which is a Maghrebi Arabic related to Siculo-Arabic, whereas speakers of Tunisian Arabic are able to understand about 40% of what is said to them in Maltese. This reported level of asymmetric intelligibility is considerably lower than the mutual intelligibility found between other varieties of Arabic.


title: Maltese language

text: Maltese has always been written in the Latin script, the earliest surviving example dating from the late Middle Ages. It is the only standardised Semitic language written exclusively in the Latin script.


title: Maltese language

text: The origins of the Maltese language are attributed to the arrival, early in the 11th century, of settlers from neighbouring Sicily, where Siculo-Arabic was spoken, reversing the Fatimid Caliphate's conquest of the island at the end of the 9th century. This claim has been corroborated by genetic studies, which show that contemporary Maltese people share common ancestry with Sicilians and Calabrians, with little genetic input from North Africa and the Levant.


title: Maltese language

text: The Norman conquest in 1091, followed by the —complete by 1249—permanently isolated the vernacular from its Arabic source, creating the conditions for its evolution into a distinct language. In contrast to Sicily—where Siculo-Arabic became extinct and was replaced by Sicilian—the vernacular in Malta continued to develop alongside Italian, eventually replacing it as official language in 1934 – alongside English. The first written reference to the Maltese language is in a will of 1436, where it is called . The oldest known document in Maltese, () by Pietru Caxaro, dates from the 15th century.


title: Maltese language

text: The earliest known Maltese dictionary was a 16th-century manuscript entitled "Maltese-Italiano"; it was included in the of Mifsud in 1764, but is now lost. A list of Maltese words was included in both the (1603) and (1606) of Hieronymus Megiser, who had visited Malta in 1588–1589; Domenico Magri gave the etymologies of some Maltese words in his (1677).


title: Maltese language

text: An early manuscript dictionary, , was discovered in the in Rome in the 1980s, together with a grammar, the , attributed to a French Knight named Thezan. The first systematic lexicon is that of Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis, who also wrote the first systematic grammar of the language and proposed a standard orthography.


title: Maltese language

text: SIL "Ethnologue" (2015) reports a total of 522,000 Maltese speakers, with 371,000 residing in Malta (close to 90% of the Maltese population) according to the European Commission (2012). This implies a number of around 150,000 speakers in the Maltese diaspora.


title: Maltese language

text: Most speakers are bilingual, the majority of speakers (345,000) regularly use English, and a reported 66,800 regularly use French.


title: Maltese language

text: The largest diaspora community of Maltese speakers is in Australia, with 36,000 speakers reported in 2006 (down from 45,000 in 1996, and expected to decline further).


title: Maltese language

text: The Maltese linguistic community in Tunisia originated in the 18th century. Numbering several thousand in the 19th century, it was reported to be only 100 to 200 people as of 2017.


title: Maltese language

text: Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family, that in the course of its history has been influenced by Sicilian and Italian, to a lesser extent French, and more recently English. Today, the core vocabulary (including both the most commonly used vocabulary and function words) is Semitic, with large numbers of loanwords. Because of the Sicilian influence on Siculo-Arabic, Maltese has many language contact features and is most commonly described as a language with a large number of loanwords.


title: Maltese language

text: The Maltese language has historically been classified in various ways, with some claiming that the ancient Punic language (another Semitic language) was its origin instead of Siculo-Arabic, while others believed the language to be one of the Berber languages (another family within Afroasiatic), and under the Fascist Kingdom of Italy, it was classified as regional Italian.


title: Maltese language

text: Urban varieties of Maltese are closer to Standard Maltese than rural varieties, which have some characteristics that distinguish them from Standard Maltese.


title: Maltese language

text: They tend to show some archaic features such as the realisation of and and the imāla of Arabic ā into ē (or ī especially in Gozo), considered archaic because they are reminiscent of 15th-century transcriptions of this sound. Another archaic feature is the realisation of Standard Maltese ā as ō in rural dialects.


title: Maltese language

text: Rural dialects also tend to employ more Semitic roots and broken plurals than Standard Maltese. In general, rural Maltese is less distant from its Siculo-Arabic ancestor than is Standard Maltese.


title: Maltese language

text: Voiceless stops are only lightly aspirated and voiced stops are fully voiced. Voicing is carried over from the last segment in obstruent clusters; thus, two- and three-obstruent clusters are either voiceless or voiced throughout, e.g. is realised "we write" (similar assimilation phenomena occur in languages like French or Czech). Maltese has final-obstruent devoicing of voiced obstruents and voiceless stops have no audible release, making voiceless–voiced pairs phonetically indistinguishable.


title: Maltese language

text: Gemination is distinctive word-medially and word-finally in Maltese. The distinction is most rigid intervocalically after a stressed vowel. Stressed, word-final closed syllables with short vowels end in a long consonant, and those with a long vowel in a single consonant; the only exception is where historic and meant the compensatory lengthening of the succeeding vowel. Some speakers have lost length distinction in clusters.


title: Maltese language

text: The two nasals and assimilate for place of articulation in clusters. and are usually dental, whereas are all alveolar. are found mostly in words of Italian origin, retaining length (if not word-initial). and are only found in loanwords, e.g. "newspaper" and "television". The pharyngeal fricative is velar (), uvular (), or glottal () for some speakers.


title: Maltese language

text: Maltese has five short vowels, , written "a e i o u;" six long vowels, , written "a, e, ie, i, o, u," all of which (with the exception of "ie" ) can be known to represent long vowels in writing only if they are followed by an orthographic "għ" or "h" (otherwise, one needs to know the pronunciation; e.g. "nar" (fire) is pronounced ); and seven diphthongs, , written "aj" or "għi, aw" or "għu, ej" or "għi, ew, iw, oj," and "ow" or "għu."


title: Maltese language

text: Stress is generally on the penultimate syllable, unless some other syllable is heavy (has a long vowel or final consonant), or unless a stress-shifting suffix is added. (Suffixes marking gender, possession, and verbal plurals do not cause the stress to shift). Historically when vowel "a" and "u" were long or stressed they were written as "â" or "û", for example in the word "baħħâr" (sailor) to differentiate from "baħħar" (to sail), but nowadays these accents are mostly omitted.


title: Maltese language

text: When two syllables are equally heavy, the penultimate takes the stress, but otherwise the heavier syllable does, e.g. "bajjad" 'he painted' vs "bajjad" 'a painter'.


title: Maltese language

text: The original Arabic consonant system has undergone partial collapse under European influence, with many Classical Arabic consonants having undergone mergers and modifications in Maltese:


title: Maltese language

text: Final vowels with grave accents (à, è, ì, ò, ù) are also found in some Maltese words of Italian origin, such as "libertà" ("freedom"), "sigurtà" (old Italian: "sicurtà", "security"), or "soċjetà" (Italianː "società", "society").


title: Maltese language

text: The official rules governing the structure of the Maltese language are recorded in the official guidebook "Tagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija" (English: "Knowledge on Writing in Maltese") issued by the Akkademja tal-Malti (Academy of the Maltese language). The first edition of this book was printed in 1924 by the Maltese government's printing press. The rules were further expanded in the 1984 book, "iż-Żieda mat-Tagħrif", which focused mainly on the increasing influence of Romance and English words. In 1992 the Academy issued the "Aġġornament tat-Tagħrif fuq il-Kitba Maltija", which updated the previous works. All these works were included in a revised and expanded guidebook published in 1996.


title: Maltese language

text: The National Council for the Maltese Language (KNM) is the main regulator of the Maltese language (see Maltese Language Act, below). However, the Academy's orthography rules are still valid and official.


title: Maltese language

text: Since Maltese evolved after the Italo-Normans ended Arab rule of the islands, a written form of the language was not developed for a long time after the Arabs' expulsion in the middle of the thirteenth century. Under the rule of the Knights Hospitaller, both French and Italian were used for official documents and correspondence. During the British colonial period, the use of English was encouraged through education, with Italian being regarded as the next-most important language.


title: Maltese language

text: In the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, philologists and academics such as Mikiel Anton Vassalli made a concerted effort to standardise written Maltese. Many examples of written Maltese exist from before this period, always in the Latin alphabet, "Il-Kantilena" from the 15th century being the earliest example of written Maltese. In 1934, Maltese was recognised as an official language.


title: Maltese language

text: The Maltese language has a tendency to have both Semitic vocabulary and also vocabulary derived from Romance languages, primarily Italian. Words such as "tweġiba" (Arab origin) and "risposta" (Italian origin) have the same meaning ("answer") but can and are both used in Maltese. Below are two versions of the same translations, one in vocabulary derived mostly from Semitic root words while the other uses Romance loanwords (from the "Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe", see p. 17):


title: Maltese language

text: Although the original vocabulary of the language was Siculo-Arabic, it has incorporated a large number of borrowings from Romance sources of influence (Sicilian, Italian, and French) and, more recently, Germanic ones (from English).


title: Maltese language

text: The historical source of modern Maltese vocabulary is 52% Italian/Sicilian, 32% Siculo-Arabic, and 6% English, with some of the remainder being French. Today, most function words are Semitic, so despite only making up about a third, they are the most used among Maltese people when conversing. In this way, it is similar to English, which is a Germanic language that had large influence from Norman French and Latin (58% of English vocabulary). As a result of this, Romance language-speakers may easily be able to comprehend conceptual ideas expressed in Maltese, such as "Ġeografikament, l-Ewropa hi parti tas-superkontinent ta' l-Ewrasja" ("Geographically, Europe is part of the Supercontinent of Eurasia"), while not understanding a single word of a functional sentence such as "Ir-raġel qiegħed fid-dar" ("The man is in the house"), which would be easily understood by any Arabic speaker.


title: Maltese language

text: An analysis of the etymology of the 41,000 words in Aquilina's "Maltese-English Dictionary" shows that words of Romance origin make up 52% of the Maltese vocabulary, although other sources claim from as low as 40%, to as high as 55%. This vocabulary tends to deal with more complex concepts. They are mostly derived from Sicilian and thus exhibit Sicilian phonetic characteristics, such as in place of , and in place of (e.g. "tiatru" not "teatro" and "fidi" not "fede"). Also, as with Old Sicilian, (English 'sh') is written 'x' and this produces spellings such as: "ambaxxata" ('embassy'), "xena" ('scene' cf. Italian "ambasciata, scena").


title: Maltese language

text: Complex Latinate English words adopted into Maltese are often given Italianate or Sicilianate forms, even if the resulting words do not appear in either of those languages. For instance, the words ""evaluation"", ""industrial action"", and ""chemical armaments"" become ""evalwazzjoni"", ""azzjoni industrjali"", and ""armamenti kimiċi"" in Maltese, while the Italian terms are "valutazione", "vertenza sindacale", and "armi chimiche" respectively. (The origin of the terms may be narrowed even further to British English; the phrase "industrial action" is meaningless in the United States.) This is also comparable to the situation with English borrowings into the Italo-Australian dialect. English words of Germanic origin are generally preserved relatively unchanged.


title: Maltese language

text: Some influences of African Romance on Arabic and Berber spoken in the Maghreb are theorised, which may then have passed into Maltese. For example, in calendar month names, the word "furar" "February" is only found in the Maghreb and in Maltese - proving the word's ancient origins. The region also has a form of another Latin named month in "awi/ussu < augustus". This word does not appear to be a loan word through Arabic, and may have been taken over directly from Late Latin or African Romance. Scholars theorise that a Latin-based system provided forms such as "awi/ussu" and "furar" in African Romance, with the system then mediating Latin/Romance names through Arabic for some month names during the Islamic period. The same situation exists for Maltese which mediated words from Italian, and retains both non-Italian forms such as "awissu/awwissu" and "frar", and Italian forms such as "april".


title: Maltese language

text: Siculo-Arabic is the ancestor of the Maltese language, and supplies between 32% and 40% of the language's vocabulary.


title: Maltese language

text: The Maltese language has merged many of the original Arabic consonants, in particular the emphatic consonants, with others that are common in European languages. Thus, original Arabic , , and all merged into Maltese . The vowels, however, separated from the three in Arabic () into five, as is more typical of other European languages (). Some unstressed short vowels have been elided. The common Arabic greeting is cognate with in Maltese (lit. "the peace for you", peace be with you), as are similar greetings in other Semitic languages (e.g. in Hebrew).


title: Maltese language

text: Since the attested vocabulary of Siculo-Arabic is limited, the following table compares cognates in Maltese and some other varieties of Arabic (all forms are written phonetically, as in the source):


title: Maltese language

text: It is estimated that English loanwords, which are becoming more commonplace, make up 20% of the Maltese vocabulary, although other sources claim amounts as low as 6%. This percentage discrepancy is due to the fact that a number of new English loanwords are sometimes not officially considered part of the Maltese vocabulary; hence, they are not included in certain dictionaries. Also, English loanwards of Latinate origin are very often Italianised, as discussed above. English loanwords are generally transliterated, although standard English pronunciation is virtually always retained. Below are a few examples:


title: Maltese language

text: "Fridge" is a common shortening of "refrigerator". "Refrigerator" is a Latinate word which could be imported into Maltese as "rifriġeratori", whereas the Italian word is "frigorifero" or "refrigeratore".


title: Maltese language

text: The days of the week (Maltese: "jiem il-ġimgħa") in Maltese are referred to by number, as is typical of other Semitic languages, especially Arabic. Days of the week are commonly preceded by the word "nhar" meaning 'day'.


title: Maltese language

text: The months of the year (Maltese: "xhur is-sena") in Maltese are mostly derived from Sicilian, but "Frar" and "Awwissu" are possibly derived from African Romance through Siculo-Arabic.


title: Maltese language

text: Maltese grammar is fundamentally derived from Siculo-Arabic, although Romance and English noun pluralisation patterns are also used on borrowed words.


title: Maltese language

text: Adjectives follow nouns. There are no separately formed native adverbs, and word order is fairly flexible. Both nouns and adjectives of Semitic origin take the definite article (for example, "It-tifel il-kbir", lit. "The boy the elder"="The elder boy"). This rule does not apply to adjectives of Romance origin.


title: Maltese language

text: Nouns are pluralised and also have a dual marker. Semitic plurals are complex; if they are regular, they are marked by "-iet"/"-ijiet", e.g., "art", "artijiet" "lands (territorial possessions or property)" (cf. Arabic "-at" and Hebrew "-ot"/"-oth") or "-in" (cf. Arabic "-īn" and Hebrew "-im"). If irregular, they fall in the "pluralis fractus" (broken plural) category, in which a word is pluralised by internal vowel changes: "ktieb", "kotba" " book", "books"; "raġel", "irġiel" "man", "men".


title: Maltese language

text: Words of Romance origin are usually pluralised in two manners: addition of "-i" or "-jiet". For example, "lingwa", "lingwi" "languages", from Sicilian "lingua", "lingui".


title: Maltese language

text: Words of English origin are pluralised by adding either an "-s" or "-jiet", for example, "friġġ", "friġis" from the word "fridge". Some words can be pluralised with either of the suffixes to denote the plural. A few words borrowed from English can amalgamate both suffixes, like "brikksa" from the English "brick", which can adopt either collective form "brikks" or the plural form "brikksiet".


title: Maltese language

text: As in Arabic, nouns are often derived by changing, adding or removing the vowels within a triliteral root. These are some of the patterns used for nouns:


title: Maltese language

text: The so-called mimated nouns use the prefix "m-" in addition to vowel changes. This pattern can be used to indicate place names, tools, abstractions, etc. These are some of the patterns used for mimated nouns:


title: Maltese language

text: The Maltese article assimilates to a following coronal consonant (called "konsonanti xemxin" "sun consonants"), namely:


title: Maltese language

text: Maltese "il-" is coincidentally identical in pronunciation to one of the Italian masculine articles, "il". Consequently, many nouns borrowed from Standard Italian did not change their original article when used in Maltese. Romance vocabulary taken from Sicilian did change where the Sicilian articles "u" and "a", before a consonant, are used.


title: Maltese language

text: Verbs show a triliteral Semitic pattern, in which a verb is conjugated with prefixes, suffixes, and infixes (for example "ktibna", Arabic "katabna", Hebrew "kathabhnu" (Modern Hebrew: katavnu) "we wrote"). There are two tenses: present and perfect. The Maltese verb system incorporates Romance verbs and adds Maltese suffixes and prefixes to them, for example; "iddeċidejna" "we decided" ← "(i)ddeċieda" "decide", a Romance verb + "-ejna", a Maltese first person plural perfect marker.


title: Maltese language

text: An example would be the Semitic root X-M-X, which has something related to the sun, example: "xemx" (sun), "xmux" (suns), "xemxi" (sunny), "xemxata" (sunstroke), "nixxemmex" (I sunbathe), "ma xxemmixtx" (I didn't sunbathe), "tixmix" (the act of sunbathing). Maltese also features the stringing of verb suffixes indicating direction of action, for example; "agħmilhomli" "make them for me"← "agħmel" "make" in the imperative + "hom" from "huma" "them" + "li" suffix indicating first person singular; "ħasletielu" "she washed it for him"←"ħaslet" "she washed" from the verb "ħasel" "to wash" + "ie" the object + "lu" suffix indicating third person masculine singular.


title: Maltese language

text: With Malta being a multilingual country, the usage of Maltese in the mass media is shared with other European languages, namely English and Italian. The majority of television stations broadcast from Malta in English or Maltese, although broadcasts from Italy in Italian are also received on the islands. Similarly, there are more Maltese-language radio programs than English ones broadcast from Malta, but again, as with television, Italian broadcasts are also picked up. Maltese generally receives equal usage in newspaper periodicals to English.


title: Maltese language

text: By the early 2000s, the use of the Maltese language on the Internet is uncommon, and the number of websites written in Maltese are few. In a survey of Maltese cultural websites conducted in 2004 on behalf of the Maltese Government, 12 of 13 were in English only, while the remaining one was multilingual but did not include Maltese.


title: Maltese language

text: The Maltese population, being fluent in both Maltese and English, displays code-switching (referred to as Maltenglish) in certain localities and between certain social groups.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone, sold under the brand names Narcan (4 mg) and Kloxxado (8 mg) among others, is a medication used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids. It is commonly used to counter decreased breathing in opioid overdose. Effects begin within two minutes when given intravenously, and within five minutes when injected into a muscle. The medicine can also be administered by spraying it into a person's nose. Naloxone commonly blocks the effects of opioids for 30 to 90 minutes. Multiple doses may be required, as the duration of action of some opioids is greater than that of naloxone.


title: Naloxone

text: Administration to opioid-dependent individuals may cause symptoms of opioid withdrawal, including restlessness, agitation, nausea, vomiting, a fast heart rate, and sweating. To prevent this, small doses every few minutes can be given until the desired effect is reached. In those with previous heart disease or taking medications that negatively affect the heart, further heart problems have occurred. It appears to be safe in pregnancy, after having been given to a limited number of women. Naloxone is a non-selective and competitive opioid receptor antagonist. It works by reversing the depression of the central nervous system and respiratory system caused by opioids. Naloxone generally has no effect on those not using opioids, has no abuse potential, and is recommended by the World Health Organization for distribution to anyone likely to encounter a fatal opioid overdose, including emergency personnel and friends and family members of those using opioids.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone was patented in 1961 and approved for opioid overdose in the United States in 1971. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Naloxone is available as a generic medication. In April 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a higher dose naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray product ("Kloxxado") intended to treat opioid overdose from fentanyl and its analogues, which are many times stronger than heroin.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone is useful in treating both acute opioid overdose and respiratory or mental depression due to opioids. Whether it is useful in those in cardiac arrest due to an opioid overdose is unclear.


title: Naloxone

text: It is included as a part of emergency overdose response kits distributed to heroin and other opioid drug users, and to emergency responders. This has been shown to reduce rates of deaths due to overdose. A prescription for naloxone is recommended if a person is on a high dose of opioid (>100 mg of morphine equivalence/day), is prescribed any dose of opioid accompanied by a benzodiazepine, or is suspected or known to use opioids nonmedically. Prescribing naloxone should be accompanied by standard education that includes preventing, identifying, and responding to an overdose; rescue breathing; and calling emergency services.


title: Naloxone

text: Distribution of naloxone to individuals likely to encounter people who overdose is part of the harm reduction initiatives that have spread throughout the US and the world. This approach to dealing with substance use disorder is to treat it as a medical problem and focusing efforts on reducing the harm produced directly (e.g., overdose) and indirectly (exposure to infectious disease).


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone can also be used as an antidote in overdose of clonidine, a medication that lowers blood pressure. Clonidine overdoses are of special relevance for children, in whom even small doses can cause significant harm. However, there is controversy regarding naloxone's efficacy in treating the symptoms of clonidine overdose, namely slow heart rate, low blood pressure, and confusion/somnolence. Case reports that used doses of 0.1 mg/kg (maximum of 2 mg/dose) repeated every 1–2 minutes (10 mg total dose) have shown inconsistent benefit. As the doses used throughout the literature vary, it is difficult to form a conclusion regarding the benefit of naloxone in this setting. The mechanism for naloxone's proposed benefit in clonidine overdose is unclear, but it has been suggested that endogenous opioid receptors mediate the sympathetic nervous system in the brain and elsewhere in the body. Some poison control centers recommend naloxone in the setting of clonidine overdose, including intravenous bolus doses of up to 10 mg naloxone.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone is poorly absorbed when taken by mouth, so it is commonly combined with a number of oral opioid preparations, including buprenorphine and pentazocine, so that when taken by mouth, only the opioid has an effect. However, if the opioid and naloxone combination is injected, the naloxone blocks the effect of the opioid. This combination is used in an effort to prevent non-medical use.


title: Naloxone

text: A 2003 meta-analysis of existing research showed naloxone to improve blood flow in patients with shock, including septic, cardiogenic, hemorrhagic, or spinal shock, but could not determine if this reduced patient deaths.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone has been used experimentally in the treatment of congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone is pregnancy category B or C in the United States. Studies in rodents given a daily maximum dose of 10 mg naloxone showed no harmful effects to the fetus, although human studies are lacking and the drug does cross the placenta, which may lead to the precipitation of withdrawal in the fetus. In this setting, further research is needed before safety can be assured, so naloxone should be used during pregnancy only if it is a medical necessity.


title: Naloxone

text: Whether naloxone is excreted in breast milk is unknown, however, it is not orally bioavailable and therefore is unlikely to affect a breastfeeding infant.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone can be used on infants who were exposed to intrauterine opiates administered to mothers during delivery. However, there is insufficient evidence for the use of naloxone to lower cardiorespiratory and neurological depression in these infants. Infants exposed to high concentrations of opiates during pregnancy may have CNS damage in the setting of perinatal asphyxia. Naloxone has been studied to improve outcomes in this population, however the evidence is currently weak.


title: Naloxone

text: Intravenous, intramuscular, or subcutaneous administration of naloxone can be given to children and neonates to reverse opiate effects. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends only intravenous administration as the other two forms can cause unpredictable absorption. After a dose is given, the child should be monitored for at least 24 hours. For children with low blood pressure due to septic shock, naloxone safety and effectiveness are not established.


title: Naloxone

text: For patients 65 years and older, it is unclear if there is a difference in response. However, older people often have decreased liver and kidney function that may lead to an increased level of naloxone in their body.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone has little to no effect if opioids are not present. In people with opioids in their system, it may cause increased sweating, nausea, restlessness, trembling, vomiting, flushing, and headache, and has in rare cases been associated with heart rhythm changes, seizures, and pulmonary edema.


title: Naloxone

text: Besides the side effects listed above, naloxone also has other adverse events, such as other cardiovascular effects (hypertension, hypotension, tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia) and central nervous system effects, such as agitation, body pain, brain disease, and coma. In addition to these adverse effects, naloxone is also contraindicated in people with hypersensitivity to naloxone or any of its formulation components.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone has been shown to block the action of pain-lowering endorphins the body produces naturally. These endorphins likely operate on the same opioid receptors that naloxone blocks. It is capable of blocking a placebo pain-lowering response, if the placebo is administered together with a hidden or blind injection of naloxone. Other studies have found that placebo alone can activate the body's μ-opioid endorphin system, delivering pain relief by the same receptor mechanism as morphine.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone should be used with caution in people with cardiovascular disease as well as those that are currently taking medications that could have adverse effects on the cardiovascular system such as causing low blood pressure, fluid accumulation in the lungs (pulmonary edema), and abnormal heart rhythms. There have been reports of abrupt reversals with opioid antagonists leading to pulmonary edema and ventricular fibrillation.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone preparations may contain methylparaben and propylparaben and are inappropriate for use by people with a paraben hypersensitivity. If a person is sensitive to nalmefene or naltrexone, naloxone should be used with caution as these three medications are structurally similar. Cross-sensitivity among these drugs is unknown. Preservative-free preparations are available for those with paraben hypersensitivities.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone is a lipophilic compound that acts as a non-selective and competitive opioid receptor antagonist. The pharmacologically active isomer of naloxone is (−)-naloxone. Naloxone's binding affinity is highest for the μ-opioid receptor (MOR), then the δ-opioid receptor (DOR), and lowest for the κ-opioid receptor (KOR); naloxone has negligible affinity for the nociceptin receptor.


title: Naloxone

text: If naloxone is administered in the absence of concomitant opioid use, no functional pharmacological activity occurs, except the inability of the body to combat pain naturally. In contrast to direct opiate agonists, which elicit opiate withdrawal symptoms when discontinued in opiate-tolerant people, no evidence indicates the development of tolerance or dependence on naloxone. The mechanism of action is not completely understood, but studies suggest it functions to produce withdrawal symptoms by competing for opioid receptors within the brain (a competitive antagonist, not a direct agonist), thereby preventing the action of both endogenous and xenobiotic opioids on these receptors without directly producing any effects itself.


title: Naloxone

text: A single administration of naloxone at a relatively high dose of 2 mg by intravenous injection has been found to produce brain MOR blockade of 80% at 5 minutes, 47% at 2 hours, 44% at 4 hours, and 8% at 8 hours. A low dose (2 μg/kg) produced brain MOR blockade of 42% at 5 minutes, 6% at 2 hours, 33% at 4 hours, and 10% at 8 hours. Intranasal administration of naloxone via nasal spray has likewise been found to rapidly occupy brain MORs, with peak occupancy occurring at 20 minutes, peak occupancies of 67% at a dose of 2 mg and 85% with 4 mg, and an estimated half-life of occupancy disappearance of approximately 100 minutes (1.67 hours).


title: Naloxone

text: When administered parenterally (non-orally or non-rectally, e.g., intravenously or by injection), as is most common, naloxone has a rapid distribution throughout the body. The mean serum half-life has been shown to range from 30 to 81 minutes, shorter than the average half-life of some opiates, necessitating repeat dosing if opioid receptors must be stopped from triggering for an extended period. Naloxone is primarily metabolized by the liver. Its major metabolite is naloxone-3-glucuronide, which is excreted in the urine. For people with liver diseases such as alcoholic liver disease or hepatitis, naloxone usage has not been shown to increase serum liver enzyme levels.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone has low systemic bioavailability when taken by mouth due to hepatic first-pass metabolism, but it does block opioid receptors that are located in the intestine.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone, also known as N-allylnoroxymorphone or as 17-allyl-4,5α-epoxy-3,14-dihydroxymorphinan-6-one, is a synthetic morphinan derivative and was derived from oxymorphone (14-hydroxydihydromorphinone), an opioid analgesic. Oxymorphone, in turn, was derived from morphine, an opioid analgesic and naturally occurring constituent of the opium poppy. Naloxone is a racemic mixture of two enantiomers, (–)-naloxone (levonaloxone) and (+)-naloxone (dextronaloxone), only the former of which is active at opioid receptors. The drug is highly lipophilic, allowing it to rapidly penetrate the brain and to achieve a far greater brain to serum ratio than that of morphine. Opioid antagonists related to naloxone include cyprodime, nalmefene, nalodeine, naloxol, and naltrexone.


title: Naloxone

text: The chemical half-life of naloxone is such that injection and nasal forms have been marketed with 24-month and 18-month shelf-lives, respectively. A 2018 study noted that the nasal and injection forms presented as chemically stable to 36- and 28-months, respectively, which prompted an as yet incomplete five-year stability study to be initiated. This suggests that expired caches of material in community and healthcare settings may still be efficacious substantially beyond their labeled expiration dates.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone was patented in 1961 by Mozes J. Lewenstein, Jack Fishman, and the company Sankyo. It was approved for opioid use disorder treatment in the United States in 1971, with opioid overdose prevention kits being distributed by many states to medically untrained people beginning in 1996. From the period of 1996 to 2014, the CDC estimates over 26,000 cases of opioid overdose have been reversed using the kits.


title: Naloxone

text: "Naloxone" is the generic name of the medication and its , , , , and , while "naloxone hydrochloride" is its and .


title: Naloxone

text: The patent has expired and it is available as a generic medication. Several of the newer formulations use patented dispensers (spray mechanisms or autoinjectors), and patent disputes over generic forms of the nasal spray were litigated between 2016 and 2020, when a judge ruled in favor of Teva, the generic manufacturer. Teva announced entry of the first generic nasal spray formulation in December 2021. Brand names of naloxone include Narcan, Kloxxado, Nalone, Evzio, Prenoxad Injection, Narcanti, Narcotan, and Zimhi, among others.


title: Naloxone

text: The CAS number of naloxone is 465-65-6; the anhydrous hydrochloride salt has CAS 357-08-4 and the hydrochloride salt with 2 molecules of water, hydrochloride dihydrate, has CAS 51481-60-8


title: Naloxone

text: In hospital settings, naloxone is commonly injected intravenously, with an onset of 1–2 minutes and a duration of up to 45 minutes. While the onset is achieved fastest through IV than through other routes of administration, it may be difficult to obtain venous access in patients who use IV drugs chronically. This may be an issue under emergency conditions.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone can also be administered via intramuscular or subcutaneous injection. The onset of naloxone provided through this route is 2 to 5 minutes with a duration of around 30-120min. Naloxone administered intramuscularly are provided through pre-filled syringes, vials, and auto-injector. Evzio is the only auto-injector on the market and can be used both intramuscularly and subcutaneously. It is pocket-sized and can be used in non-medical settings such as in the home. It is designed for use by laypersons, including family members and caregivers of opioid users at-risk for an opioid emergency, such as an overdose. According to the FDA's National Drug Code Directory, a generic version of the auto-injector began to be marketed at the end of 2019.


title: Naloxone

text: Administration of naloxone intranasally is recommended for people who are unconscious or unresponsive. While the onset of action is slightly delayed in this method of administration, the ease of use and portability are what make naloxone nasal sprays useful.


title: Naloxone

text: Narcan Nasal Spray was approved in 2015 and was the first FDA-approved nasal spray for emergency treatment or suspected overdose. Narcan Nasal Spray is prepackaged, requires no assembly, and delivers a consistent 4 mg dose of naloxone. It was developed in a partnership between LightLake Therapeutics and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The approval process was fast-tracked. A generic version of the nasal spray was approved in the United States in 2019, though did not come to market until 2021.


title: Naloxone

text: In 2021, the FDA approved Kloxxado, a 8 mg dose of intranasal naloxone developed by Hikma Pharmaceuticals. Citing the frequent need for multiple 4 mg doses of Narcan to successfully reverse overdose, packs of Kloxxado Nasal Spray contain two pre-packaged nasal spray devices, each containing 8 mg of naloxone.


title: Naloxone

text: However, a wedge device (nasal atomizer) can also be attached to a syringe that may also be used to create a mist to deliver the drug to the nasal mucosa. This is useful near facilities where many overdoses occur that already stock injectors.


title: Naloxone

text: Naloxone should be stored at room temperature and protected from light. For the auto-injector, naloxone should be stored in the outer case provided. If the product is cloudy, discolored, or contains particulate matter, use is not recommended.


title: Naloxone

text: In the United States, naloxone is ostensibly available without a prescription in every state with the exception of Hawaii. In reality, not all pharmacies stock or dispense naloxone. Depending on the pharmacy, a pharmacist may have to write a prescription or not be able to give naloxone to comply with accounting rules, as naloxone is still considered a prescription-only medication under FDA rules.


title: Naloxone

text: As of mid-2019, officials in 29 states had issued standing orders to enable licensed pharmacists to provide naloxone to patients without the individual first visiting a prescriber. Prescribers working with harm reduction or low threshold treatment programs have also issued standing orders to enable these organizations to distribute naloxone to their clients. A standing order, also referred to as a "non-patient specific prescription" is written by a physician, nurse or other prescriber to authorize medicine distribution outside the doctor-patient relationship. In the case of naloxone, these orders are meant to facilitate naloxone distribution to people using opioids, and their family members and friends. Over 200 naloxone distribution programs utilize licensed prescribers to distribute the drug through such orders, or through the authority of pharmacists (as with California's legal proision, AB1535).


title: Naloxone

text: Laws and policies in many US jurisdictions have been changed in recent years to allow wider distribution of naloxone. In addition to laws or regulations permitting distribution of medicine to at risk individuals and families, some 36 states have passed laws that provide naloxone prescribers with immunity against both civil and criminal liabilities. While paramedics in the US have carried naloxone for decades, law enforcement officers in many states throughout the country carry naloxone to reverse the effects of heroin overdoses when reaching the location before paramedics. As of July 12, 2015, law enforcement departments in 28 US states are allowed to or required to carry naloxone to quickly respond to opioid overdoses. Programs training fire personnel in opioid overdose response using naloxone have also shown promise in the US, and efforts to integrate opioid fatality prevention into emergency response have grown due to the US overdose crisis.


title: Naloxone

text: Following the use of the nasal spray device by police officers on Staten Island in New York, an additional 20,000 police officers will begin carrying naloxone in mid-2014. The state's Office of the Attorney General will provide US$1.2 million to supply nearly 20,000 kits. Police Commissioner William Bratton said: "Naloxone gives individuals a second chance to get help". Emergency Medical Service Providers (EMS) routinely administer naloxone, except where basic Emergency Medical Technicians are prohibited by policy or by state law. In efforts to encourage citizens to seek help for possible opioid overdoses, many states have adopted Good Samaritan laws that provide immunity against certain criminal liabilities for anybody who, in good faith, seeks emergency medical care for either themselves or someone around them who may be experiencing an opioid overdose.


title: Naloxone

text: States including Vermont and Virginia have developed programs that mandate the prescription of naloxone when a prescription has exceeded a certain level of morphine milliequivalents per day as preventative measures against overdose. Healthcare institution-based naloxone prescription programs have also helped reduce rates of opioid overdose in North Carolina, and have been replicated in the US military.


title: Naloxone

text: In Canada, naloxone single-use syringe kits are distributed and available at various clinics and emergency rooms. Alberta Health Services is increasing the distribution points for naloxone kits at all emergency rooms, and various pharmacies and clinics province-wide. All Edmonton Police Service and Calgary Police Service patrol cars carry an emergency single-use naloxone syringe kit. Some Royal Canadian Mounted Police patrol vehicles also carry the drug, occasionally in excess to help distribute naloxone among users and concerned family/friends. Nurses, paramedics, medical technicians, and emergency medical responders can also prescribe and distribute the drug. As of February 2016, pharmacies across Alberta and some other Canadian jurisdictions are allowed to distribute single-use take-home naloxone kits or prescribe the drug to people using opioids.


title: Naloxone

text: Following Alberta Health Services, Health Canada reviewed the prescription-only status of naloxone, resulting in plans to remove it in 2016, making naloxone more accessible. Due to the rising number of drug deaths across the country, Health Canada proposed a change to make naloxone more widely available to Canadians in support of efforts to address the growing number of opioid overdoses. In March 2016, Health Canada did change the prescription status of naloxone, as "pharmacies are now able to proactively give out naloxone to those who might experience or witness an opioid overdose."


title: Naloxone

text: Schools, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations hold training programs to educate laypeople on the proper use of naloxone and to send them home with medicine. It is estimated that programs like these have helped to reverse more than 26,000 overdoses in the US. Harm reduction organizations providing needle and syringes to those injecting drugs have been particularly involved in naloxone distribution, purchasing medicine at discounted rates through a Buyer's Club and distributing more than 3 million vials to those at high risk or likely to be with those at high risk between 2017 and 2020 alone. In a survey of US laypersons in December 2021, most people believed the scientifically-supported idea that trained bystanders can reverse overdoses with naloxone.


title: Naloxone

text: A survey of US naloxone prescription programs in 2010 revealed that 21 out of 48 programs reported challenges in obtaining naloxone in the months leading up to the survey, due mainly to either cost increases that outstripped allocated funding or the suppliers' inability to fill orders. The approximate cost of a 1 ml ampoule of naloxone in the US is estimated to be significantly higher than in most other countries.


title: Naloxone

text: Take-home naloxone programs for people who use opioids is under way in many North American cities. CDC estimates that the US programs for drug users and their caregivers prescribing take-home doses of naloxone and training on its use prevented 10,000 opioid overdose deaths by 2014.


title: Naloxone

text: In Australia, as of February 1, 2016, some forms of naloxone are available "over the counter" in pharmacies without a prescription. It comes in single-use filled syringe similar to law enforcement kits. A single dose costs AU$20; for those with a prescription, five doses can bought for AU$40, amounting to a rate of eight dollars per dose (2019).


title: Naloxone

text: In Alberta, in addition to pharmacy distribution, take-home naloxone kits are available and commonly distributed in most drug treatment or rehabilitation centres.


title: Naloxone

text: In Europe, take home naloxone pilots were launched in the Channel Islands and in Berlin in the late 1990s. In 2008 the Welsh Assembly government announced its intention to establish demonstration sites for take-home naloxone, and in 2010 Scotland instituted a national naloxone program. Inspired by North American and European efforts, non-governmental organizations running programs to train drug users as overdose responders and supply them with naloxone are now operational in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China, Vietnam, and Thailand. Noting the high risk of overdose among people with HIV who inject drugs, international HIV donors including the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Open Society Foundations, have supported the purchase and distribution of naloxone to those at risk in low- and middle income countries.


title: Naloxone

text: In 2017, Next Harm Reduction in New York State began distributing naloxone and other harm reduction supplies by mail to those in the US unable to get them locally.


title: Naloxone

text: In 2018, a maker of naloxone announced it would provide a free kit including two doses of the nasal spray, as well as educational materials, to each of the 16,568 public libraries and 2,700 YMCAs in the U.S.


title: Naloxone

text: The 2013 documentary film "Reach for Me: Fighting to End the American Drug Overdose Epidemic" interviews people involved in naloxone programs aiming to make naloxone available to opioid users and people with chronic pain.


title: Naloxone

text: Some political commentators, law enforcement workers, and addiction specialists have argued naloxone enables opioid addiction and worsens the crisis. Some police officers report reviving the same addict multiple times and that the availability of naloxone have allowed some addicts to push their use over the edge. Radio host Lars Larson claimed that naloxone only works for an hour, and if a person does not receive stabilizing medical help in that time, the addict just overdoses again. Other critics have noted Narcan nasal spray's American manufacturer views colleges, schools, libraries, and community centers as "untapped markets" and a "growth opportunity." Narcan's manufacturer also charges $150 for the nasal spray and aggressively sues competitors looking to market a cheaper unauthorized generic version of the drug. The public relations effort to raise awareness of naloxone and promote policies such as bulk purchases by police departments obviously increases sales.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western Buddy film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman. Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman), and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid" (Robert Redford), who are on the run from a crack US posse after a string of train robberies. The pair and Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), flee to Bolivia to escape the posse.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The American Film Institute ranked "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" as the 73rd-greatest American film on its "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)" list, and number 50 on the original list. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were ranked 20th-greatest heroes on "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains". "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was selected by the American Film Institute as the 7th-greatest Western of all time in the AFI's 10 Top 10 list in 2008.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: In 1899 Wyoming, Butch Cassidy is the affable, clever, talkative leader of the outlaw Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. His closest companion is the laconic dead-shot "Sundance Kid". The two return to their hideout at Hole-in-the-Wall (Wyoming) to discover that the rest of the gang, irked at Cassidy's long absences, have selected Harvey Logan as their new leader.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Logan challenges Cassidy to a knife fight over the gang's leadership. Cassidy defeats him using trickery, but embraces Logan's idea to rob the Union Pacific "Overland Flyer" train on both its eastward and westward runs, agreeing that the second robbery would be unexpected and likely reap even more money than the first.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: The first robbery goes well. To celebrate, Cassidy visits a favorite brothel in a nearby town and watches, amused, as the town marshal unsuccessfully attempts to organize a posse to track down the gang, only to have his address to the townsfolk hijacked by a friendly bicycle salesman (he calls it "the future"). Sundance visits his lover, schoolteacher Etta Place, and they spend the night together. Cassidy joins up with them early the next morning, and takes Place for a ride on his new bike.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: On the second train robbery, Cassidy uses too much dynamite to blow open the safe, which is much larger than the safe on the previous job. The explosion demolishes the baggage car in the process. As the gang scrambles to gather up the money, a second train arrives carrying a six-man team of lawmen. The crack squad doggedly pursues Cassidy and Sundance, who try various ruses to get away, all of which fail. They try to hide out in the brothel, and then to seek amnesty from the friendly Sheriff Bledsoe, but he tells them their days are numbered and all they can do is flee.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: As the posse remains in pursuit, despite all attempts to elude them, Cassidy and Sundance determine that the group includes renowned Indian tracker "Lord Baltimore" and relentless lawman Joe Lefors, recognizable by his white skimmer. They finally elude their pursuers by jumping from a cliff into a river far below. They learn from Place that the posse has been paid by Union Pacific head E. H. Harriman to remain on their trail until they are both killed.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Cassidy convinces Sundance and Place that the three should go to Bolivia, which he envisions as a robber's paradise. On their arrival there, Sundance is dismayed by the living conditions and regards the country with contempt, but Cassidy remains optimistic. They discover that they know too little Spanish to pull off a bank robbery, so Place attempts to teach them the language. With her as an accomplice, they become successful bank robbers known as . However, their confidence drops when they see a man wearing a white hat (the signature of determined lawman Lefors) and fear that Harriman's posse is still after them.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Cassidy suggests "going straight", and he and Sundance land their first honest job as payroll guards for a mining company. However, they are ambushed by local bandits on their first run and their boss, Percy Garris, is killed. They kill the bandits, the first time Cassidy has ever shot someone. Place recommends farming or ranching as other lines of work, but they conclude the straight life isn't for them. Sensing they will be killed should they return to robbery, Place decides to go back to the United States.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Cassidy and Sundance steal a payroll and a burro used to carry it, and arrive in a small town. A boy recognizes the burro's livestock branding and alerts the local police, leading to a gunfight with the outlaws. Cassidy has to make a desperate run to the burro to get ammunition, while Sundance provides covering fire. Wounded, the two men take cover inside a nearby building. Cassidy suggests the duo's next destination should be Australia. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the two of them, the local police have called on the Bolivian Army to deal with the two outlaws. Confident of their ability to escape, the pair charge out of the building, guns blazing, directly into a hail of bullets from the massed troops who have occupied all of the surrounding vantage points. The film ends on a freeze-frame, as sounds of the Bolivian troops firing on the doomed outlaws are heard.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: William Goldman first came across the story of Butch Cassidy in the late 1950s and researched intermittently for eight years before starting to write the screenplay. Goldman says he wrote the story as an original screenplay because he did not want to do the research to make it as authentic as a novel. Goldman later stated:


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: The whole reason I wrote the ... thing, there is that famous line that Scott Fitzgerald wrote, who was one of my heroes, "There are no second acts in American lives." When I read about Cassidy and Longabaugh and the superposse coming after them—that's phenomenal material. They ran to South America and lived there for eight years and that was what thrilled me: they had a second act. They were more legendary in South America than they had been in the old West ... It's a great story. Those two guys and that pretty girl going down to South America and all that stuff. It just seems to me it's a wonderful piece of material.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: The characters' flight to South America caused one executive to reject the script, as it was then unusual in Western films for the protagonists to flee.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: According to Goldman, when he first wrote the script and sent it out for consideration, only one studio wanted to buy it—and that was with the proviso that the two lead characters did not flee to South America. When Goldman protested that that was what had happened, the studio head responded, "I don't give a shit. All I know is John Wayne don't run away."


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Goldman rewrote the script, "didn't change it more than a few pages, and subsequently found that every studio wanted it."


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: The role of Sundance was offered to Jack Lemmon, whose production company, JML, had produced the film "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) starring Newman. Lemmon, however, turned down the role because he did not like riding horses and felt that he had already played too many aspects of the Sundance Kid's character before. Other actors considered for the role of Sundance were Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty, who both turned it down, with Beatty claiming that the film was too similar to "Bonnie and Clyde". According to Goldman, McQueen and Newman both read the scripts at the same time and agreed to do the film. McQueen eventually backed out of the film due to disagreements with Newman. The two actors would eventually team up in the 1974 disaster film "The Towering Inferno". Jacqueline Bisset was a top contender for the role of Etta Place.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Filming locations include the ghost town of Grafton, Zion National Park, Snow Canyon State Park, and the city of St. George. These areas remain popular film tourism destinations, including the Cassidy Trail in Reds Canyon.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: The world premiere of the film was on September 23, 1969, at the Roger Sherman Theater, in New Haven, Connecticut. The premiere was attended by Paul Newman, his wife Joanne Woodward, Robert Redford, George Roy Hill, William Goldman, and John Foreman, among others. It opened the next day in New York City at the Penthouse and Sutton theatres.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: The film became available on DVD on May 16, 2000, in a Special Edition that is also available on VHS.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: The film grossed $82,625 in its opening week from two theatres in New York City. The following week it expanded and became the number one film in the United States and Canada for two weeks. It went on to earn $15 million in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada by the end of 1969. According to Fox records the film required $13,850,000 in rentals to break even and by December 11, 1970, had made $36,825,000 so made a considerable profit to the studio. It eventually returned $45,953,000 in rentals.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Early reviews gave the film mediocre grades, and New York and national reviews were "mixed to terrible" though better elsewhere, screenwriter William Goldman recalled in his book "Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade".


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: "Time" magazine said the film's two male stars are "afflicted with cinematic schizophrenia. One moment they are sinewy, battered remnants of a discarded tradition. The next, they are low comedians whose chaffing relationship—and dialogue—could have been lifted from a Batman and Robin episode." "Time" also criticized the film's score as absurd and anachronistic.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Roger Ebert's review of the movie was a mixed 2.5 out of 4 stars. He praised the beginning of the film and its three lead actors, but felt the film progressed too slowly and had an unsatisfactory ending. But after Harriman hires his posse, Ebert thought the movie's quality declined: "Hill apparently spent a lot of money to take his company on location for these scenes, and I guess when he got back to Hollywood he couldn't bear to edit them out of the final version. So the Super-posse chases our heroes unceasingly, until we've long since forgotten how well the movie started.”


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: Over time, major American movie reviewers have been widely favorable. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 88% approval rating based on 52 reviews and an average score of 8.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "With its iconic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, jaunty screenplay and Burt Bacharach score, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" has gone down as among the defining moments in late-'60s American cinema."


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #11 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: The film inspired the television series "Alias Smith and Jones", starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy as outlaws trying to earn an amnesty.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: A parody titled "Botch Casually and the Somedunce Kid" was published in "Mad". It was illustrated by Mort Drucker and written by Arnie Kogen in issue No. 136, July 1970.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: In 1979 "", a prequel, was released starring Tom Berenger as Butch Cassidy and William Katt as the Sundance Kid. It was directed by Richard Lester and written by Allan Burns. William Goldman, the writer of the original film, was an executive producer. Jeff Corey was the only actor to appear in the original and the prequel.


title: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

text: In September 2022, Amazon Studios announced a television adaptation of the film, starring Regé-Jean Page and Glen Powell. Joe and Anthony Russo will be executive producers under their AGBO production banner.


title: Rapture

text: The rapture is an eschatological position held by some Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurrected believers, will rise "in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." The origin of the term extends from Paul the Apostle's First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, in which he uses the Greek word (), meaning "to snatch away" or "to seize," and explains that believers in Jesus Christ would be snatched away from earth into the air.


title: Rapture

text: The idea of a rapture as it is currently defined is not found in historic Christianity, and is a relatively recent doctrine. The term is used frequently among fundamentalist theologians in the United States. "Rapture" has also been used for a mystical union with God or for eternal life in Heaven.


title: Rapture

text: This view of eschatology is referred to as premillennial dispensationalism, which is a form of futurism.


title: Rapture

text: Differing viewpoints exist about the exact timing of the rapture and whether Christ's return would occur in one event or two. Pretribulationism distinguishes the rapture from the second coming of Jesus Christ mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, 2 Thessalonians, and Revelation. This view holds that the rapture would precede the seven-year Tribulation, which would culminate in Christ's second coming and be followed by a thousand-year Messianic Kingdom. This theory grew out of the translations of the Bible that John Nelson Darby analyzed in 1833. Pretribulationism is the most widely held view among Christians believing in the rapture today, although this view is disputed within evangelicalism. Some assert a post-tribulational rapture.


title: Rapture

text: Most Christian denominations do not subscribe to rapture theology and have a different interpretation of the aerial gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, the United Church of Christ, most Methodist and Reformed Christians, Unity Church, Latter-day Saints, etc. do not generally use "rapture" as a specific theological term, nor do they generally subscribe to the premillennial dispensational views associated with its use. Instead these groups typically interpret "rapture" in the sense of the elect gathering with Christ in Heaven after his second coming and reject the idea that a large segment of humanity will be left behind on earth for an extended tribulation period after the events of 1 Thessalonians 4:17.


title: Rapture

text: "Rapture" is derived from Middle French , via the Medieval Latin ("seizure, kidnapping"), which derives from the Latin ("a carrying off").


title: Rapture

text: The Koine Greek of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 uses the verb form (), which means "we shall be caught up" or "we shall be taken away". The dictionary form of this Greek verb is (). This use is also seen in such texts as Acts 8:39, 2 Corinthians 12:2–4, and Revelation 12:5. Linguist, Dr. Douglas Hamp, notes that Greek scholar Spiros Zodhiates lists as the first-person plural future passive indicative of the Greek stem, "harpagē" (har-pag-ay), “the act of plundering, plunder, spoil.” The future passive indicative of "harpázō" (although not used by Paul in 1 Thess. 4:17) can be viewed at verbix.com: αρπασθησόμεθα ("harpasthesometha"). GS724 "harpagē" means":" 1. the act of plundering, robbery; 2. plunder, spoil. When the rapture and the "restoration of all things" (Acts 3:20-21) are viewed as simultaneous events (according to Romans 8:19-21) then it makes sense why Paul would use "shall be plundered" to match the verbiage of the distortion of the Earth described in Isaiah 24:3, "The land shall be entirely emptied and utterly plundered...".


title: Rapture

text: The Latin Vulgate translates the Greek as meaning "we are caught up" or "we are taken away" from the Latin verb meaning "to catch up" or "take away".


title: Rapture

text: The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Anglican Communion, and Reformed denominations have no tradition of a preliminary return of Christ. The Eastern Orthodox Church, for example, favors amillennial or postmillennial interpretation of prophetic Scriptures and thus rejects a preliminary, premillennial return. Most Methodists do not adhere to the dispensationalist view of the rapture.


title: Rapture

text: Fundamentalist Baptists, Bible churches, Brethren churches, certain Methodist denominations, Pentecostals, non-denominational evangelicals, and various other evangelical groups typically adhere to the pretribulational Rapture. As dispensationalism began to rise in America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, pretribulationism became common among many Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians. Today, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians rarely hold to pretribulationism.


title: Rapture

text: Most premillennialists distinguish the Rapture and the Second Coming as separate events. Some dispensational premillennialists (including many evangelicals) hold the return of Christ to be two distinct events (i.e., Christ's second coming in two stages). According to this view, 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 is a description of a preliminary event to the return described in Matthew 24:29–31. Although both describe a coming of Jesus, these are seen to be different events. The first event is a coming where the saved are to be 'caught up,' whence the term "rapture" is taken. The second event is described as the second coming. The majority of dispensationalists hold that the first event precedes the period of tribulation, even if not immediately (see chart for additional dispensationalist timing views). Dispensationalists distinguish these events as a result of own literal understanding of Paul's words.


title: Rapture

text: Amillennialists deny the interpretation of a literal thousand-year earthly rule of Christ. There is considerable overlap in the beliefs of amillennialists (including most Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Lutherans), postmillennialists (including Presbyterians), and historic premillennialists (including some Calvinistic Baptists) with those who hold that the return of Christ will be a single, public event.


title: Rapture

text: Some proponents believe the doctrine of amillennialism originated with Alexandrian scholars such as Clement and Origen and later became Catholic dogma through Augustine.


title: Rapture

text: Dispensationalists see the immediate destination of the raptured Christians as being Heaven. Catholic commentators, such as (1912), identify the destination of the 1 Thessalonians 4:17 gathering as Heaven.


title: Rapture

text: While Anglicans have many views, some Anglican commentators, such as N. T. Wright, identify the destination as a specific place on Earth. This interpretation may sometimes be connected to Christian environmentalist concerns.


title: Rapture

text: There are numerous views regarding the timing of the Rapture. Some maintain that Matthew 24:37–40 refers to the Rapture, pointing out similarities between the two texts, indicating that the Rapture would occur at the "parousia" of the Lord. Others point out that neither "church" nor "rapture" occur in Matthew 24 and there are significant differences between Matthew 24:37–40 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18. As a result, these two texts receive the overwhelming focus within discussions about the Rapture's timing. The two texts are as follows:


title: Rapture

text: In the amillennial and postmillennial views there are no distinctions in the timing of the Rapture. These views regard that the Rapture, as it is described in 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17, would be identical to the Second Coming of Jesus as described in Matthew 24:29–31 after the spiritual/symbolic millennium.


title: Rapture

text: In the premillennial view, the Rapture would be before a literal, earthly millennium. Within premillennialism, the pretribulation position distinguishes between the Rapture and the Second Coming as two different events. There are also other positions within premillennialism that differ with regard to the timing of the Rapture.


title: Rapture

text: In the earliest days of the church, chiliastic teaching (i.e., early premillennialism) was the dominant view. Eusebius wrote, "To these [written accounts] belong his [Papias of Hierapolis] statement that there will be a period of some thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, and that the kingdom of Christ will be set up in the material form on this very earth. [...] But it was due to him that so many of the Church Fathers after him adopted a like opinion, urging in their own support the antiquity of the man; as for instance Irenaeus and anyone else that may have proclaimed similar views."


title: Rapture

text: Schaff further confirms this by stating, "The most striking point in the eschatology of the ante-Nicene age is the prominent chiliasm, or millennarianism, that is the belief of a visible reign of Christ in glory on earth with the risen saints for a thousand years, before the general resurrection and judgment."


title: Rapture

text: Over time, however, a clash surfaced between two schools of interpretation, the Antiochene and Alexandrian schools. The Alexandrian school's roots can be traced back to the influence of Philo, a Hellenized Jew who sought to reconcile God's veracity with what he thought were errors in the Tanakh. Alexandrian theologians viewed the Millennium as a symbolic reign of Christ from Heaven. Through the influence of Origen and Augustine—students of the Alexandrian school—allegorical interpretation rose to prominence, and its eschatology became the majority view for more than a thousand years. As a reaction to the rise of allegorical interpretation the Antiochene school insisted on a literal hermeneutic. but did little to counter the Alexandrian's symbolic Millennium.


title: Rapture

text: In the twelfth century futurism became prominent again when Joachim of Fiore (1130–1202) wrote a commentary on Revelation and insisted that the end was near and taught that God would restore the earth, the Jews would be converted, and the Millennium would take place on earth. His teaching influenced much of Europe.


title: Rapture

text: Though the Catholic Church does not generally regard Biblical prophecy in texts such as Daniel and Revelation as strictly future-based (when viewed from the standpoint of our present time), in 1590 Francisco Ribera, a Catholic Jesuit, taught futurism. He also taught that a gathering-of-the-elect event (similar to what is now called the rapture) would happen 45 days before the end of a 3.5-year tribulation.


title: Rapture

text: The concept of the rapture, in connection with premillennialism, was expressed by the 17th-century American Puritans Increase and Cotton Mather. They held to the idea that believers would be caught up in the air, followed by judgments on earth, and then the millennium.


title: Rapture

text: Other 17th-century expressions of the rapture are found in the works of: Robert Maton, Nathaniel Holmes, John Browne, Thomas Vincent, Henry Danvers, and William Sherwin.


title: Rapture

text: The term "rapture" was used by Philip Doddridge and John Gill in their New Testament commentaries, with the idea that believers would be caught up prior to judgment on earth and Jesus' second coming.