title: Talcott Parsons

text: He officially retired from Harvard in 1973 but continued his writing, teaching, and other activities in the same rapid pace as before. Parsons also continued his extensive correspondence with a wide group of colleagues and intellectuals. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Rutgers University, the University of Chicago, and the University of California at Berkeley. At Parsons' retirement banquet, on May 18, 1973, Robert K. Merton was asked to preside, while John Riley, Bernard Barber, Jesse Pitts, Neil J. Smelser, and John Akula were asked to share their experiences of the man with the audience.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: One scholar who became important in Parsons' later years was professor Martin U. Martel, of Brown University. They had made contact in the early 1970s at a discussion of an article that Martel had written about Parsons' work. Martel arranged a series of seminars at Brown University in 1973 to 1974, and Parsons spoke about his life and work and answered questions from students and faculty. Among the participants at the seminars were Martel, Robert M. Marsh, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, C. Parker Wolf, Albert F. Wessen, A. Hunter Dupree, Philip L. Quinn, Adrian Hayes and Mark A. Shields. In February to May 1974, Parsons also gave the Culver Lectures at Brown and spoke on "The Evolution of Society". The lectures and were videotaped.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Late in life, Parsons began to work out a new level of the AGIL model, which he called "A Paradigm of the Human Condition". The new level of the AGIL model crystallized in the summer of 1974. He worked out the ideas of the new paradigm with a variety of people but especially Lidz, Fox and Harold Bershady. The new metaparadigm featured the environment of the general action system, which included the physical system, the biological system, and what Parsons called the telic system. The telic system represents the sphere of ultimate values in a sheer metaphysical sense. Parsons also worked toward a more comprehensive understanding of the code-structure of social systems and on the logic of the cybernetic pattern of control facilitating the AGIL model. He wrote a bulk of notes: two being "Thoughts on the Linking of Systems" and "Money and Time". He had also extensive discussions with Larry Brownstein and Adrian Hayes on the possibility of a mathematical formalization of Parsons' theory.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons had worked intensively with questions of medical sociology, the medical profession, psychiatry, psychosomatic problems, and the questions of health and illness. Most of all Parsons had become known for his concept of "the Sick role". The last field of social research was an issue that Parsons constantly developed through elaboration and self-criticism. Parsons participated at the World Congress of Sociology in Toronto in August 1974 at which he presented a paper, "The Sick Role Revisited: A Response to Critics and an Updating in Terms of the Theory of Action", which was published under a slightly different title, "The Sick Role and the Role of the Physician Reconsidered", in 1975. In this essay, Parsons highlighted that his concept of "sick role" never was meant to be confined to "deviant behavior", but "its negative valuation should not be forgotten". It was also important to keep a certain focus on the "motivatedness" of illness, since there is always a factor of unconscious motivation in the therapeutic aspects of the sick role.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: In 1975, Bellah published "The Broken Covenant". Bellah referred to the sermon delivered by John Winthrop (1587–1649) to his flock on the ship "Arbella" on the evening of the landing in Massachusetts Bay in 1630. Winthrop declared that the Puritan colonists' emigration to the New World was part of a covenant, a special pact with God, to create a holy community and noted: "For we must consider that we shall be a city on the hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." Parsons disagreed strongly with Bellah's analysis and insisted that the covenant was not broken. Parsons later used much of his influential article, "Law as an Intellectual Stepchild", to discuss Bellah's position.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons thought that Bellah trivialized the tensions of individual interests and society's interests by reducing them to "capitalism"; Bellah, in his characterization of the negative aspects of American society, was compelled by a charismatic-based optimalism moral absolutism.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: In 1975, Parsons responded to an article by Jonathan H. Turner, "Parsons as a Symbolic Interactionist: A Comparison of Action and Interaction Theory". Parsons acknowledged that action theory and symbolic interactionism should not be regarded as two separate, antagonistic positions but have overlapping structures of conceptualization. Parsons regarded symbolic interactionism and the theory of George Herbert Mead as valuable contributions to action theory that specify certain aspects of the theory of the personality of the individual. Parsons, however, criticized the symbolic interactionism of Herbert Blumer since Blumer's theory had no end to the openness of action. Parsons regarded Blumer as the mirror image of Claude Lévi-Strauss, who tended to stress the quasi-determined nature of macro-structural systems. Action theory, Parsons maintained, represented a middle ground between both extremes.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: In 1976, Parsons was asked to contribute to a volume to celebrate the 80th birthday of Jean Piaget. Parsons contributed with an essay, "A Few Considerations on the Place of Rationality in Modern Culture and Society". Parsons characterized Piaget as the most eminent contributor to cognitive theory in the 20th century. However, he also argued that the future study of cognition had to go beyond its narrow encounter with psychology to aim at a higher understanding of how cognition as a human intellectual force was entangled in the processes of social and cultural institutionalization.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: In 1978, when James Grier Miller published his famous work "Living Systems", Parsons was approached by "Contemporary Sociology" to write a review article on Miller's work. Parsons had already complained in a letter to A. Hunter Dupree that American intellectual life suffered from a deep-seated tradition of empiricism and saw Miller's book the latest confirmation of that tradition. In his review, "Concrete Systems and "Abstracted Systems", he generally praised the herculean task behind Miller's work but criticized Miller for getting caught in the effort of hierarchize concrete systems but underplay the importance of structural categories in theory building. Parsons also complained about Miller's lack of any clear distinction between cultural and non-cultural systems.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Japan had long been a keen interest in Parsons' work. As early as 1958, a Japanese translation of "Economy and Society" appeared. Also, "The Structure of Social Action" was translated into Japanese. "The Social System" was translated into Japanese by Tsutomu Sato in 1974. Indeed, Ryozo Takeda had, as early as 1952 in his "Shakaigaku no Kozo ("The Framework of Sociology")" introduced Japanese scholars to some of Parsons' ideas. Parsons had visited Japan for the first time in 1972 and he gave a lecture on November 25 to the Japanese Sociological Association, "Some Reflections on Post-Industrial Society" that was published in "The Japanese Sociological Review". At the same time, Parsons participated in an international symposium on "New Problems of Advanced Societies", held in Tokyo, and he wrote short articles written that appeared in the proceedings of the symposium. Tominaga, born in 1931, a leading figure in Japanese sociology and a professor at the University of Tokyo, was asked by Lidz to contribute to a two-volume collection of essays to honor Parsons. Tominaga wrote an essay on the industrial growth model of Japan and used Parsons' AGIL model.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: In 1977, Washio Kurata, the new dean of the Faculty of Sociology of Kwansei Gakuin University, wrote to Parsons and invited him to visit Japan during the 1978–1979 academic year. In early spring, Parsons accepted the invitation, and on October 20, 1978, Parsons arrived at the Osaka Airport, accompanied by his wife, and was greeted royally by a large entourage.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons began weekly lectures at Kwansei's sociology department from October 23 to December 15. Parsons gave his first public lecture to a huge mass of undergraduates, "The Development of Contemporary Sociology". Professor Hideichiro Nakano served as an interpreter.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: On November 17–18, when the Sengari Seminar House was opened, Parsons was invited as the key speaker at the event and gave two lectures, "On the Crisis of Modern Society" and "Modern Society and Religion". Present were Tominaga, Mutsundo Atarashi, Kazuo Muto, and Hideichiro Nakano.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: On November 25, lectures at Kobe University were organized by Hiroshi Mannari. Parsons lectured on organization theory to the faculty and the graduate students from the Departments of Economics, Management and Sociology. Also, faculty members from Kyoto and Osaka universities were present. A text was published the next year. On November 30 to December 1, Parsons participated in a Tsukuba University Conference in Tokyo; Parsons spoke on "Enter the New Society: The Problem of the Relationship of Work and Leisure in Relation to Economic and Cultural Values".


title: Talcott Parsons

text: On December 5, Parsons gave a lecture at Kyoto University on "A Sociologist Looks at Contemporary U.S. Society".


title: Talcott Parsons

text: At a special lecture at Osaka on December 12, Parsons spoke, at the suggestion of Tominaga, on "Social System Theory and Organization Theory" to the Japanese Sociological Association. Earlier that day, Parsons had a discussion with Tominaga at Iwanami Shoten, which was published in a journal "SHISO".


title: Talcott Parsons

text: On December 14, Kwansei Gakuin University granted Parsons an honorary doctor degree. Some of his lectures would be collected into a volume by Kurata and published in 1983. The Parsons flew back to the US in mid-December 1978.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: As a sign of friendship Hideichiro Nakano sent Parsons a Buddha mask. Parsons had especially been captivated by certain aspects of Zen Buddhism. He told his friends that after his experience in Japan, he was going to reconsider certain aspects of his interpretation of the origins of modern civilizations.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons died May 8, 1979, in Munich on a trip to Germany, where he was celebrating the 50th anniversary of his degree at Heidelberg. The day before, he had given a lecture on social class to an audience of German intellectuals, including Habermas, Niklas Luhmann and Wolfgang Schluchter.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons produced a general theoretical system for the analysis of society, which he called "theory of action", based on the methodological and epistemological principle of "analytical realism" and on the ontological assumption of "voluntaristic action". Parsons' concept of analytical realism can be regarded as a kind of compromise between nominalist and realist views on the nature of reality and human knowledge. Parsons believed that objective reality can be related to only by a particular encounter of such reality and that general intellectual understanding is feasible through conceptual schemes and theories. Interaction with objective reality on an intellectual level should always be understood as an approach. Parsons often explained the meaning of analytical realism by quoting a statement by Henderson: "A fact is a statement about experience in terms of a conceptual scheme."


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Generally, Parsons maintained that his inspiration regarding analytical realism had been Lawrence Joseph Henderson and Alfred North Whitehead although he might have gotten the idea much earlier. It is important for Parsons' "analytical realism" to insist on the reference to an objective reality since he repeatedly highlighted that his concept of "analytical realism" was very different from the "fictionalism" of Hans Vaihiger (Hans Vaihinger):


title: Talcott Parsons

text: "The Structure of Social Action" (SSA), Parsons' most famous work, took form piece by piece. Its central figure was Weber, and the other key figures in the discussion were added, little by little, as the central idea took form. One important work that helped Parsons' central argument in was, in 1932, unexpectedly found: Élie Halévy's "La formation du radicalisme philosophique" (1901–1904); he read the three-volume work in French. Parsons explained, "Well, Halévy was just a different world ... and helped me to really get in to many clarifications of the assumptions distinctive to the main line of British utilitarian thought; assumptions about the 'natural identity of interest', and so on. I still think it is one of the true masterpieces in intellectual history." Parsons first achieved significant recognition with the publication of "The Structure of Social Action" (1937), his first grand synthesis, combining the ideas of Durkheim, Weber, Pareto, and others. In 1998, the International Sociology Association listed it as the third most important sociological book of the 20th Century


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons' action theory can be characterized as an attempt to maintain the scientific rigour of positivism while acknowledging the necessity of the "subjective dimension" of human action incorporated in hermeneutic types of sociological theories. It is cardinal in Parsons' general theoretical and methodological view that human action must be understood in conjunction with the motivational component of the human act. Social science must consider the question of ends, purpose, and ideals in its analysis of human action. Parsons' strong reaction to behavioristic theory as well as to sheer materialistic approaches derives from the attempt of the theoretical positions to eliminate ends, purpose, and ideals as factors of analysis. Parsons, in his term papers at Amherst, was already criticizing attempts to reduce human life to psychological, biological, or materialist forces. What was essential in human life, Parsons maintained, was how the factor of culture was codified. Culture, however, was to Parsons an independent variable in that it could not be "deducted" from any other factor of the social system. That methodological intention is given the most elaborate presentation in "The Structure of Social Action," which was Parsons' first basic discussion of the methodological foundation of the social sciences.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Some of the themes in "The Structure of Social Action" had been presented in a compelling essay two years earlier in "The Place of Ultimate Values in Sociological Theory".


title: Talcott Parsons

text: An intense correspondence and dialogue between Talcott Parsons and Alfred Schutz serves to highlight the meaning of central concepts in "The Structure of Social Action."


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons developed his ideas during a period when systems theory and cybernetics were very much on the front burner of social and behavioral science. In using systems thinking, he postulated that the relevant systems treated in social and behavioral science were "open:" they were embedded in an environment with other systems. For social and behavioral science, the largest system is "the action system," the interrelated behaviors of human beings, embedded in a physical-organic environment.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: As Parsons developed his theory, it became increasingly bound to the fields of cybernetics and system theory but also to Emerson's concept of homeostasis and Ernst Mayr's concept of "teleonomic processes". On the metatheoretical level, Parson attempted to balance psychologist phenomenology and idealism on the one hand and pure types of what Parsons called the utilitarian-positivistic complex, on the other hand.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: The theory includes a general theory of social evolution and a concrete interpretation of the major drives of world history. In Parsons' theory of history and evolution, the constitutive-cognitive symbolization of the cybernetic hierarchy of action-systemic levels has, in principle, the same function as genetic information in DNA's control of biological evolution, but that factor of metasystemic control does not "determine" any outcome but defines the orientational boundaries of the real pathfinder, which is action itself. Parsons compares the constitutive level of society with Noam Chomsky's concept of "deep structure".


title: Talcott Parsons

text: As Parsons wrote, "The deep structures do not as such articulate any sentences which could convey coherent meaning. The surface structures constitute the level at which this occurs. The connecting link between them is a set of rules of transformation, to use Chomsky's own phrase." The transformative processes and entities are generally, at least on one level of empirical analysis, performed or actualized by myths and religions, but philosophies, art systems, or even semiotic consumer behavior can, in principle, perform that function.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons' theory reflects a vision of a unified concept of social science and indeed of living systems in general. His approach differs in essence from Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems because Parsons rejects the idea that systems can be autopoietic, short of the actual action system of individual actors. Systems have immanent capacities but only as an outcome of the institutionalized processes of action-systems, which, in the final analysis, is the historical effort of individual actors. While Luhmann focused on the systemic immanence, Parsons insisted that the question of autocatalytic and homeostatic processes and the question about the actor as the ultimate "first mover" on the other hand was not mutually exclusive. Homeostatic processes might be necessary if and when they occur but action is necessitating.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: It is only that perspective of the ultimate reference in action that Parsons' dictum (that higher-order cybernetic systems in history will tend to control social forms that are organized on the lower levels of the cybernetic hierarchy) should be understood. For Parsons, the highest levels of the cybernetic hierarchy as far as the general action level is concerned is what Parsons calls the constitutive part of the cultural system (the L of the L). However, within the interactional processes of the system, attention should be paid especially to the cultural-expressivistic axis (the L-G line in the AGIL). By the term "constitutive", Parsons generally referred to very highly codified cultural values especially religious elements (but other interpretation of the term "constitutive" is possible).


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Cultural systems have an independent status from that of the normative and orientational pattern of the social system; neither system can be reduced to the other. For example, the question of the "cultural capital" of a social system as a sheer historical entity (in its function as a "fiduciary system"), is not identical to the higher cultural values of that system; that is, the cultural system is embodied with a metastructural logic that cannot be reduced to any given social system or cannot be viewed as a materialist (or behavioralist) deduction from the "necessities" of the social system (or from the "necessities" of its economy). Within that context, culture would have an independent power of transition, not only as factors of actual sociocultural units (like Western civilization) but also how original cultural bases would tend to "universalize" through interpenetration and spread over large numbers of social systems as with Classical Greece and Ancient Israel, where the original social bases had died but the cultural system survived as an independently "working" cultural pattern, as in the case of Greek philosophy or in the case of Christianity, as a modified derivation from its origins in Israel.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: The difference between Parsons and Jürgen Habermas lies essentially in how Habermas uses Parsons' theory to establish the basic propositions of his own. Habermas takes the division between Parsons' separation between the "outer" and the "inner" dimensions of the social system and labels them "system" (outer dimension (A-G)) and "lifeworld" (inner dimension (I-L)). The problem with this model from Parsons' point of view is a) that conflict within the social system can in reality emerge from any relational point and not simply from the system-lifeworld dichotomy, and b) by relating the system-lifeworld model to some kind of "liberation"-ethos, Habermas produces the Utopian notion that the potential for conflict within the social system has some kind of "final solution," which produces a misleading concept of the nature of systemic conflict.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: It is important to highlight that Parsons distinguished two "meanings" or modes of the term "general theory". He sometimes wrote about general theory as aspects of theoretical concerns of social sciences whose focus is on the most "constitutive" elements of cognitive concern for the basic theoretical systematization of a given field. Parsons would include the basic conceptual scheme for the given field, including its highest order of theoretical relations and naturally also the necessary specification of this system's axiomatic, epistemological, and methodological foundations from the point of view of logical implications. All the elements would signify the quest for a general theory on the highest level of theoretical concern.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: However, general theory could also refer to a more fully/operational system whose implications of the conceptual scheme were "spelled out" on lower levels of cognitive structuralization, levels standing closer to a perceived "empirical object". In his speech to the American Sociological Society in 1947, he spoke of five levels:


title: Talcott Parsons

text: During his life, he would work on developing all five fields of theoretical concerns but pay special attention to the development on the highest "constitutive" level, as the rest of the building would stand or fall on the solidity of the highest level.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Despite myths, Parsons never thought that modern societies exist in some kind of perfect harmony with their norms or that most modern societies were necessarily characterized by some high level of consensus or a "happy" institutional integration. Parsons highlighted that is almost logically impossible that there can be any "perfect fit" or perfect consensus in the basic normative structure of complex modern societies because the basic value pattern of modern societies is generally differentiated in such a way that some of the basic normative categories exist in inherent or at least potential conflict with each other. For example, freedom and equality are generally viewed as fundamental and non-negotiable values of modern societies. Each represents a kind of ultimate imperative about what the higher values of humanity. However, as Parsons emphasizes, no simple answer on the priority of freedom or equality or any simple solution on how they possibly can be mediated, if at all. Therefore, all modern societies are faced with the inherent conflict prevailing between the two values, and there is no "eternal solution" as such. There cannot be any perfect match between motivational pattern, normative solutions, and the prevailing value pattern in any modern society. Parsons also maintained that the "dispute" between "left" and "right" has something to do with the fact that they both defend ultimately "justified" human values (or ideals), which alone is indispensable as values but are always in an endless conflictual position to each other.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons always maintained that the integration of the normative pattern in society is generally problematic and that the level of integration that is reached in principle is always far from harmonious and perfect. If some "harmonious pattern" emerges, it is related to specific historical circumstances but is not a general law of the social systems.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: The heuristic scheme that Parsons used to analyze systems and subsystems is called the "AGIL paradigm" or the "AGIL scheme". To survive or maintain equilibrium with respect to its environment, any system must to some degree adapt to that environment (adaptation), attain its goals (goal attainment), integrate its components (integration), and maintain its latent pattern (latency pattern Maintenance), a sort of cultural template. The concepts can be abbreviated as AGIL and are called the system's functional imperatives. It is important to understand that Parsons AGIL model is an analytical scheme for the sake of theoretical "production", but it is not any simple "copy" or any direct historical "summary" of empirical reality. Also, the scheme itself does not explain "anything", just as the periodic table explains nothing by itself in the natural sciences. The AGIL scheme is a tool for explanations and is no better than the quality of the theories and explanation by which it is processed.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: In the case of the analysis of a social action system, the AGIL paradigm, according to Parsons, yields four interrelated and interpenetrating subsystems: the behavioral systems of its members (A), the personality systems of those members (G), the social system (as such) (I), and the cultural system of that society (L). To analyze a society as a social system (the I subsystem of action), people are posited to enact roles associated with positions. The positions and roles become differentiated to some extent and, in a modern society, are associated with things such as occupational, political, judicial, and educational roles.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Considering the interrelation of these specialized roles as well as functionally differentiated collectivities (like firms and political parties), a society can be analyzed as a complex system of interrelated functional subsystems:


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons elaborated upon the idea that each of these systems also developed some specialized symbolic mechanisms of interaction analogous to money in the economy, like influence in the social community. Various processes of "interchange" among the subsystems of the social system were postulated.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons' use of social systems analysis based on the AGIL scheme was established in his work "Economy and Society" (with N. Smelser, 1956) and has prevailed in all his work ever since. However, the AGIL system existed only in a "rudimentary" form in the beginning and was gradually elaborated and expanded in the decades which followed. A brief introduction to Parsons' AGIL scheme can be found in Chapter 2 of "The American University" (with G. Platt, 1973). There is, however, no single place in his writing in which the total AGIL system is visually displayed or explained: the complete system have to be reconstructed from multiple places in his writing. The system displayed in "The American University" has only the most basic elements and should not be mistaken for the whole system.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons contributed to social evolutionism and neoevolutionism. He divided evolution into four sub-processes:


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons viewed Western civilization as the pinnacle of modern societies and the United States as the one that is most dynamically developed.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons' late work focused on a new theoretical synthesis around four functions that he claimed are common to all systems of action, from the behavioral to the cultural, and a set of symbolic media that enables communication across them. His attempt to structure the world of action according to a scheme that focused on order was unacceptable for American sociologists, who were retreating from the grand pretensions of the 1960s to a more empirical, grounded approach.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons asserted that there are not two dimensions to societies (instrumental and expressive) but that there are qualitative differences between kinds of social interaction.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: He observed that people can have personalized and formally detached relationships, based on the roles that they play. The "pattern variables" are what he called the characteristics that are associated with each kind of interaction.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: From the 1940s to the 1970s, Parsons was one of the most famous and most influential but also most controversial sociologists in the world, particularly in the US. His later works were met with criticism and were generally dismissed in the 1970s by the view that his theories were too abstract, inaccessible, and socially conservative.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Recently, interest has increased in Parsons' ideas and especially often-overlooked later works. Attempts to revive his thinking have been made by Parsonsian sociologists and social scientists like Jeffrey Alexander, Bryan Turner, Richard Münch, and Roland Robertson, and Uta Gerhardt has written about Parsons from a biographical and historical perspective. In addition to the United States, the key centers of interest in Parsons today are Germany, Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: Parsons had a seminal influence and early mentorship of many American and international scholars, such as Ralf Dahrendorf, Alain Touraine, Niklas Luhmann, and Habermas. His best-known pupil was Merton. Parsons was a member of the American Philosophical Society.


title: Talcott Parsons

text: In 1930 Parson's published a translation of Weber's classic work "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism"


title: Five Bedrooms

text: Five Bedrooms is an Australian comedy-drama television series, which first screened on Network 10. The eight part series premiered on 15 May 2019, at 8:40 pm. In the United States, the series started streaming on Peacock on April 15, 2020.


title: Five Bedrooms

text: In October 2019, the drama was renewed for a second season by 10 which was set premiere in 2020, however due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the second season was rescheduled to air in 2021 instead. In May 2021, the Australian broadcast of the series was announced to be moving from Network 10 to the 10 affiliated streaming service, Paramount+. Filming of the fourth season began in Melbourne in September 2022.


title: Five Bedrooms

text: "Five Bedrooms" tells the story of five people at different times of their lives. They bond after they find themselves seated together at the singles table at a wedding. After a few too many drinks, the solution to all of their problems seems to be buying a house together; a five bedroom house.


title: Five Bedrooms

text: In January 2019, it was announced Roy Joseph, Doris Younane, Katie Robertson, Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Kate Jenkinson and Hugh Sheridan had been cast in the new drama. In July 2021, it was announced that Rodger Corser would join the cast of the second season to guest star as Stuart, Liz's ex-husband. In October 2019, the drama was renewed for a second season by Network 10 which began filming in February 2020 before the production was closed down in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The second season's production resumed filming between June and July 2020. On 6 May 2021, it was announced the series moved to Paramount+, and that the second season premiered on 11 August 2021, coinciding with the Australian re-branding of 10 All Access to Paramount+. In October 2020, it was announced that a third season had been renewed which began filming in August 2021. It premiered on New Year's Day 2022. In May 2022, it was announced that a fourth season had been renewed which would begin filming in October 2022.


title: Five Bedrooms

text: "Five Bedrooms" was shown on BBC One from 10 March 2020, and was the fifth Australian drama to be broadcast on the BBC after "Out of the Blue, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, A Place to Call Home and 800 Words" since the broadcasting rights of "Neighbours" went to Channel 5 in 2008. "Five Bedrooms" airs on Peacock in the United States. It was also shown on RTP2 in Portugal and began airing on W Network in Canada in 2021. It began airing on RTÉ2 in the Republic of Ireland in July 2021, season two aired from November 2021 and season three from July 2022.


title: Seussical

text: Seussical is a musical comedy by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, based on the many children's stories of Dr. Seuss, with most of its plot being based on "Horton Hears a Who!", "Gertrude McFuzz", and "Horton Hatches the Egg" while incorporating many other stories. The musical's name is a portmanteau of "Seuss" and the word "musical". Following its Broadway debut in 2000, the show was widely panned by critics, and closed in 2001 with huge financial losses. It has spawned two US national tours and a West End production, and has become a frequent production for schools and regional theatres.


title: Seussical

text: "This synopsis describes the tour version of the show, currently being licensed as "Seussical the Musical" by Music Theatre International (MTI)."


title: Seussical

text: The show opens on a bare stage, save for an odd red-and-white-striped hat in the center. A small boy wanders into view and notices the hat, wondering to whom it might belong. He finally mentions the Cat in the Hat, who appears before the Boy and tells him he has been brought to life by the Boy's "Thinks". The Cat urges this boy to Think up the "Seussian" world and characters around the boy and himself ("Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!"). The Cat then reveals to the Boy that he is about to tell a story about someone as imaginative as the Boy is.


title: Seussical

text: To begin the story, the Cat encourages the Boy to think up the Jungle of Nool, where Horton the Elephant is bathing. Horton hears a strange noise coming from a nearby speck of dust, and reasons that someone must be on it, calling out for help. He carefully places the speck on a soft clover and decides to guard it ("Horton Hears a Who"). But he is mocked mercilessly by the Sour Kangaroo and the other animals of the jungle, who do not believe him ("Biggest Blame Fool"). The only exceptions are Horton's bird neighbors, Gertrude McFuzz, who admires his compassion, and Mayzie LaBird, who is more concerned about herself.


title: Seussical

text: Horton soon discovers that the speck is actually a microscopic planet populated by creatures called Whos. The citizens of Who-ville introduce themselves and their yearly Christmas pageant directed by their friend the Grinch. They also reveal that in addition to being unable to control where the speck flies, they are on the brink of war and their entire population of Truffula Trees has been cut down ("Here on Who"). The Whos thank Horton and ask for his protection, and he agrees to guard their planet.


title: Seussical

text: At this point, the Cat pushes the Boy into the story; he becomes Jojo, the son of the Mayor of Who-ville and his wife. Jojo has been getting into trouble at school for having Thinks, so his parents order him to "take a bath and go to bed, and think some normal Thinks, instead." Jojo blames the Cat for getting him into trouble and tries to send him away. The Cat refuses and persuades Jojo to imagine the tub is McElligot's Pool ("It's Possible"). Jojo inadvertently floods the house, leading the Mayor and his wife to contemplate what to do with their son ("How to Raise a Child"). When the Cat hands them a brochure, they decide to send Jojo to a military school run by General Genghis Khan Schmitz, who is preparing to go to war with those who eat their bread with the butter side down ("The Military"). While there, Jojo meets Horton, and finds a mutual friend in him ("Alone in the Universe").


title: Seussical

text: Gertrude, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Horton, but is afraid he does not notice her because of her own tail, which consists of only "one droopy-droop feather" ("The One Feather Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz"). At the advice of Mayzie, whose tail is enormous and dazzling, she consumes pills which make her tail grow new feathers. Gertrude is so excited that she overdoses, causing her tail to grow long and unwieldy ("Amayzing Mayzie"/"Amazing Gertrude").


title: Seussical

text: Horton is ambushed by the Wickersham brothers, a gang of delinquent monkeys, who steal the clover and make off with it ("Monkey Around"). Horton gives chase until the Wickershams hand the clover to an eagle named Vlad Vladikoff, who drops it into a large patch of identical clovers ("Chasing the Whos"). Here, the Cat cuts briefly into the action to remind the audience how lucky they are to not be Horton ("How Lucky You Are"). Undeterred, Horton begins to look for the clover, hoping the Whos are still alive, when Gertrude catches up with him and tries to get him to notice her new tail. Horton is too busy, so she leaves to take more pills ("Notice Me, Horton").


title: Seussical

text: Horton is about to search his three millionth clover when he loses hope. Mayzie, sitting in a nearby tree, offers to help him forget about the Whos by hatching an egg that she is too lazy to care for ("How Lucky You Are (Reprise)"). Horton reluctantly agrees, and Mayzie leaves for a vacation. Horton sits through months of harsh weather as he tries to decide between the egg and the Whos ("Horton Sits on the Egg") before he is captured by hunters, who take him away along with the entire tree. Gertrude tries to stop the hunters, but cannot fly due to her heavy tail.


title: Seussical

text: The Cat closes the act with a reprise of "How Lucky You Are", and conducts the band during the intermission.


title: Seussical

text: Horton, still hatching the egg, is auctioned off to the traveling Circus McGurkus ("Egg, Nest, and Tree"/"Circus McGurkus"/"How Lucky You Are (Reprise)"). At one show in Palm Beach, he meets up with Mayzie, who insists that he keep the egg for himself before leaving ("Amayzing Horton"). Horton mourns the loss of the Whos and Jojo, but vows just as surely to protect the egg, as it, too, is alone without its mother ("Alone in the Universe (Reprise)"), and sings it a lullaby with Jojo about a magical place called Solla Sollew. At the same time, the Mayor and his wife begin to miss Horton and Jojo, and wish for Solla Sollew, as well ("Solla Sollew").


title: Seussical

text: Jojo is with General Schmitz and his platoon as the Butter Battle commences. Jojo deserts Schmitz, but sprints into a minefield and vanishes in an explosion. Schmitz assumes the worst and heads to Who-ville to tell Jojo's parents that their son has died. The Cat returns to perform a re-enactment of the dramatic scene. But in reality, Jojo has survived, but is lost with no idea of where to turn. The Cat appears to him with a band of Hunches, encouraging him to use his Thinks to find his way home ("Havin' a Hunch"). Jojo does so and happily reunites with his parents, who forgive him for his Thinks.


title: Seussical

text: Gertrude sneaks into the circus to free Horton, explaining she plucked out all but one of her tail feathers to fly there, and confesses her love for him. She also reveals she has found his clover, delighting and relieving Horton to find the Whos alive and well ("All For You"). However, the Sour Kangaroo and the Wickersham brothers arrive to take Horton back to the jungle.


title: Seussical

text: In the jungle, Horton is put on trial for the crimes of "talking to a speck, disturbing the peace, and loitering... on an egg" ("The People Versus Horton the Elephant"). Aided by Gertrude, Horton makes his best case, but Judge Yertle the Turtle finds him guilty. He orders Horton remanded to the "Nool Asylum for the Criminally Insane" and the clover destroyed in a kettle of hot "Beezle-Nut" oil. Desperate, Horton encourages the Whos to make as much noise as possible to prove their existence, but the animals do not hear them. Jojo finally uses his Thinks to conjure a new word, "Yopp", which he shouts loudly enough to reach the animals' ears. Convinced at last, the animals repent and promise to help protect the Whos, and Horton is acquitted. Jojo is accepted by his parents and the rest of Who-ville as "Thinker Non-Stop" for saving their planet. Horton's egg hatches into a tiny flying "Elephant-Bird", amazing everyone, but dismaying Horton, who panics at the thought of flying progeny. Gertrude reassures him that they can raise the child together, and they agree to do so.


title: Seussical

text: With the story finished, the Cat returns to close the show with ("Finale - Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!"), then vanishes along with the scenery, leaving only his hat and Jojo, who is now the Boy again. The Boy picks the hat up, dons it, and says, "Seuss!"


title: Seussical

text: During a curtain call, the company performs a number based on "Green Eggs and Ham" ("Green Eggs and Ham").


title: Seussical

text: † In the Broadway production and the 1st US National Tour, the role of Jojo was alternated by two actors.


title: Seussical

text: In a reading in New York City, Eric Idle played the Cat in the Hat, and was credited at the time for contributions to the story line. In the Toronto workshop in 2000, coordinated by Livent Inc., Andrea Martin played the Cat in the Hat. Positive early buzz set off a bidding war among New York theatre producers, with Barry and Fran Weissler acquiring the rights. The musical had its out-of-town tryout in Boston, Massachusetts at the Colonial Theatre in September 2000.


title: Seussical

text: An extensive sequence adapting "The Lorax" was seen in the original script, which involved Jojo meeting the Once-ler after deserting the army, and receiving the last Truffula Tree seed from him, giving him the courage to save Who-ville. Relevant characters included the Lorax himself as well as Bar-ba-loots, Swomee-Swans, and Humming-Fish, who would all appear and disappear as the Once-ler told his story. The sequence faced numerous difficulties due to the show's already lengthy running time, and was ultimately cut entirely after its Boston tryout. As of 2013, MTI has begun offering the sequence as an independent "mini-musical", advertising it on the back of "Seussical" librettos and scripts.


title: Seussical

text: It was directed by Frank Galati and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. Marshall's brother Rob Marshall was hired to direct the show when it returned to Broadway from Boston, though was uncredited. Originally, Catherine Zuber was the costume designer who made costumes as close to Seuss's illustrations as possible, and her costumes were seen in the Boston run. However, for Broadway, Zuber was replaced by William Ivey Long, whose costumes were more realistic and clashed with the Seussian set design. David Shiner played the Cat in the Hat, while Kevin Chamberlin played Horton, Michele Pawk played Mayzie LaBird, Stuart Zagnit and Alice Playten played Mr. and Mrs. Mayor, and Sharon Wilkins played the Sour Kangaroo.


title: Seussical

text: The show received almost universally negative reviews. In January 2001, in response to falling ticket sales, producers brought in Rosie O'Donnell to replace Shiner as the Cat in the Hat for a month-long engagement. The move was criticized as stunt casting, but was successful at temporarily boosting ticket sales. In March, young pop star Aaron Carter and former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby were cast as JoJo and the Cat respectively for short engagements. Due to poor box office, the show closed on May 20, 2001 after 198 performances. Its ultimate financial losses were estimated at $11 million, making it one of the worst financial flops in Broadway history.


title: Seussical

text: Following the Broadway production, there were two US national tours. Rigby reprised her role as the Cat for the first tour which ran from September 2002 to June 2003. A second non-Equity production toured from 2003 to 2004.


title: Seussical

text: The script for the first tour was reworked extensively after the show's poor showing on Broadway, resulting in the removal or reworking of several songs. The biggest change involved Jojo, who would now initially appear as an anonymous boy imagining the events onstage before the Cat pushed him into the story. Additional dialogue was included, and some songs and their reprises were cut. This version of the show is the one currently licensed by MTI as "Seussical the Musical".


title: Seussical

text: A 90-minute Off-Broadway production was staged at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in 2007 by Theatreworks USA. It was directed and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge. This production was downscaled for the National Tour, which had its last show in spring 2018.


title: Seussical

text: "Seussical" opened on the West End at the Arts Theatre on December 4, 2012, presented by Selladoor Worldwide. It returned in 2013.


title: Seussical

text: "Seussical" opened at the Lyric Theatre at Gold Reef City on December 20, 2019 for the festive season, presented by &CO.


title: Seussical

text: A one-act version of the Broadway show titled "Seussical Jr." has been created as part of MTI's "Jr." series. It is intended to be shorter and more accessible for junior high or middle school students, and has an average run time of 60 minutes. For "Jr.", various songs are cut and shortened; the subplots based on "The Butter Battle Book" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!", and their relevant songs and characters, are removed to make the story more understandable for younger audiences, though the Grinch retains one line during the song "Here on Who". General Schmitz is replaced in "Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!" by the Wickersham Brothers.


title: Seussical

text: An even shorter version of the show, "Seussical KIDS", is also available from MTI. The 30-minute "KIDS" version is intended for a large cast of young performers. Notable differences between "Jr." and "KIDS" include the introduction of three Cats in the Hats and the removal of the songs "Biggest Blame Fool", "Amayzing Mayzie", and "Notice Me, Horton".


title: Seussical

text: In 2004, "Seussical" was reworked into a "Theatre for Young Audiences" version. The cast was reduced to 12 actors, with the plot changed to focus more on Horton.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: In logic and mathematics, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or the validity of a proposition, by showing that assuming the proposition to be false leads to a contradiction. Proof by contradiction is also known as indirect proof, proof by assuming the opposite, and reductio ad impossibile. It is an example of the weaker logical refutation "reductio ad absurdum".


title: Proof by contradiction

text: An important special case is the existence proof by contradiction: in order to demonstrate the existence of an object satisfying a given property, we assume that no such object exists and derive a contradiction. Although it is quite freely used in mathematical proofs, not every school of mathematical thought accepts this kind of nonconstructive proof as universally valid.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: The principle may be formally expressed as the propositional formula "¬¬P ⇒ P", equivalently "(¬P ⇒ ⊥) ⇒ P", which reads: "If assuming "P" to be false implies falsehood, then "P" is true."


title: Proof by contradiction

text: In classical logic the principle may be justified by the examination of the truth table of the proposition "¬¬P ⇒ P", which demonstrates it to be a tautology:


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Another way to justify the principle is to derive it from the Law of the excluded middle, as follows. We assume "¬¬P" and seek to prove "P". By the law of excluded middle "P" either holds or it does not:


title: Proof by contradiction

text: In either case, we established "P". It turns out that, conversely, proof by contradiction can be used to derive the law of excluded middle.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: In classical sequent calculus LK proof by contradiction is derivable from the inference rules for negation:


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Proof by contradiction is frequently confused with the similar-looking refutation by contradiction, a.k.a. proof of negation, which states that "¬P" is proved as follows:


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Refutation by contradiction applies only when the proposition to be proved is negated, whereas proof by contradiction may be applied to any proposition whatsoever.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Confusingly, in mathematical practice, both proof by contradiction and refutation by contradiction are referred to as "proof by contradiction", as they proceed in a similar manner. However, they are not equivalent—unless we assume the law of excluded middle, in which case they become equivalent.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: The law of noncontradiction was first formalized as a metaphysical principle by Aristotle. It states that a proposition and its negation cannot both be true. Equivalently, it states that a proposition cannot be both true and false. Formally the law of non-contradiction is written as "¬(Q ∧ ¬Q)" and read as "it is not the case that a proposition is both true and false".


title: Proof by contradiction

text: The law of non-contradiction neither follows nor is implied by the principle of Proof by contradiction.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Proof by contradiction is equivalent to the law of the excluded middle, also first formulated by Aristotle, which states that either an assertion or its negation is true, "P ∨ ¬P".


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Combined with the principle of noncontradiction, this means that exactly one of "P" and "¬P" is true.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: In intuitionistic logic proof by contradiction is not generally valid, although some particular instances can be derived. In contrast, proof of negation and principle of noncontradiction are both intuitionistically valid.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Brouwer–Heyting–Kolmogorov interpretation of proof by contradiction gives the following intuitionistic validity condition:


title: Proof by contradiction

text: If we take "method" to mean algorithm, then the condition is not acceptable, as it would allow us to solve the Halting problem. To see how, consider the statement "H(M)" stating "Turing machine "M" halts or does not halt". Its negation "¬H(M)" states that ""M" neither halts nor does not halt", which is false by the law of noncontradiction (which is intuitionistically valid). If proof by contradiction were intuitionistically valid, we would obtain an algorithm for deciding whether an arbitrary Turing machine "M" halts, thereby violating the (intuitionistically valid) proof of non-solvability of the Halting problem.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: A proposition "P" which satisfies formula_10 is known as a "¬¬-stable proposition". Thus in intuitionistic logic proof by contradiction is not universally valid, but can only be applied to the ¬¬-stable propositions. An instance of such a proposition is a decidable one, i.e., satisfying formula_11. Indeed, the above proof that the law of excluded middle implies proof by contradiction can be repurposed to show that a decidable proposition is ¬¬-stable. A typical example of a decidable proposition is a statement that can be checked by direct computation, such as "formula_12 is prime" or "formula_13 divides formula_14".


title: Proof by contradiction

text: An early occurrence of proof by contradiction can be found in Euclid's Elements, Book 1, Proposition 6:


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Hilbert proved the statement by assuming that there are no such polynomials formula_18 and derived a contradiction.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Euclid's theorem states that there are infinitely many primes. In Euclid's Elements the theorem is stated in Book IX, Proposition 20:


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Depending on how we formally write the above statement, the usual proof takes either the form of a proof by contradiction or a refutation by contradiction. We present here the former, see below how the proof is done as refutation by contradiction.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: If we formally express Euclid's theorem as saying that for every natural number formula_12 there is a prime bigger than it, then we employ proof by contradiction, as follows.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Given any number formula_12, we seek to prove that there is a prime larger than formula_12. Suppose to the contrary that no such "p" exists (an application of proof by contradiction). Then all primes are smaller than or equal to formula_12, and we may form the list formula_23 of them all. Let formula_24 be the product of all primes and formula_25. Because formula_26 is larger than all prime numbers it is not prime, hence it must be divisible by one of them, say formula_27. Now both formula_3 and formula_26 are divisible by formula_27, hence so is their difference formula_31, but this cannot be because 1 is not divisible by any primes. Hence we have a contradiction and so there is a prime number bigger than formula_12


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Because proof by contradiction is frequently conflated with refutation by contradiction, the following are often erroneously claimed to be proofs by contradiction, but they really are refutations by contradiction (and therefore intuitionistically valid).


title: Proof by contradiction

text: We may read the statement as saying that for every finite list of primes, there is another prime not on that list,


title: Proof by contradiction

text: which is arguably closer to and in the same spirit as Euclid's original formulation. In this case Euclid's proof applies refutation by contradiction at one step, as follows.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Consider any finite list of prime numbers formula_33. It will be shown that at least one additional prime number not in this list exists. Let formula_34 be the product of all the prime numbers in the list and formula_25. Then formula_26 is either prime or not:


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Indeed, we set out to prove the negation "¬ ∃ a, b ∈ formula_47 . a/b = " by assuming that there exist natural numbers "a" and "b" whose ratio is the square root of two, and derive a contradiction.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Proof by infinite descent is a method of proof whereby a smallest object with desired property is shown not to exist as follows:


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Such a proof is not a proof by contradiction but once again a refutation by contradiction. A typical example is the proof of the proposition "there is no smallest positive rational number": assume there is a smallest positive rational number "q" and derive a contradiction by observing that is even smaller than "q" and still positive.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Russell's paradox, stated set-theoretically as "there is no set whose elements are precisely those sets that do not contain themselves", is a negated statement whose usual proof is a refutation by contradiction.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: Proofs by contradiction sometimes end with the word "Contradiction!". Isaac Barrow and Baermann used the notation Q.E.A., for ""quod est absurdum"" ("which is absurd"), along the lines of Q.E.D., but this notation is rarely used today. A graphical symbol sometimes used for contradictions is a downwards zigzag arrow "lightning" symbol (U+21AF: ↯), for example in Davey and Priestley. Others sometimes used include a pair of opposing arrows (as formula_48 or formula_49), struck-out arrows (formula_50), a stylized form of hash (such as U+2A33: ⨳), or the "reference mark" (U+203B: ※), or formula_51.


title: Proof by contradiction

text: G. H. Hardy described proof by contradiction as "one of a mathematician's finest weapons", saying "It is a far finer gambit than any chess gambit: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game."


title: JW Marriott Hotels

text: The JW Marriott brand was established in 1984, with the opening of the first hotel in Washington, D.C. It was named as a tribute to J.W. Marriott, the founder of Marriott Corporation. In 1989, Hong Kong was the destination for the overseas launch. Europe and the Middle East followed in 1993. As a general guide within the Marriott hierarchy, the brand competes in luxury as below Ritz-Carlton, but above the traditional Marriott and Renaissance.


title: JW Marriott Hotels

text: The JW Marriott Jakarta experienced terrorist bombings in 2003 and 2009. In the 2003 incident, a car bomb explosion outside the lobby killed 12 and injured 150, mainly Indonesians. Despite extensive damage, the hotel reopened five weeks later. In the 2009 incident, a bomb in a small breakfast room caused six deaths. An unexploded bomb in a guest room failed to detonate.


title: JW Marriott Hotels

text: As of October 1, 2022, there are 100 hotels and resorts with 42,602 rooms open and operating, in addition to 40 hotels with 17,041 rooms in the pipeline, under the brand:


title: German South West Africa

text: German South West Africa () was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. With a total area of 835,100 km², it was one and a half times the size of the mainland German Empire in Europe at the time. The colony had a population of around 2,600 Germans.


title: German South West Africa

text: German rule over this territory was punctuated by numerous rebellions by its native African peoples, which culminated in a campaign of German reprisals from 1904 to 1908 known as the Herero and Namaqua genocide.


title: German South West Africa

text: In 1915, during World War I, German South West Africa was invaded by the Western Allies in the form of South African and British forces. After the war its administration was taken over by the Union of South Africa (part of the British Empire) and the territory was administered as South West Africa under a League of Nations mandate. It became independent as Namibia on 21 March 1990.


title: German South West Africa

text: Initial European contact with the areas which would become German South West Africa came from traders and sailors, starting in January 1486 when Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão, possibly accompanied by Martin Behaim, landed at Cape Cross. However, for several centuries, European settlement would remain limited and temporary. In February 1805, the London Missionary Society established a small mission in Blydeverwacht, but the efforts of this group met with little success. In 1840, the London Missionary Society transferred all of its activities to the German Rhenish Missionary Society. Some of the first representatives of this organisation were Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt (who arrived in October 1842) and Carl Hugo Hahn (who arrived in December 1842). They began founding churches throughout the territory. The Rhenish missionaries had a significant impact initially on culture and dress, and then later on politics. During the same time that the Rhenish missionaries were active, merchants and farmers were establishing outposts.


title: German South West Africa

text: On 16 November 1882, a German merchant from Bremen, Adolf Lüderitz, requested protection for a station that he planned to build in South West Africa, from Chancellor Bismarck. Once this was granted, his employee, Heinrich Vogelsang, purchased land from a native chief and established a settlement at Angra Pequena which was renamed Lüderitz. On 24 April 1884, he placed the area under the protection of Imperial Germany to deter possible encroachment by other European powers. In early 1884, the gunboat visited to review the situation. A favourable report from the government, and acquiescence from the British, resulted in a visit from the corvettes and . The German flag was finally raised in South West Africa on 7 August 1884. The German claims on this land were confirmed during the Conference of Berlin. In October, the newly appointed Commissioner for West Africa, Gustav Nachtigal, arrived on the .


title: German South West Africa

text: In April 1885, the "Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft für Südwest-Afrika" (German Colonial Society for Southwest Africa, known as DKGSWA) was founded with the support of German bankers (Gerson von Bleichröder, Adolph von Hansemann), industrialists (Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck) and politicians (Frankfurt mayor Johannes von Miquel). DKGSWA was granted monopoly rights to exploit mineral deposits, following Bismarck's policy that private rather than public money should be used to develop the colonies. The new Society soon bought the assets of Lüderitz's failing enterprises, land and mineral rights. Lüderitz drowned the next year while on an expedition to the mouth of the Orange River. Later, in 1908, diamonds were discovered. Thus along with gold, copper, platinum, and other minerals, diamonds became a major investment.


title: German South West Africa

text: In May, Heinrich Ernst Göring was appointed Commissioner and established his administration at Otjimbingwe. Then, on 17 April 1886, a law creating the legal system of the colony was passed, creating a dual system with laws for Europeans and different laws for natives.


title: German South West Africa

text: Over the following years, relations between the German settlers and the indigenous peoples continued to worsen. Additionally, the British settlement at Walvis Bay, a coastal enclave within South West Africa, continued to develop, and many small farmers and missionaries moved into the region. A complex web of treaties, agreements, and vendettas increased the unrest. In 1888 the first group of "Schutztruppen"—colonial protectorate troops—arrived, sent to protect the military base at Otjimbingwe.


title: German South West Africa

text: In 1890, the colony was declared a German Crown Colony, and more troops were sent. In July of the same year, as part of the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty between Britain and Germany, the colony grew in size through the acquisition of the Caprivi Strip in the northeast, promising new trade routes into the interior.


title: German South West Africa

text: Almost simultaneously, between August and September 1892, the South West Africa Company Ltd (SWAC) was established by the German, British, and Cape Colony governments, aided by financiers to raise the capital required to enlarge mineral exploitation (specifically, the Damaraland concession's copper deposit interests).


title: German South West Africa

text: A veterinary cordon fence was introduced in 1896 to control rinderpest by restricting population and livestock movement. Later known as the "Red Line", it became a political boundary with police protection concentrated south of the line, while northern areas were controlled though indirect colonial rule using traditional authorities. This led to different political and economic outcomes for example between the northern Ovambo people compared to the more centrally located Herero people.


title: German South West Africa

text: German South West Africa was the only German colony in which Germans settled in large numbers. German settlers were drawn to the colony by economic possibilities in diamond and copper mining, and especially farming. In 1902 the colony had 200,000 inhabitants, although only 2,595 were recorded as German, while 1,354 were Afrikaners and 452 were British. By 1914, 9,000 more German settlers had arrived. There were probably around 80,000 Herero, 60,000 Ovambo, and 10,000 Nama, who were referred to as Hottentots.


title: German South West Africa

text: Through 1893 and 1894, the first "Hottentot Uprising" of the Nama and their leader Hendrik Witbooi occurred. The following years saw many further local uprisings against German rule. Before the Herero and Namaqua genocide of 1904–1907, the Herero and Nama had good reasons to distrust the Germans, culminating in the Khaua-Mbandjeru rebellion. This rebellion, in which the Germans tried to control the Khaua by seizing their property under cover of European legal views of property ownership (criticised at home for being no real reform of the notion of collective tribal ownership). This led to the largest of the rebellions, known as the Herero Wars (or Herero genocide) of 1904.


title: German South West Africa

text: Remote farms were attacked, and approximately 150 German settlers were killed. The "Schutztruppe" of only 766 troops and native auxiliary forces was, at first, no match for the Herero. The Herero went on the offensive, sometimes surrounding Okahandja and Windhoek, and destroying the railway bridge to Osona. Additional 14,000 troops, hastened from Germany under Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha, crushed the rebellion in the Battle of Waterberg.


title: German South West Africa

text: Earlier von Trotha issued an ultimatum to the Herero people, denying them the right of being German subjects and ordering them to leave the country or be killed. To escape, the Herero retreated into the waterless Omaheke region, a western arm of the Kalahari Desert, where many of them died of thirst. The German forces guarded every water source and were given orders to shoot any adult male Herero on sight. Only a few Herero managed to escape into neighbouring British Bechuanaland.


title: German South West Africa

text: In late 1904, the Nama entered the struggles against the colonial power under their leaders Hendrik Witbooi and Jakobus Morenga, the latter often referred to as "the black Napoleon", despite losing most of his battles. This uprising was finally quashed during 1907–1908. In total, between 25,000 and 100,000 Herero, more than 10,000 Nama and 1,749 Germans died in the conflict.


title: German South West Africa

text: After the official end of the conflict, the remaining natives, when finally released from detention, were subject to a policy of dispossession, deportation, forced labour, and racial segregation and discrimination in a system that in many ways anticipated apartheid. The genocide remains relevant to ethnic identity in independent Namibia and to relations with Germany.


title: German South West Africa

text: The neighbouring British objected to what they regarded as the inhumane German policy. This involved maintaining a number of concentration camps in the colony during their war against the Herero and Nama peoples. Besides these camps, the indigenous people were interned in other places. These included private businesses and government projects, ships offshore, "Etappenkommando" in charge of supplies of prisoners to companies, private persons, etc., as well as any other materials. Concentration camps implies poor sanitation and a population density that would imply disease. Prisoners were used as slave labourers in mines and railways, for use by the military or settlers.


title: German South West Africa

text: The Herero and Namaqua genocide has been recognised by the United Nations and by the Federal Republic of Germany. On the 100th anniversary of the camp's foundation, German Minister for Economic Development and Cooperation Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul commemorated the dead on-site and apologised for the camp on behalf of Germany. In May 2021, after five years of negotiations, the German government - recognising the Hottentot Rebellion as a colonial genocide - set up a $1.3 billion compensation fund.


title: German South West Africa

text: The news about the start of World War I reached German South West Africa on 2 August 1914 via radio telegraphy. The information was transmitted from the Nauen transmitter station via a relay station in Kamina and Lomé in Togo to the radio station in Windhoek.


title: German South West Africa

text: During the First World War, South African troops opened hostilities with an assault on the Ramansdrift police station on 13 September 1914. German settlers were transported to concentration camps near Pretoria and later in Pietermaritzburg. Because of the overwhelming numerical superiority of the South African troops, the German Schutztruppe, along with groups of Afrikaner volunteers fighting in the Maritz rebellion on the German side, offered opposition only as a delaying tactic. On 9 July 1915, Victor Franke, the last commander of the Schutztruppe, capitulated near Khorab.


title: German South West Africa

text: Two members of the Schutztruppe, geography professors Fritz Jaeger and Leo Waibel, are remembered for their explorations of the northern part of German South West Africa, which became the book "Contributions to the Geography of South West Africa" (Beiträge zur Landeskunde von Südwestafrika).


title: German South West Africa

text: After the war, the territory came under the control of Britain and then was made a South African League of Nations mandate. The colony developed peacefully under British rule. In 1990, the former colony became independent as Namibia, governed by the former liberation movement SWAPO.


title: German South West Africa

text: Many German names, buildings, and businesses still exist in the country, and about 30,000 people of German descent still live there. German is still widely used in Namibia, with the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation operating a German-language radio station and broadcasting television news bulletins in German, while the daily newspaper "Allgemeine Zeitung", founded in 1916, remains in publication. Deukom, a satellite television service, offers television and radio channels from Germany.


title: German South West Africa

text: Most place names in German South West Africa continued to bear German spellings of the local names, as well as German translations of some local phrases.


title: German South West Africa

text: The few exceptions to the rule included places founded by the Rhenish Missionary Society, generally biblical names, as well as:


title: German South West Africa

text: In 1914 a series of drafts were made for proposed Coat of Arms and Flags for the German Colonies. However, World War I broke out before the designs were finished and implemented and the symbols were never actually taken into use. Following the defeat in the war, Germany lost all its colonies and the prepared coat of arms and flags were therefore never used.


title: Prada Marfa

text: Prada Marfa is a permanent sculptural art installation by artists Elmgreen & Dragset, located along U.S. Route 90 in Jeff Davis County, Texas, United States, northwest of Valentine, and about northwest of Marfa (its namesake city). The installation, in the form of a freestanding building—specifically a Prada storefront—was inaugurated on October 1, 2005. The artists described the work as a "pop architectural land art project."


title: Prada Marfa

text: Realized with the assistance of American architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, the construction cost $120,000. The original intent was that the building would not be repaired, but would rather gradually degrade into its surroundings. This plan was revised after vandals graffitied the exterior and stole its contents, the night the sculpture was completed.


title: Prada Marfa

text: Designed to resemble a Prada store, the building is made of "adobe bricks, plaster, paint, glass pane, aluminum frame, MDF, and carpet." The installation's door is nonfunctional. On the front of the structure there are two large windows displaying actual Prada wares, shoes and handbags, picked out and provided by Miuccia Prada from the fall/winter 2005 collection; Prada allowed Elmgreen and Dragset to use the Prada trademark for this work. Elmgreen and Dragset originally had wanted to place the sculpture elsewhere and was interested in a "Prada Nevada", but failed to find support in the state. They were then helped by the New York-based Art Production Fund (APF) which connected the artists with Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, Texas, a center of contemporary art and culture. The installation was then placed at a location northwest of Marfa near Valentine, Texas, where a local artist Boyd Elder served as caretaker for the installation.


title: Prada Marfa

text: Prada had previously collaborated with Elmgreen and Dragset in 2001, when the artists attached signage to the "Tanya Bonakdar Gallery" in New York City with the (false) message ""Opening soon—PRADA"". Prada Marfa is located relatively close to Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation. The site-specific of Prada Marfa invites for a comparison with other art movements such as minimalism and land art, which are equally dependent on the site where they are placed. Prada Marfa relies almost entirely on its context for its critical effect. The "sculptural Intervention" can be interpreted as criticism of consumerism, luxury branding and gentrification, but whether intentionally or not, it is also argued it reinforces the capitalist values it criticizes. Therefore, this work of art experienced a change of meaning and gained an ambivalent moment, that the artists did not expect. Along a ledge that runs around the base of the building, hundreds of people have left business cards, weighed down by small rocks.


title: Prada Marfa

text: The night "Prada Marfa" formally opened, the building was broken into, its contents (six handbags and 14 right-footed shoes) stolen, and the words "Dumb" and "Dum Dum" spray-painted on the building side walls. The sculpture was quickly repaired. The replacement contents conceal a security system to alert authorities if they are moved. The sculpture subsequently received extensive local and international press coverage.


title: Prada Marfa

text: In March 2014, vandals painted the building light blue, hung fake logos for Toms Shoes from the awnings, and posted a political manifesto on the door. Ballroom Marfa issued a statement decrying the vandalism and pledging to restore the site. A Texas artist, 32-year-old Joe Magnano (using the pseudonym 9271977), was subsequently arrested and tried. Magnano pleaded guilty to two counts of misdemeanor criminal mischief and agreed to pay Ballroom Marfa $10,700 in restitution as well as a $1,000 fine.


title: Prada Marfa

text: The installation remained unnoticed by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) until 2013, when Playboy erected a neon bunny nearby along the same stretch of road, which attracted the attention of TxDOT to both installations. TxDOT considered both the Playboy neon bunny and the Prada sign on the Prada Marfa installation to be advertisements, and permits are required to display such signs along a US highway on unlicensed land according to the 1965 Highway Beautification Act. Both installations violated the permitted specifications for billboards, and a demand to remove the neon bunny was issued by the TxDOT, but no immediate decision was made for Prada Marfa. Michael Elmgreen commented on the suggestion that Prada Marfa is an illegal advertisement for Prada: "There is no company behind the artwork. It was not commissioned by Prada [...] They never, ever asked me to do advertisement for them." In September 2014, TxDOT officials announced that the structure would be reclassified as a museum, with the "Prada Marfa" as its only exhibit. This action exempts the structure from the same signage rules that forced the removal of the neon bunny installed by "Playboy" magazine.


title: Prada Marfa

text: In the 2019 "The Simpsons" episode "Mad About the Toy.", the family stops at Prada Marfa before reaching Marfa.


title: Prada Marfa

text: In the science fiction film "Destination Marfa" one of the characters is hitchhiking outside the installation.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (autonym: or ), is a group of mutually intelligible vernacular Arabic varieties spoken in the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey (historically in Adana, Mersin and Hatay only). With over 44 million speakers, Levantine is, alongside Egyptian, one of the two prestige varieties of spoken Arabic comprehensible all over the Arab world.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Levantine is not officially recognized in any state or territory. Although it is the majority language in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, it is predominantly used as a spoken vernacular in daily communication, whereas most written and official documents and media in these countries use the official Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), a form of literary Arabic only acquired through formal education that does not function as a native language. In Israel and Turkey, Levantine is a minority language.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: The Palestinian dialect is the closest vernacular Arabic variety to MSA, with about 50% of common words. Nevertheless, Levantine and MSA are not mutually intelligible. Levantine speakers therefore often call their language , 'slang', 'dialect', or 'colloquial'. However, with the emergence of social media, attitudes toward Levantine have improved. The amount of written Levantine has significantly increased, especially online, where Levantine is written using Arabic, Latin, or Hebrew characters. Levantine pronunciation varies greatly along social, ethnic, and geographical lines. Its grammar is similar to that shared by most vernacular varieties of Arabic. Its lexicon is overwhelmingly Arabic, with a significant Aramaic influence.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: The lack of written sources in Levantine makes it impossible to determine its history before the modern period. Aramaic was the dominant language in the Levant starting in the 1st millennium BCE; it coexisted with other languages, including many Arabic dialects spoken by various Arab tribes. With the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century, new Arabic speakers from the Arabian Peninsula settled in the area, and a lengthy language shift from Aramaic to vernacular Arabic occurred.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Scholars use "Levantine Arabic" to describe the continuum of mutually intelligible dialects spoken across the Levant. Other terms include "Syro-Palestinian", "Eastern Arabic", "East Mediterranean Arabic", "Syro-Lebanese" (as a broad term covering Jordan and Palestine as well), "Greater Syrian", or "Syrian Arabic" (in a broad meaning, referring to all the dialects of Greater Syria, which corresponds to the Levant). Most authors only include sedentary dialects, excluding Bedouin dialects of the Syrian Desert and the Negev, which belong to the dialects of the Arabian peninsula. Mesopotamian dialects from northeast Syria are also excluded. Other authors include Bedouin varieties.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: The term "Levantine Arabic" is not indigenous and, according to linguists Kristen Brustad and Emilie Zuniga, "it is likely that many speakers would resist the grouping on the basis that the rich phonological, morphological and lexical variation within the Levant carries important social meanings and distinctions." Levantine speakers often call their language , 'slang', 'dialect', or 'colloquial' (), to contrast it to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Classical Arabic ( , ). They also call their spoken language , 'Arabic'. Alternatively, they identify their language by the name of their country. can refer to Damascus Arabic, Syrian Arabic, or Levantine as a whole. Lebanese literary figure Said Akl led a movement to recognize the "Lebanese language" as a distinct prestigious language instead of MSA.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Levantine is a variety of Arabic, a Semitic language. There is no consensus regarding the genealogical position of Arabic within the Semitic languages. The position of Levantine and other Arabic vernaculars in the Arabic macrolanguage family has also been contested. According to the Arabic tradition, Classical Arabic was the spoken language of the pre-Islamic and Early Islamic periods and remained stable until today's MSA. According to this view, all Arabic vernaculars, including Levantine, descend from Classical Arabic and were corrupted by contacts with other languages. Several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars are not a modified version of the Classical language, which is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Classical Arabic and vernacular varieties all developed from an unattested common ancestor, called Proto-Arabic.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Sedentary vernaculars (also called dialects) are traditionally classified into five groups according to shared features: Peninsular, Mesopotamian, Levantine, Egyptian, and Maghrebi. The linguistic distance between these vernaculars is at least as large as between Germanic languages or Romance languages. It is for instance extremely difficult for Moroccans and Iraqis, each speaking their own variety, to understand each other. Levantine and Egyptian are the two prestige varieties of spoken Arabic; they are also the most widely understood dialects over the Arab world, and the most commonly taught to non-native speakers outside the Arab world.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Levantine is spoken in the fertile strip on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. It is bordered by other Arabic varieties: Mesopotamian and North Mesopotamian Arabic to the north and north-east; Najdi Arabic to the east and south-east; and Northwest Arabian Arabic to the south and south-west.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: The similarity among Levantine dialects transcends geographical location and political boundaries. The urban dialects of the main cities (such as Damascus, Beirut, and Jerusalem) have much more in common with each other than they do with the rural dialects of their respective countries. The sociolects of two different social or religious groups within the same country may also show more dissimilarity with each other than when compared with their counterparts in another country.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: The process of linguistic homogenization within each country of the Levant makes a classification of dialects by country possible today. Linguist Kees Versteegh classifies Levantine into three groups: Lebanese/Central Syrian (including Beirut, Damascus, Druze Arabic, Cypriot Maronite), North Syrian (including Aleppo), and Palestinian/Jordanian. He writes that distinctions between these groups are unclear, and isoglosses cannot determine the exact boundary. The ISO 639-3 standard divides Levantine into North and South Levantine, and mutual intelligibility between these two varieties is high.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: North Levantine extends from Turkey in the north (in the coastal provinces of Adana, Hatay, and Mersin) to Lebanon, passing through the Mediterranean coastal regions of Syria (Latakia and Tartus governorates) as well as the areas surrounding Aleppo and Damascus. In the north, the limit with Mesopotamian starts from the Syria–Turkey border near al-Rai, and Sabkhat al-Jabbul is the north-eastern limit of Levantine, which includes further south al-Qaryatayn, Damascus, and the Hauran. The dialect of Aleppo shows Mesopotamian influence. The prestige dialect of Damascus is the most documented Levantine dialect. A "common Syrian Arabic" is emerging. Similarly, a "Standard Lebanese Arabic" is emerging, combining features of Beiruti Arabic (which is not prestigious) and Jabale Arabic, the language of Mount Lebanon. In Çukurova, Turkey, the local dialect is endangered.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: South Levantine is spoken in Palestine, the Hauran in Syria and Jordan, the rest of western Jordan, and Israel. Bedouin varieties are spoken in the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, areas of transition between Levantine and Egyptian. The dialect of Arish, Egypt, is classified by Linguasphere as Levantine. The Amman dialect is emerging as an urban standard in Jordanian Arabic, while other Jordanian and Palestinian Arabic dialects include Fellahi (rural) and Madani (urban). The Gaza dialect contains features of both urban Palestinian and Bedouin Arabic.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: The Levant is characterized by ethnic diversity and religious pluralism. Levantine dialects vary along sectarian lines. Religious groups include Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Jews. Differences between Muslim and Christian dialects are minimal, mainly involving some religious vocabulary. A minority of features are perceived as typically associated with one group. For example, in Beirut, the exponent is only used by Muslims and never by Christians who use . Contrary to others, Druze and Alawite dialects retained the phoneme . MSA influences Sunni dialects more. Jewish dialects diverge more from Muslim dialects and often show influences from other towns due to trade networks and contacts with other Jewish communities. For instance, the Jewish dialect of Hatay is very similar to the Aleppo dialect, in particular to the dialect of the Jews of Aleppo, and shows traits otherwise not found in any dialect of Hatay. Koineization in cities such as Damascus leads to a homogenization of the language among religious groups.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Levantine is primarily spoken by Arabs. It is also spoken as a first or second language by several ethnic minorities. In particular, it is spoken natively by Samaritans and by most Circassians in Jordan, Armenians in Jordan and Israel, Assyrians in Israel, Turkmen in Syria and Lebanon, Kurds in Lebanon, and Dom people in Jerusalem. Most Christian and Muslim Lebanese people in Israel speak Lebanese Arabic. Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, and Turkish Jews from Çukurova are native Levantine speakers; however, most moved to Israel after 1948. Levantine was spoken natively by most Jews in Jerusalem, but the community shifted to Modern Hebrew after the establishment of Israel. Levantine is the second language of Dom people across the Levant, Circassians in Israel, Armenians in Lebanon, Chechens in Jordan, Assyrians in Syria and Lebanon, and most Kurds in Syria.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: In addition to the Levant, where it is indigenous, Levantine is spoken among diaspora communities from the region, especially among the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian diasporas. The language has fallen into disuse among subsequent diaspora generations, such as the 7 million Lebanese Brazilians.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Starting in the 1st millennium BCE, Aramaic was the dominant spoken language and the language of writing and administration in the Levant. Greek was the language of administration of the Seleucid Empire (in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE) and was maintained by the Roman (64 BCE–475 CE), then Byzantine (476–640) empires. From the early 1st millennium BCE until the 6th century CE, there was a continuum of Central Semitic languages in the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Arabia was home to languages quite distinct from Arabic.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Because there are no written sources, the history of Levantine before the modern period is unknown. Old Arabic was a dialect continuum stretching from the southern Levant (where Northern Old Arabic was spoken) to the northern Hijaz, in the Arabian Peninsula, where Old Hijazi was spoken. In the early 1st century CE, a great variety of Arabic dialects were already spoken by various nomadic or semi-nomadic Arabic tribes, such as the Nabataeans—who used Aramaic for official purposes, the Tanukhids, and the Ghassanids. These dialects were local, coming from the Hauran—and not from the Arabian peninsula— and related to later Classical Arabic. Initially restricted to the steppe, Arabic-speaking nomads started to settle into cities and fertile areas after the Plague of Justinian in 542 CE. These Arab communities stretched from the southern extremities of the Syrian Desert to central Syria, the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, and the Beqaa Valley.<ref name="EALL Aramaic/Syriac Loanwords"></ref>


title: Levantine Arabic

text: The Muslim conquest of the Levant (634–640) brought Arabic speakers from the Arabian Peninsula who settled in the Levant. Arabic became the language of trade and public life in cities, while Aramaic continued to be spoken at home and in the countryside. Arabic gradually replaced Greek as the language of administration in 700 by order of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik. The language shift from Aramaic to vernacular Arabic was a long process over several generations, with an extended period of bilingualism, especially among non-Muslims. Christians continued to speak Syriac for about two centuries and Syriac remained their literary language until the 14th century. In its spoken form, Aramaic nearly disappeared, except for a few Aramaic-speaking villages, but it has left substrate influences on Levantine.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Different Peninsular Arabic dialects competed for prestige, including the Hijazi vernacular of the Umayyad elites. In the Levant, these Peninsular dialects mixed with ancient forms of Arabic, such as the northern Old Arabic dialect. By the mid-6th century CE, the Petra papyri show that the onset of the article and its vowel seem to have weakened. The article is sometimes written as /el-/ or simply /l-/. A similar, but not identical, situation is found in the texts from the Islamic period. Unlike the pre-Islamic attestations, the coda of the article in the conquest Arabic assimilates to a following coronal consonant. According to Pr. Simon Hopkins this document shows there is "a very impressive continuity in colloquial Arabic usage, and the roots of the modern vernaculars are thus seen to lie very deep".


title: Levantine Arabic

text: The Damascus Psalm Fragment, dated to the 9th century but possibly earlier, sheds light on the Damascus dialect of that period. Because its Arabic text is written in Greek characters, it reveals the pronunciation of the time; it features many examples of imāla (the fronting and raising of toward ). It also features a pre-grammarian standard of Arabic and the dialect from which it sprung, likely Old Hijazi. Scholars disagree on the dates of phonological changes. The shift of interdental spirants to dental stops dates to the 9th to 10th centuries, or earlier. The shift from to a glottal stop is dated between the 11th and 15th centuries. Imāla seems already important in pre-Islamic times.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Swedish orientalist writes about the vulgarisms encountered in Damascene poet Usama ibn Munqidh's "Memoirs": "All of them are found in today's spoken language of Syria and it is very interesting to note that that language is, on the whole, not very different from the language of ˀUsāma's days", in the 12th century. Lucas Caballero's "Compendio" (1709) describes spoken Damascene Arabic in the early 1700s. It corresponds to modern Damascene in some respects, such as the allomorphic variation between -"a"/-"e" in the feminine suffix. On the contrary, the insertion and deletion of vowels differ from the modern dialect.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: From 1516 to 1918, the Ottoman Empire dominated the Levant. Many Western words entered Arabic through Ottoman Turkish as it was the main language for transmitting Western ideas into the Arab world.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century reduced the use of Turkish words due to Arabization and the negative perception of the Ottoman era among Arabs. With the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (1920–1946), the British protectorate over Jordan (1921–1946), and the British Mandate for Palestine (1923–1948), French and English words gradually entered Levantine Arabic. Similarly, Modern Hebrew has significantly influenced the Palestinian dialect of Arab Israelis since the establishment of Israel in 1948. In the 1960s, Said Akl—inspired by the Maltese and Turkish alphabets— designed a new Latin alphabet for Lebanese and promoted the official use of Lebanese instead of MSA, but this movement was not successful.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Although Levantine dialects have remained stable over the past two centuries; in cities such as Amman and Damascus, standardization of the language occurs through variant reduction and linguistic homogenization among the various religious groups and neighborhoods. Urbanization and the increasing proportion of youth constitute the causes of dialect change. Urban forms are considered more prestigious, and prestige dialects of the capitals are replacing the rural varieties. With the emergence of social media, the amount of written Levantine has also significantly increased online.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Levantine is not recognized in any state or territory. MSA is the sole official language in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria; it has a "special status" in Israel under the . French is also recognized in Lebanon. In Turkey, the only official language is Turkish. Any variation from MSA is considered a "dialect" of Arabic. As in the rest of the Arab world, this linguistic situation has been described as diglossia: MSA is nobody's first acquired language; it is learned through formal instruction rather than transmission from parent to child. This diglossia has been compared to the use of Latin as the sole written, official, liturgical, and literary language in Europe during the medieval period, while Romance languages were the spoken languages. Levantine and MSA are mutually unintelligible. They differ significantly in their phonology, morphology, lexicon and syntax.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: MSA is the language of literature, official documents, and formal written media (newspapers, instruction leaflets, school books). In spoken form, MSA is mostly used when reading from a scripted text (e.g., news bulletins) and for prayer and sermons in the mosque or church. In Israel, Hebrew is the language used in the public sphere, except internally among the Arab communities. Levantine is the usual medium of communication in all other domains.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Traditionally in the Arab world, colloquial varieties, such as Levantine, have been regarded as corrupt forms of MSA, less eloquent and not fit for literature, and thus looked upon with disdain. Because the French and the British emphasized vernaculars when they colonized the Arab world, dialects were also seen as a tool of colonialism and imperialism. Writing in the vernacular has been controversial because pan-Arab nationalists consider that this might divide the Arab people into different nations. On the other hand, Classical Arabic is seen as "the language of the Quran" and revered by Muslims who form the majority of the population. It is believed to be pure and everlasting, and Islamic religious ideology considers vernaculars to be inferior. Until recently, the use of Levantine in formal settings or written form was often ideologically motivated, for instance in opposition to pan-Arabism. Language attitudes are shifting, and using Levantine became de-ideologized for most speakers by the late 2010s. Levantine is now regarded in a more positive light, and its use in informal modes of writing is acknowledged, thanks to its recent widespread use online, in both written and spoken forms.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Code-switching between Levantine, MSA, English, French (in Lebanon and among Arab Christians in Syria), and Hebrew (in Israel) is frequent among Levantine speakers, in both informal and formal settings (such as on television). Gordon cites two Lebanese examples: "Bonjour, ya habibti, how are you?" ("Hello, my love, how are you?") and "Oui, but leish?" ("Yes, but why?"). Code-switching also happens in politics. For instance, not all politicians master MSA in Lebanon, so they rely on Lebanese. Many public and formal speeches and most political talk shows are in Lebanese instead of MSA. In Israel, Arabic and Hebrew are allowed in the Knesset, but Arabic is rarely used. MK Ahmad Tibi often adds Palestinian Arabic sentences to his Hebrew speech but does not give full speeches in Arabic.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: In the Levant, MSA is the only variety authorized for use in schools, although in practice, lessons are often taught in a mix of MSA and Levantine with, for instance, the lesson read out in MSA and explained in Levantine. In Lebanon, about 50% of school students study in French. In most Arab universities, the medium of instruction is MSA in social sciences and humanities, and English or French in the applied and medical sciences. In Syria, only MSA is used. In Turkey, article 42.9 of the Constitution prohibits languages other than Turkish being taught as a mother tongue and almost all Arabic speakers are illiterate in Arabic unless they have learned MSA for religious purposes.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: In Israel, MSA is the only language of instruction in Arab schools. Hebrew is studied as a second language by all Palestinian students from at least the second grade and English from the third grade. In Jewish schools, in 2012, 23,000 pupils were studying spoken Palestinian in 800 elementary schools. Palestinian Arabic is a compulsory subject in Jewish elementary schools in the Northern District; otherwise, Jewish schools teach MSA. Junior high schools are required to teach all students MSA, but only two-thirds of them meet this obligation. At all stages in 2012, 141,000 Jewish students were learning Arabic. In 2020, 3.7% of Jewish students took the Bagrut exam in MSA.


title: Levantine Arabic

text: Most films and songs are in vernacular Arabic. Egypt was the most influential center of Arab media productions (films, drama, TV series) during the 20th century, but Levantine is now competing with Egyptian. About 40% of all music production in the Arab world is in Lebanese. Lebanese television is the oldest and largest private Arab broadcast industry. The majority of big-budget pan-Arab entertainment shows are filmed in the Lebanese dialect in the studios of Beirut. Moreover, the Syrian dialect dominates in Syrian TV series (such as "Bab Al-Hara") and in the dubbing of Turkish television dramas (such as "Noor"), popular across the Arab world.