title: Mackinac Bridge

text: During the summer months, the Upper Peninsula and the Mackinac Bridge have become a major tourist destination. In addition to visitors to Mackinac Island, the bridge has attracted interest from a diverse group of tourists including bridge enthusiasts, bird-watchers, and photographers. The Straits area is a popular sailing destination for boats of all types, which make it easier to get a closer view to the underlying structure of the bridge.


title: Mackinac Bridge

text: On June 25, 1958, to coincide with that year's celebration of the November 1957 opening, the United States Postal Service (USPS) released a 3¢ commemorative stamp featuring the recently completed bridge. It was entitled "Connecting the Peninsulas of Michigan" and 107,195,200 copies were issued. The USPS again honored the Mackinac Bridge as the subject of its 2010 priority mail $4.90 stamp, which went on sale February 3. The bridge authority and MDOT unveiled the stamp, which featured a "seagull's-eye view" of the landmark, with a passing freighter below. Artist Dan Cosgrove worked from panoramic photographs to create the artwork. This is one of several designs that Cosgrove has produced for the USPS.


title: Mackinac Bridge

text: On April 24, 1959, Captain John S. Lappo, an officer in the Strategic Air Command, operating from Lockbourne AFB flew his Boeing B-47 Stratojet beneath the bridge. Following a general court-martial, he was grounded for life.


title: Mackinac Bridge

text: A feature-length documentary entitled "Building the Mighty Mac" was produced by Hollywood filmmaker Mark Howell in 1997 and was shown on PBS. The program features numerous interviews with the key people who built the structure and includes restored 16mm color footage of the bridge's construction.


title: Mackinac Bridge

text: The history and building of the bridge was featured in a 2003 episode of the History Channel TV show "Modern Marvels".


title: Mackinac Bridge

text: On July 19, 2007, the Detroit Science Center unveiled an , scale model of the Mackinac Bridge. The exhibit was part of the state's 50th anniversary celebration of the bridge. Sherwin-Williams supplied authentic Mackinac Bridge-colored paint for the project.


title: Mackinac Bridge

text: The bridge and its maintenance crew were featured in an episode of the Discovery Channel TV show "Dirty Jobs" on August 7, 2007. Host Mike Rowe and crew spent several days filming the episode in May 2007.


title: Mackinac Bridge

text: MDOT also featured the bridge on the cover of the 2007 state highway map to celebrate its 50th anniversary.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The Banach–Tarski paradox is a theorem in set-theoretic geometry, which states the following: Given a solid ball in three-dimensional space, there exists a decomposition of the ball into a finite number of disjoint subsets, which can then be put back together in a different way to yield two identical copies of the original ball. Indeed, the reassembly process involves only moving the pieces around and rotating them without changing their shape. However, the pieces themselves are not "solids" in the usual sense, but infinite scatterings of points. The reconstruction can work with as few as five pieces.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: An alternative form of the theorem states that given any two "reasonable" solid objects (such as a small ball and a huge ball), the cut pieces of either one can be reassembled into the other. This is often stated informally as "a pea can be chopped up and reassembled into the Sun" and called the "pea and the Sun paradox".


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The theorem is called a paradox because it contradicts basic geometric intuition. "Doubling the ball" by dividing it into parts and moving them around by rotations and translations, without any stretching, bending, or adding new points, seems to be impossible, since all these operations "ought", intuitively speaking, to preserve the volume. The intuition that such operations preserve volumes is not mathematically absurd and it is even included in the formal definition of volumes. However, this is not applicable here because in this case it is impossible to define the volumes of the considered subsets. Reassembling them reproduces a set that has a volume, which happens to be different from the volume at the start.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Unlike most theorems in geometry, the mathematical proof of this result depends on the choice of axioms for set theory in a critical way. It can be proven using the axiom of choice, which allows for the construction of non-measurable sets, i.e., collections of points that do not have a volume in the ordinary sense, and whose construction requires an uncountable number of choices.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: It was shown in 2005 that the pieces in the decomposition can be chosen in such a way that they can be moved continuously into place without running into one another.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: As proved independently by Leroy and Simpson, the Banach–Tarski paradox does not violate volumes if one works with locales rather than topological spaces. In this abstract setting, it is possible to have subspaces without point but still nonempty. The parts of the paradoxical decomposition do intersect a lot in the sense of locales, so much that some of these intersections should be given a positive mass. Allowing for this hidden mass to be taken into account, the theory of locales permits all subsets (and even all sublocales) of the Euclidean space to be satisfactorily measured.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: In a paper published in 1924, Stefan Banach and Alfred Tarski gave a construction of such a paradoxical decomposition, based on earlier work by Giuseppe Vitali concerning the unit interval and on the paradoxical decompositions of the sphere by Felix Hausdorff, and discussed a number of related questions concerning decompositions of subsets of Euclidean spaces in various dimensions. They proved the following more general statement, the strong form of the Banach–Tarski paradox:


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Now let be the original ball and be the union of two translated copies of the original ball. Then the proposition means that you can divide the original ball into a certain number of pieces and then rotate and translate these pieces in such a way that the result is the whole set , which contains two copies of .


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The strong form of the Banach–Tarski paradox is false in dimensions one and two, but Banach and Tarski showed that an analogous statement remains true if countably many subsets are allowed. The difference between dimensions 1 and 2 on the one hand, and 3 and higher on the other hand, is due to the richer structure of the group of Euclidean motions in 3 dimensions. For the group is solvable, but for it contains a free group with two generators. John von Neumann studied the properties of the group of equivalences that make a paradoxical decomposition possible, and introduced the notion of amenable groups. He also found a form of the paradox in the plane which uses area-preserving affine transformations in place of the usual congruences.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Tarski proved that amenable groups are precisely those for which no paradoxical decompositions exist. Since only free subgroups are needed in the Banach–Tarski paradox, this led to the long-standing von Neumann conjecture, which was disproved in 1980.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The Banach–Tarski paradox states that a ball in the ordinary Euclidean space can be doubled using only the operations of partitioning into subsets, replacing a set with a congruent set, and reassembling. Its mathematical structure is greatly elucidated by emphasizing the role played by the group of Euclidean motions and introducing the notions of equidecomposable sets and a paradoxical set. Suppose that is a group acting on a set . In the most important special case, is an -dimensional Euclidean space (for integral "n"), and consists of all isometries of , i.e. the transformations of into itself that preserve the distances, usually denoted . Two geometric figures that can be transformed into each other are called congruent, and this terminology will be extended to the general -action. Two subsets and of are called -equidecomposable, or equidecomposable with respect to , if and can be partitioned into the same finite number of respectively -congruent pieces. This defines an equivalence relation among all subsets of . Formally, if there exist non-empty sets formula_3, formula_4 such that


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: then it can be said that and are -equidecomposable using pieces. If a set has two disjoint subsets and such that and , as well as and , are -equidecomposable, then is called paradoxical.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: In fact, there is a sharp result in this case, due to Raphael M. Robinson: doubling the ball can be accomplished with five pieces, and fewer than five pieces will not suffice.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: While apparently more general, this statement is derived in a simple way from the doubling of a ball by using a generalization of the Bernstein–Schroeder theorem due to Banach that implies that if is equidecomposable with a subset of and is equidecomposable with a subset of , then and are equidecomposable.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The Banach–Tarski paradox can be put in context by pointing out that for two sets in the strong form of the paradox, there is always a bijective function that can map the points in one shape into the other in a one-to-one fashion. In the language of Georg Cantor's set theory, these two sets have equal cardinality. Thus, if one enlarges the group to allow arbitrary bijections of , then all sets with non-empty interior become congruent. Likewise, one ball can be made into a larger or smaller ball by stretching, or in other words, by applying similarity transformations. Hence, if the group is large enough, -equidecomposable sets may be found whose "size"s vary. Moreover, since a countable set can be made into two copies of itself, one might expect that using countably many pieces could somehow do the trick.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: On the other hand, in the Banach–Tarski paradox, the number of pieces is finite and the allowed equivalences are Euclidean congruences, which preserve the volumes. Yet, somehow, they end up doubling the volume of the ball! While this is certainly surprising, some of the pieces used in the paradoxical decomposition are non-measurable sets, so the notion of volume (more precisely, Lebesgue measure) is not defined for them, and the partitioning cannot be accomplished in a practical way. In fact, the Banach–Tarski paradox demonstrates that it is impossible to find a finitely-additive measure (or a Banach measure) defined on all subsets of a Euclidean space of three (and greater) dimensions that is invariant with respect to Euclidean motions and takes the value one on a unit cube. In his later work, Tarski showed that, conversely, non-existence of paradoxical decompositions of this type implies the existence of a finitely-additive invariant measure.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The heart of the proof of the "doubling the ball" form of the paradox presented below is the remarkable fact that by a Euclidean isometry (and renaming of elements), one can divide a certain set (essentially, the surface of a unit sphere) into four parts, then rotate one of them to become itself plus two of the other parts. This follows rather easily from a -paradoxical decomposition of , the free group with two generators. Banach and Tarski's proof relied on an analogous fact discovered by Hausdorff some years earlier: the surface of a unit sphere in space is a disjoint union of three sets and a countable set such that, on the one hand, are pairwise congruent, and on the other hand, is congruent with the union of and . This is often called the Hausdorff paradox.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Banach and Tarski explicitly acknowledge Giuseppe Vitali's 1905 construction of the set bearing his name, Hausdorff's paradox (1914), and an earlier (1923) paper of Banach as the precursors to their work. Vitali's and Hausdorff's constructions depend on Zermelo's axiom of choice ("AC"), which is also crucial to the Banach–Tarski paper, both for proving their paradox and for the proof of another result:


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: They point out that while the second result fully agrees with geometric intuition, its proof uses AC in an even more substantial way than the proof of the paradox. Thus Banach and Tarski imply that AC should not be rejected solely because it produces a paradoxical decomposition, for such an argument also undermines proofs of geometrically intuitive statements.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: However, in 1949, A. P. Morse showed that the statement about Euclidean polygons can be proved in ZF set theory and thus does not require the axiom of choice. In 1964, Paul Cohen proved that the axiom of choice is independent from ZF – that is, it cannot be proved from ZF. A weaker version of an axiom of choice is the axiom of dependent choice, DC, and it has been shown that DC is sufficient for proving the Banach–Tarski paradox, that is,


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Large amounts of mathematics use AC. As Stan Wagon points out at the end of his monograph, the Banach–Tarski paradox has been more significant for its role in pure mathematics than for foundational questions: it motivated a fruitful new direction for research, the amenability of groups, which has nothing to do with the foundational questions.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: In 1991, using then-recent results by Matthew Foreman and Friedrich Wehrung, Janusz Pawlikowski proved that the Banach–Tarski paradox follows from ZF plus the Hahn–Banach theorem. The Hahn–Banach theorem does not rely on the full axiom of choice but can be proved using a weaker version of AC called the ultrafilter lemma. So Pawlikowski proved that the set theory needed to prove the Banach–Tarski paradox, while stronger than ZF, is weaker than full ZFC.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Here a proof is sketched which is similar but not identical to that given by Banach and Tarski. Essentially, the paradoxical decomposition of the ball is achieved in four steps:


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The free group with two generators "a" and "b" consists of all finite strings that can be formed from the four symbols "a", "a", "b" and "b" such that no "a" appears directly next to an "a" and no "b" appears directly next to a "b". Two such strings can be concatenated and converted into a string of this type by repeatedly replacing the "forbidden" substrings with the empty string. For instance: "abab""a" concatenated with "abab""a" yields "abab""a""abab""a", which contains the substring "a""a", and so gets reduced to "abab""bab""a", which contains the substring "b""b", which gets reduced to . One can check that the set of those strings with this operation forms a group with identity element the empty string "e". This group may be called "F".


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The group formula_9 can be "paradoxically decomposed" as follows: Let "S"("a") be the set of all non-forbidden strings that start with "a" and define "S"("a"), "S"("b") and "S"("b") similarly. Clearly,


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: where the notation "aS"("a") means take all the strings in "S"("a") and concatenate them on the left with "a".


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: This is at the core of the proof. For example, there may be a string formula_13 in the set formula_14 which, because of the rule that formula_15 must not appear next to formula_16, reduces to the string formula_17. Similarly, formula_14 contains all the strings that start with formula_16 (for example, the string formula_20 which reduces to formula_16). In this way, formula_14 contains all the strings that start with formula_17, formula_24 and formula_16, as well as the empty string formula_26.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Group "F" has been cut into four pieces (plus the singleton {"e"}), then two of them "shifted" by multiplying with "a" or "b", then "reassembled" as two pieces to make one copy of formula_9 and the other two to make another copy of formula_9. That is exactly what is intended to do to the ball.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: In order to find a free group of rotations of 3D space, i.e. that behaves just like (or "is isomorphic to") the free group "F", two orthogonal axes are taken (e.g. the "x" and "z" axes). Then, "A" is taken to be a rotation of formula_29 about the "x" axis, and "B" to be a rotation of formula_30 about the "z" axis (there are many other suitable pairs of irrational multiples of π that could be used here as well).


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Let formula_31 be an element of H that starts with a positive rotation about the "z" axis, that is, an element of the form formula_32 with formula_33. It can be shown by induction that formula_31 maps the point formula_35 to formula_36, for some formula_37. Analyzing formula_38 and formula_39 modulo 3, one can show that formula_40. The same argument repeated (by symmetry of the problem) is valid when formula_31 starts with a negative rotation about the "z" axis, or a rotation about the "x" axis. This shows that if formula_31 is given by a non-trivial word in "A" and "B", then formula_43. Therefore, the group H is a free group, isomorphic to "F".


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The two rotations behave just like the elements "a" and "b" in the group "F": there is now a paradoxical decomposition of H.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: This step cannot be performed in two dimensions since it involves rotations in three dimensions. If two rotations are taken about the same axis, the resulting group is the abelian circle group and does not have the property required in step 1.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: An alternate arithmetic proof of the existence of free groups in some special orthogonal groups using integral quaternions leads to paradoxical decompositions of the rotation group.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The unit sphere "S" is partitioned into orbits by the action of our group H: two points belong to the same orbit if and only if there is a rotation in H which moves the first point into the second. (Note that the orbit of a point is a dense set in "S".) The axiom of choice can be used to pick exactly one point from every orbit; collect these points into a set "M". The action of H on a given orbit is free and transitive and so


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: each orbit can be identified with H. In other words, every point in "S" can be reached in exactly one way by applying the proper rotation from H to the proper element from "M". Because of this, the paradoxical decomposition of H yields a paradoxical decomposition of "S" into four pieces "A", "A", "A", "A" as follows:


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The (majority of the) sphere has now been divided into four sets (each one dense on the sphere), and when two of these are rotated, the result is double of what was had before:


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Finally, connect every point on "S" with a half-open segment to the origin; the paradoxical decomposition of "S" then yields a paradoxical decomposition of the solid unit ball minus the point at the ball's center. (This center point needs a bit more care; see below.)


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: "N.B." This sketch glosses over some details. One has to be careful about the set of points on the sphere which happen to lie on the axis of some rotation in H. However, there are only countably many such points, and like the case of the point at the center of the ball, it is possible to patch the proof to account for them all. (See below.)


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: In Step 3, the sphere was partitioned into orbits of our group H. To streamline the proof, the discussion of points that are fixed by some rotation was omitted; since the paradoxical decomposition of "F" relies on shifting certain subsets, the fact that some points are fixed might cause some trouble. Since any rotation of "S" (other than the null rotation) has exactly two fixed points, and since H, which is isomorphic to "F", is countable, there are countably many points of "S" that are fixed by some rotation in H. Denote this set of fixed points as "D". Step 3 proves that "S" − "D" admits a paradoxical decomposition.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: "Proof." Let λ be some line through the origin that does not intersect any point in "D". This is possible since "D" is countable. Let "J" be the set of angles, α, such that for some natural number "n", and some "P" in "D", r("n"α)P is also in "D", where r("n"α) is a rotation about λ of "n"α. Then "J" is countable. So there exists an angle θ not in "J". Let ρ be the rotation about λ by θ. Then ρ acts on "S" with no fixed points in "D", i.e., ρ("D") is disjoint from "D", and for natural "m"<"n", ρ("D") is disjoint from ρ("D"). Let "E" be the disjoint union of ρ("D") over "n" = 0, 1, 2, ... . Then "S" = "E" ∪ ("S" − "E") ~ ρ("E") ∪ ("S" − "E") = ("E" − "D") ∪ ("S" − "E") = "S" − "D", where ~ denotes "is equidecomposable to".


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: For step 4, it has already been shown that the ball minus a point admits a paradoxical decomposition; it remains to be shown that the ball minus a point is equidecomposable with the ball. Consider a circle within the ball, containing the point at the center of the ball. Using an argument like that used to prove the Claim, one can see that the full circle is equidecomposable with the circle minus the point at the ball's center. (Basically, a countable set of points on the circle can be rotated to give itself plus one more point.) Note that this involves the rotation about a point other than the origin, so the Banach–Tarski paradox involves isometries of Euclidean 3-space rather than just SO(3).


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Use is made of the fact that if "A" ~ "B" and "B" ~ "C", then "A" ~ "C". The decomposition of "A" into "C" can be done using number of pieces equal to the product of the numbers needed for taking "A" into "B" and for taking "B" into "C".


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The proof sketched above requires 2 × 4 × 2 + 8 = 24 pieces - a factor of 2 to remove fixed points, a factor 4 from step 1, a factor 2 to recreate fixed points, and 8 for the center point of the second ball. But in step 1 when moving {"e"} and all strings of the form "a" into "S"("a"), do this to all orbits except one. Move {"e"} of this last orbit to the center point of the second ball. This brings the total down to 16 + 1 pieces. With more algebra, one can also decompose fixed orbits into 4 sets as in step 1. This gives 5 pieces and is the best possible.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: Using the Banach–Tarski paradox, it is possible to obtain "k" copies of a ball in the Euclidean "n"-space from one, for any integers "n" ≥ 3 and "k" ≥ 1, i.e. a ball can be cut into "k" pieces so that each of them is equidecomposable to a ball of the same size as the original. Using the fact that the free group "F" of rank 2 admits a free subgroup of countably infinite rank, a similar proof yields that the unit sphere "S" can be partitioned into countably infinitely many pieces, each of which is equidecomposable (with two pieces) to the "S" using rotations. By using analytic properties of the rotation group SO("n"), which is a connected analytic Lie group, one can further prove that the sphere "S" can be partitioned into as many pieces as there are real numbers (that is, formula_52 pieces), so that each piece is equidecomposable with two pieces to "S" using rotations. These results then extend to the unit ball deprived of the origin. A 2010 article by Valeriy Churkin gives a new proof of the continuous version of the Banach–Tarski paradox.


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: In the Euclidean plane, two figures that are equidecomposable with respect to the group of Euclidean motions are necessarily of the same area, and therefore, a paradoxical decomposition of a square or disk of Banach–Tarski type that uses only Euclidean congruences is impossible. A conceptual explanation of the distinction between the planar and higher-dimensional cases was given by John von Neumann: unlike the group SO(3) of rotations in three dimensions, the group "E"(2) of Euclidean motions of the plane is solvable, which implies the existence of a finitely-additive measure on "E"(2) and R which is invariant under translations and rotations, and rules out paradoxical decompositions of non-negligible sets. Von Neumann then posed the following question: can such a paradoxical decomposition be constructed if one allows a larger group of equivalences?


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: It is clear that if one permits similarities, any two squares in the plane become equivalent even without further subdivision. This motivates restricting one's attention to the group "SA" of area-preserving affine transformations. Since the area is preserved, any paradoxical decomposition of a square with respect to this group would be counterintuitive for the same reasons as the Banach–Tarski decomposition of a ball. In fact, the group "SA" contains as a subgroup the special linear group "SL"(2,R), which in its turn contains the free group "F" with two generators as a subgroup. This makes it plausible that the proof of Banach–Tarski paradox can be imitated in the plane. The main difficulty here lies in the fact that the unit square is not invariant under the action of the linear group "SL"(2, R), hence one cannot simply transfer a paradoxical decomposition from the group to the square, as in the third step of the above proof of the Banach–Tarski paradox. Moreover, the fixed points of the group present difficulties (for example, the origin is fixed under all linear transformations). This is why von Neumann used the larger group "SA" including the translations, and he constructed a paradoxical decomposition of the unit square with respect to the enlarged group (in 1929). Applying the Banach–Tarski method, the paradox for the square can be strengthened as follows:


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: To explain further, the question of whether a finitely additive measure (that is preserved under certain transformations) exists or not depends on what transformations are allowed. The Banach measure of sets in the plane, which is preserved by translations and rotations, is not preserved by non-isometric transformations even when they do preserve the area of polygons. The points of the plane (other than the origin) can be divided into two dense sets which may be called "A" and "B". If the "A" points of a given polygon are transformed by a certain area-preserving transformation and the "B" points by another, both sets can become subsets of the "A" points in two new polygons. The new polygons have the same area as the old polygon, but the two transformed sets cannot have the same measure as before (since they contain only part of the "A" points), and therefore there is no measure that "works".


title: Banach–Tarski paradox

text: The class of groups isolated by von Neumann in the course of study of Banach–Tarski phenomenon turned out to be very important for many areas of Mathematics: these are amenable groups, or groups with an invariant mean, and include all finite and all solvable groups. Generally speaking, paradoxical decompositions arise when the group used for equivalences in the definition of equidecomposability is "not" amenable.


title: Luol Deng

text: Luol Ajou Deng (born 16 April 1985) is a British former professional basketball player. He was a two-time NBA All-Star and was named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team in 2012. Born in what is now South Sudan, Deng fled the country with his family as a child, eventually settling in the United Kingdom. He became a British citizen in 2006, and has played for the Great Britain national team.


title: Luol Deng

text: After playing college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils, Deng was selected by the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the 2004 NBA draft with the seventh overall pick. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team as a 19-year-old in 2005. The small forward was an All-Star with the Bulls in 2012 and 2013 before splitting the 2013–14 season with the Cleveland Cavaliers. After just half a season with Cleveland, Deng joined the Miami Heat for 2014–15. He played two seasons for the Heat before signing with the Lakers in 2016. He spent his last season with the Minnesota Timberwolves.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng was born in Wau, Sudan (now in South Sudan) and is a member of the Dinka ethnic group. When he was young, his father Aldo, a member of the Sudanese parliament, moved the family to Egypt to escape the Second Sudanese Civil War. In Egypt, they met former NBA center Manute Bol, another Dinka, who taught Deng's older brother, Ajou Deng, how to play basketball and also mentored Luol. When they were granted political asylum, his family immigrated to Brixton, South London.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng was educated at St. Mary's RC High School, a voluntary aided state comprehensive school in Croydon in South London. He developed an interest in football, admiring Faustino Asprilla of Newcastle United, but also continued to play basketball, and was invited to join England's 15-and-under team in that sport. During this time, he began his career at Brixton Basketball Club. He represented Croydon at the London Youth Games, and was inducted into their Hall of Fame. At age 13, he played for England's squad in the European Junior Men's Qualifying Tournament, averaging 40 points and 14 rebounds. He was named the (MVP) of the tournament. Next, he led England to the finals of the European Junior National Tournament, where he averaged (34) points and earned another (MVP) award.


title: Luol Deng

text: At age 14, Luol moved to the United States to play basketball at Blair Academy in New Jersey. One of his teammates was future (NBA) player Charlie Villanueva. Deng was also named a Tri-Captain at Blair along with Villanueva. During his senior year, Deng was considered the second most promising high school senior in America after LeBron James and was named First Team All-America by "Parade" and USA Today. He was selected to play in the McDonald's High School All-America game, but could not play due to a foot injury.


title: Luol Deng

text: Considered a five-star recruit by Rivals.com, Deng was listed as the No. 1 small forward and the No. 2 player in the nation in 2003.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng accepted an athletic scholarship to attend Duke University, where he played for coach Mike Krzyzewski's Duke Blue Devils basketball team in 2003–04. In one season at Duke, he appeared in 37 games and made 32 starts. He averaged 30.1 minutes and scored 15.1 points per game en route to a berth in the 2004 Final Four. He was only the 10th freshman in ACC history to lead all freshmen in scoring, rebounding, and field goal percentage.


title: Luol Deng

text: After one year at Duke, Deng entered the 2004 NBA draft. He was picked seventh overall by the Phoenix Suns, but was immediately traded to the Chicago Bulls by prior agreement. Deng suffered a season-ending wrist injury late in his rookie season, but still made the NBA All-Rookie First Team to help the resurgent Bulls return to the playoffs for the first time in seven years. Deng played in 61 games and averaged 11.7 points per game. On 8 February, Deng recorded his first double-double vs. the Dallas Mavericks.


title: Luol Deng

text: In his second season, he posted strong performances throughout March and April to help the Bulls earn their second consecutive playoff berth. His offensive statistics improved in his sophomore season, increasing his scoring to 14.3 points per game, and increasing his rebounding to 6.6 per game, up from a 5.3 average his rookie season. Deng had four straight double-double performances from 28 February to 5 March, with at least ten points and rebounds in each game. In the playoffs, the Bulls faced off against the Miami Heat in a best of 7-game series. Deng came off the bench in all six games, averaging ten points per game.


title: Luol Deng

text: For the 2006–07 season, Deng was the only Bull to start all 82 regular season games. All of his numbers continued to improve, and he led the team in minutes played (37.5) and field goal percentage (.517), while playing a strong second scoring option to Ben Gordon, with a marked improvement to 18.8 points per game. Deng also notably rarely committed fouls on defense (2.00 per game), despite the minutes he played and frequently being outsized in matchups against power forwards such as Kevin Garnett.


title: Luol Deng

text: On 27 December 2006, Deng was driving in the lane when Miami Heat player James Posey grabbed him, causing concern that Deng may have re-injured his wrist. Posey earned a flagrant foul, was ejected and suspended for one game. Deng scored 32 points against the Cavaliers just three nights later, resolving concern that the wrist would be re-injured. On 26 March 2007 Deng posted a new career-high 38 points to lead the Bulls to a home victory against the Portland Trail Blazers. Deng converted 18 of his 25 shots from the field.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng has won three major sportsmanship awards. On 3 May 2007, Deng won the NBA's sportsmanship award in a vote by players. The award honours the player who best exemplifies ethical behaviour, fair play, and integrity on the court. For that award, the league donated $25,000 on his behalf to Pacific Garden Mission, the oldest continuously operating rescue mission in the country. Deng also won the 2006–2007 Golden Icon Award for Best Sports Role Model. The awards are presented by the Travolta entertainment family. Most recently, he won the 2008 UN Refugee Agency's Humanitarian of the Year Award as part of the UNHCR's ninemillion.org campaign to bring education and sports to millions of displaced children.


title: Luol Deng

text: Near the beginning of the season, the Bulls started negotiating a contract extension for Deng. Negotiations were mostly handled by Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. The team offered Deng a five-year extension for $57.5 million. However, Deng decided to reject the deal and wait until the season ended to continue negotiations.


title: Luol Deng

text: In the (2007–08) season, Luol played in (63) games, missing (19) mostly because of left Achilles tendinitis. Despite injuries, Deng still averaged (17.0) points per game and (6.3) rebounds per game. He had his best game against the Milwaukee Bucks when he scored (32) points in a 151–135 victory. The Bulls missed the playoffs in the (2007–08) season for the first time since 2004.


title: Luol Deng

text: Before the season started, Deng agreed to a contract extension for six years and ($71) million. The agreement was announced by Bulls general manager, John Paxson. Paxson said in a statement "Signing Luol has always been a priority for this organization and we have always felt that he was a big part of our future. We are very happy that Luol will now be with us long term as we continue to grow as an organization."


title: Luol Deng

text: Due to injury, Deng played in (48) games. During the regular season Luol's scoring dropped to (14.1) points per game and his rebounding dropped to 6.0 per game. The Bulls made the playoffs, but Luol missed the entire playoffs due to injury.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng played in a total of 70 games during the 2009–10 season, also increasing his scoring and rebounding to 17.6 and 7.3 respectively, helping the Bulls make the playoffs again. He missed 11 straight games at the end of March because of a sprained right calf.


title: Luol Deng

text: During the first-round of the playoffs, Deng averaged (34.8) points per game along with (5.0) rebounds per game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He scored (26) points in the final game, but couldn't prevent the Bulls being eliminated by the Cavs.


title: Luol Deng

text: On 1 November 2010, Deng scored a new career-high 40 points, hitting (14) of his (19) shots, along with 9 of 11 free throws, against the Portland Trail Blazers, scoring a point a minute. On 24 February 2011, Deng scored 20 points, 10 rebounds, and hit the game winning 3-point shot with 16 seconds left on the clock in a game against the Miami Heat. Throughout the season, Deng significantly improved his 3-point shooting after coach Tom Thibodeau asked him to. In the past four seasons, Deng attempted 132 3-point shots, whereas this season he attempted 333, hitting 115 for a 34%.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng finished the season averaging 17.4 points and 5.8 rebounds per game, being the third lead scorer for the Chicago Bulls behind Derrick Rose (25.0) and Carlos Boozer (17.5). This was also Deng's seventh season averaging double figures. During the first round of the playoffs against the Indiana Pacers, Deng averaged 18.6 points and 6.2 rebounds per game, being the second leading scorer of the team behind Derrick Rose.


title: Luol Deng

text: On 31 March 2011, Eric Bressman of "Dime" magazine called Deng "the most underrated player" writing he was "never the face of the franchise but always the backbone". Coach Thibodeau has consistently called Deng the "glue" that holds the Bulls together. "Luol's professional. He practices hard. He prepares well. He studies his opponent. He's great at executing offensively and defensively. He's helped this team get better every day," said Thibodeau.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng was the Bulls' second leading scorer during the playoffs. In the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat, Deng was praised for his defense on LeBron James. However, the Miami Heat went on to eliminate the Bulls in five games. Deng averaged just under 43 minutes, 16.9 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game during the playoffs.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng injured his wrist during the fourth quarter against the Charlotte Bobcats on 21 January 2012. Initially thought to be a minor injury, it was later revealed by an (MRI) that Deng tore the ligament in his left wrist. Deng decided to postpone surgery and play the rest of the season through the pain. He returned to the starting line-up against the Milwaukee Bucks on 4 February 2012, scoring 21 points with 9 rebounds, 1 steal, and 1 block.


title: Luol Deng

text: On 9 February 2012, Deng was selected as a reserve for the (2012) NBA All-Star Game's Eastern Conference team, joining teammate Derrick Rose, who was voted in as a starter. This was the first time since 1997 (when both Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen made the team) that the Chicago Bulls had two All-Stars in the All-Star Game.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng made a buzzer-beating game winner on 24 March 2012, off a tip-in basket to lift the Bulls 102–101 in overtime versus the Toronto Raptors. At the end of the season, Deng was selected for the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng was selected as a reserve for the 2013 NBA All-Star Game, along with Joakim Noah. During the 2012–13 season, he averaged a team high 16.5 points per game, 6.3 rebounds per game, and a career high 3 assists per game. His free throw percentage of .816 was also a career high. He again led the league in minutes per game with (38.7). Even without Derrick Rose, who was out for the whole year due to an ACL injury, the Bulls still tallied a 45–37 record, finishing 5th in the Eastern Conference and 2nd in the Central Division.


title: Luol Deng

text: The Chicago Bulls met the Brooklyn Nets in the opening round of the (2013) Playoffs. The Bulls defeated the Nets in seven games and met the Miami Heat in the semi-finals. The Heat defeated the Bulls in five games. The Heat went on to win the (2013) NBA Finals. During the 2013 Playoffs, Deng averaged (13.8) points per game, (7.6) rebounds per game, and 3.8 assists per game in (44.8) minutes per game.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng's representatives and Chicago Bulls executives had informal talks about extending his contract over the summer, but the team never made a formal offer. Deng, who would become a free agent after the 2013–14 season, was seeking a contract close to $12 million a year over 4–5 seasons. Rumors about him being traded continued throughout the season.


title: Luol Deng

text: During the first months of the season, Deng again emerged as the Bulls leading scorer with the absence of Derrick Rose. He had his best performances on 27 and 30 November, when he scored 27 points against the Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavaliers in two separate games. He also registered 6 rebounds against the Pistons, and 11 assists against the Cavs. During the first two months of the season, Deng averaged a career-high of 19 points and (3.7) assists per game. He also averaged 6.9 rebounds per game.


title: Luol Deng

text: On 7 January 2014, the Chicago Bulls traded Deng to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Andrew Bynum, two future second round draft picks in 2015 and 2016 (initially traded from the Portland Trail Blazers to the Cavaliers), a protected future pick the Cavaliers received from the Sacramento Kings, and the right to swap first round picks with the Cavaliers in the 2015 draft. At the time of the trade, Deng was the fifth-longest tenured Chicago Bull, and fourth-leading scorer in franchise history.


title: Luol Deng

text: In his Cavaliers debut, Deng had 10 points, 1 rebound, 1 steal, and 4 turnovers in 21 minutes. Two games later, he scored 27 points with five rebounds, four assists, and one block. This was his highest scoring game with the Cavaliers. Deng finished the season averaging 14.1 points and 2.5 assists.


title: Luol Deng

text: On 15 July 2014, Deng signed with the Miami Heat. He had his best scoring game of the 2014–15 season on 20 January, when he scored 29 points against the Philadelphia 76ers. Deng finished the season averaging 14 points and 5.2 rebounds per game.


title: Luol Deng

text: On 29 June 2015, Deng exercised his player option for the 2015–16 season. On 1 August 2015, Deng played for Team Africa at the 2015 NBA Africa exhibition game. In late November and early December 2015, Deng missed six games with a left hamstring strain. On 19 February 2016, he scored a season-high 30 points in a 115–111 win over the Atlanta Hawks. The Heat finished the regular season as the third seed in the Eastern Conference with a 48–34 record. In the first round of the playoffs, the Heat faced the sixth-seeded Charlotte Hornets, and in a Game 1 win on 17 April, Deng set a Heat playoff debut record with 31 points on 11-for-13 shooting.


title: Luol Deng

text: On 7 July 2016, Deng signed a four-year, $72 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers signed the two-time All-Star along with Timofey Mozgov to big contracts in a bid to remain competitive after Kobe Bryant's recent retirement. However, in February 2017, Magic Johnson became the Lakers' president of basketball operations, and coach Luke Walton benched Deng to start rookie Brandon Ingram. Effectively, Deng had played his last meaningful minutes as a Laker. He missed the final 22 games of the season after being shut down in March to give more playing time to the team's youngsters.


title: Luol Deng

text: On opening night of the 2017–18 season, Deng made a substitute start in place of a suspended Kentavious Caldwell-Pope; it was the only game he played the entire season. He and Walton mutually decided that it was better for him to stay in the locker room during games than to play meaningless minutes in garbage time. On September 1, 2018, he was waived by the Lakers after reaching a buyout agreement. The move freed him to find playing time elsewhere, while the Lakers gained salary cap space to potentially offer a maximum contract to a free agent in 2019. Deng had been the highest-paid Laker in each of his two seasons.


title: Luol Deng

text: On September 10, 2018, Deng signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves, reuniting him with Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson, and head coach Tom Thibodeau. On February 11, 2019, Deng started in place of an ill Andrew Wiggins and scored 12 points in a team-high 37 minutes, 50 seconds against the Los Angeles Clippers. It was Deng's first start since October 19, 2017, his lone game for the Lakers during the 2017–18 season.


title: Luol Deng

text: Since his birth in Sudan, Deng has lived in Egypt, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Deng represented England at Under-16 and Under-19 level, and was an ambassador for the London 2012 Summer Olympics. In October 2006, Deng became a naturalised British citizen in a ceremony in Croydon and was called up to play in European competition for the Great Britain team. He made his debut in a closed international test match against Georgia in Pau, France, on 9 August 2007, scoring 19 points. In his first competitive qualifying game representing Great Britain, Deng collected 21 points, 10 rebounds, two assists, three steals and two blocks against Slovakia, at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena on 21 August 2007. He played with the team at the 2012 Summer Olympics, where he averaged 15.8 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 4.6 assists. However, Great Britain finished with a 1–4 record.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng retains South Sudanese citizenship in addition to his British citizenship, making him a dual citizen.


title: Luol Deng

text: On November 24, 2020, it was reported that Deng would coach the South Sudan national basketball team for the FIBA AfroBasket 2021 Qualifiers.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng is involved in numerous charities, such as the UK children's charity School Home Support. He has been noted for his work on behalf of the Lost Boys of Sudan and other refugees. During the summers of 2006 and 2007, Luol went to Africa, Asia and Europe with the NBA for their Basketball Without Borders Tour. He is also a spokesperson for the World Food Programme. "He really does epitomize everything I had hoped for as a person and a basketball player", general manager John Paxson said. "I think it's one of the reasons we've gotten to the level we're at this year. I'm truly proud of him. I think the world of him as a person and as a player."


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng has been investing in real estate almost since the time he entered the league in 2004 and has amassed a large portfolio, including hotels, resorts, condos, and apartment buildings, worth $125 million. In 2020, Deng was included in the annual "Powerlist" as one of the most influential people in the UK of African/African-Caribbean descent.


title: Luol Deng

text: In November 2019, he was appointed for four years as president of the South Sudan Basketball Federation.


title: Luol Deng

text: Deng was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to basketball.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The Japanese economic miracle refers to Japan's record period of economic growth between the post-World War II era and the end of the Cold War. During the economic boom, Japan rapidly became the world's second-largest economy (after the United States). By the 1990s, Japan's population demographics had begun to stagnate, and the workforce was no longer expanding as quickly as it had in the previous decades despite per-worker productivity remaining high.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: This economic miracle was the result of post-World War II Japan and West Germany benefitting from the Cold War. The American government reformed Japanese society during the occupation of Japan, making political, economic and civic changes. It occurred chiefly due to the economic interventionism of the Japanese government and partly due to the aid and assistance of the U.S. aid to Asia. After World War II, the U.S. established a significant presence in Japan to slow the expansion of Soviet influence in the Pacific. The U.S. was also concerned with the growth of the economy of Japan because there was a risk that an unhappy and poor Japanese population would turn to communism and by doing so, ensure Soviet control over the Pacific.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The distinguishing characteristics of the Japanese economy during the ""economic miracle"" years included: the cooperation of manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and banks in close-knit groups called "keiretsu"; the powerful enterprise unions and "shuntō"; good relations with government bureaucrats, and the guarantee of lifetime employment ("shūshin koyō") in big corporations and highly unionized blue-collar factories.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: However, some scholars argue that Japan's postwar growth spurt would not have been possible without Japan's alliance with the United States, since the United States absorbed Japanese exports, tolerated controversial Japanese trade practices, subsidized the Japanese economy, and transferred technology to Japanese firms; thereby magnifying the effectiveness of Japanese trade policy.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The Japanese financial recovery continued even after SCAP departed and the economic boom propelled by the Korean War abated. The Japanese economy survived from the deep recession caused by a loss of the U.S. payments for military procurement and continued to make gains. By the late 1960s, Japan had risen from the ashes of World War II to achieve an astoundingly rapid and complete economic recovery. According to Knox College Professor Mikiso Hane, the period leading up to the late 1960s saw "the greatest years of prosperity Japan had seen since the Sun Goddess shut herself up behind a stone door to protest her brother Susano-o's misbehaviour." The Japanese government contributed to the post-war Japanese economic miracle by stimulating private sector growth, first by instituting regulations and protectionism that effectively managed economic crises and later by concentrating on trade expansion.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The Japanese economic miracle refers to Japan's record period of economic growth between the end of World War II and the beginning of the 1990s. The economical miracle can be divided into four stages: the recovery (1946–1954), the high increase (1955–1972), the steady increase (1972–1992), and the low increase (1992–2017).


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: Although heavily damaged by the nuclear bombardment in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and other Allied air raids on Japan, Japan was able to recover from the trauma of WWII, and managed to become the third-largest economic entity of the world (after the United States and the Soviet Union) by the 1960s. However, after three decades, Japan had experienced the so-called "recession in growth", as the value of the Japanese yen was raised. In an attempt to prevent further slowing of growth, Japan greatly improved its technological advances and raised the value of the yen, since devaluing the yen would have brought further risk and a possible depressing effect on trade. The appreciation of the yen led to a significant economic recession in the 1980s. To alleviate the influence of the recession, Japan imposed a series of economical and financial policies to stimulate domestic demand. Nevertheless, the bubble economy that took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the subsequent deflationary policy destroyed the Japanese economy. After the deflationary policy, the Japanese economy has been through a time of low increase period which has lasted until today.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The Japanese economy was in ruins following the end of World War II. For example, "the Japanese cotton industry was brought to its knees by the end of the Second World War. Two-thirds of its prewar cotton spindles were scrapped by wartime administrators, and bombing and destruction of urban areas had caused a further loss of 20 percent of spinning and 14 percent of weaving capacity". Moreover, by 1946, Japan was on the verge of a nationwide famine that was averted only by American shipments of food. The virtual destruction of the Japanese standard of living, combined with the military threat presented by the Soviet Union, compelled the United States to support a wide-reaching economic recovery. Every country experienced some industrial growth in the post-war period, but those countries that achieved a heavy drop in industrial output due to war damage such as Japan, West Germany and Italy, achieved the most rapid recovery. In the case of Japan, industrial production decreased in 1946 to 27.6% of the pre-war level, but recovered in 1951 and reached 350% in 1960.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: By the end of the American occupation of Japan in 1952, the United States had successfully reintegrated Japan into the global economy and rebuilt the economic infrastructure that would later form the launching pad for the Japanese economic miracle.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: One reason for Japan's quick recovery from war trauma was the successful economic reform by the government. The government body principally concerned with industrial policy in Japan was the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. One of the major economic reforms was to adopt the . The "Inclined Production Mode" refers to the inclined production that primarily focuses on the production of raw materials including steel, coal and cotton. Textile production occupied more than 23.9% of the total industrial production. Moreover, to further stimulate growth, the Japanese government encouraged women to enter the labor market. The legislation on recruitment contains three components: the restriction placed on regional recruitment and relocation of workers, the banning of the direct recruitment of new school leavers, and the direct recruitment of non-school leavers under explicitly detailed regulations issued by the Ministry of Labour.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The second reason that accounts for Japan's rapid recovery from WWII was the outbreak of the Korean War. The Korean War was fought in territory that had been, until 1945, Chōsen (朝鮮) that Empire of Japan had annexed. As the United States was participating in the conflict on the Korean Peninsula, it turned to the Japanese economy for procurement of equipment and supplies because the logistics of shipping from the States soon became a significant problem for the military. Japan's industry was soon providing the required munitions and logistics to the American forces fighting in Korea. The demand stimulated the Japanese economy enabling it to recover quickly from the destruction of the Pacific War and provide the basis for the rapid expansion that was to follow.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: After gaining support from the United States and achieving domestic economic reform, Japan's economy was able to soar from the 1950s to the 1970s. Furthermore, Japan also completed its process toward industrialization and became the first developed nation in East Asia. The Japanese Economic Yearbooks from 1967 to 1971 witnessed a significant increase. In 1967, the yearbook said: the Japanese economy in 1966 thus made an advance more rapidly than previously expected. In 1968, the yearbook said that the Japanese economy continued to make a sound growth after it had a bottom in the autumn of 1965. The words "increase", "growth" and "upswing" filled the summaries of the yearbooks from 1967 to 1971. The reasons for Japan to complete industrialization are also complicated, and the major characteristic of this time is the influence of governmental policies of the Hayato Ikeda administration, vast consumption, and vast export.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: In 1954, the economic system MITI had cultivated from 1949 to 1953 came into full effect. Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda, who Chalmers Johnson calls "the single most important individual architect of the Japanese economic miracle," pursued a policy of heavy industrialization. This policy led to the emergence of 'over-loaning' (a practice that continues today) in which the Bank of Japan issues loans to city banks who in turn issue loans to industrial conglomerates. Since there was a shortage of capital in Japan at the time, industrial conglomerates borrowed beyond their capacity to repay, often beyond their net worth, causing city banks in turn to over-borrow from the Bank of Japan. This gave the national Bank of Japan complete control over dependent local banks.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The system of over-loaning, combined with the government's relaxation of anti-monopoly laws (a remnant of SCAP control) also led to the re-emergence of conglomerate groups called "keiretsu" that mirrored the wartime conglomerates, or "zaibatsu". Led by the economic improvements of Sony businessmen Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, the "keiretsu" efficiently allocated resources and became competitive internationally.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: At the heart of the "keiretsu" conglomerates' success lay city banks, which lent generously, formalizing cross-share holdings in diverse industries. The "keiretsu" spurred both horizontal and vertical integration, locking out foreign companies from Japanese industries. "Keiretsu" had close relations with MITI and each other through the cross-placement of shares, providing protection from foreign take-overs. For example, 83% of Japan's Development Bank's finances went toward strategic industries: shipbuilding, electric power, coal and steel production. "Keiretsu" proved crucial to protectionist measures that shielded Japan's sapling economy.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: "Keiretsu" also fostered an attitude shift among Japanese managers that tolerated low profits in the short-run because "keiretsu" were less concerned with increasing stock dividends and profits and more concerned about interest payments. Approximately only two-thirds of the shares of a given company were traded, cushioning "keiretsu" against market fluctuations and allowing "keiretsu" managers to plan for the long-term and maximize market shares instead of focusing on short-term profits.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The Ikeda administration also instituted the Foreign Exchange Allocation Policy, a system of import controls designed to prevent the flooding of Japan's markets by foreign goods. MITI used the foreign exchange allocation to stimulate the economy by promoting exports, managing investment and monitoring production capacity. In 1953, MITIs revised the Foreign Exchange Allocation Policy to promote domestic industries and increase the incentive for exports by revising the export-link system. A later revision-based production capacity on foreign exchange allocation to prevent foreign dumping.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: During the time of reconstruction and before the 1973 oil crisis, Japan managed to complete its industrialization process, gaining significant improvement in living standards and witnessing a significant increase in consumption. The average monthly consumption of urban family households doubled from 1955 to 1970. Moreover, the proportions of consumption in Japan was also changing. The consumption in daily necessities, such as food and clothing and footwear, was decreasing. Contrastingly, the consumption in recreational, entertainment activities and goods increased, including furniture, transportation, communications, and reading. The great increase in consumption stimulated the growth in GDP as it incentivized production.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The period of rapid economic growth between 1955 and 1961 paved the way for the Golden Sixties, the second decade that is generally associated with the Japanese economic miracle. In 1965, Japan's nominal GDP was estimated at just over $91 billion. Fifteen years later, in 1980, the nominal GDP had soared to a record $1.065 trillion.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: Under the leadership of Prime Minister Ikeda, former minister of MITI, the Japanese government undertook an ambitious . The plan called for doubling the size of Japan's economy in ten years through a combination of tax breaks, targeted investment, an expanded social safety net, and incentives to increase exports and industrial development. To achieve the goal of doubling of the economy in ten years, the plan called for an average annual economic growth rate of 7.2%. In fact, Japan's annual growth averaged more than 10% over the course of the Plan, and the economy doubled in size in less than seven years.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: Ikeda introduced the Income Doubling Plan in response to the massive Anpo protests in 1960 against the US-Japan Security Treaty, as part of an effort to shift Japan's national dialogue away from contentious political struggles toward building a consensus around pursuit of rapid economic growth. However, Ikeda and his brain trust, which most notably included the economist Osamu Shimomura, had been developing the plan since mid-1959.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: Under the Income Doubling Plan, Ikeda lowered interest rates and rapidly expanded government investment in Japan's infrastructure, building highways, high-speed railways, subways, airports, port facilities, and dams. Ikeda's government also expanded government investment in the previously neglected communications sector of the Japanese economy. Each of these acts continued the Japanese trend towards a managed economy that epitomized the mixed economic model.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The Income Doubling Plan was widely viewed as a success in achieving both its political and economic objectives. According to historian Nick Kapur, the plan "enshrined 'economic growthism' as a sort of secular religion of both the Japanese people and their government, bringing about a circumstance in which both the effectiveness of the government and the worth of the populace came to be measured above all by the annual percentage change in GDP."


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: Besides Ikeda's adherence to government intervention and regulation of the economy, his government pushed trade liberalization. By April 1960, trade imports had been 41 percent liberalized (compared to 22 percent in 1956). Ikeda planned to liberalize trade to 80 percent within three years. However, his liberalization goals met with severe opposition from both industries who had thrived on over-loaning and the nationalist public who feared foreign enterprise takeovers. The Japanese press likened liberalization to "the second coming of the black ships," in reference to the black ships Commodore Matthew C. Perry had sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853 to open Japan to international trade via a show of military force. Accordingly, Ikeda moved toward liberalization of trade only after securing a protected market through internal regulations that favored Japanese products and firms, and never achieved his ambitious 80 percent goal.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: Ikeda also set up numerous allied foreign aid distribution agencies to demonstrate Japan's willingness to participate in the international order and to promote exports. The creation of these agencies not only acted as a small concession to international organizations, but also dissipated some public fears about liberalization of trade. Ikeda furthered Japan's global economic integration by negotiating for Japan's entry into the OECD in 1964. By the time Ikeda left office, the GNP was growing at a phenomenal rate of 13.9 percent.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: In 1973, the first oil-price shock struck Japan (1973 oil crisis). The price of oil increased from 3 dollars per barrel to over 13 dollars per barrel. During this time, Japan's industrial production decreased by 20%, as the supply capacity could not respond effectively to the rapid expansion of demand, and increased investments in equipment often invited unwanted results—tighter supply and higher prices of commodities. Moreover, the Second Oil Shock in 1978 and 1979 exacerbated the situation as the oil price again increased from 13 dollars per barrel to 39.5 dollars per barrel. Despite being seriously impacted by the two oil crises, Japan was able to withstand the impact and managed to transfer from a product-concentrating to a technology-concentrating production form.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The transformation was, in fact, a product of the oil crises and United States intervention. Since the oil price rose tenfold, the cost of production also soared. After the oil crises, to save costs, Japan had to produce products in a more environmentally friendly manner, and with less oil consumption. The biggest factor that invited industrial changes after the oil crises was the increase in energy prices including crude oil. As a result, Japan converted to a technology-concentrating program, ensuring the steady increase of its economy, and standing out beyond other capitalist countries that had been significantly wounded during the oil crises. Another factor was the friction between the United States and Japan, as Japan's rapid economic growth could potentially harm the economic interests of the United States. In 1985, the United States signed the "Plaza Accord" with Japan, West Germany, France and Britain. The "Plaza Accord" was an attempt to devalue the US dollar, yet harmed Japan the most. Japan attempted to expand international markets through the appreciation of the Japanese yen, yet they over-appreciated, creating a bubble economy. The Plaza Accord was successful in reducing the U.S. trade deficit with Western European nations but largely failed to fulfill its primary objective of alleviating the trade deficit with Japan.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was instrumental in Japan's post-war economic recovery. According to some scholars, no other governmental regulation or organization had more economic impact than MITI. "The particular speed, form, and consequences of Japanese economic growth," Chalmers Johnson writes, "are not intelligible without reference to the contributions of MITI" (Johnson, vii). Established in 1949, MITI's role began with the "Policy Concerning Industrial Rationalization" (1950) that coordinated efforts by industries to counteract the effects of SCAP's deflationary regulations. In this way, MITI formalized cooperation between the Japanese government and private industry. The extent of the policy was such that if MITI wished to "double steel production, the neo-"zaibatsu" already has the capital, the construction assets, the makers of production machinery, and most of the other necessary factors already available in-house". The Ministry coordinated various industries, including the emerging "keiretsu", toward a specific end, usually toward the intersection of national production goals and private economic interests.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: MITI also boosted the industrial security by untying the imports of technology from the imports of other goods. MITI's Foreign Capital Law granted the ministry power to negotiate the price and conditions of technology imports. This element of technological control allowed it to promote industries it deemed promising. The low cost of imported technology allowed for rapid industrial growth. Productivity was greatly improved through new equipment, management, and standardization.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: MITI gained the ability to regulate "all" imports with the abolition of the Economic Stabilization Board and the Foreign Exchange Control Board in August 1952. Although the Economic Stabilization Board was already dominated by MITI, the Yoshida Governments transformed it into the Economic Deliberation Agency, a mere "think tank," in effect giving MITI full control over all Japanese imports. Power over the foreign exchange budget was also handed directly to MITI.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: MITI's establishment of the Japan Development Bank also provided the private sector with low-cost capital for long-term growth. The Japan Development Bank introduced access to the Fiscal Investment and Loan Plan, a massive pooling of individual and national savings. At the time FILP controlled four times the savings of the world's largest commercial bank. With this financial power, FILP was able to maintain an abnormally high number of Japanese construction firms (more than twice the number of construction firms of any other nation with a similar GDP).


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: American companies sued Japanese companies for intellectual property theft and patent infringements. Many cases resulted in Japanese companies paying large settlements and court-ordered payments to American companies and individuals.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: In 1978, Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry provided subsidies, which was illegal under international law, to help Japanese semiconductor companies sell their chips at artificially low prices in the United States while keeping prices high in Japan, a trade practice known as dumping.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: In 1982, Hitachi Ltd. pleaded guilty in the United States District Court to charges that it conspired to steal trade secrets from the IBM and transport those documents to Japan. In 1983, Hitachi and IBM announced that a settlement had been reached between the two parties. The terms of the agreement states that "Hitachi has not used the stolen secrets, that any secrets it has will be returned to IBM, and that the names address and business affiliations of all individuals who offered to sell secrets to Hitachi be disclosed."


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: In 1987, an American federal judge ruled that Sumitomo Corporation infringed on two optical fiber patents held by Corning Inc., and ordered the Japanese company to stop manufacturing and selling a certain type of optical fiber.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: In 1992, an American federal court ruled that Minolta pirated Honeywell patents to make autofocus cameras. The jury awarded Honeywell with $96 million.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: Despite Japan being an American ally, Toshiba Machine Company illegally sold propeller-milling equipment to the Soviet Union, which was used to make it easier for Soviet submarines to avoid American surveillance. The sale prompted a threat to ban Toshiba imports into the US, and a rebuke from both former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and Japan's Minister of Internal Trade and Industry on Toshiba's business behavior.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: Although the United States’ so-called trade problem was attributed to the country's own economic policies, the Reagan administration resorted to "Japan bashing" by raising complaints about unfair and illegal Japanese trade practices, which the administration believed contributed to the bilateral trade deficit with Japan. In 1980s, the United States portrayed Japan as an economic threat, and accused Japan of intellectual property theft, currency manipulation, state-sponsored industrial policy, and weakening of US manufacturing.


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: At the conclusion of the Plaza Accord, former US President Ronald Reagan said, "When governments permit counterfeiting or copying of American products, it is stealing our future, and it is no longer free trade."


title: Japanese economic miracle

text: The conclusion of the economic miracle coincided with the conclusion of the Cold War. While the Japanese stock market hit its all-time peak at the end of 1989, making a recovery later in 1990, it dropped precipitously in 1991. The year of the conclusion of the Japanese asset price bubble coincided with the Gulf War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The subsequent period of economic stagnation has been referred to as the lost decades.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: Krzysztof Piątek (; born 1 July 1995) is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a forward for Italian club Salernitana, on loan from Bundesliga club Hertha BSC, and the Poland national team.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: He began his professional career with Ekstraklasa club Zagłębie Lubin. Over the course of four seasons, he scored 15 goals in 72 appearances for the team, before joining Cracovia in 2016, for whom he scored 32 goals across two seasons. In 2018, Piątek signed for Genoa in Italy's Serie A. After 19 goals in 21 competitive games in his first half-season, he transferred to AC Milan in January 2019, before signing for Hertha BSC a year later.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: Piątek began his career with local side Niemczanka Niemcza and Dziewiątka Dzierżoniów (2006–2011). He then moved to Lechia Dzierżoniów of III liga in 2011.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: Piątek signed for Zagłębie Lubin in 2013 and initially played in junior and reserve teams of the club. After the arrival of Piotr Stokowiec as the new coach, however, he was quickly promoted to the first team on 14 May 2014 and then made his Ekstraklasa debut on 18 May 2014 in a match against Cracovia. Over the course of the next season, he became a regular starter for Zagłębie, who played in I liga, the second tier of Polish football. He scored his first senior career goal on 12 September 2014 in a 1–0 win to Chrobry Głogów and his first brace on 31 October 2014 at Widzew Łódź. After earning promotion with the club, Piątek scored his first league goal on 14 August 2015 in a 2–1 win against Lech Poznań and helped the team finish third in the 2015–16 Ekstraklasa season, earning a medal and qualifying for European competitions for the first time in club's history since the championship winning team of 2006–07.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: He played a total number of 85 matches for Zagłębie and scored 18 times, including appearances in the Polish Cup and UEFA Europa League qualifying stages.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: In 2016, Piątek joined fellow Polish side Cracovia and over the course of the next two seasons, he scored 32 league goals in 65 appearances for the club. That tally included a haul of 21 goals during his second season which saw him end the 2017–18 Ekstraklasa


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: On 8 June 2018, Piątek signed a four-year contract with Italian club Genoa for a reported fee of €4 million. He scored four goals, including a hat-trick in the opening 19 minutes, on debut in a 4–0 Coppa Italia win over Lecce. He made his Serie A debut on 26 August, scoring in the opening six minutes of the match in a 2–1 win over Empoli. The following week, he scored his first brace of the season in a 5–3 loss to Sassuolo, which was followed by another strike in a 4–1 loss to Lazio, thus becoming the first player since Andriy Shevchenko in 1999 to score five goals in his first four Serie A appearances.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: During his following match, a 2–0 victory over Chievo, he scored his 10th goal across all competitions and in the process became the first player across Europe's major leagues to reach the milestone for the season. On 30 September, Piątek scored a brace inside three minutes in a 2–1 win over Frosinone to make it 8 goals in six matches, the best start to a season by a debutant since Karl Aage Hansen in the 1949–50 campaign. In his very next match, he became the first player since Gabriel Batistuta in the 1994–95 season to score in each of his first seven Serie A appearances when he netted in a 3–1 defeat to Parma.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: On 23 January 2019, AC Milan announced the signing of Piątek on a contract lasting until 30 June 2023, for a reported fee of €35 million. He was signed as a replacement for Gonzalo Higuaín, who joined Chelsea, and he was assigned the number 19 shirt, previously worn by Leonardo Bonucci.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: Piątek made his debut for Milan on 26 January, in a goalless home draw against Napoli, as a 71st-minute substitute for Patrick Cutrone. Three days later against the same opponents also at San Siro, he scored both goals in a 2–0 win in the Coppa Italia quarter-finals, and was given a standing ovation when he made way for Cutrone. On 3 February, Piątek scored his first league goal away to Roma, which ended 1–1. He then scored three goals in the next two consecutive matches: one against Cagliari Calcio and two against Atalanta, becoming the first Milan player to score in his first three starts in the league since Mario Balotelli in 2013.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: Ahead of the 2019–20 Serie A season, Piątek switched to the number 9 shirt. He scored four league goals in the first half of the season before leaving the club.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: In January 2020, Hertha BSC announced the signing of Piątek for a reported fee of €27 million, on a long-term contract. He was given the number 7 jersey.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: Uncapped, Piątek was included in Poland's preliminary 35-man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, but was one of 12 players cut from the final team for the tournament in Russia.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: He made his international debut on 11 September 2018, starting in a 1–1 friendly draw with the Republic of Ireland in Wrocław and making way for Mateusz Klich after 61 minutes. Exactly one month later, he made his competitive debut in a UEFA Nations League match against Portugal and scored the opening goal in a 3–2 defeat.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: Regarded as an important player for the national team and ready to play alongside Robert Lewandowski and Arkadiusz Milik in an attacking trio, Piątek was forced to miss the postponed Euro 2020 due to ankle injury in May 2021 that required surgery and months of rehabilitation.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: Piątek has been described as a "classic" "number 9" striker most efficient inside the opponent's penalty area, courtesy of his excellent positioning, accurate finishing, height, physical strength, and tenacity in aerial or physical challenges with opponents. His team play outside the penalty area and playmaking abilities have been cited as areas in need of improvement, however.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: During his time in Genoa, Piątek played in a 3–5–2 formation as a main striker, usually on the left, most often supported by Christian Kouamé, a pacey forward with excellent dribbling and passing skills. In Milan, he became a lone striker in a 4–3–3 formation, supported by wingers on either side of the pitch.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: Piątek has named Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski as his two favourite strikers who he wishes to emulate. He has also cited Cristiano Ronaldo and Thierry Henry as his childhood inspirations.


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: He is married to Paulina Procyk (a lawyer, born 1991). The wedding took place on 1 June 2019 in Castle of the Order of St. John in Łagów (Lubusz Voivodeship).


title: Krzysztof Piątek

text: He is called by fans as "Il Pistolero" (the Gunslinger) due to his habit of Wild West celebration of gun-firing, associated with the 19th century United States.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: Wild Child is a 2008 teen comedy film directed by Nick Moore and starring Emma Roberts, Natasha Richardson, Shirley Henderson, Alex Pettyfer and Aidan Quinn, with Georgia King, Kimberley Nixon, Juno Temple, Linzey Cocker and Sophie Wu. Roberts portrays Poppy Moore, a wealthy, spoiled teenager, who is admitted to a boarding school in England where she soon learns the true meaning of life and friendship. This was Richardson's final on-screen film role before her death the following year.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: Poppy Moore, a wealthy Malibu teenager, executes a wild prank to ruin all of her widowed father's girlfriend's belongings. When her father, Gerry, arrives on the scene, he announces he will be sending her to a boarding school in England. At the school, she is greeted by headmistress Mrs. Kingsley and head girl, Harriet Bentley, who berates Poppy for her attitude. Poppy shares a bedroom with four girls: Kate, Josie, Kiki and Jennifer, known as "Drippy". Her rude and self-centered behavior leads to trouble when she insults the Matron, who confiscates their cellphones. All five are punished with detention. When Kate learns Poppy's mother died in a car crash when Poppy was eleven, she sympathizes with her. Kate lets Poppy use her actual phone to message her friend from back home, Ruby, who is secretly being intimate with Poppy's boyfriend, Roddy.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: The girls decide to help Poppy get expelled to help return home. Together, they carry out several pranks, which gradually bring them closer together. When none of their plans work, they decide to have Poppy seduce the headmistress's son, Freddie, who is strictly forbidden from fraternizing with any of the girls. The girls go on a trip and Poppy removes her blonde hair dye, revealing her natural brunette hair. She dances with Freddie at the school dance, much to Harriet's dismay, but Poppy trips and hits her head. Freddie takes her outside for air, where he asks her out on a date.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: The next day, Poppy discovers her talent for lacrosse and whips the school's team into shape, getting them into the finals. She finds herself falling for Freddie and they kiss before returning to school. Entering her room, Poppy finds her roommates reading an email supposedly sent by her, expressing she thinks all of her new friends are losers. She finds Freddie has received a similar email, as a result she is ignored by them. However, she never actually sent the email. With no one else to turn to, Poppy sneaks down to the cook's room and calls Ruby, who accidentally reveals how much she dislikes Poppy and she is seeing Roddy. Feeling even more alone, Poppy starts playing with her lighter and accidentally sets a curtain on fire. Hearing footsteps, she quickly puts out the fire and runs off. A few minutes later, she looks out her window to see a fire and immediately wakes the school.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: When they find Drippy is missing, Poppy runs into the burning school to rescue her. After the fire is extinguished, Freddie finds her lighter and gives it back to her, refusing to hear any explanation. Realizing she no longer wants to leave, Poppy goes to the headmistress and takes the blame for the fire. Afterwards, she finds a portrait of her late mother in the 1976 Abbey Mount lacrosse team and begins to cry upon realizing her mother had attended the same school.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: While Poppy waits for the Honour Court to decide whether she should be expelled, Freddie finds her crying and becomes convinced the fire was an accident, and forgives her. At the hearing, Poppy gives her testimony. Meanwhile, her roommates find out Poppy did not send the emails. Harriet mentions Poppy's lighter during the hearing, and when the other girls say no lighter was ever mentioned, Harriet snaps at Poppy and confesses to restarting the fire after Poppy had put it out. Poppy is subsequently absolved and Harriet is expelled.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: Gerry comes to the lacrosse finals game and notices Poppy's dramatic change in appearance and how much she looks like her mother. He is amazed by his daughter's role as captain of the lacrosse team. Abbey Mount wins the lacrosse finals. Some months later, Poppy, her friends, and Freddie are relaxing in Malibu. Poppy ignores Ruby's phone calls, now fully aware Ruby was not a good friend. They prepare to jump off the cliff into the waters below.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: The interiors of the boarding school were filmed at Cobham Hall in Kent. The facade of the school was filmed at Balls Park. They also filmed at 82 Main Street, 84 Main Street, 117 Main Street, and at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Keighley, Bradford. Filming also took place in Harrogate, and at Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: "Wild Child" was released in the United Kingdom on 15 August 2008, taking fifth place at the box office with $2,196,366 from 359 cinemas with an average of $6,118. In its fourth weekend, it dropped to twelfth place. As of November 2008, "Wild Child" had grossed $8,235,794. In Australia, "Wild Child" was released 18 September, taking fourth place with only 93 cinemas and making $315,114. The following week, it made a 60% increase with $566,918 but still slipped to 6th place. On 16 October, "Wild Child" fell to 11th. As of November 2008, "Wild Child" had grossed US$3,268,424 (A$4,236,579) in Australia. The film has been released in many other countries, proving popular in some: the Netherlands ($1,553,825) and not so popular in others. The film has grossed a worldwide total of $21,972,336. Universal had planned a North American release in the summer of 2009, but canceled it and chose to release the film directly to DVD.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: "Wild Child" has a 41% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 27 reviews with an average rating of 4.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "More mild than wild. This tween comedy mess falls flat on its face due to poor characters, poor direction and poor jokes". The Sun Online gave the film 2/5 saying "WILD? More like mild, unless you think short skirts and 'horse face' put-downs are outrageous." Urban Cinefile gave "Wild Child" a much more favourable review, stating "The film has an energy and honesty about it: it's lively, funny and smart and the characters are appealing."


title: Wild Child (film)

text: "Wild Child" was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on 8 December 2008. In Australia, it was released on 15 January 2009. In the United States, it was released directly to DVD on 17 November 2009.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: Wild Child: The Movie Soundtrack Party Album is a soundtrack album by the film of the same name, released in the United Kingdom and Australia on 18 August 2008. In the United States, the soundtrack wasn't released.


title: Wild Child (film)

text: The following songs appeared in the movie and trailers, although they were not included on the soundtrack for the film, due to licensing restrictions:


title: Malagasy language

text: Malagasy (; ) is an Austronesian language and the national language of Madagascar. Malagasy is the westernmost Malayo-Polynesian language, brought to Madagascar by the settlement of Austronesian peoples from the Sunda islands around the 5th century AD. The Malagasy language is one of the Barito languages and is most closely related to the Ma'anyan language, still spoken on Borneo to this day. Malagasy also includes numerous Malay loanwords, from the time of the early Austronesian settlement and trading between Madagascar and the Sunda Islands. After c. 1000 AD, Malagasy incorporated numerous Bantu and Arabic loanwords, brought over by traders and new settlers.


title: Malagasy language

text: Malagasy is spoken by around 25 million people in Madagascar and the Comoros. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language, as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere. Malagasy is divided between two main dialect groups; Eastern and Western. The central plateau of the island, where the capital Antananarivo and the old heartland of the Merina Kingdom is located, speaks the Merina dialect. The Merina dialect is the basis of Standard Malagasy, which is used by the government and media in Madagascar. Standard Malagasy is one of two official languages of Madagascar alongside French, in the 2010 constitution of the Fourth Republic of Madagascar.


title: Malagasy language

text: Malagasy is written in the Latin script introduced by Western missionaries in the early 19th century. Previously, the Sorabe script was used, a local development of the Arabic script.


title: Malagasy language

text: The Malagasy language is the westernmost member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, a grouping that includes languages from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. In fact, Malagasy's relation with other Austronesian languages had already been noted by early scholars, such as the Dutch scholar Adriaan Reland in 1708.


title: Malagasy language

text: Among all Austronesian languages, Dahl (1951) demonstrated that Malagasy and Ma'anyan – an East Barito language spoken in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia on the island of Borneo – were particularly closely related. The language also has apparent influence from early Old Malay. Furthermore, there appears to be a Bantu influence or substratum in Malagasy phonotactics (Dahl 1988).


title: Malagasy language

text: Later, Adelaar (1995) suggested that the vocabulary of Malagasy also contains many words that are of South Sulawesi origin. Further evidence for this suggestion was presented by Blench (2018).


title: Malagasy language

text: Malagasy is the demonym of Madagascar, from which it is taken to refer to the people of Madagascar in addition to their language.


title: Malagasy language

text: Madagascar was first settled by Austronesian peoples from Maritime Southeast Asia from the Sunda Islands (Malay archipelago). As for their route, one possibility is that the Indonesian Austronesian came directly across the Indian Ocean from Java to Madagascar. It is likely that they went through the Maldives, where evidence of old Indonesian boat design and fishing technology persists until the present. The migrations continued along the first millennium, as confirmed by linguistic researchers who showed the close relationship between the Malagasy language and Old Malay and Old Javanese languages of this period. The Malagasy language originates from the Southeast Barito languages, and the Ma'anyan language is its closest relative, with numerous Malay and Javanese loanwords. It is known that Ma'anyan people were brought as labourers and slaves by Malay and Javanese people in their trading fleets, which reached Madagascar by ca. 50–500 AD. Later, c. 1000, the original Austronesian settlers mixed with Bantus and Arabs, amongst others. There is evidence that the predecessors of the Malagasy dialects first arrived in the southern stretch of the east coast of Madagascar.


title: Malagasy language

text: Malagasy has a tradition of oratory arts and poetic histories and legends. The most well-known is the national epic, "Ibonia", about a Malagasy folk hero of the same name.


title: Malagasy language

text: Malagasy is the principal language spoken on the island of Madagascar. It is also spoken by Malagasy communities on neighboring Indian Ocean islands such as Réunion, Mayotte and Mauritius. Expatriate Malagasy communities speaking the language also exist in Europe and North America.


title: Malagasy language

text: The Merina dialect of Malagasy is considered the national language of Madagascar. It is one of two official languages alongside French in the 2010 constitution put in place the Fourth Republic. Previously, under the 2007 constitution, Malagasy was one of three official languages alongside French and English. Malagasy is the language of instruction in all public schools through grade five for all subjects, and remains the language of instruction through high school for the subjects of history and Malagasy language.


title: Malagasy language

text: There are two principal dialects of Malagasy; Eastern (including Merina) and Western (including Sakalava), with the isogloss running down the spine of the island, the south being western, and the central plateau and much of the north (apart from the very tip) being eastern. "Ethnologue" encodes 12 variants of Malagasy as distinct languages. They have about a 70% similarity in lexicon with the Merina dialect.


title: Malagasy language

text: Additionally, Bushi (41,700 speakers) is spoken on the French overseas territory of Mayotte, which is part of the Comoro island chain situated northwest of Madagascar.


title: Malagasy language

text: Sakalava retains ancestral *li and *ti, whereas in Merina these become (as in "huditra" 'skin' above) and :


title: Malagasy language

text: The language has a written literature going back presumably to the 15th century. When the French established Fort-Dauphin in the 17th century, they found an Arabico-Malagasy script in use, known as Sorabe ("large writings"). This Arabic Ajami script was mainly used for astrological and magical texts. The oldest known manuscript in that script is a short Malagasy-Dutch vocabulary from the early 17th century, which was first published in 1908 by Gabriel Ferrand though the script must have been introduced into the southeast area of Madagascar in the 15th century.


title: Malagasy language

text: The first bilingual renderings of religious texts are those by Étienne de Flacourt, who also published the first dictionary of the language. Radama I, the first literate representative of the Merina monarchy, though extensively versed in the Arabico-Malagasy tradition, opted in 1823 for a Latin system derived by David Jones and invited the Protestant London Missionary Society to establish schools and churches. The first book to be printed in Malagasy using Latin characters was the Bible, which was translated into Malagasy in 1835 by British Protestant missionaries working in the highlands area of Madagascar.


title: Malagasy language

text: The current Malagasy alphabet consists of 21 letters: "a, b, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, v, y, z." The orthography maps rather straightforwardly to the phonemic inventory. The letters "i" and "y" both represent the sound ("y" is used word-finally, and "i" elsewhere), while "o" is pronounced . The affricates and are written "tr" and "dr", respectively, while and are written "ts" and "j". The letter "h" is often silent. All other letters have essentially their IPA values. The letters "c, q, u, w" and "x" are all not used in native Malagasy words.


title: Malagasy language

text: "@" is used informally as a short form for "amin'ny", which is a preposition followed by the definite form, meaning for instance "with the".


title: Malagasy language

text: Diacritics are not obligatory in standard Malagasy, except in the case where its absence leads to an ambiguity: "tanàna" ("city") must have the diacritic to discriminate itself from "tanana" ("hand"). They may however be used in the following ways:


title: Malagasy language

text: After a stressed syllable, as at the end of most words and in the final two syllables of some, are reduced to . ( is spelled in such cases, though in monosyllabic words like "ny" and "vy", is pronounced as a full .) Final , and sometimes final syllables, are devoiced at the end of an utterance. and are never reduced or devoiced. The large number of reduced vowels, and their effect on neighbouring consonants, give Malagasy a phonological quality not unlike that of Portuguese.


title: Malagasy language

text: The alveolars are slightly palatalized. vary between and , and are especially likely to be the latter when followed by unstressed : Thus French "malgache" 'Malagasy'. The velars are palatalized after (e.g. "alika" 'dog'). is frequently elided in casual speech.


title: Malagasy language

text: The reported postalveolar trilled affricates are sometimes simple stops, , but they often have a rhotic release, . It is not clear if they are actually trilled, or are simply non-sibilant affricates . However, in another Austronesian language with a claimed trilled affricate, Fijian, trilling occurs but is rare, and the primary distinguishing feature is that it is postalveolar. The Malagasy sounds are frequently transcribed , and that is the convention used in this article.


title: Malagasy language

text: In reduplication, compounding, possessive and verbal constructions, as well as after nasals, fricatives and liquids, 'spirants' become stops, as follows:


title: Malagasy language

text: Here, stressed syllables are indicated by grave diacritics ("à"), although these diacritics are normally not used.


title: Malagasy language

text: Words are generally accented on the penultimate syllable, unless the word ends in "ka", "tra" and often "na", in which case they are stressed on the antepenultimate syllable. Secondary stresses exist in even-numbered syllables from the last stressed syllable, when the word has more than four syllables ("fàmantàranàndro" "watch, clock"). Both affixation and prefixation do not affect stress placement.


title: Malagasy language

text: In many dialects, unstressed vowels (except ) are devoiced, and in some cases almost completely elided; thus "fanòrona" is pronounced .


title: Malagasy language

text: Within phrases, Malagasy order is typical of head-initial languages: Malagasy has prepositions rather than postpositions ("ho an'ny zaza" "for the child"). Determiners precede the noun, while quantifiers, modifying adjective phrases, and relative clauses follow the noun ("ny boky" "the book(s)", "ny boky mena" "the red book(s)", "ny boky rehetra" "all the books", "ny boky novakin'ny mpianatra" "the book(s) read by the student(s)").


title: Malagasy language

text: Somewhat unusually, demonstrative determiners are repeated both before and after the noun "ity boky ity" "this book" (lit. "this book this").


title: Malagasy language

text: Verbs have syntactically three productive "voice" forms according to the thematic role they play in the sentence: the basic "agent focus" forms of the majority of Malagasy verbs, the derived "patient focus" forms used in "passive" constructions, and the derived "goal focus" forms used in constructions with focus on instrumentality. Thus


title: Malagasy language

text: all mean "I wash my hands with soap" though focus is determined in each case by the sentence initial verb form and the sentence final (noun) argument: "manasa" "wash" and "aho" "I" in (1), "sasako" "wash" and "ny tanako" "my hands" in (2), "anasako" "wash" and "ny savony" "soap" in (3). There is no equivalent to the English preposition "with" in (3).


title: Malagasy language

text: Verbs inflect for past, present, and future tense, where tense is marked by prefixes (e.g. "mividy" "buy", "nividy" "bought", "hividy" "will buy").


title: Malagasy language

text: Malagasy has no grammatical gender, and nouns do not inflect for number. However, pronouns and demonstratives have distinct singular and plural forms (cf. "io boky io" "that book", "ireto boky ireto" "these books").


title: Malagasy language

text: There is a complex series of demonstrative pronouns, depending on the speaker's familiarity and closeness to the referent.