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+ A member of parliament (MP) is the representative of the people who live in his/her constituency. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this category includes specifically members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title. Member of Congress is an equivalent term in other jurisdictions.
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+ Members of parliament seem to tend to form parliamentary groups (also called parliamentary parties) with members of the same political party.
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+ The Westminster system is a democratic parliamentary system of government modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
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+ A member of parliament is a member of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Commonwealth (federal) parliament. Members may use "MP" after their names; "MHR" is no longer used. A member of the upper house of the Commonwealth Parliament, the Senate, is known as a "Senator".
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+ In the Australian states and territories, "MP" is commonly used. In bicameral legislatures, members of the lower house (legislative assembly or house of assembly) also use the post-nominals "MLA" or "MHA" and members of the upper house (legislative council) use "MLC".
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+ The Parliament of The Bahamas is the bicameral national parliament of Commonwealth of The Bahamas. The parliament is formally made up by the Queen (represented by the Governor-General), an appointed Senate, and an elected House of Assembly. It currently sits at Nassau, the national capital.
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+ The structure, functions, and procedures of the parliament are based on the Westminster system.
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+ Members of the Jatiya Sangsad, or National Assembly, are elected every five years and are referred to in English as members of Parliament. The assembly has directly elected 300 seats, and further 50 reserved selected seats for women.
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+ The Parliament of Canada consists of the monarch, the Senate and the House of Commons. Only members of the House of Commons are referred to as Members of Parliament (French: député), while members of the Senate are called Senators (French: sénateur).[1] There are currently 105 seats in the Senate and 338 in the House of Commons.[2] Members of Parliament are elected, while senators are appointed by the governor general on behalf of the sovereign at the direction of the Prime Minister of Canada. Retirement is mandatory for senators upon reaching the age of 75 years.
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+ Each province (and territory) has its own legislature, with each member usually known as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). In certain provinces, legislators carry other titles: Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, Member of the National Assembly (MNA) in Quebec (French: député) and Member of the House of Assembly (MHA) in Newfoundland and Labrador. The provincial upper houses were eliminated through the 20th century.
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+ A Member of Parliament is any member of the two houses of Indian Parliament, i.e., Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. As of 2018, Lok Sabha has 545 seats, of which 543 members are elected popularly by single-member constituencies via first past the post method in each of the 28 Indian states and 9 union territories, while the President of India may appoint 2 representatives of the Anglo-Indian community. As of 2018, Rajya Sabha can have 245 members, 233 of which are elected indirectly by the state legislatures using Single transferable vote method of proportional representation, and 12 are appointed by the President for their contributions to art, literature, science, and social services (Art. 80 of the Constitution). Each state is allocated a fixed number of representatives in each chamber, in order of their respective population. As of 2018, state of Uttar Pradesh has the greatest number of representatives in both houses. The person which secures the support of more than half the seats in the Lok Sabha forms the Government. To form the government, parties may form a coalition. The Lok Sabha is the lower house and the Rajya Sabha is the upper house of the bicameral Indian Parliament.
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+ The term of a member of the Rajya Sabha is 6 years long, while the Lok Sabha members are elected for a term of 5 years, unless the house is dissolved sooner. Rajya Sabha is a permanent house, and is not subject to dissolution, and the members serve staggered terms- one-third of the membership retires every two years. Vacancies in both houses, whether because of death or resignation of a member, are filled with by-elections within six months of the vacancy - the newly elected member in which case serves only the rest of the pending term of the seat they are elected to. The number of seats in both houses is regulated by Constitution and parliamentary statutes.
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+ Since the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 and subsequently in the Republic of Ireland, the legislature of Ireland is known as the Oireachtas, and consists of the President; the upper house, Seanad Éireann (or Senate); and lower house, Dáil Éireann (Assembly, or House of Representatives). They are functionally similar to other bicameral parliaments, with the lower house being significantly more influential and having more power over the creation of legislation. Elections to Dáil Éireann are held at least every five years using the Single Transferable Vote; while Elections to Seanad Éireann are restricted to members of both houses, elected members of local authorities, and alumni of National University of Ireland colleges. 11 Senators are nominated directly by the Taoiseach.
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+ A Member of Dáil Éireann is known as a Teachta Dála (TD) or "Deputy to the Dáil", and addressed as "Teachta" (Deputy), while a Member of the Seanad is known and addressed as Seanadóir (Senator). These titles are used much more commonly in English than the official Irish.
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+ A member of Parliament was the term used to refer to a member of the pre-1801 Irish House of Commons of the Parliament of Ireland. Irish members elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland were also called members of Parliament from 1801 to 1922. Northern Ireland continues to elect MPs to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
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+ The Parliament of Jamaica is the legislative branch of the government of Jamaica. It is a bicameral body, composed of an appointed Senate and an elected House of Representatives. The Senate (upper house), the direct successor of a pre-Independence body known as the "Legislative Council" – comprises 21 senators appointed by the governor-general: thirteen on the advice of the Prime Minister and eight on the advice of the Leader of the Opposition.
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+ The House of Representatives, the lower house, is made up of 63 (previously 60) Members of Parliament, elected to five-year terms on a first-past-the-post basis in single-seat constituencies.
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+ The National Assembly of Kenya has a total of 349 seats; 205 members are elected from the constituencies, 47 women are elected from the counties and 12 members are nominated representatives.
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+ The Parliament of Malaysia consists of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) and two houses, the Dewan Rakyat (the House of Representatives) and Dewan Negara (the Senate).
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+ The term "members of Parliament" only refers to members of the Dewan Rakyat. In Malay, a member of Parliament is called Ahli Parlimen, or less formally wakil rakyat (people's representative).[3]
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+ Members of Parliament are elected from population-based single-seat constituencies using first-past-the-post voting. The Prime Minister must be a member of Parliament.
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+ Members of Parliament are styled Yang Berhormat ("Honourable") with the initials Y.B. appended prenominally. A prince who is a member of Parliament is styled Yang Berhormat Mulia. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Tuns who are members of Parliament are styled Yang Amat Berhormat ("Most Honourable"), abbreviated Y.A.B.
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+ The Parliament of Malta consists of the President of Malta and the House of Representatives of 69 members (article 51 of the Constitution), referred to as "members of Parliament" (article 52(1) of the Constitution). When appointed from outside the House, the Speaker is also considered a member of the Parliament. The Constitution lists the qualifications and disqualifications from serving as a member of Parliament.[4]
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+ Privileges of members of Parliament and their Code of Ethics are laid out in the House of Representatives (Privileges and Powers) Ordinance.[5]
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+ The Parliament of Nauru consists of 18 seats. Members of Parliament are entitled to use the prefix The Honourable.
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+ The New Zealand Parliament is made up of the monarch and the unicameral House of Representatives. A member of Parliament is a member of the House of Representatives, which has a minimum of 120 members, elected at a general election for a three-year term. There are 71 electorate MPs, of which seven are elected only by Māori who have chosen to be registered on a separate Māori electoral roll. The remaining members are elected by proportional representation from published party lists.[6]
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+ Before 1951, New Zealand had an upper house, the Legislative Council whose members were appointed. Members of the lower house, the body that still exists, have always been elected. Since 1907, elected members have been referred to as 'Member of Parliament', abbreviated MP. From the 1860s until 1907 they were designated as Member of the House of Representatives, abbreviated MHR. Between the first general election, in 1853, and the 1860s, the designation was Member of the General Assembly, abbreviated MGA.[7]
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+ Member of Parliament refers to a member of Parliament (National Assembly of Pakistan, Qaumi Assembly), based in Islamabad.
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+ Member of Parliament refers to elected members of the Parliament of Singapore, the appointed Non-Constituency members of Parliament from the opposition, as well as the Nominated members of Parliament, who may be appointed from members of the public who have no connection to any political party in Singapore.
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+ In Sri Lanka, a Member of Parliament refers to a member of the Parliament of Sri Lanka (since 1978), the National State Assembly (1972–78) and the House of Representatives of Ceylon (1947–72), the lower house of the Parliament of Ceylon. Members are elected in a general elections or appointed from the national lists allocated to parties (and independent groups) in proportion to their share of the national vote at a general election. A candidate to become an MP must be a Sri Lankan citizen and not hold dual-citizenship in any other country, be at least 18 years of age, and not be a public official or officeholder.
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+ The Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago is the legislative branch of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. The Parliament is bicameral. It consists of the elected House of Representatives, which has 41 members elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies, and the Senate which has 31 members appointed by the President: 16 Government Senators appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister, 6 Opposition Senators appointed on the advice of the Leader of the Opposition and 9 Independent Senators appointed by the President to represent other sectors of civil society.
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+ The United Kingdom elects members of its parliament:
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+ and four devolved legislatures:
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+ MPs are elected in general elections and by-elections to represent constituencies, and may remain MPs until Parliament is dissolved, which occurs around five years after the last general election, as laid down in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.
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+ A candidate to become an MP must be a British or Irish or Commonwealth citizen, be at least 18 years of age (reduced from 21 in 2006), and not be a public official or officeholder, as set out in the schedule to the Electoral Administration Act 2006.[9]
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+ Technically, MPs have no right to resign their seats (though they may refuse to seek re-election). However a legal fiction allows voluntary resignation between elections; as MPs are forbidden from holding an "office of profit under the Crown", an MP wishing to resign will apply for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds or the Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead which are nominally, such paid offices and thus result in the MP vacating their seat. (Accepting a salaried Ministerial office does not amount to a paid office under the Crown for these purposes.)
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+ The House of Lords is a legislative chamber that is part of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Although they are part of the parliament, its members are referred to as peers, more formally as Lords of Parliament, not MPs. Lords Temporal sit for life, Lords Spiritual while they occupy their ecclesiastical positions. Hereditary peers may no longer pass on a seat in the House of Lords to their heir automatically. The 92 who remain have been elected from among their own number, following the House of Lords Act 1999 and are the only elected members of the Lords.[10]
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+ "Members of Parliament" are members of the House of Assembly of Zimbabwe. Members of the upper house of Parliament are referred to as Senators.
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+ Member of Parliament can be the term (often a translation) for representatives in parliamentary democracies that do not follow the Westminster system and who are usually referred to in a different fashion, such as Deputé in France, Deputato in Italy, Deputat in Bulgaria, Parlamentario o Diputado in Spain and Spanish speaking Latin America, Deputado in Portugal and Brazil, Mitglied des Bundestages (MdB) in Germany. However, better translations are often possible.
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+ A Member of Parliament (MP) is a member of the Lower House of the bicameral Parliament National Assembly of Afghanistan: a member of the Wolesi Jirga (House of People) holds one of the in total 250 seats in the Lower House.
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+ The 102 members of the Upper House Meshrano Jirga (House of Elders) are called Senators.
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+ A member of Parliament is a member of either of the two chambers of the Parliament of Austria (Österreichisches Parlament). The members of the Nationalrat are called Abgeordnete zum Nationalrat. The members of the Bundesrat, elected by the provincial diets (Landtage) of the nine federal States of Austria, are known as Mitglieder des Bundesrats.
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+ In Bulgaria there are 240 members of Parliament (Bulgarian: Народно събрание / Парламент; transliteration Narodno sabranie / Parlament), which are called 'Deputati' (singular Deputat). Moreover, there are 240 MPs in the normal parliament and 400 in the "Great Parliament". The Great Parliament is elected when a new constitution is needed. There have been seven Great Parliaments in modern Bulgarian history, in 1879, 1881, 1886, 1893, 1911, 1946 and 1990. MPs in Bulgaria are called депутати – deputies.
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+ The member of Parliament (Khmer: សមាជិកសភា) refers to the elected members of the National Assembly. There are 123 members of Parliament in total. They are also alternatively called member of the National Assembly. Parliamentary elections are traditionally held every five years with no term limits imposed. The 25 provinces of Cambodia are represented by the members of Parliament in the National Assembly. A constituency may have more than one MP, depending on the population.
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+ A member of Parliament is a member of either of the two chambers of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, although the term Member of Parliament of the Czech Republic is commonly referred to Deputy of the Parliament of the Czech Republic (Czech: Poslanec Parlamentu České republiky) who is member of the lower house of the Parliament, Chamber of Deputies. For the upper house, Senate, the term Senator is used.
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+ In Denmark, a member of Folketinget (Danish: medlem af Folketinget) is one of the 179 members of Folketinget. The title is almost always shortened to the initialism "MF".
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+ Member of Parliament refers to the elected members of the federal Bundestag Parliament at the Reichstag building in Berlin. In German a member is called Mitglied des Bundestages (Member of the Federal Diet) or officially Mitglied des Deutschen Bundestages (Member of the German Federal Diet), abbreviated MdB and attached .[11] Unofficially the term Abgeordneter (literally: "delegate", i.e. of a certain electorate) is also common (abbreviated Abg., never follows the name but precedes it).
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+ In accordance with article 38 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, which is the German constitution, "[m]embers of the German Bundestag shall be elected in general, direct, free, equal, and secret elections. They shall be representatives of the whole people, not bound by orders or instructions, and responsible only to their conscience." An important though not constitutionally required feature of German parliamentarianism is a slightly modified proportional representation.
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+ The 16 federal States of Germany (Länder) are represented by the Bundesrat at the former Prussian House of Lords, whose members are representatives of the respective Länder's governments and not directly elected by the people.
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+ The Hellenic Parliament (Βουλή των Ελλήνων), is the supreme democratic institution in Greece, that represents all citizens through an elected body of Members of Parliament. It is a unicameral legislature of 300 members, elected for a four-year term.
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+ A Member of the Knesset (Hebrew: חבר הכנסת‎) is one of the 120 members of the Knesset. The title is usually shortened to the initialism "MK".
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+ In the Republican Parliament the current term is Deputato (that is deputy as appointed to act on people's behalf) and so the Lower House takes the name of Camera dei Deputati. Similarly to other countries, the Upper House is called Senato and its members are the Senatori.[12] In the Republic of Italy there are 315 members of Senate and 630 members of the Camera dei Deputati. Both of them are elected by general elections every five years. The President of the Italian Republic can nominate for life five members of the Upper House. All former Presidents of the Republic are members of the Upper House for life. The two houses together form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform identical functions, but do so separately.
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+ In Japan, both houses of today's national parliament, the National Diet (Kokkai), are directly elected, and although the two chambers differ in legislative and political authority, term length and age restriction of eligibility, the members of both houses are generally equal in personal status (financial compensation, immunity, etc.). There are currently 710 members of the National Diet (Kokkai giin, 国会議員): 465 Members of the House of Representatives (Shūgiin giin, 衆議院議員) and 245 Members of the House of Councillors (Sangiin giin, 参議院議員). The former are elected in general/by-/repeat elections of members of the House of Representatives (Shūgiin giin sō-/hoketsu-/sai-senkyo), the latter in regular/by-/repeat elections of members of the House of Councillors (Sangiin giin tsūjō-/hoketsu-/sai-senkyo). Under the postwar constitution, the prime minister is elected by the National Diet and must be a member of the National Diet, as must the majority of other ministers; by practice, all prime ministers since 1947 have been members of the House of Representatives so far.
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+ Under the constitution of the Empire of Japan, the Imperial Diet (Teikoku-gikai) was a bicameral legislature of two houses, generally equal in legislative authority, and while the members of both houses received the same financial compensation — from 1920 and 1947, ¥7500 for the two presidents, ¥4500 for the two vice-presidents, ¥3000 for all other members of both houses, except Imperial princes, dukes and marquesses — their status was different by definition: The upper house consisted mainly of hereditary nobles and lifetime-appointed peers, the lower house of elected commoners. In the First Imperial Diet in 1890, there were initially 551 members of the Imperial Diet (Teikoku-gikai giin, 帝国議会議員, or in contemporaneous script 帝國議會議員): 251 members of the House of Peers (Kizokuin giin, 貴族院議員) and 300 members of the House of Representatives (Shūgiin giin); of the House of Peers members, 10 were members of the Imperial family, 31 were hereditary members from the two upper nobility ranks, 104 were members elected in mutual elections from the three lower nobility ranks, 61 were lifetime-appointed members (many of these from the bureaucracy) and 45 were members elected by the 15 top taxpayers in each of the 45 prefectures. The number of noble and appointed members of the House of Peers was not fixed and varied gradually over time as members died or new peerages were granted; the number of elected top taxpayer seats, Imperial Academy seats (introduced in 1925), members appointed from the colonies Chōsen/Korea and Taiwan/Formosa (introduced in 1945), and the size of the House of Representatives was fixed by law, but was also changed several times over the decades. The last, 92nd Imperial Diet of 1946–1947 had 839 members — 466 members of the House of Representatives and 373 members of the House of Peers.[13] As the regulations establishing the cabinet (naikaku) and the cabinet's prime minister (naikaku sōri-daijin) were decreed before the Imperial constitution, the prime minister did not have to be a member of the Imperial Diet, but after the establishment of the Imperial Diet in 1890, many prime ministers were appointed from the House of Peers; very few were members of the House of Representatives, viz. Takashi Hara, Osachi Hamaguchi, and Tsuyoshi Inukai.
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+ The Parliament of Lebanon is the Lebanese national legislature. It is elected to a four-year term by universal adult suffrage in multi-member constituencies, apportioned among Lebanon's diverse Christian and Muslim denominations. Its major functions are to elect the President of the Republic, to approve the government (although appointed by the President, the Prime Minister, along with the Cabinet, must retain the confidence of a majority in the Parliament), and to approve laws and expenditure. The name of a deputy in Arabic is Naeb (نائب). The plural of Naeb is Nuwab (نواب).
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+ The Parliament of the Netherlands is known as the Staten-Generaal, States General. It is bicameral, divided in two Kamers (English: Chambers). The Senate is known in Dutch as the Eerste Kamer (First Chamber) and its members as senatoren, Senators. The House of Representatives, known in Dutch as the Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber), is the most important one. The important debates take place here. Also, the Second Chamber can edit proposed laws with amendments and it can propose laws itself. The Senate does not have these capabilities. Its function is a more technical reviewing of laws. It can only pass a law or reject it. Both chambers are in The Hague which is the seat of parliament but not the official capital of the Netherlands, which is Amsterdam.
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+ The 150 members of the House of Representatives are elected by general elections every 4 years (or earlier if the government falls). The 75 members of the Senate are elected indirectly. The members of the 12 provincial Parliaments and the councils of the three Caribbean special municipalities elect the senators. The value of a vote of a member of a provincial Parliament is weighted by the population of the province. Provincial Parliaments, the States-Provincial, are elected by general elections every four years; a new Senate is elected three months after the provincial elections.
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+ In the Republic of North Macedonia there are 120 members of parliament (Macedonian: Sobranie) which are called 'Pratenici' (singular Pratenik).
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+ A member of Parliament is an elected member of the Stortinget. They are called stortingsrepresentanter (literal translation: Representatives of the Storting). Since 2009, Norway has had a unicameral Parliament, which previously consisted of Odelstinget and Lagtinget, Odelstinget with three-quarters, or 127, of the total 169 members, Lagtinget with the remainder. The dividing of the Parliament into chambers was only used when dealing with passing regular laws and in cases of prosecution by the national court (riksrett). In other matters, such as passing the national budget or changing the constitution (the latter requiring a majority of two-thirds), the chambers were united.
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+ The members of the unicameral Parliament of Norway are chosen by popular vote for a parliamentary period of four years.
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+ From 1978 to 1984, the Philippine Parliament was called the Batasang Pambansa (National Assembly), and its elected members were called Mambabatas Pambansa (National Assemblyman), often shortened to "MP".
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+ The Portuguese parliament is called Assembleia da República. A member of Parliament is known as a deputado, that is, a person who is appointed through democratic election to act on the people's behalf.
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+ The word parlamento -of the same origin as Parliament in English- is used as a common name for all legislative assemblies, and hence parlamentario for the member of any of them, which can usually refer to members of:
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+ Members of the Congress of Deputies are called diputados (deputies), implying that they are elected to act in the name and on behalf of the people they represent. It is also usual to call members of the European Parliament eurodiputados. Members of the Senate are called senadores (senators).
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+ The Parliament of South Africa consists of two houses, the National Assembly of South Africa (lower house) and the National Council of Provinces. Members of both houses are given the title of Member of Parliament.[14]
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+ The National Assembly is made up of 400 members, who are all elected by the public in general elections using a proportional representation system with closed lists. The National Council of Provinces is composed of 90 delegates with 10 delegates for each of the nine provinces regardless of the population of the province. A provincial delegation consists of six permanent delegates and four special delegates. NCOP delegates are elected by the nine provincial legislatures on the day when they reconvene, usually the same day as the National Assembly. The delegates are sworn in the next day.[14]
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+ The Title Member of Parliament(MP) refers to the Members of Parliament of South Korea. 253 MPs are elected by First-past-the-post System from Parliamentary Constituencies, 30 MPs are elected by Proportional Compensation, 17 MPs are elected by Mixed Member Majoritarian. In Second Republic of Korea, when South Korea is Parliamentary republic with Bicameralism, only the Members of House of Commons of South Korea are called Member of Parliament(MP). Whilst the Member of Senate of South Korea is called Senator.
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+ The Members of Provincial Legislature are called Member of the Legislative Assembly also called MLA. Some Provinces call Councillor and Member of Provincial Parliament.
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+ Members of Parliament refers to the elected members of the Riksdag. In Swedish, an MP is usually referred to as a riksdagsledamot (member of the Riksdag) or a riksdagsman (Gentleman of the Riksdag). The former is in more common use today, especially in official contexts, due to its status as a unisex word, while the latter was used more often historically and literally refers to a male MP exclusively.
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+ The parliament is a unicameral assembly with 349 members who are chosen every four years in general elections. To become an MP, a person must be entitled to vote (i.e. be a Swedish citizen, be at least 18 years old and be or have been resident in Sweden) and must be nominated by a political party.[15] The MPs are elected by proportionality in constituencies across the nation. To decide which candidate will be elected the modified Sainte-Laguë method is used. This method usually but not always gives an accurate result in proportion to cast votes. In the 2014 general election the centre-right coalition government got one less MP than the overall opposition, despite more votes in total. To get a more proportional result 39 MPs are elected at compensation mandate (Utjämningsmandat) and those MPs, therefore, do not represent their own constituency.
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+ The salaries of the MPs are decided by the Riksdag Pay Committee (Riksdagens arvodesnämnd), a government agency under the Riksdag. Since 1 November 2007, the basic monthly pay of an MP is SEK52,900 (ca. US$6,500). The pay of the Speaker is SEK126,000 a month (ca. US$15,000), which is the same as that of the Prime Minister.[16] The Deputy Speakers receive an increment of 30% of the pay of a member. The chairs and deputy chairs of the parliamentary committees receive a similar increment of 20% and 15% respectively.[17]
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+ According to a survey investigation by the sociologist Jenny Hansson,[18] Swedish national parliamentarians have an average workweek of 66 hours, including side responsibilities. Hansson's investigation further reports that the average Swedish national parliamentarian sleeps 6.5 hours per night.
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+ In the Kingdom of Thailand, members of Parliament (Thai: สมาชิกรัฐสภา; RTGS: Samachik Ratthasapha) refer to the members of the National Assembly of Thailand, that is, the Members of the House of Representatives and the Senators. Following the military coup d'état on 19 September 2006, all members of the Assembly were suspended from duty until the next election. The Assembly was fully reconvened after the general elections under a slightly amended new constitution. Under the 2007 Constitution there are 650 members of Parliament, consisting of 500 members in the House of Representatives, of which 375 elected from constituencies and the other 125 by party-list, and 150 Senators.
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+ In the Republic of Turkey, a member of Parliament is an elected member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, TBMM), which has 600 members elected at a general election for a term of office of five years.
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+ People's Deputy of Ukraine (Ukrainian: народний депутат України, narodnyi deputat Ukrayiny) is a member of Parliament, legislator elected by a popular vote to the Verkhovna Rada (the unicameral parliament of Ukraine). Often People's Deputies of Ukraine are referred to simply as deputies.
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+ The main statutes that define the order of elections, rights and duties of the People's Deputies of Ukraine are outlined in Articles 76 – 81 of the Constitution of Ukraine. There are 450 people's deputies of Ukraine who are elected based on the general, equal and direct electoral right for 5 years. The deputies may be appointed to various parliamentary positions such as the chairperson (speaker) of Parliament, a head of a committee or a parliamentary faction, etc. Upon its appointment, to the office, each people's deputy of Ukraine receives a deputy mandate.
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+ People's Deputies that ran for the parliament as self-nominated candidates can join factions if they wish.[19]
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+ The European Parliament (EP) is one of three legislative branches of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union, it adopts European legislation, normally on a proposal from the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 705 members (MEPs). The Parliament represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world (after the Parliament of India) and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world (375 million eligible voters in 2009).[2][3][4]
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+ Since 1979, it has been directly elected every five years by European Union citizens, using universal suffrage. Voter turnout for parliamentary elections has decreased at each election after 1979 until 2019, when the voter turnout increased by 8 percentage points and went above 50% for the first time since 1994.[5] Voting age is 18 in all member states except Malta and Austria, where it is 16, and Greece, where it is 17.[6]
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+ Although the European Parliament has legislative power, as does the Council, it does not formally possess legislative initiative (which is the prerogative of the European Commission), as most national parliaments of European Union member states do.[7][8] The Parliament is the "first institution" of the EU (mentioned first in the treaties, having ceremonial precedence over all authority at the European level),[9] and shares equal legislative and budgetary powers with the Council (except in a few areas where the special legislative procedures apply). It likewise has equal control over the EU budget. Finally, the European Commission, the executive body of the EU (it exercises executive powers, but no legislative ones other than legislative initiative), is accountable to Parliament. In particular, Parliament can decide whether or not to approve the European Council's nominee for the President of the Commission, and it is further tasked with approving (or rejecting) the appointment of the Commission as a whole. It can subsequently force the Commission as a body to resign by adopting a motion of censure.[7]
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+ The President of the European Parliament (Parliament's speaker) is David Sassoli (PD), elected in July 2019. He presides over a multi-party chamber, the five largest groups being the European People's Party group (EPP), the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Renew Europe (previously ALDE), the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens–EFA) and Identity and Democracy (ID). The last union-wide elections were the 2019 elections.
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+ The European Parliament's headquarters are in Strasbourg (France).[10] Luxembourg City (Luxembourg) is home to the administrative offices (the "General Secretariat"). Meetings of the whole Parliament ("plenary sessions") take place in Strasbourg and in Brussels (Belgium). Committee meetings are held in Brussels.[11][12]
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+
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+ The Parliament, like the other institutions, was not designed in its current form when it first met on 10 September 1952. One of the oldest common institutions, it began as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). It was a consultative assembly of 78 appointed parliamentarians drawn from the national parliaments of member states, having no legislative powers.[13][14] The change since its foundation was highlighted by Professor David Farrell of the University of Manchester: "For much of its life, the European Parliament could have been justly labelled a 'multi-lingual talking shop'."[15]
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+ Its development since its foundation shows how the European Union's structures have evolved without a clear ‘master plan’. Some, such as Tom Reid of the Washington Post, said of the union: "nobody would have deliberately designed a government as complex and as redundant as the EU".[16] Even the Parliament's two seats, which have switched several times, are a result of various agreements or lack of agreements. Although most MEPs would prefer to be based just in Brussels, at John Major's 1992 Edinburgh summit, France engineered a treaty amendment to maintain Parliament's plenary seat permanently at Strasbourg.[13][17]
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+ The body was not mentioned in the original Schuman Declaration. It was assumed or hoped that difficulties with the British would be resolved to allow the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to perform the task. A separate Assembly was introduced during negotiations on the Treaty as an institution which would counterbalance and monitor the executive while providing democratic legitimacy.[13] The wording of the ECSC Treaty demonstrated the leaders' desire for more than a normal consultative assembly by using the term "representatives of the people" and allowed for direct election. Its early importance was highlighted when the Assembly was given the task of drawing up the draft treaty to establish a European Political Community. By this document, the Ad Hoc Assembly was established on 13 September 1952[18] with extra members, but after the failure of the proposed European Defence Community the project was dropped.[19]
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+ Despite this, the European Economic Community and Euratom were established in 1958 by the Treaties of Rome. The Common Assembly was shared by all three communities (which had separate executives) and it renamed itself the European Parliamentary Assembly.[13] The first meeting was held on 19 March 1958 having been set up in Luxembourg City, it elected Schuman as its president and on 13 May it rearranged itself to sit according to political ideology rather than nationality.[20] This is seen as the birth of the modern European Parliament, with Parliament's 50 years celebrations being held in March 2008 rather than 2002.[21]
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+
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+ The three communities merged their remaining organs as the European Communities in 1967, and the body's name was changed to the current "European Parliament" in 1962.[13] In 1970 the Parliament was granted power over areas of the Communities' budget, which were expanded to the whole budget in 1975.[22] Under the Rome Treaties, the Parliament should have become elected. However, the Council was required to agree a uniform voting system beforehand, which it failed to do. The Parliament threatened to take the Council to the European Court of Justice; this led to a compromise whereby the Council would agree to elections, but the issue of voting systems would be put off until a later date.[23]
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+ In 1979, its members were directly elected for the first time. This sets it apart from similar institutions such as those of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe or Pan-African Parliament which are appointed.[13][24][25] After that first election, the parliament held its first session on 11 July 1979, electing Simone Veil MEP as its president. Veil was also the first female president of the Parliament since it was formed as the Common Assembly.
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+ As an elected body, the Parliament began to draft proposals addressing the functioning of the EU. For example, in 1984, inspired by its previous work on the Political Community, it drafted the "draft Treaty establishing the European Union" (also known as the 'Spinelli Plan' after its rapporteur Altiero Spinelli MEP). Although it was not adopted, many ideas were later implemented by other treaties.[26] Furthermore, the Parliament began holding votes on proposed Commission Presidents from the 1980s, before it was given any formal right to veto.[27]
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+
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+ Since it became an elected body, the membership of the European Parliament has simply expanded whenever new nations have joined (the membership was also adjusted upwards in 1994 after German reunification). Following this, the Treaty of Nice imposed a cap on the number of members to be elected: 732.[13]
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+ Like the other institutions, the Parliament's seat was not yet fixed. The provisional arrangements placed Parliament in Strasbourg, while the Commission and Council had their seats in Brussels. In 1985 the Parliament, wishing to be closer to these institutions, built a second chamber in Brussels and moved some of its work there despite protests from some states. A final agreement was eventually reached by the European Council in 1992. It stated the Parliament would retain its formal seat in Strasbourg, where twelve sessions a year would be held, but with all other parliamentary activity in Brussels. This two-seat arrangement was contested by the Parliament, but was later enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam. To this day the institution's locations are a source of contention.[28]
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+ The Parliament gained more powers from successive treaties, namely through the extension of the ordinary legislative procedure (then called the codecision procedure),[29] and in 1999, the Parliament forced the resignation of the Santer Commission.[30] The Parliament had refused to approve the Community budget over allegations of fraud and mis-management in the Commission. The two main parties took on a government-opposition dynamic for the first time during the crisis which ended in the Commission resigning en masse, the first of any forced resignation, in the face of an impending censure from the Parliament.[31]
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+
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+ In 2004, following the largest trans-national election in history, despite the European Council choosing a President from the largest political group (the EPP), the Parliament again exerted pressure on the Commission. During the Parliament's hearings of the proposed Commissioners MEPs raised doubts about some nominees with the Civil Liberties committee rejecting Rocco Buttiglione from the post of Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security over his views on homosexuality. That was the first time the Parliament had ever voted against an incoming Commissioner and despite Barroso's insistence upon Buttiglione the Parliament forced Buttiglione to be withdrawn. A number of other Commissioners also had to be withdrawn or reassigned before Parliament allowed the Barroso Commission to take office.[32][33]
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+ Along with the extension of the ordinary legislative procedure, the Parliament's democratic mandate has given it greater control over legislation against the other institutions. In voting on the Bolkestein directive in 2006, the Parliament voted by a large majority for over 400 amendments that changed the fundamental principle of the law. The Financial Times described it in the following terms:[34]
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+ That is where the European parliament has suddenly come into its own. It marks another shift in power between the three central EU institutions. Last week's vote suggests that the directly elected MEPs, in spite of their multitude of ideological, national and historical allegiances, have started to coalesce as a serious and effective EU institution, just as enlargement has greatly complicated negotiations inside both the Council and Commission.
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+ In 2007, for the first time, Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini included Parliament in talks on the second Schengen Information System even though MEPs only needed to be consulted on parts of the package. After that experiment, Frattini indicated he would like to include Parliament in all justice and criminal matters, informally pre-empting the new powers they could gain as part of the Treaty of Lisbon.[35] Between 2007 and 2009, a special working group on parliamentary reform implemented a series of changes to modernise the institution such as more speaking time for rapporteurs, increase committee co-operation and other efficiency reforms.[36][37]
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+ The Lisbon Treaty finally came into force on 1 December 2009, granting Parliament powers over the entire EU budget, making Parliament's legislative powers equal to the Council's in nearly all areas and linking the appointment of the Commission President to Parliament's own elections.[38] Despite some calls for the parties to put forward candidates beforehand, only the EPP (which had re-secured their position as largest party) had one in re-endorsing Barroso.[39]
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+ Barroso gained the support of the European Council for a second term and secured majority support from the Parliament in September 2009. Parliament voted 382 votes in favour and 219 votes against (117 abstentions ) with support of the European People's Party, European Conservatives and Reformists and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.[40] The liberals gave support after Barroso gave them a number of concessions; the liberals previously joined the socialists' call for a delayed vote (the EPP had wanted to approve Barroso in July of that year).[41]
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+
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+ Once Barroso put forward the candidates for his next Commission, another opportunity to gain concessions arose. Bulgarian nominee Rumiana Jeleva was forced to step down by Parliament due to concerns over her experience and financial interests. She only had the support of the EPP which began to retaliate on left wing candidates before Jeleva gave in and was replaced (setting back the final vote further).[42]
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+ Before the final vote, Parliament demanded a number of concessions as part of a future working agreement under the new Lisbon Treaty. The deal includes that Parliament's President will attend high level Commission meetings. Parliament will have a seat in the EU's Commission-led international negotiations and have a right to information on agreements. However, Parliament secured only an observer seat. Parliament also did not secure a say over the appointment of delegation heads and special representatives for foreign policy. Although they will appear before parliament after they have been appointed by the High Representative. One major internal power was that Parliament wanted a pledge from the Commission that it would put forward legislation when parliament requests. Barroso considered this an infringement on the Commission's powers but did agree to respond within three months. Most requests are already responded to positively.[43]
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+ During the setting up of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Parliament used its control over the EU budget to influence the shape of the EEAS. MEPs had aimed at getting greater oversight over the EEAS by linking it to the Commission and having political deputies to the High Representative. MEPs didn't manage to get everything they demanded. However, they got broader financial control over the new body.[44][45]
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+ In January 2019, Conservative MEPs supported proposals to boost opportunities for women and tackle sexual harassment in the European Parliament.
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+ [46]
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+ The Parliament and Council have been compared to the two chambers of a bicameral legislature.[47] However, there are some differences from national legislatures; for example, neither the Parliament nor the Council have the power of legislative initiative (except for the fact that the Council has the power in some intergovernmental matters). In Community matters, this is a power uniquely reserved for the European Commission (the executive). Therefore, while Parliament can amend and reject legislation, to make a proposal for legislation, it needs the Commission to draft a bill before anything can become law.[48] The value of such a power has been questioned by noting that in the national legislatures of the member states 85% of initiatives introduced without executive support fail to become law.[49] Yet it has been argued by former Parliament president Hans-Gert Pöttering that as the Parliament does have the right to ask the Commission to draft such legislation, and as the Commission is following Parliament's proposals more and more Parliament does have a de facto right of legislative initiative.[8]
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+ The Parliament also has a great deal of indirect influence, through non-binding resolutions and committee hearings, as a "pan-European soapbox" with the ear of thousands of Brussels-based journalists. There is also an indirect effect on foreign policy; the Parliament must approve all development grants, including those overseas. For example, the support for post-war Iraq reconstruction, or incentives for the cessation of Iranian nuclear development, must be supported by the Parliament. Parliamentary support was also required for the transatlantic passenger data-sharing deal with the United States.[50] Finally, Parliament holds a non-binding vote on new EU treaties but cannot veto it. However, when Parliament threatened to vote down the Nice Treaty, the Belgian and Italian Parliaments said they would veto the treaty on the European Parliament's behalf.[51]
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+ With each new treaty, the powers of the Parliament, in terms of its role in the Union's legislative procedures, have expanded. The procedure which has slowly become dominant is the "ordinary legislative procedure" (previously named "codecision procedure"), which provides an equal footing between Parliament and Council. In particular, under the procedure, the Commission presents a proposal to Parliament and the Council which can only become law if both agree on a text, which they do (or not) through successive readings up to a maximum of three. In its first reading, Parliament may send amendments to the Council which can either adopt the text with those amendments or send back a "common position". That position may either be approved by Parliament, or it may reject the text by an absolute majority, causing it to fail, or it may adopt further amendments, also by an absolute majority. If the Council does not approve these, then a "Conciliation Committee" is formed. The Committee is composed of the Council members plus an equal number of MEPs who seek to agree a compromise. Once a position is agreed, it has to be approved by Parliament, by a simple majority.[7][52] This is also aided by Parliament's mandate as the only directly democratic institution, which has given it leeway to have greater control over legislation than other institutions, for example over its changes to the Bolkestein directive in 2006.[34]
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+
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+ The few other areas that operate the special legislative procedures are justice and home affairs, budget and taxation, and certain aspects of other policy areas, such as the fiscal aspects of environmental policy. In these areas, the Council or Parliament decide law alone.[53] The procedure also depends upon which type of institutional act is being used.[7] The strongest act is a regulation, an act or law which is directly applicable in its entirety. Then there are directives which bind member states to certain goals which they must achieve. They do this through their own laws and hence have room to manoeuvre in deciding upon them. A decision is an instrument which is focused at a particular person or group and is directly applicable. Institutions may also issue recommendations and opinions which are merely non-binding, declarations.[54] There is a further document which does not follow normal procedures, this is a "written declaration" which is similar to an early day motion used in the Westminster system. It is a document proposed by up to five MEPs on a matter within the EU's activities used to launch a debate on that subject. Having been posted outside the entrance to the hemicycle, members can sign the declaration and if a majority do so it is forwarded to the President and announced to the plenary before being forwarded to the other institutions and formally noted in the minutes.[55]
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+
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+ The legislative branch officially holds the Union's budgetary authority with powers gained through the Budgetary Treaties of the 1970s and the Lisbon Treaty. The EU budget is subject to a form of the ordinary legislative procedure with a single reading giving Parliament power over the entire budget (before 2009, its influence was limited to certain areas) on an equal footing to the Council. If there is a disagreement between them, it is taken to a conciliation committee as it is for legislative proposals. If the joint conciliation text is not approved, the Parliament may adopt the budget definitively.[53]
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+
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+ The Parliament is also responsible for discharging the implementation of previous budgets based on the annual report of the European Court of Auditors. It has refused to approve the budget only twice, in 1984 and in 1998. On the latter occasion it led to the resignation of the Santer Commission; highlighting how the budgetary power gives Parliament a great deal of power over the Commission.[23][31][56] Parliament also makes extensive use of its budgetary, and other powers, elsewhere; for example in the setting up of the European External Action Service, Parliament has a de facto veto over its design as it has to approve the budgetary and staff changes.[44]
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+
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+ The President of the European Commission is proposed by the European Council on the basis of the European elections to Parliament.[38] That proposal has to be approved by the Parliament (by a simple majority) who "elect" the President according to the treaties. Following the approval of the Commission President, the members of the Commission are proposed by the President in accord with the member states. Each Commissioner comes before a relevant parliamentary committee hearing covering the proposed portfolio. They are then, as a body, approved or rejected by the Parliament.[57][58]
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+
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+ In practice, the Parliament has never voted against a President or his Commission, but it did seem likely when the Barroso Commission was put forward. The resulting pressure forced the proposal to be withdrawn and changed to be more acceptable to parliament.[32] That pressure was seen as an important sign by some of the evolving nature of the Parliament and its ability to make the Commission accountable, rather than being a rubber stamp for candidates. Furthermore, in voting on the Commission, MEPs also voted along party lines, rather than national lines, despite frequent pressure from national governments on their MEPs. This cohesion and willingness to use the Parliament's power ensured greater attention from national leaders, other institutions and the public – who previously gave the lowest ever turnout for the Parliament's elections.[59]
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+
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+ The Parliament also has the power to censure the Commission if they have a two-thirds majority which will force the resignation of the entire Commission from office. As with approval, this power has never been used but it was threatened to the Santer Commission, who subsequently resigned of their own accord. There are a few other controls, such as: the requirement of Commission to submit reports to the Parliament and answer questions from MEPs; the requirement of the President-in-office of the Council to present its programme at the start of their presidency; the obligation on the President of the European Council to report to Parliament after each of its meetings; the right of MEPs to make requests for legislation and policy to the Commission; and the right to question members of those institutions (e.g. "Commission Question Time" every Tuesday).[27][58] At present, MEPs may ask a question on any topic whatsoever, but in July 2008 MEPs voted to limit questions to those within the EU's mandate and ban offensive or personal questions.[60]
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+
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+ The Parliament also has other powers of general supervision, mainly granted by the Maastricht Treaty.[61] The Parliament has the power to set up a Committee of Inquiry, for example over mad cow disease or CIA detention flights – the former led to the creation of the European veterinary agency. The Parliament can call other institutions to answer questions and if necessary to take them to court if they break EU law or treaties.[62] Furthermore, it has powers over the appointment of the members of the Court of Auditors[63] and the president and executive board of the European Central Bank. The ECB president is also obliged to present an annual report to the parliament.[62]
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+
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+ The European Ombudsman is elected by the Parliament, who deals with public complaints against all institutions.[62] Petitions can also be brought forward by any EU citizen on a matter within the EU's sphere of activities. The Committee on Petitions hears cases, some 1500 each year, sometimes presented by the citizen themselves at the Parliament. While the Parliament attempts to resolve the issue as a mediator they do resort to legal proceedings if it is necessary to resolve the citizens dispute.[64]
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+
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+ The parliamentarians are known in English as Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). They are elected every five years by universal adult suffrage and sit according to political allegiance; about a third are women. Before 1979 they were appointed by their national parliaments.[19][65] In 2017, an estimated 17 MEPs were not white.[66] Of these, three were black; if the numbers were proportionate to the EU population, then 22 would be black.[67]
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+
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+ Under the Lisbon Treaty, seats are allocated to each state according to population and the maximum number of members is set at 751 (however, as the President cannot vote while in the chair there will only be 750 voting members at any one time).[68] Since 1 February 2020, 705 MEPs (including the president of the Parliament) sit in the European Parliament, as there is no EU citizens' représentative of the United Kingdom anymore due to Brexit.
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+
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+ Representation is currently limited to a maximum of 96 seats and a minimum of 6 seats per state and the seats are distributed according to "degressive proportionality", i.e., the larger the state, the more citizens are represented per MEP. As a result, Maltese and Luxembourgish voters have roughly 10x more influence per voter than citizens of the six large countries.
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+
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+ As of 2014[update], Germany (80.9 million inhabitants) has 96 seats (previously 99 seats), i.e. one seat for 843,000 inhabitants. Malta (0.4 million inhabitants) has 6 seats, i.e. one seat for 70,000 inhabitants.
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+
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+ The new system implemented under the Lisbon Treaty, including revising the seating well before elections, was intended to avoid political horse trading when the allocations have to be revised to reflect demographic changes.[69]
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+ Pursuant to this apportionment, the constituencies are formed. In four EU member states (Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Poland), the national territory is divided into a number of constituencies. In the remaining member states, the whole country forms a single constituency. All member states hold elections to the European Parliament using various forms of proportional representation.
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+
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+ Due to the delay in ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, the seventh parliament was elected under the lower Nice Treaty cap. A small scale treaty amendment was ratified on 29 November 2011.[70] This amendment brought in transitional provisions to allow the 18 additional MEPs created under the Lisbon Treaty to be elected or appointed before the 2014 election.[71] Under the Lisbon Treaty reforms, Germany was the only state to lose members from 99 to 96. However, these seats were not removed until the 2014 election.[72]
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+
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+ Before 2009, members received the same salary as members of their national parliament. However, from 2009 a new members statute came into force, after years of attempts, which gave all members an equal monthly pay, of €8,484.05 each in 2016, subject to a European Union tax and which can also be taxed nationally. MEPs are entitled to a pension, paid by Parliament, from the age of 63. Members are also entitled to allowances for office costs and subsistence, and travelling expenses, based on actual cost.[73] Besides their pay, members are granted a number of privileges and immunities. To ensure their free movement to and from the Parliament, they are accorded by their own states the facilities accorded to senior officials travelling abroad and, by other state governments, the status of visiting foreign representatives. When in their own state, they have all the immunities accorded to national parliamentarians, and, in other states, they have immunity from detention and legal proceedings. However, immunity cannot be claimed when a member is found committing a criminal offence and the Parliament also has the right to strip a member of their immunity.[74]
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+
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+ MEPs in Parliament are organised into eight different parliamentary groups, including thirty non-attached members known as non-inscrits. The two largest groups are the European People's Party (EPP) and the Socialists & Democrats (S&D). These two groups have dominated the Parliament for much of its life, continuously holding between 50 and 70 percent of the seats between them. No single group has ever held a majority in Parliament.[75] As a result of being broad alliances of national parties, European group parties are very decentralised and hence have more in common with parties in federal states like Germany or the United States than unitary states like the majority of the EU states.[49] Nevertheless, the European groups were actually more cohesive than their US counterparts between 2004 and 2009.[76][77]
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+ Groups are often based on a single European political party such as the European People's Party. However, they can, like the liberal group, include more than one European party as well as national parties and independents.[78] For a group to be recognised, it needs 25 MEPs from seven different countries.[79] Once recognised, groups receive financial subsidies from the parliament and guaranteed seats on committees, creating an incentive for the formation of groups. However, some controversy occurred with the establishment of the short-lived Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS) due to its ideology; the members of the group were far-right, so there were concerns about public funds going towards such a group.[80] There were attempts to change the rules to block the formation of ITS, but they never came to fruition. The group was, however, blocked from gaining leading positions on committees – traditionally (by agreement, not a rule) shared among all parties.[81] When this group engaged in infighting, leading to the withdrawal of some members, its size fell below the threshold for recognition causing its collapse.[82]
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+
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+ Given that the Parliament does not form the government in the traditional sense of a Parliamentary system, its politics have developed along more consensual lines rather than majority rule of competing parties and coalitions. Indeed, for much of its life it has been dominated by a grand coalition of the European People's Party and the Party of European Socialists. The two major parties tend to co-operate to find a compromise between their two groups leading to proposals endorsed by huge majorities.[83] However, this does not always produce agreement, and each may instead try to build other alliances, the EPP normally with other centre-right or right wing Groups and the PES with centre-left or left wing groups. Sometimes, the Liberal Group is then in the pivotal position. There are also occasions where very sharp party political divisions have emerged, for example over the resignation of the Santer Commission.[31]
106
+
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+ When the initial allegations against the Commission emerged, they were directed primarily against Édith Cresson and Manuel Marín, both socialist members. When the parliament was considering refusing to discharge the Community budget, President Jacques Santer stated that a no vote would be tantamount to a vote of no confidence. The Socialist group supported the Commission and saw the issue as an attempt by the EPP to discredit their party ahead of the 1999 elections. Socialist leader, Pauline Green MEP, attempted a vote of confidence and the EPP put forward counter motions. During this period the two parties took on similar roles to a government-opposition dynamic, with the Socialists supporting the executive and EPP renouncing its previous coalition support and voting it down.[31] Politicisation such as this has been increasing, in 2007 Simon Hix of the London School of Economics noted that:[15]
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+ Our work also shows that politics in the European Parliament is becoming increasingly based around party and ideology. Voting is increasingly split along left-right lines, and the cohesion of the party groups has risen dramatically, particularly in the fourth and fifth parliaments. So there are likely to be policy implications here too.
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+
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+ During the fifth term, 1999 to 2004, there was a break in the grand coalition resulting in a centre-right coalition between the Liberal and People's parties.[84] This was reflected in the Presidency of the Parliament with the terms being shared between the EPP and the ELDR, rather than the EPP and Socialists.[85] In the following term the liberal group grew to hold 88 seats, the largest number of seats held by any third party in Parliament.[86]
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+
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+ Elections have taken place, directly in every member state, every five years since 1979. As of 2019[update] there have been nine elections. When a nation joins mid-term, a by-election will be held to elect their representatives. This has happened six times, most recently when Croatia joined in 2013. Elections take place across four days according to local custom and, apart from having to be proportional, the electoral system is chosen by the member state.[88] This includes allocation of sub-national constituencies; while most members have a national list, some, like the UK and Poland, divide their allocation between regions. Seats are allocated to member states according to their population, since 2014 with no state having more than 96, but no fewer than 6, to maintain proportionality.[89]
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+ The most recent Union-wide elections to the European Parliament were the European elections of 2019, held from 23 to 26 May 2019. They were the largest simultaneous transnational elections ever held anywhere in the world.
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+ The first session of the ninth parliament started 2 July 2019.[90]
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+
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+ European political parties have the exclusive right to campaign during the European elections (as opposed to their corresponding EP groups).[91] There have been a number of proposals designed to attract greater public attention to the elections. One such innovation in the 2014 elections was that the pan-European political parties fielded "candidates" for president of the Commission, the so-called Spitzenkandidaten (German, "leading candidates" or "top candidates"). However, European Union governance is based on a mixture of intergovernmental and supranational features: the President of the European Commission is nominated by the European Council, representing the governments of the member states, and there is no obligation for them to nominate the successful "candidate". The Lisbon Treaty merely states that they should take account of the results of the elections when choosing whom to nominate. The so-called Spitzenkandidaten were Jean-Claude Juncker for the European People's Party,[92] Martin Schulz for the Party of European Socialists, Guy Verhofstadt for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, Ska Keller and José Bové jointly for the European Green Party and Alexis Tsipras for the Party of the European Left.
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+
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+ Turnout dropped consistently every year since the first election, and from 1999 until 2019 was below 50%. In 2007 both Bulgaria and Romania elected their MEPs in by-elections, having joined at the beginning of 2007. The Bulgarian and Romanian elections saw two of the lowest turnouts for European elections, just 28.6%[93] and 28.3% respectively.[94] This trend was interrupted in the 2019 election, when turnout increased by 8% EU-wide, rising to 50.6%, the highest since 1994.
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+
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+ In England, Scotland and Wales, EP elections were originally held for a constituency MEP on a first-past-the-post basis. In 1999 the system was changed to a form of PR where a large group of candidates stand for a post within a very large regional constituency.[95] One can vote for a party, but not a candidate (unless that party has a single candidate).
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+
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+ Each year the activities of the Parliament cycle between committee weeks where reports are discussed in committees and interparliamentary delegations meet, political group weeks for members to discuss work within their political groups and session weeks where members spend 3½ days in Strasbourg for part-sessions. In addition six 2-day part-sessions are organised in Brussels throughout the year. Four weeks are allocated as constituency week to allow members to do exclusively constituency work. Finally there are no meetings planned during the summer weeks.[96] The Parliament has the power to meet without being convened by another authority. Its meetings are partly controlled by the treaties but are otherwise up to Parliament according to its own "Rules of Procedure" (the regulations governing the parliament).[97]
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+
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+ During sessions, members may speak after being called on by the President. Members of the Council or Commission may also attend and speak in debates.[98][99] Partly due to the need for translation, and the politics of consensus in the chamber, debates tend to be calmer and more polite than, say, the Westminster system.[100] Voting is conducted primarily by a show of hands, that may be checked on request by electronic voting.[101] Votes of MEPs are not recorded in either case, however; that only occurs when there is a roll-call ballot. This is required for the final votes on legislation and also whenever a political group or 30 MEPs request it. The number of roll-call votes has increased with time. Votes can also be a completely secret ballot (for example, when the president is elected).[102][103] All recorded votes, along with minutes and legislation, are recorded in the Official Journal of the European Union and can be accessed online.[104] Votes usually do not follow a debate, but rather they are grouped with other due votes on specific occasions, usually at noon on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. This is because the length of the vote is unpredictable and if it continues for longer than allocated it can disrupt other debates and meetings later in the day.[105]
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+
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+ Members are arranged in a hemicycle according to their political groups (in the Common Assembly, prior to 1958, members sat alphabetically[106]) who are ordered mainly by left to right, but some smaller groups are placed towards the outer ring of the Parliament. All desks are equipped with microphones, headphones for translation and electronic voting equipment. The leaders of the groups sit on the front benches at the centre, and in the very centre is a podium for guest speakers. The remaining half of the circular chamber is primarily composed of the raised area where the President and staff sit. Further benches are provided between the sides of this area and the MEPs, these are taken up by the Council on the far left and the Commission on the far right. Both the Brussels and Strasbourg hemicycle roughly follow this layout with only minor differences.[107] The hemicycle design is a compromise between the different Parliamentary systems. The British-based system has the different groups directly facing each other while the French-based system is a semicircle (and the traditional German system had all members in rows facing a rostrum for speeches). Although the design is mainly based on a semicircle, the opposite ends of the spectrum do still face each other.[106] With access to the chamber limited, entrance is controlled by ushers who aid MEPs in the chamber (for example in delivering documents). The ushers can also occasionally act as a form of police in enforcing the President, for example in ejecting an MEP who is disrupting the session (although this is rare). The first head of protocol in the Parliament was French, so many of the duties in the Parliament are based on the French model first developed following the French Revolution. The 180 ushers are highly visible in the Parliament, dressed in black tails and wearing a silver chain, and are recruited in the same manner as the European civil service. The President is allocated a personal usher.[108]
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+
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+ The President is essentially the speaker of the Parliament and presides over the plenary when it is in session. The President's signature is required for all acts adopted by co-decision, including the EU budget. The President is also responsible for representing the Parliament externally, including in legal matters, and for the application of the rules of procedure. He or she is elected for two-and-a-half-year terms, meaning two elections per parliamentary term.[109][110] The President is currently David Sassoli (S&D).
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+
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+ In most countries, the protocol of the head of state comes before all others; however, in the EU the Parliament is listed as the first institution, and hence the protocol of its president comes before any other European, or national, protocol. The gifts given to numerous visiting dignitaries depend upon the President. President Josep Borrell MEP of Spain gave his counterparts a crystal cup created by an artist from Barcelona who had engraved upon it parts of the Charter of Fundamental Rights among other things.[9]
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+ A number of notable figures have been President of the Parliament and its predecessors. The first President was Paul-Henri Spaak MEP,[111] one of the founding fathers of the Union. Other founding fathers include Alcide de Gasperi MEP and Robert Schuman MEP. The two female Presidents were Simone Veil MEP in 1979 (first President of the elected Parliament) and Nicole Fontaine MEP in 1999, both Frenchwomen.[112] The previous president, Jerzy Buzek was the first East-Central European to lead an EU institution, a former Prime Minister of Poland who rose out of the Solidarity movement in Poland that helped overthrow communism in the Eastern Bloc.[113]
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+
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+ During the election of a President, the previous President (or, if unable to, one of the previous Vice-Presidents) presides over the chamber.[114] Prior to 2009, the oldest member fulfilled this role[115] but the rule was changed to prevent far-right French MEP Jean-Marie Le Pen taking the chair.[114]
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+
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+ Below the President, there are 14 Vice-Presidents who chair debates when the President is not in the chamber. There are a number of other bodies and posts responsible for the running of parliament besides these speakers. The two main bodies are the Bureau, which is responsible for budgetary and administration issues, and the Conference of Presidents which is a governing body composed of the presidents of each of the parliament's political groups. Looking after the financial and administrative interests of members are five Quaestors.
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+ As of 2014[update], the European Parliament budget was EUR 1.756 billion.[116] A 2008 report on the Parliament's finances highlighted certain overspending and miss-payments. Despite some MEPs calling for the report to be published, Parliamentary authorities had refused until an MEP broke confidentiality and leaked it.[117]
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+
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+ The Parliament has 20 Standing Committees consisting of 25 to 73 MEPs each (reflecting the political make-up of the whole Parliament) including a chair, a bureau and secretariat. They meet twice a month in public to draw up, amend to adopt legislative proposals and reports to be presented to the plenary.[118] The rapporteurs for a committee are supposed to present the view of the committee, although notably this has not always been the case. In the events leading to the resignation of the Santer Commission, the rapporteur went against the Budgetary Control Committee's narrow vote to discharge the budget, and urged the Parliament to reject it.[31]
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+
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+ Committees can also set up sub-committees (e.g. the Subcommittee on Human Rights) and temporary committees to deal with a specific topic (e.g. on extraordinary rendition). The chairs of the Committees co-ordinate their work through the "Conference of Committee Chairmen".[118] When co-decision was introduced it increased the Parliament's powers in a number of areas, but most notably those covered by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. Previously this committee was considered by MEPs as a "Cinderella committee"; however, as it gained a new importance, it became more professional and rigorous, attracting increasing attention to its work.[23]
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+ The nature of the committees differ from their national counterparts as, although smaller in comparison to those of the United States Congress, the European Parliament's committees are unusually large by European standards with between eight and twelve dedicated members of staff and three to four support staff. Considerable administration, archives and research resources are also at the disposal of the whole Parliament when needed.[49]
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+ Delegations of the Parliament are formed in a similar manner and are responsible for relations with Parliaments outside the EU. There are 34 delegations made up of around 15 MEPs, chairpersons of the delegations also cooperate in a conference like the committee chairs do. They include "Interparliamentary delegations" (maintain relations with Parliament outside the EU), "joint parliamentary committees" (maintaining relations with parliaments of states which are candidates or associates of the EU), the delegation to the ACP EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly and the delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.[118] MEPs also participate in other international activities such as the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, the Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue and through election observation in third countries.[119]
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+ The Intergroups in the European Parliament are informal fora which gather MEPs from various political groups around any topic. They do not express the view of the European Parliament. They serve a double purpose: to address a topic which is transversal to several committees and in a less formal manner. Their daily secretariat can be run either through the office of MEPs or through interest groups, be them corporate lobbies or NGOs. The favored access to MEPs which the organization running the secretariat enjoys can be one explanation to the multiplication of Intergroups in the 1990s.[120] They are now strictly regulated and financial support, direct or otherwise (via Secretariat staff, for example) must be officially specified in a declaration of financial interests.[121] Also Intergroups are established or renewed at the beginning of each legislature through a specific process. Indeed, the proposal for the constitution or renewal of an Intergroup must be supported by at least 3 political groups whose support is limited to a specific number of proposals in proportion to their size (for example, for the legislature 2014-2019, the EPP or S&D political groups could support 22 proposals whereas the Greens/EFA or the EFDD political groups only 7).[122]
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+ Speakers in the European Parliament are entitled to speak in any of the 24 official languages of the European Union, ranging from French and German to Maltese and Irish. Simultaneous interpreting is offered in all plenary sessions, and all final texts of legislation are translated. With twenty-four languages, the European Parliament is the most multilingual parliament in the world[123] and the biggest employer of interpreters in the world (employing 350 full-time and 400 free-lancers when there is higher demand).[124] Citizens may also address the Parliament in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician.[125]
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+ Usually a language is translated from a foreign tongue into a translator's native tongue. Due to the large number of languages, some being minor ones, since 1995 interpreting is sometimes done the opposite way, out of an interpreter's native tongue (the "retour" system). In addition, a speech in a minor language may be interpreted through a third language for lack of interpreters ("relay" interpreting) – for example, when interpreting out of Estonian into Maltese.[124] Due to the complexity of the issues, interpretation is not word for word. Instead, interpreters have to convey the political meaning of a speech, regardless of their own views. This requires detailed understanding of the politics and terms of the Parliament, involving a great deal of preparation beforehand (e.g. reading the documents in question). Difficulty can often arise when MEPs use profanities, jokes and word play or speak too fast.[124]
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+
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+ While some see speaking their native language as an important part of their identity, and can speak more fluently in debates, interpretation and its cost has been criticised by some. A 2006 report by Alexander Stubb MEP highlighted that by only using English, French and German costs could be reduced from €118,000 per day (for 21 languages then – Romanian, Bulgarian and Croatian having not yet been included) to €8,900 per day.[126] There has also been a small-scale campaign to make French the reference language for all legal texts, on the basis of an argument that it is more clear and precise for legal purposes.[127]
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+ Because the proceedings are translated into all of the official EU languages, they have been used to make a multilingual corpus known as Europarl. It is widely used to train statistical machine translation systems.[128]
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+ According to the European Parliament website, the annual parliament budget for 2016 was €1.838 billion.[129] The main cost categories were:
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+ According to a European Parliament study prepared in 2013, the Strasbourg seat costs an extra €103 million over maintaining a single location and according to the Court of Auditors an additional €5 million is related to travel expenses caused by having two seats.[130]
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+ As a comparison, the German lower house of parliament (Bundestag) is estimated to cost €517 million in total for 2018, for a parliament with 709 members.[131] The British House of Commons reported total annual costs in 2016-2017 of £249 million (€279 million). It had 650 seats.[132]
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+ According to The Economist, the European Parliament costs more than the British, French and German parliaments combined. A quarter of the costs is estimated to be related to translation and interpretation costs (c. €460 million) and the double seats are estimated to add an additional €180 million a year.[133] For a like-for-like comparison, these two cost blocks can be excluded.
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+ On 2 July 2018, MEPs rejected proposals to tighten the rules around the General Expenditure Allowance (GEA),[134] which "is a controversial €4,416 per month payment that MEPs are given to cover office and other expenses, but they are not required to provide any evidence of how the money is spent".[135]
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+ The Parliament is based in three different cities with numerous buildings. A protocol attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam requires that 12 plenary sessions be held in Strasbourg (none in August but two in September), which is the Parliament's official seat, while extra part sessions as well as committee meetings are held in Brussels. Luxembourg City hosts the Secretariat of the European Parliament.[12] The European Parliament is one of at least two assemblies in the world with more than one meeting place (another being the parliament of the Isle of Man, Tynwald) and one of the few that does not have the power to decide its own location.[136]
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+ The Strasbourg seat is seen as a symbol of reconciliation between France and Germany, the Strasbourg region having been fought over by the two countries in the past. However, the cost and inconvenience of having two seats is questioned. While Strasbourg is the official seat, and sits alongside the Council of Europe,[137] Brussels is home to nearly all other major EU institutions, with the majority of Parliament's work being carried out there. Critics have described the two-seat arrangement as a "travelling circus",[138] and there is a strong movement to establish Brussels as the sole seat. This is because the other political institutions (the Commission, Council and European Council) are located there, and hence Brussels is treated as the 'capital' of the EU. This movement has received strong backing from numerous figures, including Margot Wallström, Commission First-Vice President from 2004 to 2010, who stated that "something that was once a very positive symbol of the EU reuniting France and Germany has now become a negative symbol – of wasting money, bureaucracy and the insanity of the Brussels institutions".[139] The Green Party has also noted the environmental cost in a study led by Jean Lambert MEP and Caroline Lucas MEP; in addition to the extra 200 million euro spent on the extra seat, there are over 20,268 tonnes of additional carbon dioxide, undermining any environmental stance of the institution and the Union.[138] The campaign is further backed by a million-strong online petition started by Cecilia Malmström MEP.[140] In August 2014, an assessment by the European Court of Auditors calculated that relocating the Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament to Brussels would save €113.8 million per year.[141] In 2006, there were allegations of irregularities in the charges made by the city of Strasbourg on buildings the Parliament rented, thus further harming the case for the Strasbourg seat.[142]
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+ Most MEPs prefer Brussels as a single base.[143] A poll of MEPs found 89% of the respondents wanting a single seat, and 81% preferring Brussels.[144] Another, more academic, survey found 68% support.[15] In July 2011, an absolute majority of MEPs voted in favour of a single seat.[145] In early 2011, the Parliament voted to scrap one of the Strasbourg sessions by holding two within a single week.[146] The mayor of Strasbourg officially reacted by stating "we will counter-attack by upturning the adversary's strength to our own profit, as a judoka would do."[147] However, as Parliament's seat is now fixed by the treaties, it can only be changed by the Council acting unanimously, meaning that France could veto any move.[136] The former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has stated that the Strasbourg seat is "non-negotiable", and that France has no intention of surrendering the only EU Institution on French soil.[148] Given France's declared intention to veto any relocation to Brussels, some MEPs have advocated civil disobedience by refusing to take part in the monthly exodus to Strasbourg.[149][150][151]
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+ Over the last few years, European institutions have committed to promoting transparency, openness, and the availability of information about their work.[152] In particular, transparency is regarded as pivotal to the action of European institutions and a general principle of EU law, to be applied to the activities of EU institutions in order to strengthen the Union's democratic foundation.[153] The general principles of openness and transparency are reaffirmed in the articles 8 A, point 3 and 10.3 of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Maastricht Treaty respectively, stating that "every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union. Decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizen".[154][155] Furthermore, both treaties acknowledge the value of dialogue between citizens, representative associations, civil society, and European institutions.[154][155]
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+ Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) lays the juridical foundation for an open, transparent dialogue between European institutions and churches, religious associations, and non-confessional and philosophical organisations.[156] In July 2014, in the beginning of the 8th term, then President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz tasked Antonio Tajani, then Vice-President, with implementing the dialogue with the religious and confessional organisations included in article 17.[157] In this framework, the European Parliament hosts high-level conferences on inter-religious dialogue, also with focus on current issues and in relation with parliamentary works.[156]
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+ The chair of European Parliament Mediator for International Parental Child Abduction was established in 1987 by initiative of British MEP Charles Henry Plumb, with the goal of helping minor children of international couples victim of parental abduction. The Mediator finds negotiated solutions in the higher interest of the minor when said minor is abducted by a parent following separation of the couple, regardless whether married or unmarried.[158][159] Since its institution, the chair has been held by Mairead McGuinness (since 2014), Roberta Angelilli (2009–2014), Evelyne Gebhardt (2004–2009), Mary Banotti (1995–2004), and Marie-Claude Vayssade (1987–1994).[159] The Mediator's main task is to assist parents in finding a solution in the minor's best interest through mediation, i.e. a form of controversy resolution alternative to lawsuit. The Mediator is activated by request of a citizen and, after evaluating the request, starts a mediation process aimed at reaching an agreement. Once subscribed by both parties and the Mediator, the agreement is official. The nature of the agreement is that of a private contract between parties.[159] In defining the agreement, the European Parliament offers the parties the juridical support necessary to reach a sound, lawful agreement based on legality and equity. The agreement can be ratified by the competent national courts and can also lay the foundation for consensual separation or divorce.[159]
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+ The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) is the European Parliament's in-house research department and think tank. It provides Members of the European Parliament – and, where appropriate, parliamentary committees – with independent, objective and authoritative analysis of, and research on, policy issues relating to the European Union, in order to assist them in their parliamentary work. It is also designed to increase Members' and EP committees' capacity to scrutinise and oversee the European Commission and other EU executive bodies.
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+ EPRS aims to provide a comprehensive range of products and services, backed by specialist internal expertise and knowledge sources in all policy fields, so empowering Members and committees through knowledge and contributing to the Parliament's effectiveness and influence as an institution. In undertaking this work, the EPRS supports and promotes parliamentary outreach to the wider public, including dialogue with relevant stakeholders in the EU’s system of multi-level governance. All publications by EPRS are publicly available on the EP Think Tank platform.[160][161]
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+ The European Parliament periodically commissions opinion polls and studies on public opinion trends in Member States to survey perceptions and expectations of citizens about its work and the overall activities of the European Union. Topics include citizens' perception of the European Parliament's role, their knowledge of the institution, their sense of belonging in the European Union, opinions on European elections and European integration, identity, citizenship, political values, but also on current issues such as climate change, current economy and politics, etc.. Eurobarometer analyses seek to provide an overall picture of national situations, regional specificities, socio-demographic cleavages, and historical trends.[162][163]
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+ Annually, the European Parliament awards four prizes to individuals and organisations that distinguished themselves in the areas of human rights, film, youth projects, and European participation and citizenship.
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+ With the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, created in 1998, the European Parliament supports human rights by awarding individuals that contribute to promoting human rights worldwide, thus raising awareness on human rights violations. Priorities include: protection of human rights and fundamental liberties, with particular focus on freedom of expression; protection of minority rights; compliance with international law; and development of democracy and authentic rule of law.[164][165]
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+ The European Charlemagne Youth Prize seeks to encourage youth participation in the European integration process. It is awarded by the European Parliament and the Foundation of the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen to youth projects aimed at nurturing common European identity and European citizenship.[164]
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+ The European Citizens' Prize is awarded by the European Parliament to activities and actions carried out by citizens and associations to promote integration between the citizens of EU member states and transnational cooperation projects in the EU.[164]
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+ Since 2007, the LUX Prize is awarded by the European Parliament to films dealing with current topics of public European interest that encourage reflection on Europe and its future. Over time, the Lux Prize has become a prestigious cinema award which supports European film and production also outside the EU.[166]
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+ Coordinates: 48°35′51″N 7°46′09″E / 48.597512°N 7.769092°E / 48.597512; 7.769092
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+ A member of parliament (MP) is the representative of the people who live in his/her constituency. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this category includes specifically members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title. Member of Congress is an equivalent term in other jurisdictions.
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+ Members of parliament seem to tend to form parliamentary groups (also called parliamentary parties) with members of the same political party.
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+ The Westminster system is a democratic parliamentary system of government modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
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+ A member of parliament is a member of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Commonwealth (federal) parliament. Members may use "MP" after their names; "MHR" is no longer used. A member of the upper house of the Commonwealth Parliament, the Senate, is known as a "Senator".
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+ In the Australian states and territories, "MP" is commonly used. In bicameral legislatures, members of the lower house (legislative assembly or house of assembly) also use the post-nominals "MLA" or "MHA" and members of the upper house (legislative council) use "MLC".
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+ The Parliament of The Bahamas is the bicameral national parliament of Commonwealth of The Bahamas. The parliament is formally made up by the Queen (represented by the Governor-General), an appointed Senate, and an elected House of Assembly. It currently sits at Nassau, the national capital.
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+ The structure, functions, and procedures of the parliament are based on the Westminster system.
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+ Members of the Jatiya Sangsad, or National Assembly, are elected every five years and are referred to in English as members of Parliament. The assembly has directly elected 300 seats, and further 50 reserved selected seats for women.
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+ The Parliament of Canada consists of the monarch, the Senate and the House of Commons. Only members of the House of Commons are referred to as Members of Parliament (French: député), while members of the Senate are called Senators (French: sénateur).[1] There are currently 105 seats in the Senate and 338 in the House of Commons.[2] Members of Parliament are elected, while senators are appointed by the governor general on behalf of the sovereign at the direction of the Prime Minister of Canada. Retirement is mandatory for senators upon reaching the age of 75 years.
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+ Each province (and territory) has its own legislature, with each member usually known as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). In certain provinces, legislators carry other titles: Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, Member of the National Assembly (MNA) in Quebec (French: député) and Member of the House of Assembly (MHA) in Newfoundland and Labrador. The provincial upper houses were eliminated through the 20th century.
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+ A Member of Parliament is any member of the two houses of Indian Parliament, i.e., Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. As of 2018, Lok Sabha has 545 seats, of which 543 members are elected popularly by single-member constituencies via first past the post method in each of the 28 Indian states and 9 union territories, while the President of India may appoint 2 representatives of the Anglo-Indian community. As of 2018, Rajya Sabha can have 245 members, 233 of which are elected indirectly by the state legislatures using Single transferable vote method of proportional representation, and 12 are appointed by the President for their contributions to art, literature, science, and social services (Art. 80 of the Constitution). Each state is allocated a fixed number of representatives in each chamber, in order of their respective population. As of 2018, state of Uttar Pradesh has the greatest number of representatives in both houses. The person which secures the support of more than half the seats in the Lok Sabha forms the Government. To form the government, parties may form a coalition. The Lok Sabha is the lower house and the Rajya Sabha is the upper house of the bicameral Indian Parliament.
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+ The term of a member of the Rajya Sabha is 6 years long, while the Lok Sabha members are elected for a term of 5 years, unless the house is dissolved sooner. Rajya Sabha is a permanent house, and is not subject to dissolution, and the members serve staggered terms- one-third of the membership retires every two years. Vacancies in both houses, whether because of death or resignation of a member, are filled with by-elections within six months of the vacancy - the newly elected member in which case serves only the rest of the pending term of the seat they are elected to. The number of seats in both houses is regulated by Constitution and parliamentary statutes.
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+ Since the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 and subsequently in the Republic of Ireland, the legislature of Ireland is known as the Oireachtas, and consists of the President; the upper house, Seanad Éireann (or Senate); and lower house, Dáil Éireann (Assembly, or House of Representatives). They are functionally similar to other bicameral parliaments, with the lower house being significantly more influential and having more power over the creation of legislation. Elections to Dáil Éireann are held at least every five years using the Single Transferable Vote; while Elections to Seanad Éireann are restricted to members of both houses, elected members of local authorities, and alumni of National University of Ireland colleges. 11 Senators are nominated directly by the Taoiseach.
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+ A Member of Dáil Éireann is known as a Teachta Dála (TD) or "Deputy to the Dáil", and addressed as "Teachta" (Deputy), while a Member of the Seanad is known and addressed as Seanadóir (Senator). These titles are used much more commonly in English than the official Irish.
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+ A member of Parliament was the term used to refer to a member of the pre-1801 Irish House of Commons of the Parliament of Ireland. Irish members elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland were also called members of Parliament from 1801 to 1922. Northern Ireland continues to elect MPs to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
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+ The Parliament of Jamaica is the legislative branch of the government of Jamaica. It is a bicameral body, composed of an appointed Senate and an elected House of Representatives. The Senate (upper house), the direct successor of a pre-Independence body known as the "Legislative Council" – comprises 21 senators appointed by the governor-general: thirteen on the advice of the Prime Minister and eight on the advice of the Leader of the Opposition.
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+ The House of Representatives, the lower house, is made up of 63 (previously 60) Members of Parliament, elected to five-year terms on a first-past-the-post basis in single-seat constituencies.
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+ The National Assembly of Kenya has a total of 349 seats; 205 members are elected from the constituencies, 47 women are elected from the counties and 12 members are nominated representatives.
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+ The Parliament of Malaysia consists of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) and two houses, the Dewan Rakyat (the House of Representatives) and Dewan Negara (the Senate).
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+ The term "members of Parliament" only refers to members of the Dewan Rakyat. In Malay, a member of Parliament is called Ahli Parlimen, or less formally wakil rakyat (people's representative).[3]
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+ Members of Parliament are elected from population-based single-seat constituencies using first-past-the-post voting. The Prime Minister must be a member of Parliament.
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+ Members of Parliament are styled Yang Berhormat ("Honourable") with the initials Y.B. appended prenominally. A prince who is a member of Parliament is styled Yang Berhormat Mulia. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Tuns who are members of Parliament are styled Yang Amat Berhormat ("Most Honourable"), abbreviated Y.A.B.
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+ The Parliament of Malta consists of the President of Malta and the House of Representatives of 69 members (article 51 of the Constitution), referred to as "members of Parliament" (article 52(1) of the Constitution). When appointed from outside the House, the Speaker is also considered a member of the Parliament. The Constitution lists the qualifications and disqualifications from serving as a member of Parliament.[4]
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+
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+ Privileges of members of Parliament and their Code of Ethics are laid out in the House of Representatives (Privileges and Powers) Ordinance.[5]
50
+
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+ The Parliament of Nauru consists of 18 seats. Members of Parliament are entitled to use the prefix The Honourable.
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+
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+ The New Zealand Parliament is made up of the monarch and the unicameral House of Representatives. A member of Parliament is a member of the House of Representatives, which has a minimum of 120 members, elected at a general election for a three-year term. There are 71 electorate MPs, of which seven are elected only by Māori who have chosen to be registered on a separate Māori electoral roll. The remaining members are elected by proportional representation from published party lists.[6]
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+
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+ Before 1951, New Zealand had an upper house, the Legislative Council whose members were appointed. Members of the lower house, the body that still exists, have always been elected. Since 1907, elected members have been referred to as 'Member of Parliament', abbreviated MP. From the 1860s until 1907 they were designated as Member of the House of Representatives, abbreviated MHR. Between the first general election, in 1853, and the 1860s, the designation was Member of the General Assembly, abbreviated MGA.[7]
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+
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+ Member of Parliament refers to a member of Parliament (National Assembly of Pakistan, Qaumi Assembly), based in Islamabad.
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+
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+ Member of Parliament refers to elected members of the Parliament of Singapore, the appointed Non-Constituency members of Parliament from the opposition, as well as the Nominated members of Parliament, who may be appointed from members of the public who have no connection to any political party in Singapore.
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+
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+ In Sri Lanka, a Member of Parliament refers to a member of the Parliament of Sri Lanka (since 1978), the National State Assembly (1972–78) and the House of Representatives of Ceylon (1947–72), the lower house of the Parliament of Ceylon. Members are elected in a general elections or appointed from the national lists allocated to parties (and independent groups) in proportion to their share of the national vote at a general election. A candidate to become an MP must be a Sri Lankan citizen and not hold dual-citizenship in any other country, be at least 18 years of age, and not be a public official or officeholder.
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+
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+ The Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago is the legislative branch of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. The Parliament is bicameral. It consists of the elected House of Representatives, which has 41 members elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies, and the Senate which has 31 members appointed by the President: 16 Government Senators appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister, 6 Opposition Senators appointed on the advice of the Leader of the Opposition and 9 Independent Senators appointed by the President to represent other sectors of civil society.
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+
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+
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+
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+ The United Kingdom elects members of its parliament:
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+
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+ and four devolved legislatures:
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+
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+ MPs are elected in general elections and by-elections to represent constituencies, and may remain MPs until Parliament is dissolved, which occurs around five years after the last general election, as laid down in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.
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+
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+ A candidate to become an MP must be a British or Irish or Commonwealth citizen, be at least 18 years of age (reduced from 21 in 2006), and not be a public official or officeholder, as set out in the schedule to the Electoral Administration Act 2006.[9]
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+
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+ Technically, MPs have no right to resign their seats (though they may refuse to seek re-election). However a legal fiction allows voluntary resignation between elections; as MPs are forbidden from holding an "office of profit under the Crown", an MP wishing to resign will apply for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds or the Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead which are nominally, such paid offices and thus result in the MP vacating their seat. (Accepting a salaried Ministerial office does not amount to a paid office under the Crown for these purposes.)
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+
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+ The House of Lords is a legislative chamber that is part of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Although they are part of the parliament, its members are referred to as peers, more formally as Lords of Parliament, not MPs. Lords Temporal sit for life, Lords Spiritual while they occupy their ecclesiastical positions. Hereditary peers may no longer pass on a seat in the House of Lords to their heir automatically. The 92 who remain have been elected from among their own number, following the House of Lords Act 1999 and are the only elected members of the Lords.[10]
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+
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+ "Members of Parliament" are members of the House of Assembly of Zimbabwe. Members of the upper house of Parliament are referred to as Senators.
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+
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+ Member of Parliament can be the term (often a translation) for representatives in parliamentary democracies that do not follow the Westminster system and who are usually referred to in a different fashion, such as Deputé in France, Deputato in Italy, Deputat in Bulgaria, Parlamentario o Diputado in Spain and Spanish speaking Latin America, Deputado in Portugal and Brazil, Mitglied des Bundestages (MdB) in Germany. However, better translations are often possible.
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+
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+ A Member of Parliament (MP) is a member of the Lower House of the bicameral Parliament National Assembly of Afghanistan: a member of the Wolesi Jirga (House of People) holds one of the in total 250 seats in the Lower House.
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+ The 102 members of the Upper House Meshrano Jirga (House of Elders) are called Senators.
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+
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+ A member of Parliament is a member of either of the two chambers of the Parliament of Austria (Österreichisches Parlament). The members of the Nationalrat are called Abgeordnete zum Nationalrat. The members of the Bundesrat, elected by the provincial diets (Landtage) of the nine federal States of Austria, are known as Mitglieder des Bundesrats.
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+
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+ In Bulgaria there are 240 members of Parliament (Bulgarian: Народно събрание / Парламент; transliteration Narodno sabranie / Parlament), which are called 'Deputati' (singular Deputat). Moreover, there are 240 MPs in the normal parliament and 400 in the "Great Parliament". The Great Parliament is elected when a new constitution is needed. There have been seven Great Parliaments in modern Bulgarian history, in 1879, 1881, 1886, 1893, 1911, 1946 and 1990. MPs in Bulgaria are called депутати – deputies.
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+
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+ The member of Parliament (Khmer: សមាជិកសភា) refers to the elected members of the National Assembly. There are 123 members of Parliament in total. They are also alternatively called member of the National Assembly. Parliamentary elections are traditionally held every five years with no term limits imposed. The 25 provinces of Cambodia are represented by the members of Parliament in the National Assembly. A constituency may have more than one MP, depending on the population.
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+
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+ A member of Parliament is a member of either of the two chambers of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, although the term Member of Parliament of the Czech Republic is commonly referred to Deputy of the Parliament of the Czech Republic (Czech: Poslanec Parlamentu České republiky) who is member of the lower house of the Parliament, Chamber of Deputies. For the upper house, Senate, the term Senator is used.
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+
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+ In Denmark, a member of Folketinget (Danish: medlem af Folketinget) is one of the 179 members of Folketinget. The title is almost always shortened to the initialism "MF".
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+
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+ Member of Parliament refers to the elected members of the federal Bundestag Parliament at the Reichstag building in Berlin. In German a member is called Mitglied des Bundestages (Member of the Federal Diet) or officially Mitglied des Deutschen Bundestages (Member of the German Federal Diet), abbreviated MdB and attached .[11] Unofficially the term Abgeordneter (literally: "delegate", i.e. of a certain electorate) is also common (abbreviated Abg., never follows the name but precedes it).
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+
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+ In accordance with article 38 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, which is the German constitution, "[m]embers of the German Bundestag shall be elected in general, direct, free, equal, and secret elections. They shall be representatives of the whole people, not bound by orders or instructions, and responsible only to their conscience." An important though not constitutionally required feature of German parliamentarianism is a slightly modified proportional representation.
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+
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+ The 16 federal States of Germany (Länder) are represented by the Bundesrat at the former Prussian House of Lords, whose members are representatives of the respective Länder's governments and not directly elected by the people.
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+
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+ The Hellenic Parliament (Βουλή των Ελλήνων), is the supreme democratic institution in Greece, that represents all citizens through an elected body of Members of Parliament. It is a unicameral legislature of 300 members, elected for a four-year term.
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+
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+ A Member of the Knesset (Hebrew: חבר הכנסת‎) is one of the 120 members of the Knesset. The title is usually shortened to the initialism "MK".
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+
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+ In the Republican Parliament the current term is Deputato (that is deputy as appointed to act on people's behalf) and so the Lower House takes the name of Camera dei Deputati. Similarly to other countries, the Upper House is called Senato and its members are the Senatori.[12] In the Republic of Italy there are 315 members of Senate and 630 members of the Camera dei Deputati. Both of them are elected by general elections every five years. The President of the Italian Republic can nominate for life five members of the Upper House. All former Presidents of the Republic are members of the Upper House for life. The two houses together form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform identical functions, but do so separately.
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+
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+ In Japan, both houses of today's national parliament, the National Diet (Kokkai), are directly elected, and although the two chambers differ in legislative and political authority, term length and age restriction of eligibility, the members of both houses are generally equal in personal status (financial compensation, immunity, etc.). There are currently 710 members of the National Diet (Kokkai giin, 国会議員): 465 Members of the House of Representatives (Shūgiin giin, 衆議院議員) and 245 Members of the House of Councillors (Sangiin giin, 参議院議員). The former are elected in general/by-/repeat elections of members of the House of Representatives (Shūgiin giin sō-/hoketsu-/sai-senkyo), the latter in regular/by-/repeat elections of members of the House of Councillors (Sangiin giin tsūjō-/hoketsu-/sai-senkyo). Under the postwar constitution, the prime minister is elected by the National Diet and must be a member of the National Diet, as must the majority of other ministers; by practice, all prime ministers since 1947 have been members of the House of Representatives so far.
109
+
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+ Under the constitution of the Empire of Japan, the Imperial Diet (Teikoku-gikai) was a bicameral legislature of two houses, generally equal in legislative authority, and while the members of both houses received the same financial compensation — from 1920 and 1947, ¥7500 for the two presidents, ¥4500 for the two vice-presidents, ¥3000 for all other members of both houses, except Imperial princes, dukes and marquesses — their status was different by definition: The upper house consisted mainly of hereditary nobles and lifetime-appointed peers, the lower house of elected commoners. In the First Imperial Diet in 1890, there were initially 551 members of the Imperial Diet (Teikoku-gikai giin, 帝国議会議員, or in contemporaneous script 帝國議會議員): 251 members of the House of Peers (Kizokuin giin, 貴族院議員) and 300 members of the House of Representatives (Shūgiin giin); of the House of Peers members, 10 were members of the Imperial family, 31 were hereditary members from the two upper nobility ranks, 104 were members elected in mutual elections from the three lower nobility ranks, 61 were lifetime-appointed members (many of these from the bureaucracy) and 45 were members elected by the 15 top taxpayers in each of the 45 prefectures. The number of noble and appointed members of the House of Peers was not fixed and varied gradually over time as members died or new peerages were granted; the number of elected top taxpayer seats, Imperial Academy seats (introduced in 1925), members appointed from the colonies Chōsen/Korea and Taiwan/Formosa (introduced in 1945), and the size of the House of Representatives was fixed by law, but was also changed several times over the decades. The last, 92nd Imperial Diet of 1946–1947 had 839 members — 466 members of the House of Representatives and 373 members of the House of Peers.[13] As the regulations establishing the cabinet (naikaku) and the cabinet's prime minister (naikaku sōri-daijin) were decreed before the Imperial constitution, the prime minister did not have to be a member of the Imperial Diet, but after the establishment of the Imperial Diet in 1890, many prime ministers were appointed from the House of Peers; very few were members of the House of Representatives, viz. Takashi Hara, Osachi Hamaguchi, and Tsuyoshi Inukai.
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+
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+ The Parliament of Lebanon is the Lebanese national legislature. It is elected to a four-year term by universal adult suffrage in multi-member constituencies, apportioned among Lebanon's diverse Christian and Muslim denominations. Its major functions are to elect the President of the Republic, to approve the government (although appointed by the President, the Prime Minister, along with the Cabinet, must retain the confidence of a majority in the Parliament), and to approve laws and expenditure. The name of a deputy in Arabic is Naeb (نائب). The plural of Naeb is Nuwab (نواب).
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+
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+ The Parliament of the Netherlands is known as the Staten-Generaal, States General. It is bicameral, divided in two Kamers (English: Chambers). The Senate is known in Dutch as the Eerste Kamer (First Chamber) and its members as senatoren, Senators. The House of Representatives, known in Dutch as the Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber), is the most important one. The important debates take place here. Also, the Second Chamber can edit proposed laws with amendments and it can propose laws itself. The Senate does not have these capabilities. Its function is a more technical reviewing of laws. It can only pass a law or reject it. Both chambers are in The Hague which is the seat of parliament but not the official capital of the Netherlands, which is Amsterdam.
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+
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+ The 150 members of the House of Representatives are elected by general elections every 4 years (or earlier if the government falls). The 75 members of the Senate are elected indirectly. The members of the 12 provincial Parliaments and the councils of the three Caribbean special municipalities elect the senators. The value of a vote of a member of a provincial Parliament is weighted by the population of the province. Provincial Parliaments, the States-Provincial, are elected by general elections every four years; a new Senate is elected three months after the provincial elections.
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+
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+ In the Republic of North Macedonia there are 120 members of parliament (Macedonian: Sobranie) which are called 'Pratenici' (singular Pratenik).
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+
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+ A member of Parliament is an elected member of the Stortinget. They are called stortingsrepresentanter (literal translation: Representatives of the Storting). Since 2009, Norway has had a unicameral Parliament, which previously consisted of Odelstinget and Lagtinget, Odelstinget with three-quarters, or 127, of the total 169 members, Lagtinget with the remainder. The dividing of the Parliament into chambers was only used when dealing with passing regular laws and in cases of prosecution by the national court (riksrett). In other matters, such as passing the national budget or changing the constitution (the latter requiring a majority of two-thirds), the chambers were united.
121
+
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+ The members of the unicameral Parliament of Norway are chosen by popular vote for a parliamentary period of four years.
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+
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+ From 1978 to 1984, the Philippine Parliament was called the Batasang Pambansa (National Assembly), and its elected members were called Mambabatas Pambansa (National Assemblyman), often shortened to "MP".
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+
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+ The Portuguese parliament is called Assembleia da República. A member of Parliament is known as a deputado, that is, a person who is appointed through democratic election to act on the people's behalf.
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+
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+ The word parlamento -of the same origin as Parliament in English- is used as a common name for all legislative assemblies, and hence parlamentario for the member of any of them, which can usually refer to members of:
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+
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+ Members of the Congress of Deputies are called diputados (deputies), implying that they are elected to act in the name and on behalf of the people they represent. It is also usual to call members of the European Parliament eurodiputados. Members of the Senate are called senadores (senators).
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+
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+ The Parliament of South Africa consists of two houses, the National Assembly of South Africa (lower house) and the National Council of Provinces. Members of both houses are given the title of Member of Parliament.[14]
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+
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+ The National Assembly is made up of 400 members, who are all elected by the public in general elections using a proportional representation system with closed lists. The National Council of Provinces is composed of 90 delegates with 10 delegates for each of the nine provinces regardless of the population of the province. A provincial delegation consists of six permanent delegates and four special delegates. NCOP delegates are elected by the nine provincial legislatures on the day when they reconvene, usually the same day as the National Assembly. The delegates are sworn in the next day.[14]
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+
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+ The Title Member of Parliament(MP) refers to the Members of Parliament of South Korea. 253 MPs are elected by First-past-the-post System from Parliamentary Constituencies, 30 MPs are elected by Proportional Compensation, 17 MPs are elected by Mixed Member Majoritarian. In Second Republic of Korea, when South Korea is Parliamentary republic with Bicameralism, only the Members of House of Commons of South Korea are called Member of Parliament(MP). Whilst the Member of Senate of South Korea is called Senator.
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+
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+ The Members of Provincial Legislature are called Member of the Legislative Assembly also called MLA. Some Provinces call Councillor and Member of Provincial Parliament.
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+
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+ Members of Parliament refers to the elected members of the Riksdag. In Swedish, an MP is usually referred to as a riksdagsledamot (member of the Riksdag) or a riksdagsman (Gentleman of the Riksdag). The former is in more common use today, especially in official contexts, due to its status as a unisex word, while the latter was used more often historically and literally refers to a male MP exclusively.
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+
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+ The parliament is a unicameral assembly with 349 members who are chosen every four years in general elections. To become an MP, a person must be entitled to vote (i.e. be a Swedish citizen, be at least 18 years old and be or have been resident in Sweden) and must be nominated by a political party.[15] The MPs are elected by proportionality in constituencies across the nation. To decide which candidate will be elected the modified Sainte-Laguë method is used. This method usually but not always gives an accurate result in proportion to cast votes. In the 2014 general election the centre-right coalition government got one less MP than the overall opposition, despite more votes in total. To get a more proportional result 39 MPs are elected at compensation mandate (Utjämningsmandat) and those MPs, therefore, do not represent their own constituency.
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+
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+ The salaries of the MPs are decided by the Riksdag Pay Committee (Riksdagens arvodesnämnd), a government agency under the Riksdag. Since 1 November 2007, the basic monthly pay of an MP is SEK52,900 (ca. US$6,500). The pay of the Speaker is SEK126,000 a month (ca. US$15,000), which is the same as that of the Prime Minister.[16] The Deputy Speakers receive an increment of 30% of the pay of a member. The chairs and deputy chairs of the parliamentary committees receive a similar increment of 20% and 15% respectively.[17]
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+
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+ According to a survey investigation by the sociologist Jenny Hansson,[18] Swedish national parliamentarians have an average workweek of 66 hours, including side responsibilities. Hansson's investigation further reports that the average Swedish national parliamentarian sleeps 6.5 hours per night.
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+
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+ In the Kingdom of Thailand, members of Parliament (Thai: สมาชิกรัฐสภา; RTGS: Samachik Ratthasapha) refer to the members of the National Assembly of Thailand, that is, the Members of the House of Representatives and the Senators. Following the military coup d'état on 19 September 2006, all members of the Assembly were suspended from duty until the next election. The Assembly was fully reconvened after the general elections under a slightly amended new constitution. Under the 2007 Constitution there are 650 members of Parliament, consisting of 500 members in the House of Representatives, of which 375 elected from constituencies and the other 125 by party-list, and 150 Senators.
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+ In the Republic of Turkey, a member of Parliament is an elected member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, TBMM), which has 600 members elected at a general election for a term of office of five years.
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+
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+ People's Deputy of Ukraine (Ukrainian: народний депутат України, narodnyi deputat Ukrayiny) is a member of Parliament, legislator elected by a popular vote to the Verkhovna Rada (the unicameral parliament of Ukraine). Often People's Deputies of Ukraine are referred to simply as deputies.
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+
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+ The main statutes that define the order of elections, rights and duties of the People's Deputies of Ukraine are outlined in Articles 76 – 81 of the Constitution of Ukraine. There are 450 people's deputies of Ukraine who are elected based on the general, equal and direct electoral right for 5 years. The deputies may be appointed to various parliamentary positions such as the chairperson (speaker) of Parliament, a head of a committee or a parliamentary faction, etc. Upon its appointment, to the office, each people's deputy of Ukraine receives a deputy mandate.
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+ People's Deputies that ran for the parliament as self-nominated candidates can join factions if they wish.[19]
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1
+ Nobility is a social class normally ranked immediately below royalty and found in some societies that have a formal aristocracy. Nobility possesses more acknowledged privileges and higher social status than most other classes in society. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary (e.g., precedence), and vary by country and era. As referred to in the Medieval chivalric motto noblesse oblige ("nobility obliges"), nobles can also carry a lifelong duty to uphold various social responsibilities, such as honourable behaviour, customary service,[clarification needed] or leadership positions. Membership in the nobility, including rights and responsibilities, is typically hereditary.
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+
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+ Membership in the nobility has historically been granted by a monarch or government, unlike other social classes where membership is determined solely by wealth, lifestyle, or affiliation.[clarification needed] Nonetheless, acquisition of sufficient power, wealth, military prowess, or royal favour has occasionally enabled commoners to ascend into the nobility.[1]
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+
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+ There are often a variety of ranks within the noble class. Legal recognition of nobility has been more common in monarchies, but nobility also existed in such regimes as the Dutch Republic (1581–1795), the Republic of Genoa (1005–1815), the Republic of Venice (697–1797), and the Old Swiss Confederacy (1300–1798), and remains part of the legal social structure of some non-hereditary regimes, e.g., San Marino, and the Vatican City in Europe.
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+
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+ Hereditary titles and styles added to names (such as "Prince" or "Lord" or "Lady"), as well as honorifics often distinguish nobles from non-nobles in conversation and written speech. In many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, and some hereditary titles do not indicate nobility (e.g., vidame). Some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil or life peers in the United Kingdom.
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+
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+ The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the abstract noun of the adjective nobilis ("noble but also secondarily well-known, famous, notable").[2] In ancient Roman society, nobiles originated as an informal designation for the political governing class who had allied interests, including both patricians and plebeian families (gentes) with an ancestor who had risen to the consulship through his own merit (see novus homo, "new man").
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+ In modern usage, "nobility" is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies, excepting the ruling dynasty.[3] In the feudal system (in Europe and elsewhere), the nobility were generally those who held a fief, often land or office, under vassalage, i.e., in exchange for allegiance and various, mainly military, services to a suzerain, who might be a higher-ranking nobleman or a monarch. It rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges.
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+
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+ While noble status formerly conferred significant privileges in most jurisdictions, by the 21st century it had become a largely honorary dignity in most societies,[4] although a few, residual privileges may still be preserved legally (e.g., Netherlands, Spain, UK) and some Asian, Pacific and African cultures continue to attach considerable significance to formal hereditary rank or titles. (Compare the entrenched position and leadership expectations of the nobility of the Kingdom of Tonga.)
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+
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+ Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is mainly based on income, possessions or lifestyle. Being wealthy or influential cannot ipso facto make one noble, nor are all nobles wealthy or influential (aristocratic families have lost their fortunes in various ways, and the concept of the 'poor nobleman' is almost as old as nobility itself).
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+ Various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece, Mexico, and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens. This is distinct from countries which have not abolished the right to inherit titles, but which do not grant legal recognition or protection to them, such as Germany and Italy, although Germany recognizes their use as part of the legal surname. Still other countries and authorities allow their use, but forbid attachment of any privilege thereto, e.g., Finland, Norway and the European Union,[citation needed] while French law also protects lawful titles against usurpation.
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+
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+ Although many societies have a privileged upper class with substantial wealth and power, the status is not necessarily hereditary and does not entail a distinct legal status, nor differentiated forms of address.
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+
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+ Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se. Usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles' wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small, that might include fields, pasture, orchards, timberland, hunting grounds, streams, etc. It also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live "nobly", that is, from the proceeds of these possessions. Work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank (with specific exceptions, such as in military or ecclesiastic service) was either forbidden (as derogation from noble status) or frowned upon socially. On the other hand, membership in the nobility was usually a prerequisite for holding offices of trust in the realm and for career promotion, especially in the military, at court and often the higher functions in the government, judiciary and church.
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+
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+ Prior to the French Revolution, European nobles typically commanded tribute in the form of entitlement to cash rents or usage taxes, labour or a portion of the annual crop yield from commoners or nobles of lower rank who lived or worked on the noble's manor or within his seigneurial domain. In some countries, the local lord could impose restrictions on such a commoner's movements, religion or legal undertakings. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting. In France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. Peasants were not only bound to the nobility by dues and services, but the exercise of their rights was often also subject to the jurisdiction of courts and police from whose authority the actions of nobles were entirely or partially exempt. In some parts of Europe the right of private war long remained the privilege of every noble.[5]
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+
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+ During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, and was an accepted manner of resolving disputes.[6]
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+
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+ Since the end of World War I the hereditary nobility entitled to special rights has largely been abolished in the Western World as intrinsically discriminatory, and discredited as inferior in efficiency to individual meritocracy in the allocation of societal resources.[7] Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank. By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised.
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+
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+ In France, a seigneurie (lordship) might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a noble's prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged. If erected by the crown into, e.g., a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled ("seigneur of Montagne" simply meant ownership of that lordship but not, if one was not otherwise noble, the right to use a title of nobility, as commoners often purchased lordships). Only a member of the nobility who owned a countship was allowed, ipso facto, to style himself as its comte, although this restriction came to be increasingly ignored as the ancien régime drew to its close.
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+
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+ In other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. For example, in the United Kingdom royal letters patent are necessary to obtain a title of the peerage, which also carries nobility and formerly a seat in the House of Lords, but never came without automatic entail of land nor rights to the local peasants' output.
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+
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+ Nobility might be either inherited or conferred by a fons honorum. It is usually an acknowledged preeminence that is hereditary, i.e. the status descends exclusively to some or all of the legitimate, and usually male-line, descendants of a nobleman. In this respect, the nobility as a class has always been much more extensive than the primogeniture-based titled nobility, which included peerages in France and in the United Kingdom, grandezas in Portugal and Spain, and some noble titles in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Prussia and Scandinavia. In Russia, Scandinavia and non-Prussian Germany, titles usually descended to all male-line descendants of the original titleholder, including females. In Spain, noble titles are now equally heritable by females and males. Noble estates, on the other hand, gradually came to descend by primogeniture in much of western Europe aside from Germany. In Eastern Europe, by contrast, with the exception of a few Hungarian estates, they usually descended to all sons or even all children.[8]
34
+
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+ In France, some wealthy bourgeois, most particularly the members of the various parlements, were ennobled by the king, constituting the noblesse de robe. The old nobility of landed or knightly origin, the noblesse d'épée, increasingly resented the influence and pretensions of this parvenu nobility. In the last years of the ancien régime the old nobility pushed for restrictions of certain offices and orders of chivalry to noblemen who could demonstrate that their lineage had extended "quarterings", i.e. several generations of noble ancestry, to be eligible for offices and favours at court along with nobles of medieval descent, although historians such as William Doyle have disputed this so-called "Aristocratic Reaction".[9] Various court and military positions were reserved by tradition for nobles who could "prove" an ancestry of at least seize quartiers (16 quarterings), indicating exclusively noble descent (as displayed, ideally, in the family's coat of arms) extending back five generations (all 16 great-great grandparents).
36
+
37
+ This illustrates the traditional link in many countries between heraldry and nobility; in those countries where heraldry is used, nobles have almost always been armigerous, and have used heraldry to demonstrate their ancestry and family history. However, heraldry has never been restricted to the noble classes in most countries, and being armigerous does not necessarily demonstrate nobility. Scotland, however, is an exception.[10] In a number of recent cases in Scotland the Lord Lyon King of Arms has controversially (vis-à-vis Scotland's Salic law) granted the arms and allocated the chiefships of medieval noble families to female-line descendants of lords, even when they were not of noble lineage in the male line, while persons of legitimate male-line descent may still survive (e.g. the modern Chiefs of Clan MacLeod).
38
+
39
+ In some nations, hereditary titles, as distinct from noble rank, were not always recognised in law, e.g., Poland's Szlachta. European ranks of nobility lower than baron or its equivalent, are commonly referred to as the petty nobility, although baronets of the British Isles are deemed titled gentry. Most nations traditionally had an untitled lower nobility in addition to titled nobles. An example is the landed gentry of the British Isles.[11][12] Unlike England's gentry, the Junkers of Germany, the noblesse de robe of France, the hidalgos of Spain and the nobili of Italy were explicitly acknowledged by the monarchs of those countries as members of the nobility, although untitled. In Scandinavia, the Benelux nations and Spain there are still untitled as well as titled families recognised in law as noble.
40
+
41
+ In Hungary members of the nobility always theoretically enjoyed the same rights. In practice, however, a noble family's financial assets largely defined its significance. Medieval Hungary's concept of nobility originated in the notion that nobles were "free men", eligible to own land.[13] This basic standard explains why the noble population was relatively large, although the economic status of its members varied widely. Untitled nobles were not infrequently wealthier than titled families, while considerable differences in wealth were also to be found within the titled nobility. The custom of granting titles was introduced to Hungary in the 16th century by the House of Habsburg. Historically, once nobility was granted, if a nobleman served the monarch well he might obtain the title of baron, and might later be elevated to the rank of count. As in other countries of post-medieval central Europe, hereditary titles were not attached to a particular land or estate but to the noble family itself, so that all patrilineal descendants shared a title of baron or count (cf. peerage). Neither nobility nor titles could be transmitted through women.[14]
42
+
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+ Some con artists sell fake titles of nobility, often with impressive-looking documentation. This may be illegal, depending on local law. They are more often illegal in countries that actually have nobilities, such as European monarchies. In the United States, such commerce may constitute actionable fraud rather than criminal usurpation of an exclusive right to use of any given title by an established class.[citation needed]
44
+
45
+ "Aristocrat" and aristocracy, in modern usage, refer colloquially and broadly to persons who inherit elevated social status, whether due to membership in the (formerly) official nobility or the monied upper class.
46
+
47
+ Blue blood is an English idiom recorded since 1834 for noble birth or descent; it is also known as a translation of the Spanish phrase sangre azul, which described the Spanish royal family and other high nobility who claimed to be of Visigothic descent,[15] in contrast to the Moors. The idiom originates from ancient and medieval societies of Europe and distinguishes an upper class (whose superficial veins appeared blue through their untanned skin) from a working class of the time. The latter consisted mainly of agricultural peasants who spent most of their time working outdoors and thus had tanned skin, through which superficial veins appear less prominently.
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+
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+ Robert Lacey explains the genesis of the blue blood concept:
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+
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+ It was the Spaniards who gave the world the notion that an aristocrat's blood is not red but blue. The Spanish nobility started taking shape around the ninth century in classic military fashion, occupying land as warriors on horseback. They were to continue the process for more than five hundred years, clawing back sections of the peninsula from its Moorish occupiers, and a nobleman demonstrated his pedigree by holding up his sword arm to display the filigree of blue-blooded veins beneath his pale skin—proof that his birth had not been contaminated by the dark-skinned enemy.[16]
52
+
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+ European nobility originated in the feudal/seignorial system that arose in Europe during the Middle Ages.[17] Originally, knights or nobles were mounted warriors who swore allegiance to their sovereign and promised to fight for him in exchange for an allocation of land (usually together with serfs living thereon). During the period known as the Military Revolution, nobles gradually lost their role in raising and commanding private armies, as many nations created cohesive national armies.
54
+
55
+ This was coupled with a loss of the socio-economic power of the nobility, owing to the economic changes of the Renaissance and the growing economic importance of the merchant classes, which increased still further during the Industrial Revolution. In countries where the nobility was the dominant class, the bourgeoisie gradually grew in power; a rich city merchant came to be more influential than a nobleman, and the latter sometimes sought inter-marriage with families of the former to maintain their noble lifestyles.
56
+
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+ However, in many countries at this time, the nobility retained substantial political importance and social influence: for instance, the United Kingdom's government was dominated by the (unusually small) nobility until the middle of the 19th century. Thereafter the powers of the nobility were progressively reduced by legislation. However, until 1999, all hereditary peers were entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Since then, only 92 of them have this entitlement, of whom 90 are elected by the hereditary peers as a whole to represent the peerage.
58
+
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+ The countries with the highest proportion of nobles were Castile (probably 10%),[citation needed] Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (15% of an 18th-century population of 800,000),[citation needed] Spain (722,000 in 1768 which was 7–8% of the entire population)[citation needed] and other countries with lower percentages, such as Russia in 1760 with 500,000–600,000 nobles (2–3% of the entire population), and pre-revolutionary France where there were no more than 300,000 prior to 1789,[citation needed] which was 1% of the population (although some scholars believe this figure is an overestimate). In 1718 Sweden had between 10,000 and 15,000 nobles, which was 0.5% of the population.[citation needed] In Germany it was 0.01%.[citation needed]
60
+
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+ In the Kingdom of Hungary nobles made up 5% of the population.[18] All the nobles in 18th-century Europe numbered perhaps 3–4 million out of a total of 170–190 million inhabitants.[19][20] By contrast, in 1707, when England and Scotland united into Great Britain, there were only 168 English peers, and 154 Scottish ones, though their immediate families were recognised as noble.[21]
62
+
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+ Apart from the hierarchy of noble titles, in England rising through baron, viscount, earl, and marquess to duke, many countries had categories at the top or bottom of the nobility. The gentry, relatively small landowners with perhaps one or two villages, were mostly noble in most countries, for example the Polish landed gentry, but not in others, such as the English equivalent. At the top, Poland had a far smaller class of "magnates", who were hugely rich and politically powerful. In other countries the small groups of Spanish Grandee or Peer of France had great prestige but little additional power.
64
+
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+ In the Indian Subcontinent during the British Raj, many members of the nobility were elevated to royalty as they became the monarchs of their princely states and vice versa as many princely state rulers were reduced from royals to noble Zamindars. Hence, many nobles in the subcontinent had royal titles of Raja, Rai, Rana, Rao, etc. In Nepal, Kaji (Nepali: काजी) was a title and position used by nobility of Gorkha Kingdom (1559–1768) and Kingdom of Nepal (1768–1846). Historian Mahesh Chandra Regmi suggests that Kaji is derived from Sanskrit word Karyi which meant functionary.[22]
66
+
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+ Other noble and aristocratic titles were Thakur, Sardar, Dewan, Pradhan, Kaji etc.
68
+
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+ In East Asia the system was often modelled on imperial China, the leading culture. Emperors conferred titles of nobility. Imperial descendants formed the highest class of ancient Chinese nobility, their status based upon the rank of the empress or concubine from which they descend maternally (as emperors were polygamous). Numerous titles such as Taizi (crown prince), and equivalents of "prince" were accorded, and due to complexities in dynastic rules, rules were introduced for Imperial descendants. The titles of the junior princes were gradually lowered in rank by each generation while the senior heir continued to inherit their father's titles.
70
+
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+ It was a custom in China for the new dynasty to ennoble and enfeoff a member of the dynasty which they overthrew with a title of nobility and a fief of land so that they could offer sacrifices to their ancestors, in addition to members of other preceding dynasties.
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+
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+ China had a feudal system in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which gradually gave way to a more bureaucratic one beginning in the Qin dynasty (221 BC). This continued through the Song dynasty, and by its peak power shifted from nobility to bureaucrats.
74
+
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+ This development was gradual and generally only completed in full by the Song dynasty. In the Han dynasty, for example, even though noble titles were no longer given to those other than the Emperor's relatives, the fact that the process of selecting officials was mostly based on a vouching system by current officials as officials usually vouched for their own sons or those of other officials meant that a de facto aristocracy continued to exist. This process was further deepened during the Three Kingdoms period with the introduction of the Nine-rank system.
76
+
77
+ By the Sui dynasty, however, the institution of the Imperial examination system marked the transformation of a power shift towards a full bureaucracy, though the process would not be truly completed until the Song dynasty.
78
+
79
+ Titles of nobility became symbolic along with a stipend while governance of the country shifted to scholar officials.
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+
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+ In the Qing dynasty titles of nobility were still granted by the emperor, but served merely as honorifics based on a loose system of favours to the Qing emperor.
82
+
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+ Under a centralized system, the empire's governance was the responsibility of the Confucian-educated scholar-officials and the local gentry, while the literati were accorded gentry status. For male citizens, advancement in status was possible via garnering the top three positions in imperial examinations.
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+
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+ The Qing appointed the Ming imperial descendants to the title of Marquis of Extended Grace.
86
+
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+ The oldest held continuous noble title in Chinese history was that held by the descendants of Confucius, as Duke Yansheng, which was renamed as the Sacrificial Official to Confucius in 1935 by the Republic of China. The title is held by Kung Tsui-chang. There is also a "Sacrificial Official to Mencius" for a descendant of Mencius, a "Sacrificial Official to Zengzi" for a descendant of Zengzi, and a "Sacrificial Official to Yan Hui" for a descendant of Yan Hui.
88
+
89
+ The bestowal of titles was abolished upon the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, as part of a larger effort to remove feudal influences and practises from Chinese society.
90
+
91
+ In some Islamic countries, there are no definite noble titles (titles of hereditary rulers being distinct from those of hereditary intermediaries between monarchs and commoners). Persons who can trace legitimate descent from Muhammad or the clans of Quraysh, as can members of several present or formerly reigning dynasties, are widely regarded as belonging to the ancient, hereditary Islamic nobility. In some Islamic countries they inherit (through mother or father) hereditary titles, although without any other associated privilege, e.g., variations of the title Sayyid and Sharif. Regarded as more religious than the general population, many people turn to them for clarification or guidance in religious matters.
92
+
93
+ In Iran, historical titles of the nobility including Mirza, Khan, ed-Dowleh and Shahzada ("Son of a Shah), are now no longer recognised. An aristocratic family is now recognised by their family name, often derived from the post held by their ancestors, considering the fact that family names in Iran only appeared in the beginning of the 20th century.
94
+ Sultans have been an integral part of Islamic history .
95
+
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+ During the Ottoman Empire in the Imperial Court and the provinces there were many Ottoman titles and appellations forming a somewhat unusual and complex system in comparison with the other Islamic countries. The bestowal of noble and aristocratic titles was widespread across the empire even after its fall by independent monarchs. One of the most elaborate examples is that of the Egyptian aristocracy's largest clan, the Abaza family.
97
+
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+ Medieval Japan developed a feudal system similar to the European system, where land was held in exchange for military service. The daimyō class, or hereditary landowning nobles, held great socio-political power. As in Europe, they commanded private armies made up of samurai, an elite warrior class; for long periods, these held the real power without a real central government, and often plunged the country into a state of civil war. The daimyō class can be compared to European peers, and the samurai to European knights, but important differences exist.
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+
100
+ Feudal title and rank were abolished during the Meiji Restoration in 1868, and was replaced by the kazoku, a five-rank peerage system after the British example, which granted seats in the upper house of the Imperial Diet; this ended in 1947 following Japan's defeat in World War II.
101
+
102
+ Like other Southeast Asian countries, many regions in the Philippines have indigenous nobility, partially influenced by Hindu, Chinese, and Islamic custom. Since ancient times, Datu was the common title of a chief or monarch of the many pre-colonial principalities and sovereign dominions throughout the isles; in some areas the term Apo was also used.[23] With the titles Sultan and Rajah, Datu (and its Malay cognate, Datok) are currently used in some parts of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. These titles are the rough equivalents of European titles, albeit dependent on the actual wealth and prestige of the bearer.
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+
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+ Upon the islands' Christianisation, the datus retained governance of their territories despite annexation to the Spanish Empire. In a law signed 11 June 1594,[24] King Philip II of Spain ordered that the indigenous rulers continue to receive the same honours and privileges accorded them prior their conversion to Catholicism. The baptised nobility subsequently coalesced into the exclusive, landed ruling class of the lowlands known as the Principalía.[25]
105
+
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+ On 22 March 1697, King Charles II of Spain confirmed the privileges granted by his predecessors (in Title VII, Book VI of the Laws of the Indies)[26] to indigenous nobilities of the Crown colonies, including the Principales of the Philippines, and extended to them and to their descendants the preeminence and honors customarily attributed to the Hidalgos of Castile.[27]
107
+
108
+ The Laws of the Indies and other pertinent Royal Decrees were enforced in the Philippines and benefited many indigenous nobles. It can be seen very clearly and irrefutably that, during the colonial period, indigenous chiefs were equated with the Spanish Hidalgos, and the most resounding proof of the application of this comparison is the General Military Archive in Segovia, where the qualifications of "Nobility" (found in the Service Records) are attributed to those Filipinos who were admitted to the Spanish Military Academies and whose ancestors were caciques, encomenderos, notable Tagalogs, chieftains, governors or those who held positions in the municipal administration or government in all different regions of the large islands of the Archipelago, or of the many small islands of which it is composed.[28] In the context of the ancient tradition and norms of Castilian nobility, all descendants of a noble are considered noble, regardless of fortune.[29]
109
+
110
+ At the Real Academia de la Historia, there is a substantial number of records providing reference to the Philippine Islands, and while most parts correspond to the history of these islands, the Academia did not exclude among its documents the presence of many genealogical records. The archives of the Academia and its royal stamp recognized the appointments of hundreds of natives of the Philippines who, by virtue of their social position, occupied posts in the administration of the territories and were classified as "nobles".[30] The presence of these notables demonstrates the cultural concern of Spain in those Islands to prepare the natives and the collaboration of these in the government of the Archipelago. This aspect of Spanish rule in the Philippines appears much more strongly implemented than in the Americas. Hence in the Philippines, the local nobility, by reason of charge accorded to their social class, acquired greater importance than in the Indies of the New World.[31]
111
+
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+ With the recognition of the Spanish monarchs came the privilege of being addressed as Don or Doña,[32] a mark of esteem and distinction in Europe reserved for a person of noble or royal status during the colonial period. Other honors and high regard were also accorded to the Christianized Datus by the Spanish Empire. For example, the Gobernadorcillos (elected leader of the Cabezas de Barangay or the Christianized Datus) and Filipino officials of justice received the greatest consideration from the Spanish Crown officials. The colonial officials were under obligation to show them the honor corresponding to their respective duties. They were allowed to sit in the houses of the Spanish Provincial Governors, and in any other places. They were not left to remain standing. It was not permitted for Spanish Parish Priests to treat these Filipino nobles with less consideration.[33]
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+
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+ The Gobernadorcillos exercised the command of the towns. They were Port Captains in coastal towns. They also had the rights and powers to elect assistants and several lieutenants and alguaciles, proportionate in number to the inhabitants of the town.[34]
115
+
116
+ The recognition of the rights and privileges accorded to the Filipino Principalía as Hijosdalgos of Castile seems to facilitate entrance of Filipino nobles into institutions of under the Spanish Crown, either civil or religious, which required proofs of nobility.[35](p235) However, to see such recognition as an approximation or comparative estimation of rank or status might not be correct since in reality, although the principales were vassals of the Crown, their rights as sovereign in their former dominions were guaranteed by the Laws of the Indies, more particularly the Royal Decree of Philip II of 11 June 1594, which Charles II confirmed for the purpose stated above in order to satisfy the requirements of the existing laws in the Peninsula.
117
+
118
+ It must be recalled that ever since the beginning of the colonialization, the conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi did not strip the ancient sovereign rulers of the Archipelago (who vowed allegiance to the Spanish Crown) of their legitimate rights. Many of them accepted the Catholic religion and were his allies from the very beginning. He only demanded from these local rulers vassalage to the Spanish Crown,[36] replacing the similar overlordship, which previously existed in a few cases, e.g., Sultanate of Brunei's overlordship of the Kingdom of Maynila. Other independent polities which were not vassals to other States, e.g., Confederation of Madja-as and the Rajahnate of Cebu, were more of Protectorates/Suzerainties having had alliances with the Spanish Crown before the Kingdom took total control of most parts of the Archipelago. An interesting question remains after the cessession of the Spanish rule in the Philippines, that is, what is the equivalent of the rank of the Filipino Principalía, freed from vassalage yet not able to exercise their sovereignty within the democratic society in the Archipelago?
119
+
120
+ One logical conclusion would be the reassumption of their ancestral Royal and noble title as Datus while retaining the Hidalguía of Castile (their former protector State), as a subsidiary title, appears most suitable to the hispanized Filipino nobles. Besides, as stated in the above-mentioned Royal Decree of Charles II, the ancient nobility of the Filipino Principales "is still retained and acknowledged".
121
+
122
+ Just like the deposed royal families elsewhere in the world, which still lay claim to their hereditary rights as pretenders to the former thrones of their ancestors, the descendants of the Principalía have the same de iure claims to the historical domains of their forebears.
123
+
124
+ Africa has a plethora of ancient lineages in its various constituent nations. Some, such as the numerous sharifian families of North Africa, the Keita dynasty of Mali, the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia, the De Souza family of Benin and the Sherbro Tucker clan of Sierra Leone, claim descent from notables from outside of the continent. Most, such as those composed of the descendants of Shaka and Moshoeshoe of Southern Africa, belong to peoples that have been resident in the continent for millennia. Generally their royal or noble status is recognized by and derived from the authority of traditional custom. A number of them also enjoy either a constitutional or a statutory recognition of their high social positions.
125
+
126
+ Ethiopia has a nobility that is almost as old as the country itself. Throughout the history of the Ethiopian Empire most of the titles of nobility have been tribal or military in nature. However the Ethiopian nobility resembled its European counterparts in some respects; until 1855, when Tewodros II ended the Zemene Mesafint its aristocracy was organised similarly to the feudal system in Europe during the Middle Ages. For more than seven centuries, Ethiopia (or Abyssinia, as it was then known) was made up of many small kingdoms, principalities, emirates and imamates, which owed their allegiance to the nəgusä nägäst (literally "King of Kings"). Despite its being a Christian monarchy, various Muslim states paid tribute to the emperors of Ethiopia for centuries: including the Adal Sultanate, the Emirate of Harar, and the Awsa sultanate.
127
+
128
+ Ethiopian nobility were divided into two different categories: Mesafint ("prince"), the hereditary nobility that formed the upper echelon of the ruling class; and the Mekwanin ("governor") who were appointed nobles, often of humble birth, who formed the bulk of the nobility (cf. the Ministerialis of the Holy Roman Empire). In Ethiopia there were titles of nobility among the Mesafint borne by those at the apex of medieval Ethiopian society. The highest royal title (after that of emperor) was Negus ("king") which was held by hereditary governors of the provinces of Begemder, Shewa, Gojjam, and Wollo. The next highest seven titles were Ras, Dejazmach, Fit'awrari, Grazmach, Qenyazmach, Azmach and Balambaras. The title of Le'ul Ras was accorded to the heads of various noble families and cadet branches of the Solomonic dynasty, such as the princes of Gojjam, Tigray, and Selalle. The heirs of the Le'ul Rases were titled Le'ul Dejazmach, indicative of the higher status they enjoyed relative to Dejazmaches who were not of the blood imperial. There were various hereditary titles in Ethiopia: including that of Jantirar, reserved for males of the family of Empress Menen Asfaw who ruled over the mountain fortress of Ambassel in Wollo; Wagshum, a title created for the descendants of the deposed Zagwe dynasty; and Shum Agame, held by the descendants of Dejazmach Sabagadis, who ruled over the Agame district of Tigray. The vast majority of titles borne by nobles were not, however, hereditary.
129
+
130
+ Despite being largely dominated by Christian elements, some Muslims obtained entrée into the Ethiopian nobility as part of their quest for aggrandizement during the 1800s. To do so they were generally obliged to abandon their faith and some are believed to have feigned conversion to Christianity for the sake of acceptance by the old Christian aristocratic families. One such family, the Wara Seh (more commonly called the "Yejju dynasty") converted to Christianity and eventually wielded power for over a century, ruling with the sanction of the Solomonic emperors. The last such Muslim noble to join the ranks of Ethiopian society was Mikael of Wollo who converted, was made Negus of Wollo, and later King of Zion, and even married into the Imperial family. He lived to see his son, Iyasu V, inherit the throne in 1913—only to be deposed in 1916 because of his conversion to Islam.
131
+
132
+ The nobility in Madagascar are known as the Andriana. In much of Madagascar, before French colonization of the island, the Malagasy people were organised into a rigid social caste system, within which the Andriana exercised both spiritual and political leadership. The word "Andriana" has been used to denote nobility in various ethnicities in Madagascar: including the Merina, the Betsileo, the Betsimisaraka, the Tsimihety, the Bezanozano, the Antambahoaka and the Antemoro.
133
+
134
+ The word Andriana has often formed part of the names of Malagasy kings, princes and nobles. Linguistic evidence suggests that the origin of the title Andriana is traceable back to an ancient Javanese title of nobility. Before the colonization by France in the 1890s, the Andriana held various privileges, including land ownership, preferment for senior government posts, free labor from members of lower classes, the right to have their tombs constructed within town limits, etc. The Andriana rarely married outside their caste: a high-ranking woman who married a lower-ranking man took on her husband's lower rank, but a high-ranking man marrying a woman of lower rank did not forfeit his status, although his children could not inherit his rank or property (cf. morganatic marriage).
135
+
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+ In 2011, the Council of Kings and Princes of Madagascar endorsed the revival of a Christian Andriana monarchy that would blend modernity and tradition.
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+
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+ Contemporary Nigeria has a class of traditional notables which is led by its reigning monarchs, the Nigerian traditional rulers. Though their functions are largely ceremonial, the titles of the country's noblemen and women are often centuries old and are usually vested in the membership of historically prominent families in the various subnational kingdoms of the country.
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+
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+ Membership of initiatory societies that have inalienable functions within the kingdoms is also a common feature of Nigerian nobility, particularly among the southern tribes, where such figures as the Ogboni of the Yoruba, the Nze na Ozo of the Igbo and the Ekpe of the Efik are some of the most famous examples. Although many of their traditional functions have become dormant due to the advent of modern governance, their members retain precedence of a traditional nature and are especially prominent during festivals.
141
+
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+ Outside of this, many of the traditional nobles of Nigeria continue to serve as privy counsellors and viceroys in the service of their traditional sovereigns in a symbolic continuation of the way that their titled ancestors and predecessors did during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. Many of them are also members of the country's political elite due to their not being covered by the prohibition from involvement in politics that governs the activities of the traditional rulers.
143
+
144
+ Holding a chieftaincy title, either of the traditional variety (which involves taking part in ritual re-enactments of your title's history during annual festivals, roughly akin to a British peerage) or the honorary variety (which does not involve the said re-enactments, roughly akin to a knighthood), grants an individual the right to use the word "chief" as a pre-nominal honorific while in Nigeria.
145
+
146
+ In addition to a variety of indigenous peoples (such as the Aymara and the Quechua, who have long traditions of being led by monarchs and nobles called Apu Mallkus and Mallkus), aristocratic connections exist among a number of other groups. Peerage traditions dating to the colonial period of such countries as Brazil, Cuba and Mexico have left noble families in each of them that have ancestral ties to those nations' native tribes, while such figures as the Afro-Bolivian king and the high priestess of the Ile Maroia Laji sect of Brazilian Candomblé trace their ancestries to and derive their prestige from ancient monarchs and nobles of the pre-colonial African continent.
147
+
148
+ In addition to the casta upperclass that dates to the era of Colonial Bolivia and that has ancestral ties to the Spanish nobility, the South American country also has a ceremonial monarchy that is recognized as part of the Plurinational State of Bolivia and that is led by a titular ruler that is known as the Afro-Bolivian king.
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+
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+ The members of the royal house that he belongs to are the direct descendants of an old African tribal monarchy that were brought to Bolivia as slaves. They have provided leadership to the Afro-Bolivian community ever since that event and have been officially recognized by Bolivia's government since 2007. [37]
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+
152
+ The nobility in Brazil began during the colonial era with the Portuguese nobility. When Brazil became a united kingdom with Portugal in 1815, the first Brazilian titles of nobility were granted by the King of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.
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+
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+ With the independence of Brazil in 1822 as a constitutional monarchy, the titles of nobility initiated by the King of Portugal were continued and new titles of nobility were created by the Emperor of Brazil. However, according to the Brazilian Constitution of 1824, the Emperor conferred titles of nobility, which were personal and therefore non-hereditary, unlike the earlier Portuguese and Portuguese-Brazilian titles, being inherited exclusively to the royal titles of the Brazilian Imperial Family.[citation needed]
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+
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+ During the existence of the Empire of Brazil, 1,211 noble titles were acknowledged.[citation needed] With the proclamation of the First Brazilian Republic, in 1889, the Brazilian nobility was extinguished. It was also prohibited, under penalty of accusation of high treason and the suspension of political rights, to accept noble titles and foreign decorations without the proper permission of the State. In particular, the nobles of greater distinction, by respect and tradition, were allowed to use their titles during the republican regime. The Imperial Family also could not return to the Brazilian soil until 1921, when the Banishment Law was repealed.[citation needed]
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+ A list of noble titles for different European countries can be found at Royal and noble ranks.
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1
+ The Gobi Desert (/ˈɡoʊbi/) is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia.[1] It covers parts of Northern and Northeastern China and of Southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Taklamakan Desert to the west, by the Hexi Corridor and Tibetan Plateau to the southwest and by the North China Plain to the southeast. The Gobi is notable in history as the location of several important cities along the Silk Road.
2
+
3
+ The Gobi is a rain shadow desert, formed by the Tibetan Plateau blocking precipitation from the Indian Ocean reaching the Gobi territory.
4
+
5
+ The Gobi measures over 1,600 km (1,000 mi) from southwest to northeast and 800 km (500 mi) from north to south. The desert is widest in the west, along the line joining the Lake Bosten and the Lop Nor (87°–89° east).[2] It occupies an arc of land[3] in area as of 2007; it is the sixth-largest desert in the world and Asia's 2nd largest. Much of the Gobi is not sandy but has exposed bare rock.
6
+
7
+ In its broadest definition, the Gobi includes the long stretch of desert extending from the foot of the Pamirs (77° east) to the Greater Khingan Mountains, 116°-118° east, on the border of Manchuria; and from the foothills of the Altay, Sayan, and Yablonoi mountain ranges[2] on the north to the Kunlun, Altyn-Tagh, and Qilian mountain ranges, which form the northern edges of the Tibetan Plateau, on the south.[4]
8
+
9
+ A relatively large area on the east side of the Greater Khingan range, between the upper waters of the Songhua (Sungari) and the upper waters of the Liao-ho, is reckoned to belong to the Gobi by conventional usage. Some geographers and ecologists prefer to regard the western area of the Gobi region (as defined above): the basin of the Tarim in Xinjiang and the desert basin of Lop Nor and Hami (Kumul), as forming a separate and independent desert, called the Taklamakan Desert.[2]
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+ Archeologists and paleontologists have done excavations in the Nemegt Basin in the northwestern part of the Gobi Desert (in Mongolia), which is noted for its fossil treasures, including early mammals, dinosaur eggs, and prehistoric stone implements, some 100,000 years old.[5]
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+
13
+ The Gobi is overall a cold desert, with frost and occasionally snow occurring on its dunes. Besides being quite far north, it is also located on a plateau roughly 910–1,520 metres (2,990–4,990 ft) above sea level, which contributes to its low temperatures. An average of approximately 194 millimetres (7.6 in) of rain falls annually in the Gobi. Additional moisture reaches parts of the Gobi in winter as snow is blown by the wind from the Siberian Steppes. These winds may cause the Gobi to reach −40 °C (−40 °F) in winter to 45 °C (113 °F) in summer.[6]
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+
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+ However, the climate of the Gobi is one of great extremes, combined with rapid changes of temperature[2] of as much as 35 °C (63 °F). These can occur not only seasonally but within 24 hours.
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+ In southern Mongolia, the temperature has been recorded as low as −32.8 °C (−27.0 °F). In contrast, in Alxa, Inner Mongolia, it rises as high as 37 °C (99 °F) in July.
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+ Average winter minimums are a frigid −21 °C (−6 °F), while summertime maximums are a warm 27 °C (81 °F). Most of the precipitation falls during the summer.[8]
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+ Although the southeast monsoons reach the southeast parts of the Gobi, the area throughout this region is generally characterized by extreme dryness, especially during the winter, when the Siberian anticyclone is at its strongest. The southern and central parts of the Gobi Desert have variable plant growth due to this monsoon activity. The more northern areas of the Gobi are very cold and dry, making it unable to support much plant growth; this cold and dry weather is attributed to Siberian-Mongolian high pressure cells.[1] Hence, the icy sandstorms and snowstorms of spring and early summer[2] plus early January (winter).
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+
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+ The Gobi Desert is the source of many important fossils finds, including the first dinosaur eggs, twenty-six of which, averaging 9 inches in length, were uncovered in 1923.[9]
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+
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+ Despite the harsh conditions, these deserts and the surrounding regions sustain many animals, including black-tailed gazelles, marbled polecats, wild Bactrian camels, Mongolian wild ass and sandplovers. They are occasionally visited by snow leopards, Gobi bears, and wolves. Lizards are especially well-adapted to the climate of the Gobi Desert, with approximately 30 species distributed across its southern Mongolian border.[10] The most common vegetation in the Gobi desert are shrubs adapted to drought.[11] These shrubs included gray sparrow's saltwort (Salsola passerina), gray sagebrush, and low grasses such as needle grass and bridlegrass. Due to livestock grazing, the amount of shrubs in the desert has decreased.[11] Several large nature reserves have been established in the Gobi, including Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park, Great Gobi A and Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area.
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+
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+ The area is vulnerable to trampling by livestock and off-road vehicles (effects from human intervention are greater in the eastern Gobi Desert, where rainfall is heavier and may sustain livestock). In Mongolia, grasslands have been degraded by goats, which are raised by nomadic herders as source of cashmere wool.[12]
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+
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+ Large copper deposits are being mined by Rio Tinto Group.[13] The mine was and remains controversial. There was significant opposition in Mongolia's parliament to the terms under which the mine will proceed, and some are calling for the terms to be renegotiated. Specifically, the contention revolves primarily around the question of whether negotiations were fair (Rio Tinto is far better resourced) and whether Rio Tinto will pay adequate taxes on the revenues it derives from the mine (an agreement was reached whereby the operation will be exempt from windfall tax).[14]
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+
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+ The Gobi Desert is expanding at an alarming rate through desertification, most rapidly on the southern edge into China, which is seeing 3,600 km2 (1,390 sq mi) of grassland overtaken every year. Dust storms have increased in frequency in the past 20 years, causing further damage to China's agriculture economy.
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+ The northern and eastern boundaries between desert and grassland are constantly changing. This is mostly due to the climate conditions before the growing season, which influence the rate of evapotranspiration and subsequent plant growth.[15]
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+ The expansion of the Gobi is attributed mostly to human activities.[by whom?] It is part of the broader consequences of anthropogenic climate change, but locally driven by deforestation, overgrazing, and depletion of water resources.[citation needed] China has tried various plans to slow the expansion of the desert, which have met with some small degree of success, but no major effects.[citation needed] The Three-North Shelter Forest Program (or "Green Great Wall") was a Chinese government tree-planting project begun in 1978 and set to continue through 2050. The goal of the program is to reverse desertification by planting aspen and other fast-growing trees on some 36.5 million hectares across some 551 counties in 12 provinces of northern China.[16] From 1978 to about 2004, the survival rate for trees planted as part of the Three Norths Shelter Forest System Project was low (about 15%).[17][18]
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+
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+ The Gobi, broadly defined, can be divided into five distinct dry ecoregions, based on variations in climate and topography:
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+ The surface is extremely diversified, although there are no great differences in vertical elevation. Between Ulaanbaatar (48°00′N 107°00′E / 48.000°N 107.000°E / 48.000; 107.000) and the small lake of Iren-dubasu-nor (43°45′N 111°50′E / 43.750°N 111.833°E / 43.750; 111.833), the surface is greatly eroded. Broad flat depressions and basins are separated by groups of flat-topped mountains of relatively low elevation 150 to 180 m (490 to 590 ft)), through which archaic rocks crop out as crags and isolated rugged masses. The floors of the depressions lie mostly between 900 to 1,000 m (3,000 to 3,300 ft) above sea-level. Further south, between Iren-dutiasu-nor and the Yellow River, comes a region of broad tablelands alternating with flat plains, the latter ranging at altitudes of 1000–1100 m and the former at 1,070 to 1,200 m (3,510 to 3,940 ft). The slopes of the plateaus are more or less steep and are sometimes penetrated by "bays" of the lowlands.[2]
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+
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+ As the border-range of the Hyangan is approached, the country steadily rises up to 1,370 m (4,490 ft) and then to 1,630 m (5,350 ft). Here small lakes frequently fill the depressions, though the water in them is generally salt or brackish. Both here and for 320 km (199 mi) south of Ulaanbaatar, streams are frequent and grass grows more or less abundantly. Through all the central parts, until the bordering mountains are reached, trees and shrubs are utterly absent. Clay and sand are the predominant formations; the watercourses, especially in the north, being frequently excavated 2 to 3 m (6 ft 7 in to 9 ft 10 in) deep. In many places in the flat, dry valleys or depressions farther south, beds of loess, 5 to 6 m (16 to 20 ft) thick, are exposed. West of the route from Ulaanbaatar to Kalgan, the country presents approximately the same general features, except that the mountains are not so irregularly scattered in groups but have more strongly defined strikes, mostly east to west, west-north-west to east-south-east, and west-south-west to east-north-east.[2]
42
+
43
+ The altitudes are higher, those of the lowlands ranging from 1,000 to 1,700 m (3,300 to 5,600 ft), and those of the ranges from 200 to 500 m (660 to 1,640 ft) higher, though in a few cases they reach altitudes of 2,400 m (7,900 ft). The elevations do not form continuous chains, but make up a congeries of short ridges and groups rising from a common base and intersected by a labyrinth of ravines, gullies, glens, and basins. But the tablelands, built up of the horizontal red deposits of the Han-gai (Obruchev's Gobi formation) which are characteristic of the southern parts of eastern Mongolia, are absent here or occur only in one locality, near the Shara-muren river. They are greatly intersected by gullies or dry watercourses. Water is scarce, with no streams, no lakes, no wells, and precipitation falls seldom. The prevailing winds blow from the west and northwest, and the pall of dust overhangs the country as in the Takla Makan and the desert of Lop. Characteristic of the flora are wild garlic, Kalidium gracile, wormwood, saxaul, Nitraria schoberi, Caragana, Ephedra, saltwort and the grass Lasiagrostis splendens.[2] The taana wild onion Allium polyrrhizum is the main browse eaten by many herd animals, and Mongolians claim that this is essential to produce the correct, slightly hazelnut-like flavour of camel airag (fermented milk).
44
+
45
+ This great desert country of Gobi is crossed by several trade routes, some of which have been in use for thousands of years. Among the most important are those from Kalgan (at the Great Wall) to Ulaanbaatar (960 km (597 mi)); from Jiuquan (in Gansu) to Hami 670 km (416 mi); from Hami to Beijing (2,000 km (1,243 mi)); from Hohhot to Hami and Barkul; and from Lanzhou (in Gansu) to Hami.[2]
46
+
47
+ The southwestern portion of the Gobi, known also as the Xitao and the Little Gobi, fills the space between the great north loop of the Yellow River on the east, the Ejin River on the west, and the Qilian Mountains and narrow rocky chain of Longshou, 3,200 to 3,500 m (10,500 to 11,500 ft) in altitude, on the southwest. The Ordos Desert, which covers the northeastern portion of the Ordos Plateau, in the great north loop of the Yellow River, is part of this ecoregion. It belongs to the middle basin of the three great depressions into which Potanin divides the Gobi as a whole.[2]
48
+
49
+ "Topographically," says Nikolai Przhevalsky, "it is a perfectly level plain, which in all probability once formed the bed of a huge lake or inland sea." He concludes this based on the level area of the region as a whole, the hard saldgine clay and the sand-strewn surface and, lastly, the salt lakes which occupy its lowest parts. For hundreds of kilometers, nothing can be seen but bare sands; in some places, they continue so far without a break that the Mongols call them Tengger (i.e. sky). These vast expanses are absolutely waterless, nor do any oases relieve the unbroken stretches of yellow sand, which alternate with equally vast areas of saline clay or, nearer the foot of the mountains, with barren shingle. Although on the whole a level country with a general altitude of 1,000 to 1,500 m (3,300 to 4,900 ft), this section, like most other parts of the Gobi, is crowned by a chequered network of hills and broken ranges going up 300 m higher. The vegetation is confined to a few varieties of bushes and a dozen kinds of grasses and herbs, the most conspicuous being saxaul (Haloxylon ammondendron) and Agriophyllum gobicum. The others include prickly convolvulus, field wormwood (Artemisia campestris), acacia, Inula ammophila, Sophora flavescens, Convolvulus ammanii, Peganum and Astragalus species, but all dwarfed, deformed and starved. The fauna consists of little but antelope, wolf, fox, hare, hedgehog, marten, numerous lizards and a few birds, e.g. the sandgrouse, lark, stonechat, sparrow, crane, Henderson's ground jay (Podoces hendersoni), horned lark (Eremophila alpestris), and crested lark (Galerida cristata).[2]
50
+
51
+ The structure here is that of the mighty T'ien Shan, or Heavenly Mountains, running from west to east. It divides the northern one-third of Sinkiang from the southern two-thirds. On the northern side, rivers formed from the snow and glaciers of the high mountains break through barren foothill ranges and flow out into an immense, hollow plain. Here the rivers begin to straggle and fan out, and form great marshes with dense reed-beds. Westerners call this terrain the Dzungarian desert. The Chinese also call it a desert, but the Mongols call it a 'gobi'—that is, a land of thin herbage, more suitable for camels than for cows, but capable also, if herds are kept small and moved frequently, of sustaining horses, sheep, and goats. The herbage comprises a high proportion of woody, fragrant plants. Gobi mutton is the most aromatic in the world.[19]
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+
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+ The Yulduz valley or valley of the Haidag-gol (43°N 83°E / 43°N 83°E / 43; 83–43°N 86°E / 43°N 86°E / 43; 86) is a mini desert enclosed by two prominent members of the Shanashen Trahen Osh mountain range, namely the chucis and the kracenard pine rallies, running perpendicular and far from one another. As they proceed south, they transcend and transpose, sweeping back on east and west respectively, with Lake Bosten in between. These two ranges mark the northern and the southern edges respectively of a great swelling, which extends eastward for nearly twenty degrees of longitude. On its northern side, the Chol-tagh descends steeply, and its foot is fringed by a string of deep depressions, ranging from Lukchun (130 m (427 ft) below sea level) to Hami (850��m (2,789 ft) above sea-level). To the south of the Kuruk-tagh lie the desert of Lop Nur, the Kum-tagh desert, and the valley of the Bulunzir-gol. To this great swelling, which arches up between the two border-ranges of the Chol-tagh and Kuruk-tagh, the Mongols give the name of Ghashuun-Gobi or "Salt Desert". It is some 130 to 160 km (81 to 99 mi) across from north to south, and is traversed by a number of minor parallel ranges, ridges and chains of hills. Down its middle runs a broad stony valley, 40 to 80 km (25 to 50 mi) wide, at an elevation of 900 to 1,370 m (2,950 to 4,490 ft). The Chol-tagh, which reaches an average altitude of 1,800 m (5,900 ft), is absolutely sterile, and its northern foot rests upon a narrow belt of barren sand, which leads down to the depressions mentioned above.[2]
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+
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+ The Kuruk-tagh is the greatly disintegrated, denuded and wasted relic of a mountain range which used to be of incomparably greater magnitude. In the west, between Lake Bosten and the Tarim, it consists of two, possibly of three, principal ranges, which, although broken in continuity, run generally parallel to one another, and embrace between them numerous minor chains of heights. These minor ranges, together with the principal ranges, divide the region into a series of long; narrow valleys, mostly parallel to one another and to the enclosing mountain chains, which descend like terraced steps, on the one side towards the depression of Lukchun and on the other towards the desert of Lop.[2]
56
+
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+ In many cases these latitudinal valleys are barred transversely by ridges or spurs, generally elevations en masse of the bottom of the valley. Where such elevations exist, there is generally found, on the east side of the transverse ridge, a cauldron-shaped depression, which some time or other has been the bottom of a former lake, but is now nearly a dry salt-basin. The surface configuration is in fact markedly similar to that which occurs in the inter-mount latitudinal valleys of the Kunlun Mountains. The hydrography of the Ghashiun-Gobi and the Kuruk-tagh is determined by these chequered arrangements of the latitudinal valleys. Most of the principal streams, instead of flowing straight down these valleys, cross them diagonally and only turn west after they have cut their way through one or more of the transverse barrier ranges.[2]
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+
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+ To the highest range on the great swelling Grigory Grum-Grshimailo gives the name of Tuge-tau, its altitude being 2,700 m (8,858 ft) above the level of the sea and some 1,200 m (3,937 ft) above the crown of the swelling itself. This range he considers to belong to the Choltagh system, whereas Sven Hedin would assign it to the Kuruk-tagh. This last, which is pretty certainly identical with the range of Kharateken-ula (also known as the Kyzyl-sanghir, Sinir, and Singher Mountains), that overlooks the southern shore of the Lake Bosten, though parted from it by the drift-sand desert of Ak-bel-kum (White Pass Sands), has at first a west-northwest to east-southeast strike, but it gradually curves round like a scimitar towards the east-northeast and at the same time gradually decreases in elevation.[2]
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+
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+ In 91° east, while the principal range of the Kuruk-tagh system wheels to the east-northeast, four of its subsidiary ranges terminate, or rather die away somewhat suddenly, on the brink of a long narrow depression (in which Sven Hedin sees a northeast bay of the former great Central Asian lake of Lop-nor), having over against them the écheloned terminals of similar subordinate ranges of the Pe-shan (Boy-san) system (see below). The Kuruk-tagh is throughout a relatively low, but almost completely barren range, being entirely destitute of animal life, save for hares, antelopes and wild camels, which frequent its few small, widely scattered oases. The vegetation, which is confined to these same relatively favoured spots, is of the scantiest and is mainly confined to bushes of saxaul (Haloxylon), anabasis, reeds (kamish), tamarisks, poplars, and Ephedra.[2]
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+ The Gobi had a long history of human habitation, mostly by nomadic peoples. By the early 20th century, the region was under the nominal control of Manchu-China, and inhabited mostly by Mongols, Uyghurs, and Kazakhs. The Gobi Desert as a whole was known only very imperfectly to outsiders, and information was confined to observations by individual travellers from their respective itineraries across the desert. Among the European explorers who contributed to the understanding of the Gobi, the most important were the following:[2]
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+ Coordinates: 42°35′N 103°26′E / 42.59°N 103.43°E / 42.59; 103.43
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+ The Sahara (/səˈhɑːrə/, /səˈhærə/; Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى‎, aṣ-ṣaḥrāʼ al-kubrá, 'the Greatest Desert') is a desert located on the African continent. With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third largest desert overall after Antarctica and the Arctic. [1][2][3] The name 'Sahara' is derived from the Arabic word for "desert", ṣaḥra (صحرا /ˈsˤaħra/).[4][5][6][7]
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+ The desert comprises much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan. It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south, it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and the Sudan Region of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert.
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+ For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000 year cycle[8] caused by the precession of the Earth's axis as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African Monsoon. The area is next expected to become green in about 15,000 years (17,000 CE).
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+ The Sahara covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia. It covers 9 million square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi), amounting to 31% of Africa. If all areas with a mean annual precipitation of less than 250 mm were included, the Sahara would be 11 million square kilometres (4,200,000 sq mi). It is one of three distinct physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division.
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+ The Sahara is mainly rocky hamada (stone plateaus); ergs (sand seas – large areas covered with sand dunes) form only a minor part, but many of the sand dunes are over 180 metres (590 ft) high.[9] Wind or rare rainfall shape the desert features: sand dunes, dune fields, sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains (reg), dry valleys (wadi), dry lakes (oued), and salt flats (shatt or chott).[10] Unusual landforms include the Richat Structure in Mauritania.
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+ Several deeply dissected mountains, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the Aïr Mountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, Tibesti Mountains, Adrar des Iforas, and the Red Sea Hills. The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, a shield volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad.
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+ The central Sahara is hyperarid, with sparse vegetation. The northern and southern reaches of the desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and desert shrub, with trees and taller shrubs in wadis, where moisture collects. In the central, hyperarid region, there are many subdivisions of the great desert: Tanezrouft, the Ténéré, the Libyan Desert, the Eastern Desert, the Nubian Desert and others. These extremely arid areas often receive no rain for years.
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+ To the north, the Sahara skirts the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt and portions of Libya, but in Cyrenaica and the Maghreb, the Sahara borders the Mediterranean forest, woodland, and scrub eco-regions of northern Africa, all of which have a Mediterranean climate characterized by hot summers and cool and rainy winters. According to the botanical criteria of Frank White[11] and geographer Robert Capot-Rey,[12][13] the northern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the northern limit of date palm cultivation and the southern limit of the range of esparto, a grass typical of the Mediterranean climate portion of the Maghreb and Iberia. The northern limit also corresponds to the 100 mm (3.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation.[14]
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+ To the south, the Sahara is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of dry tropical savanna with a summer rainy season that extends across Africa from east to west. The southern limit of the Sahara is indicated botanically by the southern limit of Cornulaca monacantha (a drought-tolerant member of the Chenopodiaceae), or northern limit of Cenchrus biflorus, a grass typical of the Sahel.[12][13] According to climatic criteria, the southern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the 150 mm (5.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation (this is a long-term average, since precipitation varies annually).[14]
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+ Important cities located in the Sahara include Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania; Tamanrasset, Ouargla, Béchar, Hassi Messaoud, Ghardaïa, and El Oued in Algeria; Timbuktu in Mali; Agadez in Niger; Ghat in Libya; and Faya-Largeau in Chad.
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+ The Sahara is the world's largest low-latitude hot desert. It is located in the horse latitudes under the subtropical ridge, a significant belt of semi-permanent subtropical warm-core high pressure where the air from upper levels of the troposphere tends to sink towards the ground. This steady descending airflow causes a warming and a drying effect in the upper troposphere. The sinking air prevents evaporating water from rising, and therefore prevents adiabatic cooling, which makes cloud formation extremely difficult to nearly impossible.[15]
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+ The permanent dissolution of clouds allows unhindered light and thermal radiation. The stability of the atmosphere above the desert prevents any convective overturning, thus making rainfall virtually non-existent. As a consequence, the weather tends to be sunny, dry and stable with a minimal chance of rainfall. Subsiding, diverging, dry air masses associated with subtropical high-pressure systems are extremely unfavorable for the development of convectional showers. The subtropical ridge is the predominant factor that explains the hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) of this vast region. The descending airflow is the strongest and the most effective over the eastern part of the Great Desert, in the Libyan Desert: this is the sunniest, driest and the most nearly "rainless" place on the planet, rivaling the Atacama Desert, lying in Chile and Peru.
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+
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+ The rainfall inhibition and the dissipation of cloud cover are most accentuated over the eastern section of the Sahara rather than the western. The prevailing air mass lying above the Sahara is the continental tropical (cT) air mass, which is hot and dry. Hot, dry air masses primarily form over the North-African desert from the heating of the vast continental land area, and it affects the whole desert during most of the year. Because of this extreme heating process, a thermal low is usually noticed near the surface, and is the strongest and the most developed during the summertime. The Sahara High represents the eastern continental extension of the Azores High,[citation needed] centered over the North Atlantic Ocean. The subsidence of the Sahara High nearly reaches the ground during the coolest part of the year, while it is confined to the upper troposphere during the hottest periods.
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+ The effects of local surface low pressure are extremely limited because upper-level subsidence still continues to block any form of air ascent. Also, to be protected against rain-bearing weather systems by the atmospheric circulation itself, the desert is made even drier by its geographical configuration and location. Indeed, the extreme aridity of the Sahara is not only explained by the subtropical high pressure: the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia also help to enhance the aridity of the northern part of the desert. These major mountain ranges act as a barrier, causing a strong rain shadow effect on the leeward side by dropping much of the humidity brought by atmospheric disturbances along the polar front which affects the surrounding Mediterranean climates.
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+
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+ The primary source of rain in the Sahara is the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a continuous belt of low-pressure systems near the equator which bring the brief, short and irregular rainy season to the Sahel and southern Sahara. Rainfall in this giant desert has to overcome the physical and atmospheric barriers that normally prevent the production of precipitation. The harsh climate of the Sahara is characterized by: extremely low, unreliable, highly erratic rainfall; extremely high sunshine duration values; high temperatures year-round; negligible rates of relative humidity; a significant diurnal temperature variation; and extremely high levels of potential evaporation which are the highest recorded worldwide.[16]
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+ The sky is usually clear above the desert, and the sunshine duration is extremely high everywhere in the Sahara. Most of the desert has more than 3,600 hours of bright sunshine per year (over 82% of daylight hours), and a wide area in the eastern part has over 4,000 hours of bright sunshine per year (over 91% of daylight hours). The highest values are very close to the theoretical maximum value. A value of 4300 hours (98%) of the time would be[clarification needed] recorded in Upper Egypt (Aswan, Luxor) and in the Nubian Desert (Wadi Halfa).[17] The annual average direct solar irradiation is around 2,800 kWh/(m2 year) in the Great Desert. The Sahara has a huge potential for solar energy production.
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+ The high position of the Sun, the extremely low relative humidity, and the lack of vegetation and rainfall make the Great Desert the hottest large region in the world, and the hottest place on Earth during summer in some spots. The average high temperature exceeds 38 to 40 °C or 100.4 to 104.0 °F during the hottest month nearly everywhere in the desert except at very high altitudes. The world's highest officially recorded average daily high temperature[clarification needed] was 47 °C or 116.6 °F in a remote desert town in the Algerian Desert called Bou Bernous, at an elevation of 378 metres (1,240 ft) above sea level,[17] and only Death Valley, California rivals it.[18] Other hot spots in Algeria such as Adrar, Timimoun, In Salah, Ouallene, Aoulef, Reggane with an elevation between 200 and 400 metres (660 and 1,310 ft) above sea level get slightly lower summer average highs, around 46 °C or 114.8 °F during the hottest months of the year. Salah, well known in Algeria for its extreme heat, has average high temperatures of 43.8 °C or 110.8 °F, 46.4 °C or 115.5 °F, 45.5 °C or 113.9 °F and 41.9 °C or 107.4 °F in June, July, August and September respectively. There are even hotter spots in the Sahara, but they are located in extremely remote areas, especially in the Azalai, lying in northern Mali. The major part of the desert experiences around three to five months when the average high strictly[clarification needed] exceeds 40 °C or 104 °F; while in the southern central part of the desert, there are up to six or seven months when the average high temperature strictly[clarification needed] exceeds 40 °C or 104 °F. Some examples of this are Bilma, Niger and Faya-Largeau, Chad. The annual average daily temperature exceeds 20 °C or 68 °F everywhere and can approach 30 °C or 86 °F in the hottest regions year-round. However, most of the desert has a value in excess of 25 °C or 77 °F.
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+ Sand and ground temperatures are even more extreme. During daytime, the sand temperature is extremely high: it can easily reach 80 °C or 176 °F or more.[19] A sand temperature of 83.5 °C (182.3 °F) has been recorded in Port Sudan.[19] Ground temperatures of 72 °C or 161.6 °F have been recorded in the Adrar of Mauritania and a value of 75 °C (167 °F) has been measured in Borkou, northern Chad.[19]
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+ Due to lack of cloud cover and very low humidity, the desert usually has high diurnal temperature variations between days and nights. However, it is a myth that the nights are especially cold after extremely hot days in the Sahara.[citation needed] On average, nighttime temperatures tend to be 13–20 °C (23–36 °F) cooler than in the daytime. The smallest variations are found along the coastal regions due to high humidity and are often even lower than a 10 °C or 18 °F difference, while the largest variations are found in inland desert areas where the humidity is the lowest, mainly in the southern Sahara. Still, it is true that winter nights can be cold, as it can drop to the freezing point and even below, especially in high-elevation areas.[clarification needed] The frequency of subfreezing winter nights in the Sahara is strongly influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), with warmer winter temperatures during negative NAO events and cooler winters with more frosts when the NAO is positive.[20] This is because the weaker clockwise flow around the eastern side of the subtropical anticyclone during negative NAO winters, although too dry to produce more than negligible precipitation, does reduce the flow of dry, cold air from higher latitudes of Eurasia into the Sahara significantly.[21]
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+
41
+ The average annual rainfall ranges from very low in the northern and southern fringes of the desert to nearly non-existent over the central and the eastern part. The thin northern fringe of the desert receives more winter cloudiness and rainfall due to the arrival of low pressure systems over the Mediterranean Sea along the polar front, although very attenuated by the rain shadow effects of the mountains and the annual average rainfall ranges from 100 millimetres (4 in) to 250 millimetres (10 in). For example, Biskra, Algeria, and Ouarzazate, Morocco, are found in this zone. The southern fringe of the desert along the border with the Sahel receives summer cloudiness and rainfall due to the arrival of the Intertropical Convergence Zone from the south and the annual average rainfall ranges from 100 millimetres (4 in) to 250 millimetres (10 in). For example, Timbuktu, Mali and Agadez, Niger are found in this zone. The vast central hyper-arid core of the desert is virtually never affected by northerly or southerly atmospheric disturbances and permanently remains under the influence of the strongest anticyclonic weather regime, and the annual average rainfall can drop to less than 1 millimetre (0.04 in). In fact, most of the Sahara receives less than 20 millimetres (0.8 in). Of the 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) of desert land in the Sahara, an area of about 2,800,000 square kilometres (1,100,000 sq mi) (about 31% of the total area) receives an annual average rainfall amount of 10 millimetres (0.4 in) or less, while some 1,500,000 square kilometres (580,000 sq mi) (about 17% of the total area) receives an average of 5 millimetres (0.2 in) or less.[22] The annual average rainfall is virtually zero over a wide area of some 1,000,000 square kilometres (390,000 sq mi) in the eastern Sahara comprising deserts of: Libya, Egypt and Sudan (Tazirbu, Kufra, Dakhla, Kharga, Farafra, Siwa, Asyut, Sohag, Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Wadi Halfa) where the long-term mean approximates 0.5 millimetres (0.02 in) per year.[22] Rainfall is very unreliable and erratic in the Sahara as it may vary considerably year by year. In full contrast to the negligible annual rainfall amounts, the annual rates of potential evaporation are extraordinarily high, roughly ranging from 2,500 millimetres (100 in) per year to more than 6,000 millimetres (240 in) per year in the whole desert.[23] Nowhere else on Earth has air been found as dry and evaporative as in the Sahara region. However, at least two instances of snowfall have been recorded in Sahara, in February 1979 and December 2016, both in the town of Ain Sefra.[24]
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+
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+ One theory for the formation of the Sahara is that the monsoon in Northern Africa was weakened because of glaciation during the Quaternary period, starting two or three million years ago. Another theory is that the monsoon was weakened when the ancient Tethys Sea dried up during the Tortonian period around 7 million years.[25]
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+
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+ The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years,[26] believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African Monsoon – usually southward. The cycle is caused by a 41000-year cycle in which the tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°.[22] At present (2000 ACE), we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15000 years (17000 ACE). When the North African monsoon is at its strongest annual precipitation and subsequent vegetation in the Sahara region increase, resulting in conditions commonly referred to as the "green Sahara". For a relatively weak North African monsoon, the opposite is true, with decreased annual precipitation and less vegetation resulting in a phase of the Sahara climate cycle known as the "desert Sahara".[27]
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+
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+ The idea that changes in insolation (solar heating) caused by long-term changes in the Earth's orbit are a controlling factor for the long-term variations in the strength of monsoon patterns across the globe was first suggested by Rudolf Spitaler in the late nineteenth century,[28] The hypothesis was later formally proposed and tested by the meteorologist John Kutzbach in 1981.[29] Kutzbach's ideas about the impacts of insolation on global monsoonal patterns have become widely accepted today as the underlying driver of long term monsoonal cycles. Kutzbach never formally named his hypothesis and as such it is referred to here as the "Orbital Monsoon Hypothesis" as suggested by Ruddiman in 2001.[28]
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+ During the last glacial period, the Sahara was much larger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries.[30] The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BCE to 6000 BCE, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north.[31] Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara, the drying trend was initially counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BCE, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today,[32] leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara.[33] The Sahara is now as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago.[26]
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+ The Lake Chad is the remnant of a former inland sea, paleolake Mega-Chad, which existed during the African humid period. At its largest extent, sometime before 5000 BC, Lake Mega-Chad was the largest of four Saharan paleolakes, and is estimated to have covered an area of 350,000 km2.[34]
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+
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+ The Sahara pump theory describes this cycle. During periods of a wet or "Green Sahara", the Sahara becomes a savanna grassland and various flora and fauna become more common. Following inter-pluvial arid periods, the Sahara area then reverts to desert conditions and the flora and fauna are forced to retreat northwards to the Atlas Mountains, southwards into West Africa, or eastwards into the Nile Valley. This separates populations of some of the species in areas with different climates, forcing them to adapt, possibly giving rise to allopatric speciation.
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+ It is also proposed that humans accelerated the drying out period from 6,000–2,500 BCE by pastoralists overgrazing available grassland.[35]
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+ The growth of speleothems (which requires rainwater) was detected in Hol-Zakh, Ashalim, Even-Sid, Ma'ale-ha-Meyshar, Ktora Cracks, Nagev Tzavoa Cave, and elsewhere, and has allowed tracking of prehistoric rainfall. The Red Sea coastal route was extremely arid before 140 and after 115 kya. Slightly wetter conditions appear at 90–87 kya, but it still was just one tenth the rainfall around 125 kya. In the southern Negev Desert speleothems did not grow between 185–140 kya (MIS 6), 110–90 (MIS 5.4–5.2), nor after 85 kya nor during most of the interglacial period (MIS 5.1), the glacial period and Holocene. This suggests that the southern Negev was arid to hyper-arid in these periods.[36]
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+
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+ During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Sahara desert was more extensive than it is now with the extent of the tropical forests being greatly reduced,[37] and the lower temperatures reduced the strength of the Hadley Cell. This is a climate cell which causes rising tropical air of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) to bring rain to the tropics, while dry descending air, at about 20 degrees north, flows back to the equator and brings desert conditions to this region. It is associated with high rates of wind-blown mineral dust, and these dust levels are found as expected in marine cores from the north tropical Atlantic. But around 12,500 BCE the amount of dust in the cores in the Bølling/Allerød phase suddenly plummets and shows a period of much wetter conditions in the Sahara, indicating a Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) event (a sudden warming followed by a slower cooling of the climate). The moister Saharan conditions had begun about 12,500 BCE, with the extension of the ITCZ northward in the northern hemisphere summer, bringing moist wet conditions and a savanna climate to the Sahara, which (apart from a short dry spell associated with the Younger Dryas) peaked during the Holocene thermal maximum climatic phase at 4000 BCE when mid-latitude temperatures seem to have been between 2 and 3 degrees warmer than in the recent past. Analysis of Nile River deposited sediments in the delta also shows this period had a higher proportion of sediments coming from the Blue Nile, suggesting higher rainfall also in the Ethiopian Highlands. This was caused principally by a stronger monsoonal circulation throughout the sub-tropical regions, affecting India, Arabia and the Sahara.[citation needed] Lake Victoria only recently became the source of the White Nile and dried out almost completely around 15 kya.[38]
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+
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+ The sudden subsequent movement of the ITCZ southwards with a Heinrich event (a sudden cooling followed by a slower warming), linked to changes with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle, led to a rapid drying out of the Saharan and Arabian regions, which quickly became desert. This is linked to a marked decline in the scale of the Nile floods between 2700 and 2100 BCE.[39]
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+
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+ The Sahara comprises several distinct ecoregions. With their variations in temperature, rainfall, elevation, and soil, these regions harbor distinct communities of plants and animals.
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+ The Atlantic coastal desert is a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast where fog generated offshore by the cool Canary Current provides sufficient moisture to sustain a variety of lichens, succulents, and shrubs. It covers an area of 39,900 square kilometers (15,400 sq mi) in the south of Morocco and Mauritania.[40]
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+
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+ The North Saharan steppe and woodlands is along the northern desert, next to the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions of the northern Maghreb and Cyrenaica. Winter rains sustain shrublands and dry woodlands that form a transition between the Mediterranean climate regions to the north and the hyper-arid Sahara proper to the south. It covers 1,675,300 square kilometers (646,840 sq mi) in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia.[41]
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+
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+ The Sahara Desert ecoregion covers the hyper-arid central portion of the Sahara where rainfall is minimal and sporadic. Vegetation is rare, and this ecoregion consists mostly of sand dunes (erg, chech, raoui), stone plateaus (hamadas), gravel plains (reg), dry valleys (wadis), and salt flats. It covers 4,639,900 square kilometres (1,791,500 sq mi) of: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Sudan.[10]
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+
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+ The South Saharan steppe and woodlands ecoregion is a narrow band running east and west between the hyper-arid Sahara and the Sahel savannas to the south. Movements of the equatorial Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) bring summer rains during July and August which average 100 to 200 mm (4 to 8 in) but vary greatly from year to year. These rains sustain summer pastures of grasses and herbs, with dry woodlands and shrublands along seasonal watercourses. This ecoregion covers 1,101,700 square kilometres (425,400 sq mi) in Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Sudan.[42]
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+ In the West Saharan montane xeric woodlands, several volcanic highlands provide a cooler, moister environment that supports Saharo-Mediterranean woodlands and shrublands. The ecoregion covers 258,100 square kilometres (99,650 sq mi), mostly in the Tassili n'Ajjer of Algeria, with smaller enclaves in the Aïr of Niger, the Dhar Adrar of Mauritania, and the Adrar des Iforas of Mali and Algeria.[43]
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+ The Tibesti-Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands ecoregion consists of the Tibesti and Jebel Uweinat highlands. Higher and more regular rainfall and cooler temperatures support woodlands and shrublands of date palm, acacias, myrtle, oleander, tamarix, and several rare and endemic plants. The ecoregion covers 82,200 square kilometres (31,700 sq mi) in the Tibesti of Chad and Libya, and Jebel Uweinat on the border of Egypt, Libya, and Sudan.[44]
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+
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+ The Saharan halophytics is an area of seasonally flooded saline depressions which is home to halophytic (salt-adapted) plant communities. The Saharan halophytics cover 54,000 square kilometres (21,000 sq mi) including: the Qattara and Siwa depressions in northern Egypt, the Tunisian salt lakes of central Tunisia, Chott Melghir in Algeria, and smaller areas of Algeria, Mauritania, and the southern part of Morocco.[45]
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+ The Tanezrouft is one of the harshest regions on Earth as well as one of the hottest and driest parts of the Sahara, with no vegetation and very little life. It is along the borders of Algeria, Niger, and Mali, west of the Hoggar mountains.
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+ The flora of the Sahara is highly diversified based on the bio-geographical characteristics of this vast desert. Floristically, the Sahara has three zones based on the amount of rainfall received – the Northern (Mediterranean), Central and Southern Zones. There are two transitional zones – the Mediterranean-Sahara transition and the Sahel transition zone.[46]
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+ The Saharan flora comprises around 2800 species of vascular plants. Approximately a quarter of these are endemic. About half of these species are common to the flora of the Arabian deserts.[47]
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+ The central Sahara is estimated to include five hundred species of plants, which is extremely low considering the huge extent of the area. Plants such as acacia trees, palms, succulents, spiny shrubs, and grasses have adapted to the arid conditions, by growing lower to avoid water loss by strong winds, by storing water in their thick stems to use it in dry periods, by having long roots that travel horizontally to reach the maximum area of water and to find any surface moisture, and by having small thick leaves or needles to prevent water loss by evapotranspiration. Plant leaves may dry out totally and then recover.
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+ Several species of fox live in the Sahara including: the fennec fox, pale fox and Rüppell's fox. The addax, a large white antelope, can go nearly a year in the desert without drinking. The dorcas gazelle is a north African gazelle that can also go for a long time without water. Other notable gazelles include the rhim gazelle and dama gazelle.
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+ The Saharan cheetah (northwest African cheetah) lives in Algeria, Togo, Niger, Mali, Benin, and Burkina Faso. There remain fewer than 250 mature cheetahs, which are very cautious, fleeing any human presence. The cheetah avoids the sun from April to October, seeking the shelter of shrubs such as balanites and acacias. They are unusually pale.[48][49] The other cheetah subspecies (northeast African cheetah) lives in Chad, Sudan and the eastern region of Niger. However, it is currently extinct in the wild in Egypt and Libya. There are approximately 2000 mature individuals left in the wild.
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+ Other animals include the monitor lizards, hyrax, sand vipers, and small populations of African wild dog,[50] in perhaps only 14 countries[51] and red-necked ostrich. Other animals exist in the Sahara (birds in particular) such as African silverbill and black-faced firefinch, among others. There are also small desert crocodiles in Mauritania and the Ennedi Plateau of Chad.[52]
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+ The deathstalker scorpion can be 10 cm (3.9 in) long. Its venom contains large amounts of agitoxin and scyllatoxin and is very dangerous; however, a sting from this scorpion rarely kills a healthy adult. The Saharan silver ant is unique in that due to the extreme high temperatures of their habitat, and the threat of predators, the ants are active outside their nest for only about ten minutes per day.[53]
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+ Dromedary camels and goats are the domesticated animals most commonly found in the Sahara. Because of its qualities of endurance and speed, the dromedary is the favourite animal used by nomads.
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+ Human activities are more likely to affect the habitat in areas of permanent water (oases) or where water comes close to the surface. Here, the local pressure on natural resources can be intense. The remaining populations of large mammals have been greatly reduced by hunting for food and recreation. In recent years development projects have started in the deserts of Algeria and Tunisia using irrigated water pumped from underground aquifers. These schemes often lead to soil degradation and salinization.
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+ Researchers from Hacettepe University (Yücekutlu, N. et al., 2011) have reported that Saharan soil may have bio-available iron and also some essential macro and micro nutrient elements suitable for use as fertilizer for growing wheat.[54]
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+ People lived on the edge of the desert thousands of years ago,[55] since the end of the last glacial period. The Sahara was then a much wetter place than it is today. Over 30,000 petroglyphs of river animals such as crocodiles[56] survive, with half found in the Tassili n'Ajjer in southeast Algeria. Fossils of dinosaurs,[57] including Afrovenator, Jobaria and Ouranosaurus, have also been found here. The modern Sahara, though, is not lush in vegetation, except in the Nile Valley, at a few oases, and in the northern highlands, where Mediterranean plants such as the olive tree are found to grow. It was long believed that the region had been this way since about 1600 BCE, after shifts in the Earth's axis increased temperatures and decreased precipitation, which led to the abrupt desertification of North Africa about 5,400 years ago.[32]
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+ The Kiffian culture is a prehistoric industry, or domain, that existed between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago in the Sahara, during the Neolithic Subpluvial. Human remains from this culture were found in 2000 at a site known as Gobero, located in Niger in the Ténéré Desert.[58] The site is known as the largest and earliest grave of Stone Age people in the Sahara desert.[59] The Kiffians were skilled hunters. Bones of many large savannah animals that were discovered in the same area suggest that they lived on the shores of a lake that was present during the Holocene Wet Phase, a period when the Sahara was verdant and wet.[59] The Kiffian people were tall, standing over six feet in height.[58] Craniometric analysis indicates that this early Holocene population was closely related to the Late Pleistocene Iberomaurusians and early Holocene Capsians of the Maghreb, as well as mid-Holocene Mechta groups.[60] Traces of the Kiffian culture do not exist after 8,000 years ago, as the Sahara went through a dry period for the next thousand years.[61] After this time, the Tenerian culture colonized the area.
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+ Gobero was discovered in 2000 during an archaeological expedition led by Paul Sereno, which sought dinosaur remains. Two distinct prehistoric cultures were discovered at the site: the early Holocene Kiffian culture, and the middle Holocene Tenerian culture. The Kiffians were a prehistoric people who preceded the Tenerians and vanished approximately 8000 years ago, when the desert became very dry. The desiccation lasted until around 4600 BCE, when the earliest artefacts associated with the Tenerians have been dated to. Some 200 skeletons have been discovered at Gobero. The Tenerians were considerably shorter in height and less robust than the earlier Kiffians. Craniometric analysis also indicates that they were osteologically distinct. The Kiffian skulls are akin to those of the Late Pleistocene Iberomaurusians, early Holocene Capsians, and mid-Holocene Mechta groups, whereas the Tenerian crania are more like those of Mediterranean groups.[62][63] Graves show that the Tenerians observed spiritual traditions, as they were buried with artifacts such as jewelry made of hippo tusks and clay pots. The most interesting find is a triple burial, dated to 5300 years ago, of an adult female and two children, estimated through their teeth as being five and eight years old, hugging each other. Pollen residue indicates they were buried on a bed of flowers. The three are assumed to have died within 24 hours of each other, but as their skeletons hold no apparent trauma (they did not die violently) and they have been buried so elaborately – unlikely if they had died of a plague – the cause of their deaths is a mystery.
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+ Uan Muhuggiag appears to have been inhabited from at least the 6th millennium BCE to about 2700 BCE, although not necessarily continuously.[64] The most noteworthy find at Uan Muhuggiag is the well-preserved mummy of a young boy of approximately ​2 1⁄2 years old. The child was in a fetal position, then embalmed, then placed in a sack made of antelope skin, which was insulated by a layer of leaves.[65] The boy's organs were removed, as evidenced by incisions in his stomach and thorax, and an organic preservative was inserted to stop his body from decomposing.[66] An ostrich eggshell necklace was also found around his neck.[64] Radiocarbon dating determined the age of the mummy to be approximately 5600 years old, which makes it about 1000 years older than the earliest previously recorded mummy in ancient Egypt.[67] In 1958–59, an archaeological expedition led by Antonio Ascenzi conducted anthropological, radiological, histological and chemical analyses on the Uan Muhuggiag mummy. The specimen was determined to be that of a 30-month old child of uncertain sex, who possessed Negroid features. A long incision on the specimen's abdominal wall also indicated that the body had been initially mummified by evisceration and later underwent natural desiccation.[68] One other individual, an adult, was found at Uan Muhuggiag, buried in a crouched position.[64] However, the body showed no evidence of evisceration or any other method of preservation. The body was estimated to date from about 7500 BP.[69]
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+ During the Neolithic Era, before the onset of desertification around 9500 BCE, the central Sudan had been a rich environment supporting a large population ranging across what is now barren desert, like the Wadi el-Qa'ab. By the 5th millennium BCE, the people who inhabited what is now called Nubia, were full participants in the "agricultural revolution", living a settled lifestyle with domesticated plants and animals. Saharan rock art of cattle and herdsmen suggests the presence of a cattle cult like those found in Sudan and other pastoral societies in Africa today.[70] Megaliths found at Nabta Playa are overt examples of probably the world's first known archaeoastronomy devices, predating Stonehenge by some 2,000 years.[71] This complexity, as observed at Nabta Playa, and as expressed by different levels of authority within the society there, likely formed the basis for the structure of both the Neolithic society at Nabta and the Old Kingdom of Egypt.[72]
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+ By 6000 BCE predynastic Egyptians in the southwestern corner of Egypt were herding cattle and constructing large buildings. Subsistence in organized and permanent settlements in predynastic Egypt by the middle of the 6th millennium BCE centered predominantly on cereal and animal agriculture: cattle, goats, pigs and sheep. Metal objects replaced prior ones of stone. Tanning of animal skins, pottery and weaving were commonplace in this era also. There are indications of seasonal or only temporary occupation of the Al Fayyum in the 6th millennium BCE, with food activities centering on fishing, hunting and food-gathering. Stone arrowheads, knives and scrapers from the era are commonly found.[73] Burial items included pottery, jewelry, farming and hunting equipment, and assorted foods including dried meat and fruit. Burial in desert environments appears to enhance Egyptian preservation rites, and the dead were buried facing due west.[74]
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+ By 3400 BCE, the Sahara was as dry as it is today, due to reduced precipitation and higher temperatures resulting from a shift in the Earth's orbit.[32] As a result of this aridification, it became a largely impenetrable barrier to humans, with the remaining settlements mainly being concentrated around the numerous oases that dot the landscape. Little trade or commerce is known to have passed through the interior in subsequent periods, the only major exception being the Nile Valley. The Nile, however, was impassable at several cataracts, making trade and contact by boat difficult.
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+ The people of Phoenicia, who flourished from 1200–800 BCE, created a confederation of kingdoms across the entire Sahara to Egypt. They generally settled along the Mediterranean coast, as well as the Sahara, among the people of ancient Libya, who were the ancestors of people who speak Berber languages in North Africa and the Sahara today, including the Tuareg of the central Sahara.
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+ The Phoenician alphabet seems to have been adopted by the ancient Libyans of north Africa, and Tifinagh is still used today by Berber-speaking Tuareg camel herders of the central Sahara.
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+ Sometime between 633 BCE and 530 BCE, Hanno the Navigator either established or reinforced Phoenician colonies in Western Sahara, but all ancient remains have vanished with virtually no trace.
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+ By 500 BCE, Greeks arrived in the desert. Greek traders spread along the eastern coast of the desert, establishing trading colonies along the Red Sea. The Carthaginians explored the Atlantic coast of the desert, but the turbulence of the waters and the lack of markets caused a lack of presence further south than modern Morocco. Centralized states thus surrounded the desert on the north and east; it remained outside the control of these states. Raids from the nomadic Berber people of the desert were of constant concern to those living on the edge of the desert.
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+ An urban civilization, the Garamantes, arose around 500 BCE in the heart of the Sahara, in a valley that is now called the Wadi al-Ajal in Fezzan, Libya.[26] The Garamantes achieved this development by digging tunnels far into the mountains flanking the valley to tap fossil water and bring it to their fields. The Garamantes grew populous and strong, conquering their neighbors and capturing many slaves (who were put to work extending the tunnels). The ancient Greeks and the Romans knew of the Garamantes and regarded them as uncivilized nomads. However, they traded with them, and a Roman bath has been found in the Garamantes' capital of Garama. Archaeologists have found eight major towns and many other important settlements in the Garamantes' territory. The Garamantes' civilization eventually collapsed after they had depleted available water in the aquifers and could no longer sustain the effort to extend the tunnels further into the mountains.[75]
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+ Between the first century BC and the fourth century AD, several Roman expeditions into the Sahara were conducted by groups of military and commercial units of Romans.
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+
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+ The Berber people occupied (and still occupy with Arabs) much of the Sahara. The Garamantes Berbers built a prosperous empire in the heart of the desert.[76] The Tuareg nomads continue to inhabit and move across wide Sahara surfaces to the present day.
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+
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+ The Byzantine Empire ruled the northern shores of the Sahara from the 5th to the 7th centuries. After the Muslim conquest of Arabia, specifically the Arabian peninsula, the Muslim conquest of North Africa began in the mid-7th to early 8th centuries and Islamic influence expanded rapidly on the Sahara. By the end of 641 all of Egypt was in Muslim hands. Trade across the desert intensified, and a significant slave trade crossed the desert. It has been estimated that from the 10th to 19th centuries some 6,000 to 7,000 slaves were transported north each year.[77]
130
+
131
+ In the 16th century the northern fringe of the Sahara, such as coastal regencies in present-day Algeria and Tunisia, as well as some parts of present-day Libya, together with the semi-autonomous kingdom of Egypt, were occupied by the Ottoman Empire. From 1517 Egypt was a valued part of the Ottoman Empire, ownership of which provided the Ottomans with control over the Nile Valley, the east Mediterranean and North Africa. The benefit of the Ottoman Empire was the freedom of movement for citizens and goods. Traders exploited the Ottoman land routes to handle the spices, gold and silk from the East, manufactured goods from Europe, and the slave and gold traffic from Africa. Arabic continued as the local language and Islamic culture was much reinforced. The Sahel and southern Sahara regions were home to several independent states or to roaming Tuareg clans.
132
+
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+ European colonialism in the Sahara began in the 19th century. France conquered the regency of Algiers from the Ottomans in 1830, and French rule spread south from French Algeria and eastwards from Senegal into the upper Niger to include present-day Algeria, Chad, Mali then French Sudan including Timbuktu (1893), Mauritania, Morocco (1912), Niger, and Tunisia (1881). By the beginning of the 20th century, the trans-Saharan trade had clearly declined because goods were moved through more modern and efficient means, such as airplanes, rather than across the desert.[78]
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+
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+ The French took advantage of long-standing animosity between the Chaamba Arabs and the Tuareg. The newly raised Méhariste camel corps were originally recruited mainly from the Chaamba nomadic tribe. In 1902, the French penetrated Hoggar Mountains and defeated Ahaggar Tuareg in the battle of Tit.
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+
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+ The French Colonial Empire was the dominant presence in the Sahara. It established regular air links from Toulouse (HQ of famed Aéropostale), to Oran and over the Hoggar to Timbuktu and West to Bamako and Dakar, as well as trans-Sahara bus services run by La Compagnie Transsaharienne (est. 1927).[79] A remarkable film shot by famous aviator Captain René Wauthier documents the first crossing by a large truck convoy from Algiers to Tchad, across the Sahara.[80]
138
+
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+ Egypt, under Muhammad Ali and his successors, conquered Nubia in 1820–22, founded Khartoum in 1823, and conquered Darfur in 1874. Egypt, including the Sudan, became a British protectorate in 1882. Egypt and Britain lost control of the Sudan from 1882 to 1898 as a result of the Mahdist War. After its capture by British troops in 1898, the Sudan became an Anglo-Egyptian condominium.
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+ Spain captured present-day Western Sahara after 1874, although Rio del Oro remained largely under Sahrawi influence. In 1912, Italy captured parts of what was to be named Libya from the Ottomans. To promote the Roman Catholic religion in the desert, Pope Pius IX appointed a delegate Apostolic of the Sahara and the Sudan in 1868; later in the 19th century his jurisdiction was reorganized into the Vicariate Apostolic of Sahara.
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+
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+ Egypt became independent of Britain in 1936, although the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 allowed Britain to keep troops in Egypt and to maintain the British-Egyptian condominium in the Sudan. British military forces were withdrawn in 1954.
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+ Most of the Saharan states achieved independence after World War II: Libya in 1951; Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia in 1956; Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger in 1960; and Algeria in 1962. Spain withdrew from Western Sahara in 1975, and it was partitioned between Mauritania and Morocco. Mauritania withdrew in 1979; Morocco continues to hold the territory.
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+ In the post–World War II era, several mines and communities have developed to utilize the desert's natural resources. These include large deposits of oil and natural gas in Algeria and Libya, and large deposits of phosphates in Morocco and Western Sahara.
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+ A number of Trans-African highways have been proposed across the Sahara, including the Cairo–Dakar Highway along the Atlantic coast, the Trans-Sahara Highway from Algiers on the Mediterranean to Kano in Nigeria, the Tripoli – Cape Town Highway from Tripoli in Libya to N'Djamena in Chad, and the Cairo – Cape Town Highway which follows the Nile. Each of these highways is partially complete, with significant gaps and unpaved sections.
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+
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+ The people of the Sahara are of various origins. Among them the Amazigh including the Tuareg, various Arabized Amaziɣ groups such as the Hassaniya-speaking Sahrawis, whose populations include the Znaga, a tribe whose name is a remnant of the pre-historic Zenaga language. Other major groups of people include the: Toubou, Nubians, Zaghawa, Kanuri, Hausa, Songhai, Beja, and Fula/Fulani (French: Peul; Fula: Fulɓe).
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+
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+ Arabic dialects are the most widely spoken languages in the Sahara. Arabic, Berber and its variants now regrouped under the term Amazigh (which includes the Guanche language spoken by the original Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands) and Beja languages are part of the Afro-Asiatic or Hamito-Semitic family.[citation needed] Unlike neighboring West Africa and the central governments of the states that comprise the Sahara, the French language bears little relevance to inter-personal discourse and commerce within the region, its people retaining staunch ethnic and political affiliations with Tuareg and Berber leaders and culture.[81] The legacy of the French colonial era administration is primarily manifested in the territorial reorganization enacted by the Third and Fourth republics, which engendered artificial political divisions within a hitherto isolated and porous region.[82] Diplomacy with local clients was conducted primarily in Arabic, which was the traditional language of bureaucratic affairs. Mediation of disputes and inter-agency communication was served by interpreters contracted by the French government, who, according to Keenan, "documented a space of intercultural mediation," contributing much to preserving the indigenous cultural identities in the region.[83]
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1
+ An abbreviation (from Latin brevis, meaning short [1]) is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters, or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word abbreviation can itself be represented by the abbreviation abbr., abbrv., or abbrev.; NBM, for nil (or nothing) by mouth is an abbreviated medical instruction. It may also consist of initials only, a mixture of initials and words, or words or letters representing words in another language (for example, e.g., i.e. or RSVP). Some types of abbreviations are acronyms (which are pronounceable), initialisms (using initials only), or grammatical contractions or crasis.
2
+
3
+ An abbreviation is a shortening by any of these, or other, methods.
4
+
5
+ Acronyms, initialisms, contractions and crasis share some semantic and phonetic functions, and all four are connected by the term "abbreviation" in loose parlance.[2]:p167
6
+
7
+ A contraction is a reduction of size by the drawing together of the parts; a contraction of a word or words is made by omitting certain letters or syllables and bringing together the first and last letters or elements, such as "I'm" . A contraction may be regarded as a type of abbreviation, but not vice versa.
8
+
9
+ Abbreviations have a long history, created so that spelling out a whole word could be avoided. This might be done to save time and space, and also to provide secrecy. In both Greece and Rome the reduction of words to single letters was common.[3] In Roman inscriptions, "Words were commonly abbreviated by using the initial letter or letters of words, and most inscriptions have at least one abbreviation". However, "some could have more than one meaning, depending on their context. (For example, ⟨A⟩ can be an abbreviation for many words, such as ager, amicus, annus, as, Aulus, Aurelius, aurum and avus.)"[4]
10
+
11
+ Abbreviations in English were frequently used from its earliest days. Manuscripts of copies of the old English poem Beowulf used many abbreviations, for example the Tironian et (⁊) or & for and, and y for since, so that "not much space is wasted".[5] The standardisation of English in the 15th through 17th centuries included such a growth in the use of abbreviations.[6] At first, abbreviations were sometimes represented with various suspension signs, not only periods. For example, sequences like ‹er› were replaced with ‹ɔ›, as in ‹mastɔ› for master and ‹exacɔbate› for exacerbate. While this may seem trivial, it was symptomatic of an attempt by people manually reproducing academic texts to reduce the copy time.
12
+
13
+ Mastɔ subwardenɔ y ɔmēde me to you. And wherɔ y wrot to you the last wyke that y trouyde itt good to differrɔ thelectionɔ ovɔ to quīdenaɔ tinitatis y have be thougħt me synɔ that itt woll be thenɔ a bowte mydsomɔ.
14
+
15
+ In the Early Modern English period, between the 15th and 17th centuries, the thorn (letter) Þ was used for th, as in Þe ('the'). However, in modern times, ⟨Þ⟩ was often misread and wrongly rewritten as ⟨y⟩, as in Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.[7]
16
+
17
+ During the growth of philological linguistic theory in academic Britain, abbreviating became very fashionable. For example J. R. R. Tolkien, his friend C. S. Lewis and other members of the Oxford literary group were known as the Inklings.[8][clarification needed] Likewise, a century earlier in Boston, a fad of abbreviation started that swept the United States, with the globally popular term OK generally credited as a remnant of its influence.[9][10]
18
+
19
+ Over the years, however, the lack of convention in some style guides has made it difficult to determine which two-word abbreviations should be abbreviated with periods and which should not. This question is considered below,
20
+
21
+ Widespread use of electronic communication through mobile phones and the Internet during the 1990s allowed for a marked rise in colloquial abbreviation. This was due largely to increasing popularity of textual communication services such as instant- and text messaging. The original SMS, supported message lengths of 160 characters at most (using the GSM 03.38 character set), for instance.[a] This brevity gave rise to an informal abbreviation scheme sometimes called Textese, with which 10% or more of the words in a typical SMS message are abbreviated.[11] More recently Twitter, a popular social networking service, began driving abbreviation use with 140 character message limits.
22
+
23
+ In modern English, there are several conventions for abbreviations, and the choice may be confusing. The only rule universally accepted is that one should be consistent, and to make this easier, publishers express their preferences in a style guide. Questions which arise include those in the following subsections.
24
+
25
+ If the original word was capitalized then the first letter of its abbreviation should retain the capital, for example Lev. for Leviticus. When a word is abbreviated to more than a single letter and was originally spelled with lower case letters then there is no need for capitalization. However, when abbreviating a phrase where only the first letter of each word is taken, then all letters should be capitalized, as in YTD for year-to-date, PCB for printed circuit board and FYI for for your information. However, see the following section regarding abbreviations that have become common vocabulary: these are no longer written with capital letters.
26
+
27
+ A period (full stop) is often used to signify an abbreviation, but opinion is divided as to when and if this should happen.
28
+
29
+ According to Hart's Rules, the traditional rule is that abbreviations (in the narrow sense that includes only words with the ending, and not the middle, dropped) terminate with a full stop, whereas contractions (in the sense of words missing a middle part) do not, but there are exceptions.[2]:p167–170 Fowler's Modern English Usage says full stops are used to mark both abbreviations and contractions, but recommends against this practice: advising them only for abbreviations and lower-case initialisms and not for upper-case initialisms and contractions.[12]
30
+
31
+ In American English, the period is usually included regardless of whether or not it is a contraction, e.g. Dr. or Mrs.. In some cases, periods are optional, as in either US or U.S. for United States, EU or E.U. for European Union, and UN or U.N. for United Nations. There are some house styles, however—American ones included—that remove the periods from almost all abbreviations. For example:
32
+
33
+ Acronyms that were originally capitalized (with or without periods) but have since entered the vocabulary as generic words are no longer written with capital letters nor with any periods. Examples are sonar, radar, lidar, laser, snafu, and scuba.
34
+
35
+ Today, spaces are generally not used between single-letter abbreviations of words in the same phrase, so one almost never encounters "U. S."
36
+
37
+ When an abbreviation appears at the end of a sentence, only one period is used: The capital of the United States is Washington, D.C.
38
+
39
+ There is a question about how to pluralize abbreviations, particularly acronyms. Some writers tend to pluralize abbreviations by addding 's (apostrophe s), as in "two PC's have broken screens", although this notation typically indicates possessive case. However, this style is not preferred by many style guides. For instance, Kate Turabian, writing about style in academic writings,[13] allows for an apostrophe to form plural acronyms "only when an abbreviation contains internal periods or both capital and lowercase letters". Turabian would therefore prefer "DVDs" and "URLs" and "Ph.D.'s", while the Modern Language Association[14] explicitly says, "do not use an apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation". Also, the American Psychological Association specifically says,[15][16] "without an apostrophe".
40
+
41
+ However, the 1999 style guide for The New York Times states that the addition of an apostrophe is necessary when pluralizing all abbreviations, preferring "PC's, TV's and VCR's".[17]
42
+
43
+ Following those who would generally omit the apostrophe, to form the plural of run batted in, simply add an s to the end of RBI.[18]
44
+
45
+ For all other rules, see below:
46
+
47
+ To form the plural of an abbreviation, a number, or a capital letter used as a noun, simply add a lowercase s to the end. Apostrophes following decades and single letters are also common.
48
+
49
+ To indicate the plural of the abbreviation or symbol of a unit of measure, the same form is used as in the singular.
50
+
51
+ When an abbreviation contains more than one full point, Hart's Rules recommends putting the s after the final one.
52
+
53
+ However, subject to any house style or consistency requirement, the same plurals may be rendered less formally as:
54
+
55
+ According to Hart's Rules, an apostrophe may be used in rare cases where clarity calls for it, for example when letters or symbols are referred to as objects.
56
+
57
+ However, the apostrophe can be dispensed with if the items are set in italics or quotes:
58
+
59
+ In Latin, and continuing to the derivative forms in European languages as well as English, single-letter abbreviations had the plural being a doubling of the letter for note-taking. Most of these deal with writing and publishing. A few longer abbreviations use this as well.
60
+
61
+ Publications based in the U.S. tend to follow the style guides of The Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press.[verification needed] The U.S. Government follows a style guide published by the U.S. Government Printing Office. The National Institute of Standards and Technology sets the style for abbreviations of units.
62
+
63
+ Many British publications follow some of these guidelines in abbreviation:
64
+
65
+ Writers often use shorthand to denote units of measure. Such shorthand can be an abbreviation, such as "in" for "inch" or can be a symbol such as "km" for "kilometre/kilometer".
66
+
67
+ In the International System of Units (SI) manual[20] the word "symbol" is used consistently to define the shorthand used to represent the various SI units of measure. The manual also defines the way in which units should be written, the principal rules being:
68
+
69
+ A syllabic abbreviation is usually formed from the initial syllables of several words, such as Interpol = International + police. It is a variant of the acronym. Syllabic abbreviations are usually written using lower case, sometimes starting with a capital letter, and are always pronounced as words rather than letter by letter. Syllabic abbreviations should be distinguished from portmanteaus, which combine two words without necessarily taking whole syllables from each.
70
+
71
+ Syllabic abbreviations are not widely used in English. Some UK government ministries such as Ofcom (Office of Communications) and Oftel (Office of Telecommunications) use this style.
72
+
73
+ New York City has various neighborhoods named by syllabic abbreviation, such as Tribeca (Triangle below Canal Street) and SoHo (South of Houston Street). This usage has spread into other American cities, giving SoMa, San Francisco (South of Market) and LoDo, Denver (Lower Downtown), amongst others.
74
+
75
+ Partially syllabic abbreviations are preferred by the US Navy, as it increases readability amidst the large number of initialisms that would otherwise have to fit into the same acronyms. Hence DESRON 6 is used (in the full capital form) to mean "Destroyer Squadron 6", while COMNAVAIRLANT would be "Commander, Naval Air Force (in the) Atlantic."
76
+
77
+ Syllabic abbreviations prevailed in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for naming a plethora of new bureaucratic organisations. For example, Gestapo stands for Geheime Staats-Polizei, or "secret state police". Similarly, Leninist organisations such as the Comintern (Communist International) and Komsomol (Kommunisticheskii Soyuz Molodyozhi, or "Communist youth union") used Russian language syllabic abbreviations. This has given syllabic abbreviations negative connotations in some countries,[citation needed] (as in Orwell's Newspeak), notwithstanding that such abbreviations were used in Germany even before the Nazis came to power, e.g., Schupo for Schutzpolizei, and are still used, e.g. Kripo for Kriminalpolizei.
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+
79
+ In the modern Russian language words like Minoborony (from Ministerstvo oborony — Ministry of Defence) and Minobrnauki (from Ministerstvo obrazovaniya i nauki — Ministry of Education and Science) are still commonly used.
80
+
81
+ In Belarus there is Beltelecom (Belarus Telecommunication) and Belsat (Belarus Satellite).
82
+
83
+ Syllabic abbreviations were also typical for the German language used in the German Democratic Republic, e.g. Stasi for Staatssicherheit ("state security", the secret police) or Vopo for Volkspolizist ("people's policeman"). Other uses are in company or product names such as Aldi, from the name of the founder, Theo Albrecht, and the German word Diskont (discount) or Haribo, from the name of the founder and the headquarters of the company, Hans Riegl Bonn.
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+
85
+ Syllabic abbreviations are more common in Spanish; examples abound in organization names such as Pemex for Petróleos Mexicanos ("Mexican Petroleums" or Fonafifo for Fondo Nacional de Financimiento Forestal (National Forestry Financing Fund).
86
+
87
+ In Southeast Asian languages, especially in Malay languages, syllabic abbreviations are also common; examples include Petronas (for Petroliam Nasional, "National Petroleum"), its Indonesian equivalent Pertamina (from its original name Perusahaan Pertambangan Minyak dan Gas Bumi Negara, "State Oil and Natural Gas Mining Company"), and Kemenhub (from Kementerian Perhubungan, "Ministry of Transportation")
88
+
89
+ East Asian languages whose writing systems use Chinese characters form abbreviations similarly by using key Chinese characters from a term or phrase. For example, in Japanese the term for the United Nations, kokusai rengō (国際連合) is often abbreviated to kokuren (国連). (Such abbreviations are called ryakugo (略語) in Japanese; see also Japanese abbreviated and contracted words). The syllabic abbreviation is frequently used for universities: for instance, Tōdai (東大) for Tōkyō daigaku (東京大学, University of Tokyo) and is used similarly in Chinese: Běidà (北大) for Běijīng Dàxué (北京大学, Peking University). The English phrase "Gung ho" originated as a Chinese abbreviation.
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1
+
2
+
3
+ Coordinates: 51°N 9°E / 51°N 9°E / 51; 9
4
+
5
+ – in Europe (light green & dark grey)– in the European Union (light green)
6
+
7
+ Germany (German: Deutschland, German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃlant]), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, listen),[e] is a country in Central and Western Europe. Covering an area of 357,022 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi), it lies between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west.
8
+
9
+ Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. Following the Napoleonic Wars and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the German Confederation was formed in 1815. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, World War II, and the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, two new German states were founded: West Germany and East Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community and the European Union. The country was reunified on 3 October 1990.
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+
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+ Today, Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. With 83 million inhabitants of its 16 constituent states, it is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Berlin, and its financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr.
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+
13
+ Germany is a great power with a strong economy; it has the largest economy in Europe, the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, and the fifth-largest by PPP. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods. A highly developed country with a very high standard of living, it offers social security and a universal health care system, environmental protections, and a tuition-free university education. Germany is also a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, and the OECD. Known for its long and rich cultural history, Germany has many World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world.
14
+
15
+ The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine.[10] The German term Deutschland, originally diutisciu land ("the German lands") is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "of the people" (from diot or diota "people"), originally used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "of the people" (see also the Latinised form Theodiscus), derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons also originates.[11]
16
+
17
+ Ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago.[12] The first non-modern human fossil (the Neanderthal) was discovered in the Neander Valley.[13] Similarly dated evidence of modern humans has been found in the Swabian Jura, including 42,000-year-old flutes which are the oldest musical instruments ever found,[14] the 40,000-year-old Lion Man,[15] and the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels.[16] The Nebra sky disk, created during the European Bronze Age, is attributed to a German site.[17]
18
+
19
+ The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Nordic Bronze Age or the Pre-Roman Iron Age.[18] From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with the Celtic, Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes.[19]
20
+
21
+ Under Augustus, Rome began to invade Germania. In 9 AD, three Roman legions were defeated by Arminius.[20] By 100 AD, when Tacitus wrote Germania, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of modern Germany. However, Baden Württemberg, southern Bavaria, southern Hesse and the western Rhineland had been incorporated into Roman provinces.[21][22][23] Around 260, Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands.[24] After the invasion of the Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved farther southwest: the Franks established the Frankish Kingdom and pushed east to subjugate Saxony and Bavaria, and areas of what is today eastern Germany were inhabited by Western Slavic tribes.[21]
22
+
23
+ Charlemagne founded the Carolingian Empire in 800; it was divided in 843[25] and the Holy Roman Empire emerged from the eastern portion. The territory initially known as East Francia stretched from the Rhine in the west to the Elbe River in the east and from the North Sea to the Alps.[25] The Ottonian rulers (919–1024) consolidated several major duchies.[26] In 996 Gregory V became the first German Pope, appointed by his cousin Otto III, whom he shortly after crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy under the Salian emperors (1024–1125), although the emperors lost power through the Investiture controversy.[27]
24
+
25
+ Under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), German princes encouraged German settlement to the south and east (Ostsiedlung). Members of the Hanseatic League, mostly north German towns, prospered in the expansion of trade.[28] Population declined starting with the Great Famine in 1315, followed by the Black Death of 1348–50.[29] The Golden Bull issued in 1356 provided the constitutional structure of the Empire and codified the election of the emperor by seven prince-electors.[30]
26
+
27
+ Johannes Gutenberg introduced moveable-type printing to Europe, laying the basis for the democratization of knowledge.[31] In 1517, Martin Luther incited the Protestant Reformation; the 1555 Peace of Augsburg tolerated the "Evangelical" faith (Lutheranism), but also decreed that the faith of the prince was to be the faith of his subjects (cuius regio, eius religio).[32] From the Cologne War through the Thirty Years' Wars (1618–1648), religious conflict devastated German lands and significantly reduced the population.[33][34]
28
+
29
+ The Peace of Westphalia ended religious warfare among the Imperial Estates;[33] their mostly German-speaking rulers were able to choose Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, or the Reformed faith as their official religion.[35] The legal system initiated by a series of Imperial Reforms (approximately 1495–1555) provided for considerable local autonomy and a stronger Imperial Diet.[36] The House of Habsburg held the imperial crown from 1438 until the death of Charles VI in 1740. Following the War of Austrian Succession and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles VI's daughter Maria Theresa ruled as Empress Consort when her husband, Francis I, became Emperor.[37][38]
30
+
31
+ From 1740, dualism between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history. In 1772, 1793, and 1795, Prussia and Austria, along with the Russian Empire, agreed to the Partitions of Poland.[39][40] During the period of the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic era and the subsequent final meeting of the Imperial Diet, most of the Free Imperial Cities were annexed by dynastic territories; the ecclesiastical territories were secularised and annexed. In 1806 the Imperium was dissolved; France, Russia, Prussia and the Habsburgs (Austria) competed for hegemony in the German states during the Napoleonic Wars.[41]
32
+
33
+ Following the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna founded the German Confederation, a loose league of 39 sovereign states. The appointment of the Emperor of Austria as the permanent president reflected the Congress's rejection of Prussia's rising influence. Disagreement within restoration politics partly led to the rise of liberal movements, followed by new measures of repression by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich.[42][43] The Zollverein, a tariff union, furthered economic unity.[44] In light of revolutionary movements in Europe, intellectuals and commoners started the revolutions of 1848 in the German states. King Frederick William IV of Prussia was offered the title of Emperor, but with a loss of power; he rejected the crown and the proposed constitution, a temporary setback for the movement.[45]
34
+
35
+ King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as the Minister President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck successfully concluded the war with Denmark in 1864; the subsequent decisive Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the North German Confederation which excluded Austria. After the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, the German princes proclaimed the founding of the German Empire in 1871. Prussia was the dominant constituent state of the new empire; the King of Prussia ruled as its Kaiser, and Berlin became its capital.[46][47]
36
+
37
+ In the Gründerzeit period following the unification of Germany, Bismarck's foreign policy as Chancellor of Germany secured Germany's position as a great nation by forging alliances and avoiding war.[47] However, under Wilhelm II, Germany took an imperialistic course, leading to friction with neighbouring countries.[48] A dual alliance was created with the multinational realm of Austria-Hungary; the Triple Alliance of 1882 included Italy. Britain, France and Russia also concluded alliances to protect against Habsburg interference with Russian interests in the Balkans or German interference against France.[49] At the Berlin Conference in 1884, Germany claimed several colonies including German East Africa, German South West Africa, Togoland, and Kamerun.[50] Later, Germany further expanded its colonial empire to include holdings in the Pacific and China.[51] The colonial government in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), from 1904 to 1907, carried out the annihilation of the local Herero and Namaqua peoples as punishment for an uprising;[52][53] this was the 20th century's first genocide.[53]
38
+
39
+ The assassination of Austria's crown prince on 28 June 1914 provided the pretext for Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia and trigger World War I. After four years of warfare, in which approximately two million German soldiers were killed,[54] a general armistice ended the fighting. In the German Revolution (November 1918), Emperor Wilhelm II and the ruling princes abdicated their positions and Germany was declared a federal republic. Germany's new leadership signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting defeat by the Allies. Germans perceived the treaty as humiliating, which was seen by historians as influential in the rise of Adolf Hitler.[55] Germany lost around 13% of its European territory and ceded all of its colonial possessions in Africa and the South Sea.[56]
40
+
41
+ On 11 August 1919, President Friedrich Ebert signed the democratic Weimar Constitution.[57] In the subsequent struggle for power, communists seized power in Bavaria, but conservative elements elsewhere attempted to overthrow the Republic in the Kapp Putsch. Street fighting in the major industrial centres, the occupation of the Ruhr by Belgian and French troops, and a period of hyperinflation followed. A debt restructuring plan and the creation of a new currency in 1924 ushered in the Golden Twenties, an era of artistic innovation and liberal cultural life.[58][59][60]
42
+
43
+ The worldwide Great Depression hit Germany in 1929. Chancellor Heinrich Brüning's government pursued a policy of fiscal austerity and deflation which caused unemployment of nearly 30% by 1932.[61] The Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler won a special election in 1932 and Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.[62] After the Reichstag fire, a decree abrogated basic civil rights and the first Nazi concentration camp opened.[63][64] The Enabling Act gave Hitler unrestricted legislative power, overriding the constitution;[65] his government established a centralised totalitarian state, withdrew from the League of Nations, and dramatically increased the country's rearmament.[66] A government-sponsored programme for economic renewal focused on public works, the most famous of which was the autobahn.[67]
44
+
45
+ In 1935, the regime withdrew from the Treaty of Versailles and introduced the Nuremberg Laws which targeted Jews and other minorities.[68] Germany also reacquired control of the Saarland in 1935,[69] remilitarised the Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in 1938, annexed the Sudetenland in 1938 with the Munich Agreement, and in violation of the agreement occupied Czechoslovakia in March 1939.[70] Kristallnacht saw the burning of synagogues, the destruction of Jewish businesses, and mass arrests of Jewish people.[71]
46
+
47
+ In August 1939, Hitler's government negotiated the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.[72] On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II in Europe;[73] Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September.[74] In the spring of 1940, Germany conquered Denmark and Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, forcing the French government to sign an armistice. The British repelled German air attacks in the Battle of Britain in the same year. In 1941, German troops invaded Yugoslavia, Greece and the Soviet Union. By 1942, Germany and her allies controlled most of continental Europe and North Africa, but following the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, the allies' reconquest of North Africa and invasion of Italy in 1943, German forces suffered repeated military defeats. In 1944, the Soviets pushed into Eastern Europe; the Western allies landed in France and entered Germany despite a final German counteroffensive. Following Hitler's suicide during the Battle of Berlin, Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.[73][75] Following the end of the war, surviving Nazi officials were tried for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.[76][77]
48
+
49
+ In what later became known as the Holocaust, the German government persecuted minorities, including interning them in concentration and death camps across Europe. In total 17 million people were systematically murdered, including 6 million Jews, at least 130,000 Romani, 275,000 persons with disabilities, thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses, thousands of homosexuals, and hundreds of thousands of political and religious opponents.[78] Nazi policies in German-occupied countries resulted in the deaths of 2.7 million Poles,[79] 1.3 million Ukrainians, 1 million Belarusians[80] and 3.5 million Soviet prisoners of war.[80][76] German military casualties have been estimated at 5.3 million,[81] and around 900,000 German civilians died.[82] Around 12 million ethnic Germans were expelled from across Eastern Europe, and Germany lost roughly one-quarter of its pre-war territory.[83]
50
+
51
+ After Nazi Germany surrendered, the Allies partitioned Berlin and Germany's remaining territory into four occupation zones. The western sectors, controlled by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were merged on 23 May 1949 to form the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD)); on 7 October 1949, the Soviet Zone became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)). They were informally known as West Germany and East Germany.[85] East Germany selected East Berlin as its capital, while West Germany chose Bonn as a provisional capital, to emphasise its stance that the two-state solution was temporary.[86]
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+ West Germany was established as a federal parliamentary republic with a "social market economy". Starting in 1948 West Germany became a major recipient of reconstruction aid under the Marshall Plan.[87] Konrad Adenauer was elected the first Federal Chancellor of Germany in 1949. The country enjoyed prolonged economic growth (Wirtschaftswunder) beginning in the early 1950s.[88] West Germany joined NATO in 1955 and was a founding member of the European Economic Community.[89]
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+ East Germany was an Eastern Bloc state under political and military control by the USSR via occupation forces and the Warsaw Pact. Although East Germany claimed to be a democracy, political power was exercised solely by leading members (Politbüro) of the communist-controlled Socialist Unity Party of Germany, supported by the Stasi, an immense secret service.[90] While East German propaganda was based on the benefits of the GDR's social programmes and the alleged threat of a West German invasion, many of its citizens looked to the West for freedom and prosperity.[91] The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, prevented East German citizens from escaping to West Germany, becoming a symbol of the Cold War.[92]
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+ Tensions between East and West Germany were reduced in the late 1960s by Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik.[93] In 1989, Hungary decided to dismantle the Iron Curtain and open its border with Austria, causing the emigration of thousands of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary and Austria. This had devastating effects on the GDR, where regular mass demonstrations received increasing support. In an effort to help retain East Germany as a state, the East German authorities eased border restrictions, but this actually led to an acceleration of the Wende reform process culminating in the Two Plus Four Treaty under which Germany regained full sovereignty. This permitted German reunification on 3 October 1990, with the accession of the five re-established states of the former GDR.[94] The fall of the Wall in 1989 became a symbol of the Fall of Communism, the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, German Reunification and Die Wende.[95]
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+ United Germany was considered the enlarged continuation of West Germany so it retained its memberships in international organisations.[96] Based on the Berlin/Bonn Act (1994), Berlin again became the capital of Germany, while Bonn obtained the unique status of a Bundesstadt (federal city) retaining some federal ministries.[97] The relocation of the government was completed in 1999, and modernisation of the east German economy was scheduled to last until 2019.[98][99]
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+ Since reunification, Germany has taken a more active role in the European Union, signing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and the Lisbon Treaty in 2007,[100] and co-founding the Eurozone.[101] Germany sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the Balkans and sent German troops to Afghanistan as part of a NATO effort to provide security in that country after the ousting of the Taliban.[102][103]
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+ In the 2005 elections, Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor. In 2009 the German government approved a €50 billion stimulus plan.[104] Among the major German political projects of the early 21st century are the advancement of European integration, the energy transition (Energiewende) for a sustainable energy supply, the "Debt Brake" for balanced budgets, measures to increase the fertility rate (pronatalism), and high-tech strategies for the transition of the German economy, summarised as Industry 4.0.[105] Germany was affected by the European migrant crisis in 2015: the country took in over a million migrants and developed a quota system which redistributed migrants around its federal states.[106]
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+ Germany is in Western and Central Europe, bordering Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria to the southeast, and Switzerland to the south-southwest. France, Luxembourg and Belgium are situated to the west, with the Netherlands to the northwest. Germany is also bordered by the North Sea and, at the north-northeast, by the Baltic Sea. German territory covers 357,022 km2 (137,847 sq mi), consisting of 348,672 km2 (134,623 sq mi) of land and 8,350 km2 (3,224 sq mi) of water. It is the seventh largest country by area in Europe and the 62nd largest in the world.[4]
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+ Elevation ranges from the mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,963 metres or 9,721 feet) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the northwest and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the northeast. The forested uplands of central Germany and the lowlands of northern Germany (lowest point: Wilstermarsch at 3.54 metres or 11.6 feet below sea level) are traversed by such major rivers as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe. Significant natural resources include iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt, and nickel.[4]
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+ Most of Germany has a temperate climate, ranging from oceanic in the north to continental in the east and southeast. Winters range from cold in the southern Alps to mild and are generally overcast with limited precipitation, while summers can vary from hot and dry to cool and rainy. The northern regions have prevailing westerly winds that bring in moist air from the North Sea, moderating the temperature and increasing precipitation. Conversely, the southeast regions have more extreme temperatures.[107]
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+ From February 2019–2020, average monthly temperatures in Germany ranged from a low of 3.3 °C (37.9 °F) in January 2020 to a high of 19.8 °C (67.6 °F) in June 2019.[108] Average monthly precipitation ranged from 30 litres per square metre in February and April 2019 to 125 litres per square metre in February 2020.[109] Average monthly hours of sunshine ranged from 45 in November 2019 to 300 in June 2019.[110]
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+ The territory of Germany can be divided into two ecoregions: European-Mediterranean montane mixed forests and Northeast-Atlantic shelf marine.[111] As of 2016[update] 51% of Germany's land area is devoted to agriculture, while 30% is forested and 14% is covered by settlements or infrastructure.[112]
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+ Plants and animals include those generally common to Central Europe. According to the National Forest Inventory, beeches, oaks, and other deciduous trees constitute just over 40% of the forests; roughly 60% are conifers, particularly spruce and pine.[113] There are many species of ferns, flowers, fungi, and mosses. Wild animals include roe deer, wild boar, mouflon (a subspecies of wild sheep), fox, badger, hare, and small numbers of the Eurasian beaver.[114] The blue cornflower was once a German national symbol.[115]
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+ The 16 national parks in Germany include the Jasmund National Park, the Vorpommern Lagoon Area National Park, the Müritz National Park, the Wadden Sea National Parks, the Harz National Park, the Hainich National Park, the Black Forest National Park, the Saxon Switzerland National Park, the Bavarian Forest National Park and the Berchtesgaden National Park.[116] In addition, there are 17 Biosphere Reserves[117] and 105 nature parks.[118] More than 400 zoos and animal parks operate in Germany.[119] The Berlin Zoo, which opened in 1844, is the oldest in Germany, and claims the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.[120]
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+ Germany is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic. Federal legislative power is vested in the parliament consisting of the Bundestag (Federal Diet) and Bundesrat (Federal Council), which together form the legislative body. The Bundestag is elected through direct elections: half by majority vote and half by proportional representation. The members of the Bundesrat represent and are appointed by the governments of the sixteen federated states.[4] The German political system operates under a framework laid out in the 1949 constitution known as the Grundgesetz (Basic Law). Amendments generally require a two-thirds majority of both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat; the fundamental principles of the constitution, as expressed in the articles guaranteeing human dignity, the separation of powers, the federal structure, and the rule of law, are valid in perpetuity.[121]
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+ The president, currently Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is the head of state and invested primarily with representative responsibilities and powers. He is elected by the Bundesversammlung (federal convention), an institution consisting of the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of state delegates.[4] The second-highest official in the German order of precedence is the Bundestagspräsident (president of the Bundestag), who is elected by the Bundestag and responsible for overseeing the daily sessions of the body.[122] The third-highest official and the head of government is the chancellor, who is appointed by the Bundespräsident after being elected by the party or coalition with the most seats in the Bundestag.[4] The chancellor, currently Angela Merkel, is the head of government and exercises executive power through their Cabinet.[4]
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+ Since 1949, the party system has been dominated by the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. So far every chancellor has been a member of one of these parties. However, the smaller liberal Free Democratic Party and the Alliance '90/The Greens have also achieved some success. Since 2007, the left-wing populist party The Left has been a staple in the German Bundestag, though they have never been part of the federal government. In the 2017 German federal election, the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany gained enough votes to attain representation in the parliament for the first time.[123][124]
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+ Germany comprises sixteen federal states which are collectively referred to as Bundesländer.[125] Each state has its own state constitution,[126] and is largely autonomous in regard to its internal organisation. As of 2017[update] Germany is divided into 401 districts (Kreise) at a municipal level; these consist of 294 rural districts and 107 urban districts.[127]
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+ Germany has a civil law system based on Roman law with some references to Germanic law.[131] The Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) is the German Supreme Court responsible for constitutional matters, with power of judicial review.[132] Germany's supreme court system is specialised: for civil and criminal cases, the highest court of appeal is the inquisitorial Federal Court of Justice, and for other affairs the courts are the Federal Labour Court, the Federal Social Court, the Federal Finance Court and the Federal Administrative Court.[133]
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+ Criminal and private laws are codified on the national level in the Strafgesetzbuch and the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch respectively. The German penal system seeks the rehabilitation of the criminal and the protection of the public.[134] Except for petty crimes, which are tried before a single professional judge, and serious political crimes, all charges are tried before mixed tribunals on which lay judges (Schöffen) sit side by side with professional judges.[135][136]
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+ Germany has a low murder rate with 1.18 murders per 100,000 as of 2016[update].[137] In 2018, the overall crime rate fell to its lowest since 1992.[138]
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+ Germany has a network of 227 diplomatic missions abroad[140] and maintains relations with more than 190 countries.[141] Germany is a member of NATO, the OECD, the G8, the G20, the World Bank and the IMF. It has played an influential role in the European Union since its inception and has maintained a strong alliance with France and all neighbouring countries since 1990. Germany promotes the creation of a more unified European political, economic and security apparatus.[142][143][144] The governments of Germany and the United States are close political allies.[145] Cultural ties and economic interests have crafted a bond between the two countries resulting in Atlanticism.[146]
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+ The development policy of Germany is an independent area of foreign policy. It is formulated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and carried out by the implementing organisations. The German government sees development policy as a joint responsibility of the international community.[147] It was the world's second biggest aid donor in 2019 after the United States.[148]
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+ Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, is organised into the Heer (Army and special forces KSK), Marine (Navy), Luftwaffe (Air Force), Zentraler Sanitätsdienst der Bundeswehr (Joint Medical Service) and Streitkräftebasis (Joint Support Service) branches. In absolute terms, German military expenditure is the 8th highest in the world.[149] In 2018, military spending was at $49.5 billion, about 1.2% of the country's GDP, well below the NATO target of 2%.[150]
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+ As of January 2020[update], the Bundeswehr has a strength of 184,001 active soldiers and 80,947 civilians.[151] Reservists are available to the armed forces and participate in defence exercises and deployments abroad.[152] Until 2011, military service was compulsory for men at age 18, but this has been officially suspended and replaced with a voluntary service.[153][154] Since 2001 women may serve in all functions of service without restriction.[155] According to SIPRI, Germany was the fourth largest exporter of major arms in the world from 2014 to 2018.[156]
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+ In peacetime, the Bundeswehr is commanded by the Minister of Defence. In state of defence, the Chancellor would become commander-in-chief of the Bundeswehr.[157] The role of the Bundeswehr is described in the Constitution of Germany as defensive only. But after a ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1994 the term "defence" has been defined to not only include protection of the borders of Germany, but also crisis reaction and conflict prevention, or more broadly as guarding the security of Germany anywhere in the world. As of 2017[update], the German military has about 3,600 troops stationed in foreign countries as part of international peacekeeping forces, including about 1,200 supporting operations against Daesh, 980 in the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, and 800 in Kosovo.[158]
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+ Germany has a social market economy with a highly skilled labour force, a low level of corruption, and a high level of innovation.[4][160][161] It is the world's third largest exporter of goods,[4] and has the largest national economy in Europe which is also the world's fourth largest by nominal GDP[162] and the fifth by PPP.[163] Its GDP per capita measured in purchasing power standards amounts to 121% of the EU27 average (100%).[164] The service sector contributes approximately 69% of the total GDP, industry 31%, and agriculture 1% as of 2017[update].[4] The unemployment rate published by Eurostat amounts to 3.2% as of January 2020[update], which is the fourth-lowest in the EU.[165]
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+ Germany is part of the European single market which represents more than 450 million consumers.[166] In 2017, the country accounted for 28% of the Eurozone economy according to the International Monetary Fund.[167] Germany introduced the common European currency, the Euro, in 2002.[168] Its monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank, which is headquartered in Frankfurt.[169][159]
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+ Being home to the modern car, the automotive industry in Germany is regarded as one of the most competitive and innovative in the world,[170] and is the fourth largest by production.[171] The top 10 exports of Germany are vehicles, machinery, chemical goods, electronic products, electrical equipments, pharmaceuticals, transport equipments, basic metals, food products, and rubber and plastics.[172] Germany is one of the largest exporters globally.[173]
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+ Of the world's 500 largest stock-market-listed companies measured by revenue in 2019, the Fortune Global 500, 29 are headquartered in Germany.[174] 30 major Germany-based companies are included in the DAX, the German stock market index which is operated by Frankfurt Stock Exchange.[175] Well-known international brands include Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Siemens, Allianz, Adidas, Porsche, Bosch and Deutsche Telekom.[176] Berlin is a hub for startup companies and has become the leading location for venture capital funded firms in the European Union.[177] Germany is recognised for its large portion of specialised small and medium enterprises, known as the Mittelstand model.[178] These companies represent 48% global market leaders in their segments, labelled Hidden Champions.[179]
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+ Research and development efforts form an integral part of the German economy.[180] In 2018 Germany ranked fourth globally in terms of number of science and engineering research papers published.[181] Research institutions in Germany include the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association, and the Fraunhofer Society and the Leibniz Association.[182] Germany is the largest contributor to the European Space Agency.[183]
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+ With its central position in Europe, Germany is a transport hub for the continent.[184] Its road network is among the densest in Europe.[185] The motorway (Autobahn) is widely known for having no federally mandated speed limit for some classes of vehicles.[186] The InterCityExpress or ICE train network serves major German cities as well as destinations in neighbouring countries with speeds up to 300 km/h (190 mph).[187] The largest German airports are Frankfurt Airport and Munich Airport.[188] The Port of Hamburg is one of the top twenty largest container ports in the world.[189]
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+ In 2015[update], Germany was the world's seventh-largest consumer of energy.[190] The government and the nuclear power industry agreed to phase out all nuclear power plants by 2021.[191] It meets the country's power demands using 40% renewable sources.[192] Germany is committed to the Paris Agreement and several other treaties promoting biodiversity, low emission standards, and water management.[193][194][195] The country's household recycling rate is among the highest in the world—at around 65%.[196] Nevertheless, the country's total greenhouse gas emissions were the highest in the EU in 2017[update].[197] The German energy transition (Energiewende) is the recognised move to a sustainable economy by means of energy efficiency and renewable energy.[198]
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+ Germany is the ninth most visited country in the world as of 2017[update], with 37.4 million visits.[199] Berlin has become the third most visited city destination in Europe.[200] Domestic and international travel and tourism combined directly contribute over €105.3 billion to German GDP. Including indirect and induced impacts, the industry supports 4.2 million jobs.[201]
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+ Germany's most visited and popular landmarks include Cologne Cathedral, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Dresden Frauenkirche, Neuschwanstein Castle, Heidelberg Castle, the Wartburg, and Sanssouci Palace.[202] The Europa-Park near Freiburg is Europe's second most popular theme park resort.[203]
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+ With a population of 80.2 million according to the 2011 census,[204] rising to 83.1 million as of 2019[update],[5] Germany is the most populous country in the European Union, the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the 19th most populous country in the world. Its population density stands at 227 inhabitants per square kilometre (588 per square mile). The overall life expectancy in Germany at birth is 80.19 years (77.93 years for males and 82.58 years for females).[4] The fertility rate of 1.41 children born per woman (2011 estimates) is below the replacement rate of 2.1 and is one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.[4] Since the 1970s, Germany's death rate has exceeded its birth rate. However, Germany is witnessing increased birth rates and migration rates since the beginning of the 2010s, particularly a rise in the number of well-educated migrants. Germany has the third oldest population in the world, with the average age of 47.4 years.[4]
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+ Four sizeable groups of people are referred to as "national minorities" because their ancestors have lived in their respective regions for centuries:[205] There is a Danish minority in the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein;[205] the Sorbs, a Slavic population, are in the Lusatia region of Saxony and Brandenburg.; the Roma and Sinti live throughout the country; and the Frisians are concentrated in Schleswig-Holstein's western coast and in the north-western part of Lower Saxony.[205]
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+ After the United States, Germany is the second most popular immigration destination in the world. The majority of migrants live in western Germany, in particular in urban areas. Of the country's residents, 18.6 million people (22.5%) were of immigrant or partially immigrant descent in 2016 (including persons descending or partially descending from ethnic German repatriates).[206] In 2015, the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs listed Germany as host to the second-highest number of international migrants worldwide, about 5% or 12 million of all 244 million migrants.[207] As of 2018[update], Germany ranks fifth amongst EU countries in terms of the percentage of migrants in the country's population, at 12.9%.[208]
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+ Germany has a number of large cities. There are 11 officially recognised metropolitan regions. The country's largest city is Berlin, while its largest urban area is the Ruhr.[209]
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+ The 2011 German Census showed Christianity as the largest religion in Germany, with 66.8% identified themselves as Christian, with 3.8% of those not being church members.[210] 31.7% declared themselves as Protestants, including members of the Evangelical Church in Germany (which encompasses Lutheran, Reformed and administrative or confessional unions of both traditions) and the free churches (German: Evangelische Freikirchen); 31.2% declared themselves as Roman Catholics, and Orthodox believers constituted 1.3%. According to data from 2016, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church claimed 28.5% and 27.5%, respectively, of the population.[211][212] Islam is the second largest religion in the country.[213] In the 2011 census, 1.9% of the census population (1.52 million people) gave their religion as Islam, but this figure is deemed unreliable because a disproportionate number of adherents of this religion (and other religions, such as Judaism) are likely to have made use of their right not to answer the question.[214] Most of the Muslims are Sunnis and Alevites from Turkey, but there are a small number of Shi'ites, Ahmadiyyas and other denominations. Other religions comprise less than one percent of Germany's population.[213]
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+ A study in 2018 estimated that 38% of the population are not members of any religious organization or denomination,[215] though up to a third may still consider themselves religious. Irreligion in Germany is strongest in the former East Germany, which used to be predominantly Protestant before state atheism, and in major metropolitan areas.[216][217]
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+ German is the official and predominant spoken language in Germany.[218] It is one of 24 official and working languages of the European Union, and one of the three procedural languages of the European Commission.[219] German is the most widely spoken first language in the European Union, with around 100 million native speakers.[220]
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+ Recognised native minority languages in Germany are Danish, Low German, Low Rhenish, Sorbian, Romany, North Frisian and Saterland Frisian; they are officially protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The most used immigrant languages are Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, Polish, the Balkan languages and Russian. Germans are typically multilingual: 67% of German citizens claim to be able to communicate in at least one foreign language and 27% in at least two.[218]
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+ Responsibility for educational supervision in Germany is primarily organised within the individual federal states. Optional kindergarten education is provided for all children between three and six years old, after which school attendance is compulsory for at least nine years. Primary education usually lasts for four to six years.[221] Secondary schooling is divided into tracks based on whether students pursue academic or vocational education.[222] A system of apprenticeship called Duale Ausbildung leads to a skilled qualification which is almost comparable to an academic degree. It allows students in vocational training to learn in a company as well as in a state-run trade school.[221] This model is well regarded and reproduced all around the world.[223]
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+ Most of the German universities are public institutions, and students traditionally study without fee payment.[224] The general requirement for university is the Abitur. According to an OECD report in 2014, Germany is the world's third leading destination for international study.[225] The established universities in Germany include some of the oldest in the world, with Heidelberg University (established in 1386) being the oldest.[226] The Humboldt University of Berlin, founded in 1810 by the liberal educational reformer Wilhelm von Humboldt, became the academic model for many Western universities.[227][228] In the contemporary era Germany has developed eleven Universities of Excellence.
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+ Germany's system of hospitals, called Krankenhäuser, dates from medieval times, and today, Germany has the world's oldest universal health care system, dating from Bismarck's social legislation of the 1880s.[230] Since the 1880s, reforms and provisions have ensured a balanced health care system. The population is covered by a health insurance plan provided by statute, with criteria allowing some groups to opt for a private health insurance contract. According to the World Health Organization, Germany's health care system was 77% government-funded and 23% privately funded as of 2013[update].[231] In 2014, Germany spent 11.3% of its GDP on health care.[232]
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+ Germany ranked 20th in the world in 2013 in life expectancy with 77 years for men and 82 years for women, and it had a very low infant mortality rate (4 per 1,000 live births). In 2019[update], the principal cause of death was cardiovascular disease, at 37%.[233] Obesity in Germany has been increasingly cited as a major health issue. A 2014 study showed that 52 percent of the adult German population was overweight or obese.[234]
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+ Culture in German states has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically, Germany has been called Das Land der Dichter und Denker ("the land of poets and thinkers"),[235] because of the major role its writers and philosophers have played in the development of Western thought.[236] A global opinion poll for the BBC revealed that Germany is recognised for having the most positive influence in the world in 2013 and 2014.[237][238]
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+ Germany is well known for such folk festival traditions as Oktoberfest and Christmas customs, which include Advent wreaths, Christmas pageants, Christmas trees, Stollen cakes, and other practices.[239][240] As of 2016[update] UNESCO inscribed 41 properties in Germany on the World Heritage List.[241] There are a number of public holidays in Germany determined by each state; 3 October has been a national day of Germany since 1990, celebrated as the Tag der Deutschen Einheit (German Unity Day).[242]
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+ German classical music includes works by some of the world's most well-known composers. Dieterich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel were influential composers of the Baroque period. Ludwig van Beethoven was a crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras. Carl Maria von Weber, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms were significant Romantic composers. Richard Wagner was known for his operas. Richard Strauss was a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. Karlheinz Stockhausen and Wolfgang Rihm are important composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries.[243]
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+ As of 2013, Germany was the second largest music market in Europe, and fourth largest in the world.[244] German popular music of the 20th and 21st centuries includes the movements of Neue Deutsche Welle, pop, Ostrock, heavy metal/rock, punk, pop rock, indie and schlager pop. German electronic music gained global influence, with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream pioneering in this genre.[245] DJs and artists of the techno and house music scenes of Germany have become well known (e.g. Paul van Dyk, Paul Kalkbrenner, and Scooter).[246]
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+ German painters have influenced western art. Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder were important German artists of the Renaissance, Peter Paul Rubens and Johann Baptist Zimmermann of the Baroque, Caspar David Friedrich and Carl Spitzweg of Romanticism, Max Liebermann of Impressionism and Max Ernst of Surrealism. Several German art groups formed in the 20th century; Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) influenced the development of expressionism in Munich and Berlin. The New Objectivity arose in response to expressionism during the Weimar Republic. After World War II, broad trends in German art include neo-expressionism and the New Leipzig School.[247]
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+ Architectural contributions from Germany include the Carolingian and Ottonian styles, which were precursors of Romanesque. Brick Gothic is a distinctive medieval style that evolved in Germany. Also in Renaissance and Baroque art, regional and typically German elements evolved (e.g. Weser Renaissance).[247] Vernacular architecture in Germany is often identified by its timber framing (Fachwerk) traditions and varies across regions, and among carpentry styles.[248] When industrialisation spread across Europe, Classicism and a distinctive style of historism developed in Germany, sometimes referred to as Gründerzeit style. Expressionist architecture developed in the 1910s in Germany and influenced Art Deco and other modern styles. Germany was particularly important in the early modernist movement: it is the home of Werkbund initiated by Hermann Muthesius (New Objectivity), and of the Bauhaus movement founded by Walter Gropius.[247] Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became one of the world's most renowned architects in the second half of the 20th century; he conceived of the glass façade skyscraper.[249] Renowned contemporary architects and offices include Pritzker Prize winners Gottfried Böhm and Frei Otto.[250]
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+ German designers became early leaders of modern product design.[251] The Berlin Fashion Week and the fashion trade fair Bread & Butter are held twice a year.[252]
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+ German literature can be traced back to the Middle Ages and the works of writers such as Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach. Well-known German authors include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Theodor Fontane. The collections of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm popularised German folklore on an international level.[253] The Grimms also gathered and codified regional variants of the German language, grounding their work in historical principles; their Deutsches Wörterbuch, or German Dictionary, sometimes called the Grimm dictionary, was begun in 1838 and the first volumes published in 1854.[254]
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+ Influential authors of the 20th century include Gerhart Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass.[255] The German book market is the third largest in the world, after the United States and China.[256] The Frankfurt Book Fair is the most important in the world for international deals and trading, with a tradition spanning over 500 years.[257] The Leipzig Book Fair also retains a major position in Europe.[258]
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+ German philosophy is historically significant: Gottfried Leibniz's contributions to rationalism; the enlightenment philosophy by Immanuel Kant; the establishment of classical German idealism by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling; Arthur Schopenhauer's composition of metaphysical pessimism; the formulation of communist theory by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Friedrich Nietzsche's development of perspectivism; Gottlob Frege's contributions to the dawn of analytic philosophy; Martin Heidegger's works on Being; Oswald Spengler's historical philosophy; the development of the Frankfurt School has been particularly influential.[259]
164
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+ The largest internationally operating media companies in Germany are the Bertelsmann enterprise, Axel Springer SE and ProSiebenSat.1 Media. Germany's television market is the largest in Europe, with some 38 million TV households.[260] Around 90% of German households have cable or satellite TV, with a variety of free-to-view public and commercial channels.[261] There are more than 300 public and private radio stations in Germany; Germany's national radio network is the Deutschlandradio and the public Deutsche Welle is the main German radio and television broadcaster in foreign languages.[261] Germany's print market of newspapers and magazines is the largest in Europe.[261] The papers with the highest circulation are Bild, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt.[261] The largest magazines include ADAC Motorwelt and Der Spiegel.[261] Germany has a large video gaming market, with over 34 million players nationwide.[262]
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+ German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film. The first works of the Skladanowsky Brothers were shown to an audience in 1895. The renowned Babelsberg Studio in Potsdam was established in 1912, thus being the first large-scale film studio in the world. Early German cinema was particularly influential with German expressionists such as Robert Wiene and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Director Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) is referred to as the first major science-fiction film. After 1945, many of the films of the immediate post-war period can be characterised as Trümmerfilm (rubble film). East German film was dominated by state-owned film studio DEFA, while the dominant genre in West Germany was the Heimatfilm ("homeland film").[263] During the 1970s and 1980s, New German Cinema directors such as Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder brought West German auteur cinema to critical acclaim.
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+ The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film ("Oscar") went to the German production Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) in 1979, to Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) in 2002, and to Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) in 2007. Various Germans won an Oscar for their performances in other films. The annual European Film Awards ceremony is held every other year in Berlin, home of the European Film Academy. The Berlin International Film Festival, known as "Berlinale", awarding the "Golden Bear" and held annually since 1951, is one of the world's leading film festivals. The "Lolas" are annually awarded in Berlin, at the German Film Awards.[264]
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+ German cuisine varies from region to region and often neighbouring regions share some culinary similarities (e.g. the southern regions of Bavaria and Swabia share some traditions with Switzerland and Austria). International varieties such as pizza, sushi, Chinese food, Greek food, Indian cuisine and doner kebab are also popular.
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+ Bread is a significant part of German cuisine and German bakeries produce about 600 main types of bread and 1,200 types of pastries and rolls (Brötchen).[265] German cheeses account for about 22% of all cheese produced in Europe.[266] In 2012 over 99% of all meat produced in Germany was either pork, chicken or beef. Germans produce their ubiquitous sausages in almost 1,500 varieties, including Bratwursts and Weisswursts.[267] Although wine is becoming more popular in many parts of Germany, especially close to German wine regions,[268] the national alcoholic drink is beer. German beer consumption per person stands at 110 litres (24 imp gal; 29 US gal) in 2013 and remains among the highest in the world.[269] German beer purity regulations date back to the 16th century.[270]
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+ The 2018 Michelin Guide awarded eleven restaurants in Germany three stars, giving the country a cumulative total of 300 stars.[271]
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+ Football is the most popular sport in Germany. With more than 7 million official members, the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) is the largest single-sport organisation worldwide,[272] and the German top league, the Bundesliga, attracts the second highest average attendance of all professional sports leagues in the world.[273] The German men's national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974, 1990, and 2014,[274] the UEFA European Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996,[275] and the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2017.[276]
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+ Germany is one of the leading motor sports countries in the world. Constructors like BMW and Mercedes are prominent manufacturers in motor sport. Porsche has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans race 19 times, and Audi 13 times (as of 2017[update]). The driver Michael Schumacher has set many motor sport records during his career, having won seven Formula One World Drivers' Championships.[277] Sebastian Vettel is also among the top five most successful Formula One drivers of all time.[278]
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+ Historically, German athletes have been successful contenders in the Olympic Games, ranking third in an all-time Olympic Games medal count (when combining East and West German medals). Germany was the last country to host both the summer and winter games in the same year, in 1936: the Berlin Summer Games and the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.[279] Munich hosted the Summer Games of 1972.[280]
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+ A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location.
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+ Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks, which consequently break in pieces. Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter, and the resulting fragments and rubble strewn over the desert floor are further eroded by the wind. This picks up particles of sand and dust and wafts them aloft in sand or dust storms. Wind-blown sand grains striking any solid object in their path can abrade the surface. Rocks are smoothed down, and the wind sorts sand into uniform deposits. The grains end up as level sheets of sand or are piled high in billowing sand dunes. Other deserts are flat, stony plains where all the fine material has been blown away and the surface consists of a mosaic of smooth stones. These areas are known as desert pavements, and little further erosion takes place. Other desert features include rock outcrops, exposed bedrock and clays once deposited by flowing water. Temporary lakes may form and salt pans may be left when waters evaporate. There may be underground sources of water, in the form of springs and seepages from aquifers. Where these are found, oases can occur.
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+ Plants and animals living in the desert need special adaptations to survive in the harsh environment. Plants tend to be tough and wiry with small or no leaves, water-resistant cuticles, and often spines to deter herbivory. Some annual plants germinate, bloom and die in the course of a few weeks after rainfall, while other long-lived plants survive for years and have deep root systems able to tap underground moisture. Animals need to keep cool and find enough food and water to survive. Many are nocturnal, and stay in the shade or underground during the heat of the day. They tend to be efficient at conserving water, extracting most of their needs from their food and concentrating their urine. Some animals remain in a state of dormancy for long periods, ready to become active again during the rare rainfall. They then reproduce rapidly while conditions are favorable before returning to dormancy.
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+ People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding semi-arid lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, and oases have provided opportunities for a more settled way of life. The cultivation of semi-arid regions encourages erosion of soil and is one of the causes of increased desertification. Desert farming is possible with the aid of irrigation, and the Imperial Valley in California provides an example of how previously barren land can be made productive by the import of water from an outside source. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, and traditionally were used by caravans of camels carrying salt, gold, ivory and other goods. Large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara[citation needed]. Some mineral extraction also takes place in deserts, and the uninterrupted sunlight gives potential for the capture of large quantities of solar energy.
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+ English desert and its Romance cognates (including Italian and Portuguese deserto, French désert and Spanish desierto) all come from the ecclesiastical Latin dēsertum (originally "an abandoned place"), a participle of dēserere, "to abandon".[1] The correlation between aridity and sparse population is complex and dynamic, varying by culture, era, and technologies; thus the use of the word desert can cause confusion. In English before the 20th century, desert was often used in the sense of "unpopulated area", without specific reference to aridity;[1] but today the word is most often used in its climate-science sense (an area of low precipitation).[2] Phrases such as "desert island"[3] and "Great American Desert", or Shakespeare's "deserts of Bohemia" (The Winter's Tale) in previous centuries did not necessarily imply sand or aridity; their focus was the sparse population.[4]
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+ A desert is a region of land that is very dry because it receives low amounts of precipitation (usually in the form of rain, but it may be snow, mist or fog), often has little coverage by plants, and in which streams dry up unless they are supplied by water from outside the area.[5] Deserts generally receive less than 250 mm (10 in) of precipitation each year.[5] The potential evapotranspiration may be large but (in the absence of available water) the actual evapotranspiration may be close to zero.[6] Semi-deserts are regions which receive between 250 and 500 mm (10 and 20 in) and when clad in grass, these are known as steppes.[7][8]
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+ Deserts have been defined and classified in a number of ways, generally combining total precipitation, number of days on which this falls, temperature, and humidity, and sometimes additional factors.[8] For example, Phoenix, Arizona, receives less than 250 mm (9.8 in) of precipitation per year, and is immediately recognized as being located in a desert because of its aridity-adapted plants. The North Slope of Alaska's Brooks Range also receives less than 250 mm (9.8 in) of precipitation per year and is often classified as a cold desert.[9] Other regions of the world have cold deserts, including areas of the Himalayas[10] and other high-altitude areas in other parts of the world.[11] Polar deserts cover much of the ice-free areas of the Arctic and Antarctic.[12][13] A non-technical definition is that deserts are those parts of the Earth's surface that have insufficient vegetation cover to support a human population.[14]
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+ Potential evapotranspiration supplements the measurement of precipitation in providing a scientific measurement-based definition of a desert. The water budget of an area can be calculated using the formula P − PE ± S, wherein P is precipitation, PE is potential evapotranspiration rates and S is the amount of surface storage of water. Evapotranspiration is the combination of water loss through atmospheric evaporation and through the life processes of plants. Potential evapotranspiration, then, is the amount of water that could evaporate in any given region. As an example, Tucson, Arizona receives about 300 mm (12 in) of rain per year, however about 2,500 mm (98 in) of water could evaporate over the course of a year.[15] In other words, about eight times more water could evaporate from the region than actually falls as rain. Rates of evapotranspiration in cold regions such as Alaska are much lower because of the lack of heat to aid in the evaporation process.[16]
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+ Deserts are sometimes classified as "hot" or "cold", "semiarid" or "coastal".[14] The characteristics of hot deserts include high temperatures in summer; greater evaporation than precipitation, usually exacerbated by high temperatures, strong winds and lack of cloud cover; considerable variation in the occurrence of precipitation, its intensity and distribution; and low humidity. Winter temperatures vary considerably between different deserts and are often related to the location of the desert on the continental landmass and the latitude. Daily variations in temperature can be as great as 22 °C (40 °F) or more, with heat loss by radiation at night being increased by the clear skies.[17]
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+ Cold deserts, sometimes known as temperate deserts, occur at higher latitudes than hot deserts, and the aridity is caused by the dryness of the air. Some cold deserts are far from the ocean and others are separated by mountain ranges from the sea, and in both cases, there is insufficient moisture in the air to cause much precipitation. The largest of these deserts are found in Central Asia. Others occur on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, the eastern side of the southern Andes and in southern Australia.[7] Polar deserts are a particular class of cold desert. The air is very cold and carries little moisture so little precipitation occurs and what does fall, usually snow, is carried along in the often strong wind and may form blizzards, drifts and dunes similar to those caused by dust and sand in other desert regions. In Antarctica, for example, the annual precipitation is about 50 mm (2 in) on the central plateau and some ten times that amount on some major peninsulas.[17]
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+ Based on precipitation alone, hyperarid deserts receive less than 25 mm (1 in) of rainfall a year; they have no annual seasonal cycle of precipitation and experience twelve-month periods with no rainfall at all.[17][18] Arid deserts receive between 25 and 200 mm (1 and 8 in) in a year and semiarid deserts between 200 and 500 mm (8 and 20 in). However, such factors as the temperature, humidity, rate of evaporation and evapotranspiration, and the moisture storage capacity of the ground have a marked effect on the degree of aridity and the plant and animal life that can be sustained. Rain falling in the cold season may be more effective at promoting plant growth, and defining the boundaries of deserts and the semiarid regions that surround them on the grounds of precipitation alone is problematic.[17]
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+ A semi-arid desert or a steppe is a version of the arid desert with much more rainfall, vegetation and higher humidity. These regions feature a semi-arid climate and are less extreme than regular deserts.[19] Like arid deserts, temperatures can vary greatly in semi deserts. They share some characteristics of a true desert and are usually located at the edge of deserts and continental dry areas. They usually receive precipitation from 250 mm (10 in) to 500 mm (20 in) but this can vary due to evapotranspiration and soil nutrition. Semi deserts can be found in the Tabernas Desert (and some of the Spanish Plateau), The Sahel, The Eurasian Steppe, most of Central Asia, the Western US, most of Northern Mexico, portions of South America (especially in Argentina) and the Australian Outback.[20] They usually feature BSh (hot steppe) or BSk (temperate steppe) in the Köppen climate classification.
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+ Coastal deserts are mostly found on the western edges of continental land masses in regions where cold currents approach the land or cold water upwellings rise from the ocean depths. The cool winds crossing this water pick up little moisture and the coastal regions have low temperatures and very low rainfall, the main precipitation being in the form of fog and dew. The range of temperatures on a daily and annual scale is relatively low, being 11 °C (20 °F) and 5 °C (9 °F) respectively in the Atacama Desert. Deserts of this type are often long and narrow and bounded to the east by mountain ranges. They occur in Namibia, Chile, southern California and Baja California. Other coastal deserts influenced by cold currents are found in Western Australia, the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa, and the western fringes of the Sahara.[17]
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+ In 1961, Peveril Meigs divided desert regions on Earth into three categories according to the amount of precipitation they received. In this now widely accepted system, extremely arid lands have at least twelve consecutive months without precipitation, arid lands have less than 250 mm (10 in) of annual precipitation, and semiarid lands have a mean annual precipitation of between 250 and 500 mm (10–20 in). Both extremely arid and arid lands are considered to be deserts while semiarid lands are generally referred to as steppes when they are grasslands.[8]
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+ Deserts are also classified, according to their geographical location and dominant weather pattern, as trade wind, mid-latitude, rain shadow, coastal, monsoon, or polar deserts.[21] Trade wind deserts occur either side of the horse latitudes at 30° to 35° North and South. These belts are associated with the subtropical anticyclone and the large-scale descent of dry air moving from high-altitudes toward the poles. The Sahara Desert is of this type.[22] Mid-latitude deserts occur between 30° and 50° North and South. They are mostly in areas remote from the sea where most of the moisture has already precipitated from the prevailing winds. They include the Tengger and Sonoran Deserts.[21] Monsoon deserts are similar. They occur in regions where large temperature differences occur between sea and land. Moist warm air rises over the land, deposits its water content and circulates back to sea. Further inland, areas receive very little precipitation. The Thar Desert near the India/Pakistan border is of this type.[21]
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+ In some parts of the world, deserts are created by a rain shadow effect. Orographic lift occurs as air masses rise to pass over high ground. In the process they cool and lose much of their moisture by precipitation on the windward slope of the mountain range. When they descend on the leeward side, they warm and their capacity to hold moisture increases so an area with relatively little precipitation occurs.[23] The Taklamakan Desert is an example, lying in the rain shadow of the Himalayas and receiving less than 38 mm (1.5 in) precipitation annually.[24]
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+ Other areas are arid by virtue of being a very long way from the nearest available sources of moisture.[25]
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+ Montane deserts are arid places with a very high altitude; the most prominent example is found north of the Himalayas, in the Kunlun Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. Many locations within this category have elevations exceeding 3,000 m (9,800 ft) and the thermal regime can be hemiboreal. These places owe their profound aridity (the average annual precipitation is often less than 40 mm or 1.5 in) to being very far from the nearest available sources of moisture and are often in the lee of mountain ranges. Montane deserts are normally cold, or may be scorchingly hot by day and very cold by night as is true of the northeastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.[26]
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+ Polar deserts such as McMurdo Dry Valleys remain ice-free because of the dry katabatic winds that flow downhill from the surrounding mountains.[27] Former desert areas presently in non-arid environments, such as the Sandhills in Nebraska, are known as paleodeserts.[21] In the Köppen climate classification system, deserts are classed as BWh (hot desert) or BWk (temperate desert). In the Thornthwaite climate classification system, deserts would be classified as arid megathermal climates.[28][29]
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+ Deserts usually have a large diurnal and seasonal temperature range, with high daytime temperatures falling sharply at night. The diurnal range may be as much as 20 to 30 °C (36 to 54 °F) and the rock surface experiences even greater temperature differentials.[30] During the day the sky is usually clear and most of the sun's radiation reaches the ground, but as soon as the sun sets, the desert cools quickly by radiating heat into space. In hot deserts, the temperature during daytime can exceed 45 °C (113 °F) in summer and plunge below freezing point at night during winter.[31]
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+ Such large temperature variations have a destructive effect on the exposed rocky surfaces. The repeated fluctuations put a strain on exposed rock and the flanks of mountains crack and shatter. Fragmented strata slide down into the valleys where they continue to break into pieces due to the relentless sun by day and chill by night. Successive strata are exposed to further weathering. The relief of the internal pressure that has built up in rocks that have been underground for aeons can cause them to shatter.[32] Exfoliation also occurs when the outer surfaces of rocks split off in flat flakes. This is believed to be caused by the stresses put on the rock by repeated thermal expansions and contractions which induces fracturing parallel to the original surface.[30] Chemical weathering processes probably play a more important role in deserts than was previously thought. The necessary moisture may be present in the form of dew or mist. Ground water may be drawn to the surface by evaporation and the formation of salt crystals may dislodge rock particles as sand or disintegrate rocks by exfoliation. Shallow caves are sometimes formed at the base of cliffs by this means.[30]
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+ As the desert mountains decay, large areas of shattered rock and rubble occur. The process continues and the end products are either dust or sand. Dust is formed from solidified clay or volcanic deposits whereas sand results from the fragmentation of harder granites, limestone and sandstone.[33] There is a certain critical size (about 0.5 mm) below which further temperature-induced weathering of rocks does not occur and this provides a minimum size for sand grains.[34]
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+ As the mountains are eroded, more and more sand is created. At high wind speeds, sand grains are picked up off the surface and blown along, a process known as saltation. The whirling airborne grains act as a sand blasting mechanism which grinds away solid objects in its path as the kinetic energy of the wind is transferred to the ground.[35] The sand eventually ends up deposited in level areas known as sand-fields or sand-seas, or piled up in dunes.[36]
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+ Sand and dust storms are natural events that occur in arid regions where the land is not protected by a covering of vegetation. Dust storms usually start in desert margins rather than the deserts themselves where the finer materials have already been blown away. As a steady wind begins to blow, fine particles lying on the exposed ground begin to vibrate. At greater wind speeds, some particles are lifted into the air stream. When they land, they strike other particles which may be jerked into the air in their turn, starting a chain reaction. Once ejected, these particles move in one of three possible ways, depending on their size, shape and density; suspension, saltation or creep. Suspension is only possible for particles less than 0.1 mm (0.004 in) in diameter. In a dust storm, these fine particles are lifted up and wafted aloft to heights of up to 6 km (3.7 mi). They reduce visibility and can remain in the atmosphere for days on end, conveyed by the trade winds for distances of up to 6,000 km (3,700 mi).[37] Denser clouds of dust can be formed in stronger winds, moving across the land with a billowing leading edge. The sunlight can be obliterated and it may become as dark as night at ground level.[38] In a study of a dust storm in China in 2001, it was estimated that 6.5 million tons of dust were involved, covering an area of 134,000,000 km2 (52,000,000 sq mi). The mean particle size was 1.44 μm.[39] A much smaller scale, short-lived phenomenon can occur in calm conditions when hot air near the ground rises quickly through a small pocket of cooler, low-pressure air above forming a whirling column of particles, a dust devil.[40]
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+ Sandstorms occur with much less frequency than dust storms. They are often preceded by severe dust storms and occur when the wind velocity increases to a point where it can lift heavier particles. These grains of sand, up to about 0.5 mm (0.020 in) in diameter are jerked into the air but soon fall back to earth, ejecting other particles in the process. Their weight prevents them from being airborne for long and most only travel a distance of a few meters (yards). The sand streams along above the surface of the ground like a fluid, often rising to heights of about 30 cm (12 in).[37] In a really severe steady blow, 2 m (6 ft 7 in) is about as high as the sand stream can rise as the largest sand grains do not become airborne at all. They are transported by creep, being rolled along the desert floor or performing short jumps.[38]
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+ During a sandstorm, the wind-blown sand particles become electrically charged. Such electric fields, which range in size up to 80 kV/m, can produce sparks and cause interference with telecommunications equipment. They are also unpleasant for humans and can cause headaches and nausea.[38] The electric fields are caused by the collision between airborne particles and by the impacts of saltating sand grains landing on the ground. The mechanism is little understood but the particles usually have a negative charge when their diameter is under 250 μm and a positive one when they are over 500 μm.[41][42]
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+ Deserts take up about one third of the Earth's land surface.[8]
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+ Bottomlands may be salt-covered flats. Eolian processes are major factors in shaping desert landscapes. Polar deserts (also seen as "cold deserts") have similar features, except the main form of precipitation is snow rather than rain. Antarctica is the world's largest cold desert (composed of about 98% thick continental ice sheet and 2% barren rock). Some of the barren rock is to be found in the so-called Dry Valleys of Antarctica that almost never get snow, which can have ice-encrusted saline lakes that suggest evaporation far greater than the rare snowfall due to the strong katabatic winds that even evaporate ice.
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+ Deserts, both hot and cold, play a part in moderating the Earth's temperature. This is because they reflect more of the incoming light and their albedo is higher than that of forests or the sea.[44]
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+ Many people think of deserts as consisting of extensive areas of billowing sand dunes because that is the way they are often depicted on TV and in films,[45] but deserts do not always look like this.[46] Across the world, around 20% of desert is sand, varying from only 2% in North America to 30% in Australia and over 45% in Central Asia.[47] Where sand does occur, it is usually in large quantities in the form of sand sheets or extensive areas of dunes.[47]
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+ A sand sheet is a near-level, firm expanse of partially consolidated particles in a layer that varies from a few centimeters to a few meters thick. The structure of the sheet consists of thin horizontal layers of coarse silt and very fine to medium grain sand, separated by layers of coarse sand and pea-gravel which are a single grain thick. These larger particles anchor the other particles in place and may also be packed together on the surface so as to form a miniature desert pavement.[48] Small ripples form on the sand sheet when the wind exceeds 24 km/h (15 mph). They form perpendicular to the wind direction and gradually move across the surface as the wind continues to blow. The distance between their crests corresponds to the average length of jumps made by particles during saltation. The ripples are ephemeral and a change in wind direction causes them to reorganise.[49]
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+ Sand dunes are accumulations of windblown sand piled up in mounds or ridges. They form downwind of copious sources of dry, loose sand and occur when topographic and climatic conditions cause airborne particles to settle. As the wind blows, saltation and creep take place on the windward side of the dune and individual grains of sand move uphill. When they reach the crest, they cascade down the far side. The upwind slope typically has a gradient of 10° to 20° while the lee slope is around 32°, the angle at which loose dry sand will slip. As this wind-induced movement of sand grains takes place, the dune moves slowly across the surface of the ground.[50] Dunes are sometimes solitary, but they are more often grouped together in dune fields. When these are extensive, they are known as sand seas or ergs.[51]
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+ The shape of the dune depends on the characteristics of the prevailing wind. Barchan dunes are produced by strong winds blowing across a level surface and are crescent-shaped with the concave side away from the wind. When there are two directions from which winds regularly blow, a series of long, linear dunes known as seif dunes may form. These also occur parallel to a strong wind that blows in one general direction. Transverse dunes run at a right angle to the prevailing wind direction. Star dunes are formed by variable winds, and have several ridges and slip faces radiating from a central point. They tend to grow vertically; they can reach a height of 500 m (1,600 ft), making them the tallest type of dune. Rounded mounds of sand without a slip face are the rare dome dunes, found on the upwind edges of sand seas.[51]
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+ A large part of the surface area of the world's deserts consists of flat, stone-covered plains dominated by wind erosion. In "eolian deflation", the wind continually removes fine-grained material, which becomes wind-blown sand. This exposes coarser-grained material, mainly pebbles with some larger stones or cobbles,[36][47] leaving a desert pavement, an area of land overlaid by closely packed smooth stones forming a tessellated mosaic. Different theories exist as to how exactly the pavement is formed. It may be that after the sand and dust is blown away by the wind the stones jiggle themselves into place; alternatively, stones previously below ground may in some way work themselves to the surface. Very little further erosion takes place after the formation of a pavement, and the ground becomes stable. Evaporation brings moisture to the surface by capillary action and calcium salts may be precipitated, binding particles together to form a desert conglomerate.[52] In time, bacteria that live on the surface of the stones accumulate a film of minerals and clay particles, forming a shiny brown coating known as desert varnish.[53]
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+ Other non-sandy deserts consist of exposed outcrops of bedrock, dry soils or aridisols, and a variety of landforms affected by flowing water, such as alluvial fans, sinks or playas, temporary or permanent lakes, and oases.[47] A hamada is a type of desert landscape consisting of a high rocky plateau where the sand has been removed by aeolian processes. Other landforms include plains largely covered by gravels and angular boulders, from which the finer particles have been stripped by the wind. These are called "reg" in the western Sahara, "serir" in the eastern Sahara, "gibber plains" in Australia and "saï" in central Asia.[54] The Tassili Plateau in Algeria is an impressive jumble of eroded sandstone outcrops, canyons, blocks, pinnacles, fissures, slabs and ravines. In some places the wind has carved holes or arches, and in others, it has created mushroom-like pillars narrower at the base than the top.[55] In the Colorado Plateau it is water that has been the eroding force. Here the Colorado River has cut its way over the millennia through the high desert floor creating a canyon that is over a mile (6,000 feet or 1,800 meters) deep in places, exposing strata that are over two billion years old.[56]
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+ One of the driest places on Earth is the Atacama Desert.[57][58][59][60][61] It is virtually devoid of life because it is blocked from receiving precipitation by the Andes mountains to the east and the Chilean Coast Range to the west. The cold Humboldt Current and the anticyclone of the Pacific are essential to keep the dry climate of the Atacama. The average precipitation in the Chilean region of Antofagasta is just 1 mm (0.039 in) per year. Some weather stations in the Atacama have never received rain. Evidence suggests that the Atacama may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971. It is so arid that mountains that reach as high as 6,885 m (22,589 ft) are completely free of glaciers and, in the southern part from 25°S to 27°S, may have been glacier-free throughout the Quaternary, though permafrost extends down to an altitude of 4,400 m (14,400 ft) and is continuous above 5,600 m (18,400 ft).[62][63] Nevertheless, there is some plant life in the Atacama, in the form of specialist plants that obtain moisture from dew and the fogs that blow in from the Pacific.[57]
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+ When rain falls in deserts, as it occasionally does, it is often with great violence. The desert surface is evidence of this with dry stream channels known as arroyos or wadis meandering across its surface. These can experience flash floods, becoming raging torrents with surprising rapidity after a storm that may be many kilometers away. Most deserts are in basins with no drainage to the sea but some are crossed by exotic rivers sourced in mountain ranges or other high rainfall areas beyond their borders. The River Nile, the Colorado River and the Yellow River do this, losing much of their water through evaporation as they pass through the desert and raising groundwater levels nearby. There may also be underground sources of water in deserts in the form of springs, aquifers, underground rivers or lakes. Where these lie close to the surface, wells can be dug and oases may form where plant and animal life can flourish.[47] The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System under the Sahara Desert is the largest known accumulation of fossil water. The Great Man-Made River is a scheme launched by Libya's Muammar Gadaffi to tap this aquifer and supply water to coastal cities.[64] Kharga Oasis in Egypt is 150 km (93 mi) long and is the largest oasis in the Libyan Desert. A lake occupied this depression in ancient times and thick deposits of sandy-clay resulted. Wells are dug to extract water from the porous sandstone that lies underneath.[65] Seepages may occur in the walls of canyons and pools may survive in deep shade near the dried up watercourse below.[66]
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+ Lakes may form in basins where there is sufficient precipitation or meltwater from glaciers above. They are usually shallow and saline, and wind blowing over their surface can cause stress, moving the water over nearby low-lying areas. When the lakes dry up, they leave a crust or hardpan behind. This area of deposited clay, silt or sand is known as a playa. The deserts of North America have more than one hundred playas, many of them relics of Lake Bonneville which covered parts of Utah, Nevada and Idaho during the last ice age when the climate was colder and wetter.[67] These include the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Sevier Lake and many dry lake beds. The smooth flat surfaces of playas have been used for attempted vehicle speed records at Black Rock Desert and Bonneville Speedway and the United States Air Force uses Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert as runways for aircraft and the space shuttle.[47]
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+ Plants face severe challenges in arid environments. Problems they need to solve include how to obtain enough water, how to avoid being eaten and how to reproduce. Photosynthesis is the key to plant growth. It can only take place during the day as energy from the sun is required, but during the day, many deserts become very hot. Opening stomata to allow in the carbon dioxide necessary for the process causes evapotranspiration, and conservation of water is a top priority for desert vegetation. Some plants have resolved this problem by adopting crassulacean acid metabolism, allowing them to open their stomata during the night to allow CO2 to enter, and close them during the day,[68] or by using C4 carbon fixation.[69]
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+ Many desert plants have reduced the size of their leaves or abandoned them altogether. Cacti are desert specialists, and in most species, the leaves have been dispensed with and the chlorophyll displaced into the trunks, the cellular structure of which has been modified to allow them to store water. When rain falls, the water is rapidly absorbed by the shallow roots and retained to allow them to survive until the next downpour, which may be months or years away.[70] The giant saguaro cacti of the Sonoran Desert form "forests", providing shade for other plants and nesting places for desert birds. Saguaro grows slowly but may live for up to two hundred years. The surface of the trunk is folded like a concertina, allowing it to expand, and a large specimen can hold eight tons of water after a good downpour.[70]
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+ Cacti are present in both North and South America with a post-Gondwana origin. Other xerophytic plants have developed similar strategies by a process known as convergent evolution.[71] They limit water loss by reducing the size and number of stomata, by having waxy coatings and hairy or tiny leaves. Some are deciduous, shedding their leaves in the driest season, and others curl their leaves up to reduce transpiration. Others store water in succulent leaves or stems or in fleshy tubers. Desert plants maximize water uptake by having shallow roots that spread widely, or by developing long taproots that reach down to deep rock strata for ground water.[72] The saltbush in Australia has succulent leaves and secretes salt crystals, enabling it to live in saline areas.[72][73] In common with cacti, many have developed spines to ward off browsing animals.[70]
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+ Some desert plants produce seed which lies dormant in the soil until sparked into growth by rainfall. With annuals, such plants grow with great rapidity and may flower and set seed within weeks, aiming to complete their development before the last vestige of water dries up. For perennial plants, reproduction is more likely to be successful if the seed germinates in a shaded position, but not so close to the parent plant as to be in competition with it. Some seed will not germinate until it has been blown about on the desert floor to scarify the seed coat. The seed of the mesquite tree, which grows in deserts in the Americas, is hard and fails to sprout even when planted carefully. When it has passed through the gut of a pronghorn it germinates readily, and the little pile of moist dung provides an excellent start to life well away from the parent tree.[70] The stems and leaves of some plants lower the surface velocity of sand-carrying winds and protect the ground from erosion. Even small fungi and microscopic plant organisms found on the soil surface (so-called cryptobiotic soil) can be a vital link in preventing erosion and providing support for other living organisms. Cold deserts often have high concentrations of salt in the soil. Grasses and low shrubs are the dominant vegetation here and the ground may be covered with lichens. Most shrubs have spiny leaves and shed them in the coldest part of the year.[74]
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+ Animals adapted to live in deserts are called xerocoles. There is no evidence that body temperature of mammals and birds is adaptive to the different climates, either of great heat or cold. In fact, with a very few exceptions, their basal metabolic rate is determined by body size, irrespective of the climate in which they live.[75] Many desert animals (and plants) show especially clear evolutionary adaptations for water conservation or heat tolerance and so are often studied in comparative physiology, ecophysiology, and evolutionary physiology. One well-studied example is the specializations of mammalian kidneys shown by desert-inhabiting species.[76] Many examples of convergent evolution have been identified in desert organisms, including between cacti and Euphorbia, kangaroo rats and jerboas, Phrynosoma and Moloch lizards.[77]
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+ Deserts present a very challenging environment for animals. Not only do they require food and water but they also need to keep their body temperature at a tolerable level. In many ways, birds are the ablest to do this of the higher animals. They can move to areas of greater food availability as the desert blooms after local rainfall and can fly to faraway waterholes. In hot deserts, gliding birds can remove themselves from the over-heated desert floor by using thermals to soar in the cooler air at great heights. In order to conserve energy, other desert birds run rather than fly. The cream-colored courser flits gracefully across the ground on its long legs, stopping periodically to snatch up insects. Like other desert birds, it is well-camouflaged by its coloring and can merge into the landscape when stationary. The sandgrouse is an expert at this and nests on the open desert floor dozens of kilometers (miles) away from the waterhole it needs to visit daily. Some small diurnal birds are found in very restricted localities where their plumage matches the color of the underlying surface. The desert lark takes frequent dust baths which ensures that it matches its environment.[78]
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+ Water and carbon dioxide are metabolic end products of oxidation of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.[79] Oxidising a gram of carbohydrate produces 0.60 grams of water; a gram of protein produces 0.41 grams of water; and a gram of fat produces 1.07 grams of water,[80] making it possible for xerocoles to live with little or no access to drinking water.[81] The kangaroo rat for example makes use of this water of metabolism and conserves water both by having a low basal metabolic rate and by remaining underground during the heat of the day,[82] reducing loss of water through its skin and respiratory system when at rest.[81][83] Herbivorous mammals obtain moisture from the plants they eat. Species such as the addax antelope,[84] dik-dik, Grant's gazelle and oryx are so efficient at doing this that they apparently never need to drink.[85] The camel is a superb example of a mammal adapted to desert life. It minimizes its water loss by producing concentrated urine and dry dung, and is able to lose 40% of its body weight through water loss without dying of dehydration.[86] Carnivores can obtain much of their water needs from the body fluids of their prey.[87] Many other hot desert animals are nocturnal, seeking out shade during the day or dwelling underground in burrows. At depths of more than 50 cm (20 in), these remain at between 30 to 32 °C (86 to 90 °F) regardless of the external temperature.[87] Jerboas, desert rats, kangaroo rats and other small rodents emerge from their burrows at night and so do the foxes, coyotes, jackals and snakes that prey on them. Kangaroos keep cool by increasing their respiration rate, panting, sweating and moistening the skin of their forelegs with saliva.[88] Mammals living in cold deserts have developed greater insulation through warmer body fur and insulating layers of fat beneath the skin. The arctic weasel has a metabolic rate that is two or three times as high as would be expected for an animal of its size. Birds have avoided the problem of losing heat through their feet by not attempting to maintain them at the same temperature as the rest of their bodies, a form of adaptive insulation.[75] The emperor penguin has dense plumage, a downy under layer, an air insulation layer next the skin and various thermoregulatory strategies to maintain its body temperature in one of the harshest environments on Earth.[89]
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+ Being ectotherms, reptiles are unable to live in cold deserts but are well-suited to hot ones. In the heat of the day in the Sahara, the temperature can rise to 50 °C (122 °F). Reptiles cannot survive at this temperature and lizards will be prostrated by heat at 45 °C (113 °F). They have few adaptations to desert life and are unable to cool themselves by sweating so they shelter during the heat of the day. In the first part of the night, as the ground radiates the heat absorbed during the day, they emerge and search for prey. Lizards and snakes are the most numerous in arid regions and certain snakes have developed a novel method of locomotion that enables them to move sidewards and navigate high sand-dunes. These include the horned viper of Africa and the sidewinder of North America, evolutionarily distinct but with similar behavioural patterns because of convergent evolution. Many desert reptiles are ambush predators and often bury themselves in the sand, waiting for prey to come within range.[90]
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+ Amphibians might seem unlikely desert-dwellers, because of their need to keep their skins moist and their dependence on water for reproductive purposes. In fact, the few species that are found in this habitat have made some remarkable adaptations. Most of them are fossorial, spending the hot dry months aestivating in deep burrows. While there they shed their skins a number of times and retain the remnants around them as a waterproof cocoon to retain moisture. In the Sonoran Desert, Couch's spadefoot toad spends most of the year dormant in its burrow. Heavy rain is the trigger for emergence and the first male to find a suitable pool calls to attract others. Eggs are laid and the tadpoles grow rapidly as they must reach metamorphosis before the water evaporates. As the desert dries out, the adult toads rebury themselves. The juveniles stay on the surface for a while, feeding and growing, but soon dig themselves burrows. Few make it to adulthood.[91] The water holding frog in Australia has a similar life cycle and may aestivate for as long as five years if no rain falls.[92] The Desert rain frog of Namibia is nocturnal and survives because of the damp sea fogs that roll in from the Atlantic.[93]
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+ Invertebrates, particularly arthropods, have successfully made their homes in the desert. Flies, beetles, ants, termites, locusts, millipedes, scorpions and spiders[94] have hard cuticles which are impervious to water and many of them lay their eggs underground and their young develop away from the temperature extremes at the surface.[95] The Saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina) uses a heat shock protein in a novel way and forages in the open during brief forays in the heat of the day.[96] The long-legged darkling beetle in Namibia stands on its front legs and raises its carapace to catch the morning mist as condensate, funnelling the water into its mouth.[97] Some arthropods make use of the ephemeral pools that form after rain and complete their life cycle in a matter of days. The desert shrimp does this, appearing "miraculously" in new-formed puddles as the dormant eggs hatch. Others, such as brine shrimps, fairy shrimps and tadpole shrimps, are cryptobiotic and can lose up to 92% of their bodyweight, rehydrating as soon as it rains and their temporary pools reappear.[98]
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+ Humans have long made use of deserts as places to live,[99] and more recently have started to exploit them for minerals[100] and energy capture.[101] Deserts play a significant role in human culture with an extensive literature.[102]
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+ People have been living in deserts for millennia. Many, such as the Bushmen in the Kalahari, the Aborigines in Australia and various tribes of North American Indians, were originally hunter-gatherers. They developed skills in the manufacture and use of weapons, animal tracking, finding water, foraging for edible plants and using the things they found in their natural environment to supply their everyday needs. Their self-sufficient skills and knowledge were passed down through the generations by word of mouth.[99] Other cultures developed a nomadic way of life as herders of sheep, goats, cattle, camels, yaks, llamas or reindeer. They travelled over large areas with their herds, moving to new pastures as seasonal and erratic rainfall encouraged new plant growth. They took with them their tents made of cloth or skins draped over poles and their diet included milk, blood and sometimes meat.[103]
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+ The desert nomads were also traders. The Sahara is a very large expanse of land stretching from the Atlantic rim to Egypt. Trade routes were developed linking the Sahel in the south with the fertile Mediterranean region to the north and large numbers of camels were used to carry valuable goods across the desert interior. The Tuareg were traders and the goods transported traditionally included slaves, ivory and gold going northwards and salt going southwards. Berbers with knowledge of the region were employed to guide the caravans between the various oases and wells.[104] Several million slaves may have been taken northwards across the Sahara between the 8th and 18th centuries.[105] Traditional means of overland transport declined with the advent of motor vehicles, shipping and air freight, but caravans still travel along routes between Agadez and Bilma and between Timbuktu and Taoudenni carrying salt from the interior to desert-edge communities.[106]
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+ Round the rims of deserts, where more precipitation occurred and conditions were more suitable, some groups took to cultivating crops. This may have happened when drought caused the death of herd animals, forcing herdsmen to turn to cultivation. With few inputs, they were at the mercy of the weather and may have lived at bare subsistence level. The land they cultivated reduced the area available to nomadic herders, causing disputes over land. The semi-arid fringes of the desert have fragile soils which are at risk of erosion when exposed, as happened in the American Dust Bowl in the 1930s. The grasses that held the soil in place were ploughed under, and a series of dry years caused crop failures, while enormous dust storms blew the topsoil away. Half a million Americans were forced to leave their land in this catastrophe.[107]
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+ Similar damage is being done today to the semi-arid areas that rim deserts and about twelve million hectares of land are being turned to desert each year.[108] Desertification is caused by such factors as drought, climatic shifts, tillage for agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation. Vegetation plays a major role in determining the composition of the soil. In many environments, the rate of erosion and run off increases dramatically with reduced vegetation cover.[109]
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+ Deserts contain substantial mineral resources, sometimes over their entire surface, giving them their characteristic colors. For example, the red of many sand deserts comes from laterite minerals.[110] Geological processes in a desert climate can concentrate minerals into valuable deposits. Leaching by ground water can extract ore minerals and redeposit them, according to the water table, in concentrated form.[100] Similarly, evaporation tends to concentrate minerals in desert lakes, creating dry lake beds or playas rich in minerals. Evaporation can concentrate minerals as a variety of evaporite deposits, including gypsum, sodium nitrate, sodium chloride and borates.[100] Evaporites are found in the USA's Great Basin Desert, historically exploited by the "20-mule teams" pulling carts of borax from Death Valley to the nearest railway.[100] A desert especially rich in mineral salts is the Atacama Desert, Chile, where sodium nitrate has been mined for explosives and fertilizer since around 1850.[100] Other desert minerals are copper from Chile, Peru, and Iran, and iron and uranium in Australia. Many other metals, salts and commercially valuable types of rock such as pumice are extracted from deserts around the world.[100]
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+ Oil and gas form on the bottom of shallow seas when micro-organisms decompose under anoxic conditions and later become covered with sediment. Many deserts were at one time the sites of shallow seas and others have had underlying hydrocarbon deposits transported to them by the movement of tectonic plates.[111]
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+ Some major oilfields such as Ghawar are found under the sands of Saudi Arabia.[100] Geologists believe that other oil deposits were formed by aeolian processes in ancient deserts as may be the case with some of the major American oil fields.[100]
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+ Traditional desert farming systems have long been established in North Africa, irrigation being the key to success in an area where water stress is a limiting factor to growth. Techniques that can be used include drip irrigation, the use of organic residues or animal manures as fertilisers and other traditional agricultural management practices. Once fertility has been built up, further crop production preserves the soil from destruction by wind and other forms of erosion.[112] It has been found that plant growth-promoting bacteria play a role in increasing the resistance of plants to stress conditions and these rhizobacterial suspensions could be inoculated into the soil in the vicinity of the plants. A study of these microbes found that desert farming hampers desertification by establishing islands of fertility allowing farmers to achieve increased yields despite the adverse environmental conditions.[112] A field trial in the Sonoran Desert which exposed the roots of different species of tree to rhizobacteria and the nitrogen fixing bacterium Azospirillum brasilense with the aim of restoring degraded lands was only partially successful.[112]
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+ The Judean Desert was farmed in the 7th century BC during the Iron Age to supply food for desert forts.[113] Native Americans in the south western United States became agriculturalists around 600 AD when seeds and technologies became available from Mexico. They used terracing techniques and grew gardens beside seeps, in moist areas at the foot of dunes, near streams providing flood irrigation and in areas irrigated by extensive specially built canals. The Hohokam tribe constructed over 500 miles (800 km) of large canals and maintained them for centuries, an impressive feat of engineering. They grew maize, beans, squash and peppers.[114]
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+ A modern example of desert farming is the Imperial Valley in California, which has high temperatures and average rainfall of just 3 in (76 mm) per year.[115] The economy is heavily based on agriculture and the land is irrigated through a network of canals and pipelines sourced entirely from the Colorado River via the All-American Canal. The soil is deep and fertile, being part of the river's flood plains, and what would otherwise have been desert has been transformed into one of the most productive farming regions in California. Other water from the river is piped to urban communities but all this has been at the expense of the river, which below the extraction sites no longer has any above-ground flow during most of the year. Another problem of growing crops in this way is the build-up of salinity in the soil caused by the evaporation of river water.[116] The greening of the desert remains an aspiration and was at one time viewed as a future means for increasing food production for the world's growing population. This prospect has proved false as it disregarded the environmental damage caused elsewhere by the diversion of water for desert project irrigation.[117]
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+ Deserts are increasingly seen as sources for solar energy, partly due to low amounts of cloud cover. Many solar power plants have been built in the Mojave Desert such as the Solar Energy Generating Systems and Ivanpah Solar Power Facility.[118] Large swaths of this desert are covered in mirrors.[119]
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+ The potential for generating solar energy from the Sahara Desert is huge, the highest found on the globe. Professor David Faiman of Ben-Gurion University has stated that the technology now exists to supply all of the world's electricity needs from 10% of the Sahara Desert.[120] Desertec Industrial Initiative was a consortium seeking $560 billion to invest in North African solar and wind installations over the next forty years to supply electricity to Europe via cable lines running under the Mediterranean Sea. European interest in the Sahara Desert stems from its two aspects: the almost continual daytime sunshine and plenty of unused land. The Sahara receives more sunshine per acre than any part of Europe. The Sahara Desert also has the empty space totalling hundreds of square miles required to house fields of mirrors for solar plants.[121]
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+ The Negev Desert, Israel, and the surrounding area, including the Arava Valley, receive plenty of sunshine and are generally not arable. This has resulted in the construction of many solar plants.[101] David Faiman has proposed that "giant" solar plants in the Negev could supply all of Israel's needs for electricity.[120]
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+ The Arabs were probably the first organized force to conduct successful battles in the desert. By knowing back routes and the locations of oases and by utilizing camels, Muslim Arab forces were able to successfully overcome both Roman and Persian forces in the period 600 to 700 AD during the expansion of the Islamic caliphate.[122]
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+ Many centuries later, both world wars saw fighting in the desert. In the First World War, the Ottoman Turks were engaged with the British regular army in a campaign that spanned the Arabian peninsula. The Turks were defeated by the British, who had the backing of irregular Arab forces that were seeking to revolt against the Turks in the Hejaz, made famous in T.E. Lawrence's book Seven Pillars of Wisdom.[123][124]
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+ In the Second World War, the Western Desert Campaign began in Italian Libya. Warfare in the desert offered great scope for tacticians to use the large open spaces without the distractions of casualties among civilian populations. Tanks and armoured vehicles were able to travel large distances unimpeded and land mines were laid in large numbers. However, the size and harshness of the terrain meant that all supplies needed to be brought in from great distances. The victors in a battle would advance and their supply chain would necessarily become longer, while the defeated army could retreat, regroup and resupply. For these reasons, the front line moved back and forth through hundreds of kilometers as each side lost and regained momentum.[125] Its most easterly point was at El Alamein in Egypt, where the Allies decisively defeated the Axis forces in 1942.[126]
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+ The desert is generally thought of as a barren and empty landscape. It has been portrayed by writers, film-makers, philosophers, artists and critics as a place of extremes, a metaphor for anything from death, war or religion to the primitive past or the desolate future.[127]
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+ There is an extensive literature on the subject of deserts.[102] An early historical account is that of Marco Polo (c. 1254–1324), who travelled through Central Asia to China, crossing a number of deserts in his twenty four year trek.[128] Some accounts give vivid descriptions of desert conditions, though often accounts of journeys across deserts are interwoven with reflection, as is the case in Charles Montagu Doughty's major work, Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888).[129] Antoine de Saint-Exupéry described both his flying and the desert in Wind, Sand and Stars[130] and Gertrude Bell travelled extensively in the Arabian desert in the early part of the 20th century, becoming an expert on the subject, writing books and advising the British government on dealing with the Arabs.[131] Another woman explorer was Freya Stark who travelled alone in the Middle East, visiting Turkey, Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Persia and Afghanistan, writing over twenty books on her experiences.[132] The German naturalist Uwe George spent several years living in deserts, recording his experiences and research in his book, In the Deserts of this Earth.[133]
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+ The American poet Robert Frost expressed his bleak thoughts in his poem, Desert Places, which ends with the stanza "They cannot scare me with their empty spaces / Between stars – on stars where no human race is. / I have it in me so much nearer home / To scare myself with my own desert places."[134]
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+ Mars is the only other planet in the Solar System besides Earth on which deserts have been identified.[135] Despite its low surface atmospheric pressure (only 1/100 of that of the Earth), the patterns of atmospheric circulation on Mars have formed a sea of circumpolar sand more than 5 million km2 (1.9 million sq mi) in the area, larger than most deserts on Earth. The Martian deserts principally consist of dunes in the form of half-moons in flat areas near the permanent polar ice caps in the north of the planet. The smaller dune fields occupy the bottom of many of the craters situated in the Martian polar regions.[136] Examination of the surface of rocks by laser beamed from the Mars Exploration Rover have shown a surface film that resembles the desert varnish found on Earth although it might just be surface dust.[137] The surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn, also has a desert-like surface with dune seas.[138]
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+ A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location.
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+ Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks, which consequently break in pieces. Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter, and the resulting fragments and rubble strewn over the desert floor are further eroded by the wind. This picks up particles of sand and dust and wafts them aloft in sand or dust storms. Wind-blown sand grains striking any solid object in their path can abrade the surface. Rocks are smoothed down, and the wind sorts sand into uniform deposits. The grains end up as level sheets of sand or are piled high in billowing sand dunes. Other deserts are flat, stony plains where all the fine material has been blown away and the surface consists of a mosaic of smooth stones. These areas are known as desert pavements, and little further erosion takes place. Other desert features include rock outcrops, exposed bedrock and clays once deposited by flowing water. Temporary lakes may form and salt pans may be left when waters evaporate. There may be underground sources of water, in the form of springs and seepages from aquifers. Where these are found, oases can occur.
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+ Plants and animals living in the desert need special adaptations to survive in the harsh environment. Plants tend to be tough and wiry with small or no leaves, water-resistant cuticles, and often spines to deter herbivory. Some annual plants germinate, bloom and die in the course of a few weeks after rainfall, while other long-lived plants survive for years and have deep root systems able to tap underground moisture. Animals need to keep cool and find enough food and water to survive. Many are nocturnal, and stay in the shade or underground during the heat of the day. They tend to be efficient at conserving water, extracting most of their needs from their food and concentrating their urine. Some animals remain in a state of dormancy for long periods, ready to become active again during the rare rainfall. They then reproduce rapidly while conditions are favorable before returning to dormancy.
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+ People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding semi-arid lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, and oases have provided opportunities for a more settled way of life. The cultivation of semi-arid regions encourages erosion of soil and is one of the causes of increased desertification. Desert farming is possible with the aid of irrigation, and the Imperial Valley in California provides an example of how previously barren land can be made productive by the import of water from an outside source. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, and traditionally were used by caravans of camels carrying salt, gold, ivory and other goods. Large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara[citation needed]. Some mineral extraction also takes place in deserts, and the uninterrupted sunlight gives potential for the capture of large quantities of solar energy.
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+ English desert and its Romance cognates (including Italian and Portuguese deserto, French désert and Spanish desierto) all come from the ecclesiastical Latin dēsertum (originally "an abandoned place"), a participle of dēserere, "to abandon".[1] The correlation between aridity and sparse population is complex and dynamic, varying by culture, era, and technologies; thus the use of the word desert can cause confusion. In English before the 20th century, desert was often used in the sense of "unpopulated area", without specific reference to aridity;[1] but today the word is most often used in its climate-science sense (an area of low precipitation).[2] Phrases such as "desert island"[3] and "Great American Desert", or Shakespeare's "deserts of Bohemia" (The Winter's Tale) in previous centuries did not necessarily imply sand or aridity; their focus was the sparse population.[4]
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+ A desert is a region of land that is very dry because it receives low amounts of precipitation (usually in the form of rain, but it may be snow, mist or fog), often has little coverage by plants, and in which streams dry up unless they are supplied by water from outside the area.[5] Deserts generally receive less than 250 mm (10 in) of precipitation each year.[5] The potential evapotranspiration may be large but (in the absence of available water) the actual evapotranspiration may be close to zero.[6] Semi-deserts are regions which receive between 250 and 500 mm (10 and 20 in) and when clad in grass, these are known as steppes.[7][8]
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+ Deserts have been defined and classified in a number of ways, generally combining total precipitation, number of days on which this falls, temperature, and humidity, and sometimes additional factors.[8] For example, Phoenix, Arizona, receives less than 250 mm (9.8 in) of precipitation per year, and is immediately recognized as being located in a desert because of its aridity-adapted plants. The North Slope of Alaska's Brooks Range also receives less than 250 mm (9.8 in) of precipitation per year and is often classified as a cold desert.[9] Other regions of the world have cold deserts, including areas of the Himalayas[10] and other high-altitude areas in other parts of the world.[11] Polar deserts cover much of the ice-free areas of the Arctic and Antarctic.[12][13] A non-technical definition is that deserts are those parts of the Earth's surface that have insufficient vegetation cover to support a human population.[14]
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+ Potential evapotranspiration supplements the measurement of precipitation in providing a scientific measurement-based definition of a desert. The water budget of an area can be calculated using the formula P − PE ± S, wherein P is precipitation, PE is potential evapotranspiration rates and S is the amount of surface storage of water. Evapotranspiration is the combination of water loss through atmospheric evaporation and through the life processes of plants. Potential evapotranspiration, then, is the amount of water that could evaporate in any given region. As an example, Tucson, Arizona receives about 300 mm (12 in) of rain per year, however about 2,500 mm (98 in) of water could evaporate over the course of a year.[15] In other words, about eight times more water could evaporate from the region than actually falls as rain. Rates of evapotranspiration in cold regions such as Alaska are much lower because of the lack of heat to aid in the evaporation process.[16]
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+ Deserts are sometimes classified as "hot" or "cold", "semiarid" or "coastal".[14] The characteristics of hot deserts include high temperatures in summer; greater evaporation than precipitation, usually exacerbated by high temperatures, strong winds and lack of cloud cover; considerable variation in the occurrence of precipitation, its intensity and distribution; and low humidity. Winter temperatures vary considerably between different deserts and are often related to the location of the desert on the continental landmass and the latitude. Daily variations in temperature can be as great as 22 °C (40 °F) or more, with heat loss by radiation at night being increased by the clear skies.[17]
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+ Cold deserts, sometimes known as temperate deserts, occur at higher latitudes than hot deserts, and the aridity is caused by the dryness of the air. Some cold deserts are far from the ocean and others are separated by mountain ranges from the sea, and in both cases, there is insufficient moisture in the air to cause much precipitation. The largest of these deserts are found in Central Asia. Others occur on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, the eastern side of the southern Andes and in southern Australia.[7] Polar deserts are a particular class of cold desert. The air is very cold and carries little moisture so little precipitation occurs and what does fall, usually snow, is carried along in the often strong wind and may form blizzards, drifts and dunes similar to those caused by dust and sand in other desert regions. In Antarctica, for example, the annual precipitation is about 50 mm (2 in) on the central plateau and some ten times that amount on some major peninsulas.[17]
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+ Based on precipitation alone, hyperarid deserts receive less than 25 mm (1 in) of rainfall a year; they have no annual seasonal cycle of precipitation and experience twelve-month periods with no rainfall at all.[17][18] Arid deserts receive between 25 and 200 mm (1 and 8 in) in a year and semiarid deserts between 200 and 500 mm (8 and 20 in). However, such factors as the temperature, humidity, rate of evaporation and evapotranspiration, and the moisture storage capacity of the ground have a marked effect on the degree of aridity and the plant and animal life that can be sustained. Rain falling in the cold season may be more effective at promoting plant growth, and defining the boundaries of deserts and the semiarid regions that surround them on the grounds of precipitation alone is problematic.[17]
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+ A semi-arid desert or a steppe is a version of the arid desert with much more rainfall, vegetation and higher humidity. These regions feature a semi-arid climate and are less extreme than regular deserts.[19] Like arid deserts, temperatures can vary greatly in semi deserts. They share some characteristics of a true desert and are usually located at the edge of deserts and continental dry areas. They usually receive precipitation from 250 mm (10 in) to 500 mm (20 in) but this can vary due to evapotranspiration and soil nutrition. Semi deserts can be found in the Tabernas Desert (and some of the Spanish Plateau), The Sahel, The Eurasian Steppe, most of Central Asia, the Western US, most of Northern Mexico, portions of South America (especially in Argentina) and the Australian Outback.[20] They usually feature BSh (hot steppe) or BSk (temperate steppe) in the Köppen climate classification.
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+ Coastal deserts are mostly found on the western edges of continental land masses in regions where cold currents approach the land or cold water upwellings rise from the ocean depths. The cool winds crossing this water pick up little moisture and the coastal regions have low temperatures and very low rainfall, the main precipitation being in the form of fog and dew. The range of temperatures on a daily and annual scale is relatively low, being 11 °C (20 °F) and 5 °C (9 °F) respectively in the Atacama Desert. Deserts of this type are often long and narrow and bounded to the east by mountain ranges. They occur in Namibia, Chile, southern California and Baja California. Other coastal deserts influenced by cold currents are found in Western Australia, the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa, and the western fringes of the Sahara.[17]
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+ In 1961, Peveril Meigs divided desert regions on Earth into three categories according to the amount of precipitation they received. In this now widely accepted system, extremely arid lands have at least twelve consecutive months without precipitation, arid lands have less than 250 mm (10 in) of annual precipitation, and semiarid lands have a mean annual precipitation of between 250 and 500 mm (10–20 in). Both extremely arid and arid lands are considered to be deserts while semiarid lands are generally referred to as steppes when they are grasslands.[8]
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+ Deserts are also classified, according to their geographical location and dominant weather pattern, as trade wind, mid-latitude, rain shadow, coastal, monsoon, or polar deserts.[21] Trade wind deserts occur either side of the horse latitudes at 30° to 35° North and South. These belts are associated with the subtropical anticyclone and the large-scale descent of dry air moving from high-altitudes toward the poles. The Sahara Desert is of this type.[22] Mid-latitude deserts occur between 30° and 50° North and South. They are mostly in areas remote from the sea where most of the moisture has already precipitated from the prevailing winds. They include the Tengger and Sonoran Deserts.[21] Monsoon deserts are similar. They occur in regions where large temperature differences occur between sea and land. Moist warm air rises over the land, deposits its water content and circulates back to sea. Further inland, areas receive very little precipitation. The Thar Desert near the India/Pakistan border is of this type.[21]
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+ In some parts of the world, deserts are created by a rain shadow effect. Orographic lift occurs as air masses rise to pass over high ground. In the process they cool and lose much of their moisture by precipitation on the windward slope of the mountain range. When they descend on the leeward side, they warm and their capacity to hold moisture increases so an area with relatively little precipitation occurs.[23] The Taklamakan Desert is an example, lying in the rain shadow of the Himalayas and receiving less than 38 mm (1.5 in) precipitation annually.[24]
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+ Other areas are arid by virtue of being a very long way from the nearest available sources of moisture.[25]
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+ Montane deserts are arid places with a very high altitude; the most prominent example is found north of the Himalayas, in the Kunlun Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. Many locations within this category have elevations exceeding 3,000 m (9,800 ft) and the thermal regime can be hemiboreal. These places owe their profound aridity (the average annual precipitation is often less than 40 mm or 1.5 in) to being very far from the nearest available sources of moisture and are often in the lee of mountain ranges. Montane deserts are normally cold, or may be scorchingly hot by day and very cold by night as is true of the northeastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.[26]
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+ Polar deserts such as McMurdo Dry Valleys remain ice-free because of the dry katabatic winds that flow downhill from the surrounding mountains.[27] Former desert areas presently in non-arid environments, such as the Sandhills in Nebraska, are known as paleodeserts.[21] In the Köppen climate classification system, deserts are classed as BWh (hot desert) or BWk (temperate desert). In the Thornthwaite climate classification system, deserts would be classified as arid megathermal climates.[28][29]
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+ Deserts usually have a large diurnal and seasonal temperature range, with high daytime temperatures falling sharply at night. The diurnal range may be as much as 20 to 30 °C (36 to 54 °F) and the rock surface experiences even greater temperature differentials.[30] During the day the sky is usually clear and most of the sun's radiation reaches the ground, but as soon as the sun sets, the desert cools quickly by radiating heat into space. In hot deserts, the temperature during daytime can exceed 45 °C (113 °F) in summer and plunge below freezing point at night during winter.[31]
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+ Such large temperature variations have a destructive effect on the exposed rocky surfaces. The repeated fluctuations put a strain on exposed rock and the flanks of mountains crack and shatter. Fragmented strata slide down into the valleys where they continue to break into pieces due to the relentless sun by day and chill by night. Successive strata are exposed to further weathering. The relief of the internal pressure that has built up in rocks that have been underground for aeons can cause them to shatter.[32] Exfoliation also occurs when the outer surfaces of rocks split off in flat flakes. This is believed to be caused by the stresses put on the rock by repeated thermal expansions and contractions which induces fracturing parallel to the original surface.[30] Chemical weathering processes probably play a more important role in deserts than was previously thought. The necessary moisture may be present in the form of dew or mist. Ground water may be drawn to the surface by evaporation and the formation of salt crystals may dislodge rock particles as sand or disintegrate rocks by exfoliation. Shallow caves are sometimes formed at the base of cliffs by this means.[30]
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+ As the desert mountains decay, large areas of shattered rock and rubble occur. The process continues and the end products are either dust or sand. Dust is formed from solidified clay or volcanic deposits whereas sand results from the fragmentation of harder granites, limestone and sandstone.[33] There is a certain critical size (about 0.5 mm) below which further temperature-induced weathering of rocks does not occur and this provides a minimum size for sand grains.[34]
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+ As the mountains are eroded, more and more sand is created. At high wind speeds, sand grains are picked up off the surface and blown along, a process known as saltation. The whirling airborne grains act as a sand blasting mechanism which grinds away solid objects in its path as the kinetic energy of the wind is transferred to the ground.[35] The sand eventually ends up deposited in level areas known as sand-fields or sand-seas, or piled up in dunes.[36]
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+ Sand and dust storms are natural events that occur in arid regions where the land is not protected by a covering of vegetation. Dust storms usually start in desert margins rather than the deserts themselves where the finer materials have already been blown away. As a steady wind begins to blow, fine particles lying on the exposed ground begin to vibrate. At greater wind speeds, some particles are lifted into the air stream. When they land, they strike other particles which may be jerked into the air in their turn, starting a chain reaction. Once ejected, these particles move in one of three possible ways, depending on their size, shape and density; suspension, saltation or creep. Suspension is only possible for particles less than 0.1 mm (0.004 in) in diameter. In a dust storm, these fine particles are lifted up and wafted aloft to heights of up to 6 km (3.7 mi). They reduce visibility and can remain in the atmosphere for days on end, conveyed by the trade winds for distances of up to 6,000 km (3,700 mi).[37] Denser clouds of dust can be formed in stronger winds, moving across the land with a billowing leading edge. The sunlight can be obliterated and it may become as dark as night at ground level.[38] In a study of a dust storm in China in 2001, it was estimated that 6.5 million tons of dust were involved, covering an area of 134,000,000 km2 (52,000,000 sq mi). The mean particle size was 1.44 μm.[39] A much smaller scale, short-lived phenomenon can occur in calm conditions when hot air near the ground rises quickly through a small pocket of cooler, low-pressure air above forming a whirling column of particles, a dust devil.[40]
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+ Sandstorms occur with much less frequency than dust storms. They are often preceded by severe dust storms and occur when the wind velocity increases to a point where it can lift heavier particles. These grains of sand, up to about 0.5 mm (0.020 in) in diameter are jerked into the air but soon fall back to earth, ejecting other particles in the process. Their weight prevents them from being airborne for long and most only travel a distance of a few meters (yards). The sand streams along above the surface of the ground like a fluid, often rising to heights of about 30 cm (12 in).[37] In a really severe steady blow, 2 m (6 ft 7 in) is about as high as the sand stream can rise as the largest sand grains do not become airborne at all. They are transported by creep, being rolled along the desert floor or performing short jumps.[38]
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+ During a sandstorm, the wind-blown sand particles become electrically charged. Such electric fields, which range in size up to 80 kV/m, can produce sparks and cause interference with telecommunications equipment. They are also unpleasant for humans and can cause headaches and nausea.[38] The electric fields are caused by the collision between airborne particles and by the impacts of saltating sand grains landing on the ground. The mechanism is little understood but the particles usually have a negative charge when their diameter is under 250 μm and a positive one when they are over 500 μm.[41][42]
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+ Deserts take up about one third of the Earth's land surface.[8]
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+ Bottomlands may be salt-covered flats. Eolian processes are major factors in shaping desert landscapes. Polar deserts (also seen as "cold deserts") have similar features, except the main form of precipitation is snow rather than rain. Antarctica is the world's largest cold desert (composed of about 98% thick continental ice sheet and 2% barren rock). Some of the barren rock is to be found in the so-called Dry Valleys of Antarctica that almost never get snow, which can have ice-encrusted saline lakes that suggest evaporation far greater than the rare snowfall due to the strong katabatic winds that even evaporate ice.
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+ Deserts, both hot and cold, play a part in moderating the Earth's temperature. This is because they reflect more of the incoming light and their albedo is higher than that of forests or the sea.[44]
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+ Many people think of deserts as consisting of extensive areas of billowing sand dunes because that is the way they are often depicted on TV and in films,[45] but deserts do not always look like this.[46] Across the world, around 20% of desert is sand, varying from only 2% in North America to 30% in Australia and over 45% in Central Asia.[47] Where sand does occur, it is usually in large quantities in the form of sand sheets or extensive areas of dunes.[47]
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+ A sand sheet is a near-level, firm expanse of partially consolidated particles in a layer that varies from a few centimeters to a few meters thick. The structure of the sheet consists of thin horizontal layers of coarse silt and very fine to medium grain sand, separated by layers of coarse sand and pea-gravel which are a single grain thick. These larger particles anchor the other particles in place and may also be packed together on the surface so as to form a miniature desert pavement.[48] Small ripples form on the sand sheet when the wind exceeds 24 km/h (15 mph). They form perpendicular to the wind direction and gradually move across the surface as the wind continues to blow. The distance between their crests corresponds to the average length of jumps made by particles during saltation. The ripples are ephemeral and a change in wind direction causes them to reorganise.[49]
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+ Sand dunes are accumulations of windblown sand piled up in mounds or ridges. They form downwind of copious sources of dry, loose sand and occur when topographic and climatic conditions cause airborne particles to settle. As the wind blows, saltation and creep take place on the windward side of the dune and individual grains of sand move uphill. When they reach the crest, they cascade down the far side. The upwind slope typically has a gradient of 10° to 20° while the lee slope is around 32°, the angle at which loose dry sand will slip. As this wind-induced movement of sand grains takes place, the dune moves slowly across the surface of the ground.[50] Dunes are sometimes solitary, but they are more often grouped together in dune fields. When these are extensive, they are known as sand seas or ergs.[51]
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+ The shape of the dune depends on the characteristics of the prevailing wind. Barchan dunes are produced by strong winds blowing across a level surface and are crescent-shaped with the concave side away from the wind. When there are two directions from which winds regularly blow, a series of long, linear dunes known as seif dunes may form. These also occur parallel to a strong wind that blows in one general direction. Transverse dunes run at a right angle to the prevailing wind direction. Star dunes are formed by variable winds, and have several ridges and slip faces radiating from a central point. They tend to grow vertically; they can reach a height of 500 m (1,600 ft), making them the tallest type of dune. Rounded mounds of sand without a slip face are the rare dome dunes, found on the upwind edges of sand seas.[51]
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+ A large part of the surface area of the world's deserts consists of flat, stone-covered plains dominated by wind erosion. In "eolian deflation", the wind continually removes fine-grained material, which becomes wind-blown sand. This exposes coarser-grained material, mainly pebbles with some larger stones or cobbles,[36][47] leaving a desert pavement, an area of land overlaid by closely packed smooth stones forming a tessellated mosaic. Different theories exist as to how exactly the pavement is formed. It may be that after the sand and dust is blown away by the wind the stones jiggle themselves into place; alternatively, stones previously below ground may in some way work themselves to the surface. Very little further erosion takes place after the formation of a pavement, and the ground becomes stable. Evaporation brings moisture to the surface by capillary action and calcium salts may be precipitated, binding particles together to form a desert conglomerate.[52] In time, bacteria that live on the surface of the stones accumulate a film of minerals and clay particles, forming a shiny brown coating known as desert varnish.[53]
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+ Other non-sandy deserts consist of exposed outcrops of bedrock, dry soils or aridisols, and a variety of landforms affected by flowing water, such as alluvial fans, sinks or playas, temporary or permanent lakes, and oases.[47] A hamada is a type of desert landscape consisting of a high rocky plateau where the sand has been removed by aeolian processes. Other landforms include plains largely covered by gravels and angular boulders, from which the finer particles have been stripped by the wind. These are called "reg" in the western Sahara, "serir" in the eastern Sahara, "gibber plains" in Australia and "saï" in central Asia.[54] The Tassili Plateau in Algeria is an impressive jumble of eroded sandstone outcrops, canyons, blocks, pinnacles, fissures, slabs and ravines. In some places the wind has carved holes or arches, and in others, it has created mushroom-like pillars narrower at the base than the top.[55] In the Colorado Plateau it is water that has been the eroding force. Here the Colorado River has cut its way over the millennia through the high desert floor creating a canyon that is over a mile (6,000 feet or 1,800 meters) deep in places, exposing strata that are over two billion years old.[56]
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+ One of the driest places on Earth is the Atacama Desert.[57][58][59][60][61] It is virtually devoid of life because it is blocked from receiving precipitation by the Andes mountains to the east and the Chilean Coast Range to the west. The cold Humboldt Current and the anticyclone of the Pacific are essential to keep the dry climate of the Atacama. The average precipitation in the Chilean region of Antofagasta is just 1 mm (0.039 in) per year. Some weather stations in the Atacama have never received rain. Evidence suggests that the Atacama may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971. It is so arid that mountains that reach as high as 6,885 m (22,589 ft) are completely free of glaciers and, in the southern part from 25°S to 27°S, may have been glacier-free throughout the Quaternary, though permafrost extends down to an altitude of 4,400 m (14,400 ft) and is continuous above 5,600 m (18,400 ft).[62][63] Nevertheless, there is some plant life in the Atacama, in the form of specialist plants that obtain moisture from dew and the fogs that blow in from the Pacific.[57]
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+ When rain falls in deserts, as it occasionally does, it is often with great violence. The desert surface is evidence of this with dry stream channels known as arroyos or wadis meandering across its surface. These can experience flash floods, becoming raging torrents with surprising rapidity after a storm that may be many kilometers away. Most deserts are in basins with no drainage to the sea but some are crossed by exotic rivers sourced in mountain ranges or other high rainfall areas beyond their borders. The River Nile, the Colorado River and the Yellow River do this, losing much of their water through evaporation as they pass through the desert and raising groundwater levels nearby. There may also be underground sources of water in deserts in the form of springs, aquifers, underground rivers or lakes. Where these lie close to the surface, wells can be dug and oases may form where plant and animal life can flourish.[47] The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System under the Sahara Desert is the largest known accumulation of fossil water. The Great Man-Made River is a scheme launched by Libya's Muammar Gadaffi to tap this aquifer and supply water to coastal cities.[64] Kharga Oasis in Egypt is 150 km (93 mi) long and is the largest oasis in the Libyan Desert. A lake occupied this depression in ancient times and thick deposits of sandy-clay resulted. Wells are dug to extract water from the porous sandstone that lies underneath.[65] Seepages may occur in the walls of canyons and pools may survive in deep shade near the dried up watercourse below.[66]
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+ Lakes may form in basins where there is sufficient precipitation or meltwater from glaciers above. They are usually shallow and saline, and wind blowing over their surface can cause stress, moving the water over nearby low-lying areas. When the lakes dry up, they leave a crust or hardpan behind. This area of deposited clay, silt or sand is known as a playa. The deserts of North America have more than one hundred playas, many of them relics of Lake Bonneville which covered parts of Utah, Nevada and Idaho during the last ice age when the climate was colder and wetter.[67] These include the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Sevier Lake and many dry lake beds. The smooth flat surfaces of playas have been used for attempted vehicle speed records at Black Rock Desert and Bonneville Speedway and the United States Air Force uses Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert as runways for aircraft and the space shuttle.[47]
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+ Plants face severe challenges in arid environments. Problems they need to solve include how to obtain enough water, how to avoid being eaten and how to reproduce. Photosynthesis is the key to plant growth. It can only take place during the day as energy from the sun is required, but during the day, many deserts become very hot. Opening stomata to allow in the carbon dioxide necessary for the process causes evapotranspiration, and conservation of water is a top priority for desert vegetation. Some plants have resolved this problem by adopting crassulacean acid metabolism, allowing them to open their stomata during the night to allow CO2 to enter, and close them during the day,[68] or by using C4 carbon fixation.[69]
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+ Many desert plants have reduced the size of their leaves or abandoned them altogether. Cacti are desert specialists, and in most species, the leaves have been dispensed with and the chlorophyll displaced into the trunks, the cellular structure of which has been modified to allow them to store water. When rain falls, the water is rapidly absorbed by the shallow roots and retained to allow them to survive until the next downpour, which may be months or years away.[70] The giant saguaro cacti of the Sonoran Desert form "forests", providing shade for other plants and nesting places for desert birds. Saguaro grows slowly but may live for up to two hundred years. The surface of the trunk is folded like a concertina, allowing it to expand, and a large specimen can hold eight tons of water after a good downpour.[70]
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+ Cacti are present in both North and South America with a post-Gondwana origin. Other xerophytic plants have developed similar strategies by a process known as convergent evolution.[71] They limit water loss by reducing the size and number of stomata, by having waxy coatings and hairy or tiny leaves. Some are deciduous, shedding their leaves in the driest season, and others curl their leaves up to reduce transpiration. Others store water in succulent leaves or stems or in fleshy tubers. Desert plants maximize water uptake by having shallow roots that spread widely, or by developing long taproots that reach down to deep rock strata for ground water.[72] The saltbush in Australia has succulent leaves and secretes salt crystals, enabling it to live in saline areas.[72][73] In common with cacti, many have developed spines to ward off browsing animals.[70]
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+ Some desert plants produce seed which lies dormant in the soil until sparked into growth by rainfall. With annuals, such plants grow with great rapidity and may flower and set seed within weeks, aiming to complete their development before the last vestige of water dries up. For perennial plants, reproduction is more likely to be successful if the seed germinates in a shaded position, but not so close to the parent plant as to be in competition with it. Some seed will not germinate until it has been blown about on the desert floor to scarify the seed coat. The seed of the mesquite tree, which grows in deserts in the Americas, is hard and fails to sprout even when planted carefully. When it has passed through the gut of a pronghorn it germinates readily, and the little pile of moist dung provides an excellent start to life well away from the parent tree.[70] The stems and leaves of some plants lower the surface velocity of sand-carrying winds and protect the ground from erosion. Even small fungi and microscopic plant organisms found on the soil surface (so-called cryptobiotic soil) can be a vital link in preventing erosion and providing support for other living organisms. Cold deserts often have high concentrations of salt in the soil. Grasses and low shrubs are the dominant vegetation here and the ground may be covered with lichens. Most shrubs have spiny leaves and shed them in the coldest part of the year.[74]
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+ Animals adapted to live in deserts are called xerocoles. There is no evidence that body temperature of mammals and birds is adaptive to the different climates, either of great heat or cold. In fact, with a very few exceptions, their basal metabolic rate is determined by body size, irrespective of the climate in which they live.[75] Many desert animals (and plants) show especially clear evolutionary adaptations for water conservation or heat tolerance and so are often studied in comparative physiology, ecophysiology, and evolutionary physiology. One well-studied example is the specializations of mammalian kidneys shown by desert-inhabiting species.[76] Many examples of convergent evolution have been identified in desert organisms, including between cacti and Euphorbia, kangaroo rats and jerboas, Phrynosoma and Moloch lizards.[77]
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+ Deserts present a very challenging environment for animals. Not only do they require food and water but they also need to keep their body temperature at a tolerable level. In many ways, birds are the ablest to do this of the higher animals. They can move to areas of greater food availability as the desert blooms after local rainfall and can fly to faraway waterholes. In hot deserts, gliding birds can remove themselves from the over-heated desert floor by using thermals to soar in the cooler air at great heights. In order to conserve energy, other desert birds run rather than fly. The cream-colored courser flits gracefully across the ground on its long legs, stopping periodically to snatch up insects. Like other desert birds, it is well-camouflaged by its coloring and can merge into the landscape when stationary. The sandgrouse is an expert at this and nests on the open desert floor dozens of kilometers (miles) away from the waterhole it needs to visit daily. Some small diurnal birds are found in very restricted localities where their plumage matches the color of the underlying surface. The desert lark takes frequent dust baths which ensures that it matches its environment.[78]
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+ Water and carbon dioxide are metabolic end products of oxidation of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.[79] Oxidising a gram of carbohydrate produces 0.60 grams of water; a gram of protein produces 0.41 grams of water; and a gram of fat produces 1.07 grams of water,[80] making it possible for xerocoles to live with little or no access to drinking water.[81] The kangaroo rat for example makes use of this water of metabolism and conserves water both by having a low basal metabolic rate and by remaining underground during the heat of the day,[82] reducing loss of water through its skin and respiratory system when at rest.[81][83] Herbivorous mammals obtain moisture from the plants they eat. Species such as the addax antelope,[84] dik-dik, Grant's gazelle and oryx are so efficient at doing this that they apparently never need to drink.[85] The camel is a superb example of a mammal adapted to desert life. It minimizes its water loss by producing concentrated urine and dry dung, and is able to lose 40% of its body weight through water loss without dying of dehydration.[86] Carnivores can obtain much of their water needs from the body fluids of their prey.[87] Many other hot desert animals are nocturnal, seeking out shade during the day or dwelling underground in burrows. At depths of more than 50 cm (20 in), these remain at between 30 to 32 °C (86 to 90 °F) regardless of the external temperature.[87] Jerboas, desert rats, kangaroo rats and other small rodents emerge from their burrows at night and so do the foxes, coyotes, jackals and snakes that prey on them. Kangaroos keep cool by increasing their respiration rate, panting, sweating and moistening the skin of their forelegs with saliva.[88] Mammals living in cold deserts have developed greater insulation through warmer body fur and insulating layers of fat beneath the skin. The arctic weasel has a metabolic rate that is two or three times as high as would be expected for an animal of its size. Birds have avoided the problem of losing heat through their feet by not attempting to maintain them at the same temperature as the rest of their bodies, a form of adaptive insulation.[75] The emperor penguin has dense plumage, a downy under layer, an air insulation layer next the skin and various thermoregulatory strategies to maintain its body temperature in one of the harshest environments on Earth.[89]
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+ Being ectotherms, reptiles are unable to live in cold deserts but are well-suited to hot ones. In the heat of the day in the Sahara, the temperature can rise to 50 °C (122 °F). Reptiles cannot survive at this temperature and lizards will be prostrated by heat at 45 °C (113 °F). They have few adaptations to desert life and are unable to cool themselves by sweating so they shelter during the heat of the day. In the first part of the night, as the ground radiates the heat absorbed during the day, they emerge and search for prey. Lizards and snakes are the most numerous in arid regions and certain snakes have developed a novel method of locomotion that enables them to move sidewards and navigate high sand-dunes. These include the horned viper of Africa and the sidewinder of North America, evolutionarily distinct but with similar behavioural patterns because of convergent evolution. Many desert reptiles are ambush predators and often bury themselves in the sand, waiting for prey to come within range.[90]
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+ Amphibians might seem unlikely desert-dwellers, because of their need to keep their skins moist and their dependence on water for reproductive purposes. In fact, the few species that are found in this habitat have made some remarkable adaptations. Most of them are fossorial, spending the hot dry months aestivating in deep burrows. While there they shed their skins a number of times and retain the remnants around them as a waterproof cocoon to retain moisture. In the Sonoran Desert, Couch's spadefoot toad spends most of the year dormant in its burrow. Heavy rain is the trigger for emergence and the first male to find a suitable pool calls to attract others. Eggs are laid and the tadpoles grow rapidly as they must reach metamorphosis before the water evaporates. As the desert dries out, the adult toads rebury themselves. The juveniles stay on the surface for a while, feeding and growing, but soon dig themselves burrows. Few make it to adulthood.[91] The water holding frog in Australia has a similar life cycle and may aestivate for as long as five years if no rain falls.[92] The Desert rain frog of Namibia is nocturnal and survives because of the damp sea fogs that roll in from the Atlantic.[93]
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+ Invertebrates, particularly arthropods, have successfully made their homes in the desert. Flies, beetles, ants, termites, locusts, millipedes, scorpions and spiders[94] have hard cuticles which are impervious to water and many of them lay their eggs underground and their young develop away from the temperature extremes at the surface.[95] The Saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina) uses a heat shock protein in a novel way and forages in the open during brief forays in the heat of the day.[96] The long-legged darkling beetle in Namibia stands on its front legs and raises its carapace to catch the morning mist as condensate, funnelling the water into its mouth.[97] Some arthropods make use of the ephemeral pools that form after rain and complete their life cycle in a matter of days. The desert shrimp does this, appearing "miraculously" in new-formed puddles as the dormant eggs hatch. Others, such as brine shrimps, fairy shrimps and tadpole shrimps, are cryptobiotic and can lose up to 92% of their bodyweight, rehydrating as soon as it rains and their temporary pools reappear.[98]
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+ Humans have long made use of deserts as places to live,[99] and more recently have started to exploit them for minerals[100] and energy capture.[101] Deserts play a significant role in human culture with an extensive literature.[102]
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+ People have been living in deserts for millennia. Many, such as the Bushmen in the Kalahari, the Aborigines in Australia and various tribes of North American Indians, were originally hunter-gatherers. They developed skills in the manufacture and use of weapons, animal tracking, finding water, foraging for edible plants and using the things they found in their natural environment to supply their everyday needs. Their self-sufficient skills and knowledge were passed down through the generations by word of mouth.[99] Other cultures developed a nomadic way of life as herders of sheep, goats, cattle, camels, yaks, llamas or reindeer. They travelled over large areas with their herds, moving to new pastures as seasonal and erratic rainfall encouraged new plant growth. They took with them their tents made of cloth or skins draped over poles and their diet included milk, blood and sometimes meat.[103]
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+ The desert nomads were also traders. The Sahara is a very large expanse of land stretching from the Atlantic rim to Egypt. Trade routes were developed linking the Sahel in the south with the fertile Mediterranean region to the north and large numbers of camels were used to carry valuable goods across the desert interior. The Tuareg were traders and the goods transported traditionally included slaves, ivory and gold going northwards and salt going southwards. Berbers with knowledge of the region were employed to guide the caravans between the various oases and wells.[104] Several million slaves may have been taken northwards across the Sahara between the 8th and 18th centuries.[105] Traditional means of overland transport declined with the advent of motor vehicles, shipping and air freight, but caravans still travel along routes between Agadez and Bilma and between Timbuktu and Taoudenni carrying salt from the interior to desert-edge communities.[106]
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+ Round the rims of deserts, where more precipitation occurred and conditions were more suitable, some groups took to cultivating crops. This may have happened when drought caused the death of herd animals, forcing herdsmen to turn to cultivation. With few inputs, they were at the mercy of the weather and may have lived at bare subsistence level. The land they cultivated reduced the area available to nomadic herders, causing disputes over land. The semi-arid fringes of the desert have fragile soils which are at risk of erosion when exposed, as happened in the American Dust Bowl in the 1930s. The grasses that held the soil in place were ploughed under, and a series of dry years caused crop failures, while enormous dust storms blew the topsoil away. Half a million Americans were forced to leave their land in this catastrophe.[107]
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+ Similar damage is being done today to the semi-arid areas that rim deserts and about twelve million hectares of land are being turned to desert each year.[108] Desertification is caused by such factors as drought, climatic shifts, tillage for agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation. Vegetation plays a major role in determining the composition of the soil. In many environments, the rate of erosion and run off increases dramatically with reduced vegetation cover.[109]
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+ Deserts contain substantial mineral resources, sometimes over their entire surface, giving them their characteristic colors. For example, the red of many sand deserts comes from laterite minerals.[110] Geological processes in a desert climate can concentrate minerals into valuable deposits. Leaching by ground water can extract ore minerals and redeposit them, according to the water table, in concentrated form.[100] Similarly, evaporation tends to concentrate minerals in desert lakes, creating dry lake beds or playas rich in minerals. Evaporation can concentrate minerals as a variety of evaporite deposits, including gypsum, sodium nitrate, sodium chloride and borates.[100] Evaporites are found in the USA's Great Basin Desert, historically exploited by the "20-mule teams" pulling carts of borax from Death Valley to the nearest railway.[100] A desert especially rich in mineral salts is the Atacama Desert, Chile, where sodium nitrate has been mined for explosives and fertilizer since around 1850.[100] Other desert minerals are copper from Chile, Peru, and Iran, and iron and uranium in Australia. Many other metals, salts and commercially valuable types of rock such as pumice are extracted from deserts around the world.[100]
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+ Oil and gas form on the bottom of shallow seas when micro-organisms decompose under anoxic conditions and later become covered with sediment. Many deserts were at one time the sites of shallow seas and others have had underlying hydrocarbon deposits transported to them by the movement of tectonic plates.[111]
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+ Some major oilfields such as Ghawar are found under the sands of Saudi Arabia.[100] Geologists believe that other oil deposits were formed by aeolian processes in ancient deserts as may be the case with some of the major American oil fields.[100]
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+ Traditional desert farming systems have long been established in North Africa, irrigation being the key to success in an area where water stress is a limiting factor to growth. Techniques that can be used include drip irrigation, the use of organic residues or animal manures as fertilisers and other traditional agricultural management practices. Once fertility has been built up, further crop production preserves the soil from destruction by wind and other forms of erosion.[112] It has been found that plant growth-promoting bacteria play a role in increasing the resistance of plants to stress conditions and these rhizobacterial suspensions could be inoculated into the soil in the vicinity of the plants. A study of these microbes found that desert farming hampers desertification by establishing islands of fertility allowing farmers to achieve increased yields despite the adverse environmental conditions.[112] A field trial in the Sonoran Desert which exposed the roots of different species of tree to rhizobacteria and the nitrogen fixing bacterium Azospirillum brasilense with the aim of restoring degraded lands was only partially successful.[112]
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+ The Judean Desert was farmed in the 7th century BC during the Iron Age to supply food for desert forts.[113] Native Americans in the south western United States became agriculturalists around 600 AD when seeds and technologies became available from Mexico. They used terracing techniques and grew gardens beside seeps, in moist areas at the foot of dunes, near streams providing flood irrigation and in areas irrigated by extensive specially built canals. The Hohokam tribe constructed over 500 miles (800 km) of large canals and maintained them for centuries, an impressive feat of engineering. They grew maize, beans, squash and peppers.[114]
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+ A modern example of desert farming is the Imperial Valley in California, which has high temperatures and average rainfall of just 3 in (76 mm) per year.[115] The economy is heavily based on agriculture and the land is irrigated through a network of canals and pipelines sourced entirely from the Colorado River via the All-American Canal. The soil is deep and fertile, being part of the river's flood plains, and what would otherwise have been desert has been transformed into one of the most productive farming regions in California. Other water from the river is piped to urban communities but all this has been at the expense of the river, which below the extraction sites no longer has any above-ground flow during most of the year. Another problem of growing crops in this way is the build-up of salinity in the soil caused by the evaporation of river water.[116] The greening of the desert remains an aspiration and was at one time viewed as a future means for increasing food production for the world's growing population. This prospect has proved false as it disregarded the environmental damage caused elsewhere by the diversion of water for desert project irrigation.[117]
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+ Deserts are increasingly seen as sources for solar energy, partly due to low amounts of cloud cover. Many solar power plants have been built in the Mojave Desert such as the Solar Energy Generating Systems and Ivanpah Solar Power Facility.[118] Large swaths of this desert are covered in mirrors.[119]
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+ The potential for generating solar energy from the Sahara Desert is huge, the highest found on the globe. Professor David Faiman of Ben-Gurion University has stated that the technology now exists to supply all of the world's electricity needs from 10% of the Sahara Desert.[120] Desertec Industrial Initiative was a consortium seeking $560 billion to invest in North African solar and wind installations over the next forty years to supply electricity to Europe via cable lines running under the Mediterranean Sea. European interest in the Sahara Desert stems from its two aspects: the almost continual daytime sunshine and plenty of unused land. The Sahara receives more sunshine per acre than any part of Europe. The Sahara Desert also has the empty space totalling hundreds of square miles required to house fields of mirrors for solar plants.[121]
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+ The Negev Desert, Israel, and the surrounding area, including the Arava Valley, receive plenty of sunshine and are generally not arable. This has resulted in the construction of many solar plants.[101] David Faiman has proposed that "giant" solar plants in the Negev could supply all of Israel's needs for electricity.[120]
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+ The Arabs were probably the first organized force to conduct successful battles in the desert. By knowing back routes and the locations of oases and by utilizing camels, Muslim Arab forces were able to successfully overcome both Roman and Persian forces in the period 600 to 700 AD during the expansion of the Islamic caliphate.[122]
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+ Many centuries later, both world wars saw fighting in the desert. In the First World War, the Ottoman Turks were engaged with the British regular army in a campaign that spanned the Arabian peninsula. The Turks were defeated by the British, who had the backing of irregular Arab forces that were seeking to revolt against the Turks in the Hejaz, made famous in T.E. Lawrence's book Seven Pillars of Wisdom.[123][124]
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+ In the Second World War, the Western Desert Campaign began in Italian Libya. Warfare in the desert offered great scope for tacticians to use the large open spaces without the distractions of casualties among civilian populations. Tanks and armoured vehicles were able to travel large distances unimpeded and land mines were laid in large numbers. However, the size and harshness of the terrain meant that all supplies needed to be brought in from great distances. The victors in a battle would advance and their supply chain would necessarily become longer, while the defeated army could retreat, regroup and resupply. For these reasons, the front line moved back and forth through hundreds of kilometers as each side lost and regained momentum.[125] Its most easterly point was at El Alamein in Egypt, where the Allies decisively defeated the Axis forces in 1942.[126]
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+ The desert is generally thought of as a barren and empty landscape. It has been portrayed by writers, film-makers, philosophers, artists and critics as a place of extremes, a metaphor for anything from death, war or religion to the primitive past or the desolate future.[127]
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+ There is an extensive literature on the subject of deserts.[102] An early historical account is that of Marco Polo (c. 1254–1324), who travelled through Central Asia to China, crossing a number of deserts in his twenty four year trek.[128] Some accounts give vivid descriptions of desert conditions, though often accounts of journeys across deserts are interwoven with reflection, as is the case in Charles Montagu Doughty's major work, Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888).[129] Antoine de Saint-Exupéry described both his flying and the desert in Wind, Sand and Stars[130] and Gertrude Bell travelled extensively in the Arabian desert in the early part of the 20th century, becoming an expert on the subject, writing books and advising the British government on dealing with the Arabs.[131] Another woman explorer was Freya Stark who travelled alone in the Middle East, visiting Turkey, Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Persia and Afghanistan, writing over twenty books on her experiences.[132] The German naturalist Uwe George spent several years living in deserts, recording his experiences and research in his book, In the Deserts of this Earth.[133]
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+ The American poet Robert Frost expressed his bleak thoughts in his poem, Desert Places, which ends with the stanza "They cannot scare me with their empty spaces / Between stars – on stars where no human race is. / I have it in me so much nearer home / To scare myself with my own desert places."[134]
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+ Mars is the only other planet in the Solar System besides Earth on which deserts have been identified.[135] Despite its low surface atmospheric pressure (only 1/100 of that of the Earth), the patterns of atmospheric circulation on Mars have formed a sea of circumpolar sand more than 5 million km2 (1.9 million sq mi) in the area, larger than most deserts on Earth. The Martian deserts principally consist of dunes in the form of half-moons in flat areas near the permanent polar ice caps in the north of the planet. The smaller dune fields occupy the bottom of many of the craters situated in the Martian polar regions.[136] Examination of the surface of rocks by laser beamed from the Mars Exploration Rover have shown a surface film that resembles the desert varnish found on Earth although it might just be surface dust.[137] The surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn, also has a desert-like surface with dune seas.[138]
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+ A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location.
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+ Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks, which consequently break in pieces. Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter, and the resulting fragments and rubble strewn over the desert floor are further eroded by the wind. This picks up particles of sand and dust and wafts them aloft in sand or dust storms. Wind-blown sand grains striking any solid object in their path can abrade the surface. Rocks are smoothed down, and the wind sorts sand into uniform deposits. The grains end up as level sheets of sand or are piled high in billowing sand dunes. Other deserts are flat, stony plains where all the fine material has been blown away and the surface consists of a mosaic of smooth stones. These areas are known as desert pavements, and little further erosion takes place. Other desert features include rock outcrops, exposed bedrock and clays once deposited by flowing water. Temporary lakes may form and salt pans may be left when waters evaporate. There may be underground sources of water, in the form of springs and seepages from aquifers. Where these are found, oases can occur.
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+ Plants and animals living in the desert need special adaptations to survive in the harsh environment. Plants tend to be tough and wiry with small or no leaves, water-resistant cuticles, and often spines to deter herbivory. Some annual plants germinate, bloom and die in the course of a few weeks after rainfall, while other long-lived plants survive for years and have deep root systems able to tap underground moisture. Animals need to keep cool and find enough food and water to survive. Many are nocturnal, and stay in the shade or underground during the heat of the day. They tend to be efficient at conserving water, extracting most of their needs from their food and concentrating their urine. Some animals remain in a state of dormancy for long periods, ready to become active again during the rare rainfall. They then reproduce rapidly while conditions are favorable before returning to dormancy.
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+ People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding semi-arid lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, and oases have provided opportunities for a more settled way of life. The cultivation of semi-arid regions encourages erosion of soil and is one of the causes of increased desertification. Desert farming is possible with the aid of irrigation, and the Imperial Valley in California provides an example of how previously barren land can be made productive by the import of water from an outside source. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, and traditionally were used by caravans of camels carrying salt, gold, ivory and other goods. Large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara[citation needed]. Some mineral extraction also takes place in deserts, and the uninterrupted sunlight gives potential for the capture of large quantities of solar energy.
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+ English desert and its Romance cognates (including Italian and Portuguese deserto, French désert and Spanish desierto) all come from the ecclesiastical Latin dēsertum (originally "an abandoned place"), a participle of dēserere, "to abandon".[1] The correlation between aridity and sparse population is complex and dynamic, varying by culture, era, and technologies; thus the use of the word desert can cause confusion. In English before the 20th century, desert was often used in the sense of "unpopulated area", without specific reference to aridity;[1] but today the word is most often used in its climate-science sense (an area of low precipitation).[2] Phrases such as "desert island"[3] and "Great American Desert", or Shakespeare's "deserts of Bohemia" (The Winter's Tale) in previous centuries did not necessarily imply sand or aridity; their focus was the sparse population.[4]
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+ A desert is a region of land that is very dry because it receives low amounts of precipitation (usually in the form of rain, but it may be snow, mist or fog), often has little coverage by plants, and in which streams dry up unless they are supplied by water from outside the area.[5] Deserts generally receive less than 250 mm (10 in) of precipitation each year.[5] The potential evapotranspiration may be large but (in the absence of available water) the actual evapotranspiration may be close to zero.[6] Semi-deserts are regions which receive between 250 and 500 mm (10 and 20 in) and when clad in grass, these are known as steppes.[7][8]
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+ Deserts have been defined and classified in a number of ways, generally combining total precipitation, number of days on which this falls, temperature, and humidity, and sometimes additional factors.[8] For example, Phoenix, Arizona, receives less than 250 mm (9.8 in) of precipitation per year, and is immediately recognized as being located in a desert because of its aridity-adapted plants. The North Slope of Alaska's Brooks Range also receives less than 250 mm (9.8 in) of precipitation per year and is often classified as a cold desert.[9] Other regions of the world have cold deserts, including areas of the Himalayas[10] and other high-altitude areas in other parts of the world.[11] Polar deserts cover much of the ice-free areas of the Arctic and Antarctic.[12][13] A non-technical definition is that deserts are those parts of the Earth's surface that have insufficient vegetation cover to support a human population.[14]
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+ Potential evapotranspiration supplements the measurement of precipitation in providing a scientific measurement-based definition of a desert. The water budget of an area can be calculated using the formula P − PE ± S, wherein P is precipitation, PE is potential evapotranspiration rates and S is the amount of surface storage of water. Evapotranspiration is the combination of water loss through atmospheric evaporation and through the life processes of plants. Potential evapotranspiration, then, is the amount of water that could evaporate in any given region. As an example, Tucson, Arizona receives about 300 mm (12 in) of rain per year, however about 2,500 mm (98 in) of water could evaporate over the course of a year.[15] In other words, about eight times more water could evaporate from the region than actually falls as rain. Rates of evapotranspiration in cold regions such as Alaska are much lower because of the lack of heat to aid in the evaporation process.[16]
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+ Deserts are sometimes classified as "hot" or "cold", "semiarid" or "coastal".[14] The characteristics of hot deserts include high temperatures in summer; greater evaporation than precipitation, usually exacerbated by high temperatures, strong winds and lack of cloud cover; considerable variation in the occurrence of precipitation, its intensity and distribution; and low humidity. Winter temperatures vary considerably between different deserts and are often related to the location of the desert on the continental landmass and the latitude. Daily variations in temperature can be as great as 22 °C (40 °F) or more, with heat loss by radiation at night being increased by the clear skies.[17]
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+ Cold deserts, sometimes known as temperate deserts, occur at higher latitudes than hot deserts, and the aridity is caused by the dryness of the air. Some cold deserts are far from the ocean and others are separated by mountain ranges from the sea, and in both cases, there is insufficient moisture in the air to cause much precipitation. The largest of these deserts are found in Central Asia. Others occur on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, the eastern side of the southern Andes and in southern Australia.[7] Polar deserts are a particular class of cold desert. The air is very cold and carries little moisture so little precipitation occurs and what does fall, usually snow, is carried along in the often strong wind and may form blizzards, drifts and dunes similar to those caused by dust and sand in other desert regions. In Antarctica, for example, the annual precipitation is about 50 mm (2 in) on the central plateau and some ten times that amount on some major peninsulas.[17]
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+ Based on precipitation alone, hyperarid deserts receive less than 25 mm (1 in) of rainfall a year; they have no annual seasonal cycle of precipitation and experience twelve-month periods with no rainfall at all.[17][18] Arid deserts receive between 25 and 200 mm (1 and 8 in) in a year and semiarid deserts between 200 and 500 mm (8 and 20 in). However, such factors as the temperature, humidity, rate of evaporation and evapotranspiration, and the moisture storage capacity of the ground have a marked effect on the degree of aridity and the plant and animal life that can be sustained. Rain falling in the cold season may be more effective at promoting plant growth, and defining the boundaries of deserts and the semiarid regions that surround them on the grounds of precipitation alone is problematic.[17]
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+ A semi-arid desert or a steppe is a version of the arid desert with much more rainfall, vegetation and higher humidity. These regions feature a semi-arid climate and are less extreme than regular deserts.[19] Like arid deserts, temperatures can vary greatly in semi deserts. They share some characteristics of a true desert and are usually located at the edge of deserts and continental dry areas. They usually receive precipitation from 250 mm (10 in) to 500 mm (20 in) but this can vary due to evapotranspiration and soil nutrition. Semi deserts can be found in the Tabernas Desert (and some of the Spanish Plateau), The Sahel, The Eurasian Steppe, most of Central Asia, the Western US, most of Northern Mexico, portions of South America (especially in Argentina) and the Australian Outback.[20] They usually feature BSh (hot steppe) or BSk (temperate steppe) in the Köppen climate classification.
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+ Coastal deserts are mostly found on the western edges of continental land masses in regions where cold currents approach the land or cold water upwellings rise from the ocean depths. The cool winds crossing this water pick up little moisture and the coastal regions have low temperatures and very low rainfall, the main precipitation being in the form of fog and dew. The range of temperatures on a daily and annual scale is relatively low, being 11 °C (20 °F) and 5 °C (9 °F) respectively in the Atacama Desert. Deserts of this type are often long and narrow and bounded to the east by mountain ranges. They occur in Namibia, Chile, southern California and Baja California. Other coastal deserts influenced by cold currents are found in Western Australia, the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa, and the western fringes of the Sahara.[17]
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+ In 1961, Peveril Meigs divided desert regions on Earth into three categories according to the amount of precipitation they received. In this now widely accepted system, extremely arid lands have at least twelve consecutive months without precipitation, arid lands have less than 250 mm (10 in) of annual precipitation, and semiarid lands have a mean annual precipitation of between 250 and 500 mm (10–20 in). Both extremely arid and arid lands are considered to be deserts while semiarid lands are generally referred to as steppes when they are grasslands.[8]
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+ Deserts are also classified, according to their geographical location and dominant weather pattern, as trade wind, mid-latitude, rain shadow, coastal, monsoon, or polar deserts.[21] Trade wind deserts occur either side of the horse latitudes at 30° to 35° North and South. These belts are associated with the subtropical anticyclone and the large-scale descent of dry air moving from high-altitudes toward the poles. The Sahara Desert is of this type.[22] Mid-latitude deserts occur between 30° and 50° North and South. They are mostly in areas remote from the sea where most of the moisture has already precipitated from the prevailing winds. They include the Tengger and Sonoran Deserts.[21] Monsoon deserts are similar. They occur in regions where large temperature differences occur between sea and land. Moist warm air rises over the land, deposits its water content and circulates back to sea. Further inland, areas receive very little precipitation. The Thar Desert near the India/Pakistan border is of this type.[21]
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+ In some parts of the world, deserts are created by a rain shadow effect. Orographic lift occurs as air masses rise to pass over high ground. In the process they cool and lose much of their moisture by precipitation on the windward slope of the mountain range. When they descend on the leeward side, they warm and their capacity to hold moisture increases so an area with relatively little precipitation occurs.[23] The Taklamakan Desert is an example, lying in the rain shadow of the Himalayas and receiving less than 38 mm (1.5 in) precipitation annually.[24]
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+ Other areas are arid by virtue of being a very long way from the nearest available sources of moisture.[25]
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+ Montane deserts are arid places with a very high altitude; the most prominent example is found north of the Himalayas, in the Kunlun Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. Many locations within this category have elevations exceeding 3,000 m (9,800 ft) and the thermal regime can be hemiboreal. These places owe their profound aridity (the average annual precipitation is often less than 40 mm or 1.5 in) to being very far from the nearest available sources of moisture and are often in the lee of mountain ranges. Montane deserts are normally cold, or may be scorchingly hot by day and very cold by night as is true of the northeastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.[26]
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+ Polar deserts such as McMurdo Dry Valleys remain ice-free because of the dry katabatic winds that flow downhill from the surrounding mountains.[27] Former desert areas presently in non-arid environments, such as the Sandhills in Nebraska, are known as paleodeserts.[21] In the Köppen climate classification system, deserts are classed as BWh (hot desert) or BWk (temperate desert). In the Thornthwaite climate classification system, deserts would be classified as arid megathermal climates.[28][29]
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+ Deserts usually have a large diurnal and seasonal temperature range, with high daytime temperatures falling sharply at night. The diurnal range may be as much as 20 to 30 °C (36 to 54 °F) and the rock surface experiences even greater temperature differentials.[30] During the day the sky is usually clear and most of the sun's radiation reaches the ground, but as soon as the sun sets, the desert cools quickly by radiating heat into space. In hot deserts, the temperature during daytime can exceed 45 °C (113 °F) in summer and plunge below freezing point at night during winter.[31]
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+ Such large temperature variations have a destructive effect on the exposed rocky surfaces. The repeated fluctuations put a strain on exposed rock and the flanks of mountains crack and shatter. Fragmented strata slide down into the valleys where they continue to break into pieces due to the relentless sun by day and chill by night. Successive strata are exposed to further weathering. The relief of the internal pressure that has built up in rocks that have been underground for aeons can cause them to shatter.[32] Exfoliation also occurs when the outer surfaces of rocks split off in flat flakes. This is believed to be caused by the stresses put on the rock by repeated thermal expansions and contractions which induces fracturing parallel to the original surface.[30] Chemical weathering processes probably play a more important role in deserts than was previously thought. The necessary moisture may be present in the form of dew or mist. Ground water may be drawn to the surface by evaporation and the formation of salt crystals may dislodge rock particles as sand or disintegrate rocks by exfoliation. Shallow caves are sometimes formed at the base of cliffs by this means.[30]
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+ As the desert mountains decay, large areas of shattered rock and rubble occur. The process continues and the end products are either dust or sand. Dust is formed from solidified clay or volcanic deposits whereas sand results from the fragmentation of harder granites, limestone and sandstone.[33] There is a certain critical size (about 0.5 mm) below which further temperature-induced weathering of rocks does not occur and this provides a minimum size for sand grains.[34]
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+ As the mountains are eroded, more and more sand is created. At high wind speeds, sand grains are picked up off the surface and blown along, a process known as saltation. The whirling airborne grains act as a sand blasting mechanism which grinds away solid objects in its path as the kinetic energy of the wind is transferred to the ground.[35] The sand eventually ends up deposited in level areas known as sand-fields or sand-seas, or piled up in dunes.[36]
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+ Sand and dust storms are natural events that occur in arid regions where the land is not protected by a covering of vegetation. Dust storms usually start in desert margins rather than the deserts themselves where the finer materials have already been blown away. As a steady wind begins to blow, fine particles lying on the exposed ground begin to vibrate. At greater wind speeds, some particles are lifted into the air stream. When they land, they strike other particles which may be jerked into the air in their turn, starting a chain reaction. Once ejected, these particles move in one of three possible ways, depending on their size, shape and density; suspension, saltation or creep. Suspension is only possible for particles less than 0.1 mm (0.004 in) in diameter. In a dust storm, these fine particles are lifted up and wafted aloft to heights of up to 6 km (3.7 mi). They reduce visibility and can remain in the atmosphere for days on end, conveyed by the trade winds for distances of up to 6,000 km (3,700 mi).[37] Denser clouds of dust can be formed in stronger winds, moving across the land with a billowing leading edge. The sunlight can be obliterated and it may become as dark as night at ground level.[38] In a study of a dust storm in China in 2001, it was estimated that 6.5 million tons of dust were involved, covering an area of 134,000,000 km2 (52,000,000 sq mi). The mean particle size was 1.44 μm.[39] A much smaller scale, short-lived phenomenon can occur in calm conditions when hot air near the ground rises quickly through a small pocket of cooler, low-pressure air above forming a whirling column of particles, a dust devil.[40]
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+ Sandstorms occur with much less frequency than dust storms. They are often preceded by severe dust storms and occur when the wind velocity increases to a point where it can lift heavier particles. These grains of sand, up to about 0.5 mm (0.020 in) in diameter are jerked into the air but soon fall back to earth, ejecting other particles in the process. Their weight prevents them from being airborne for long and most only travel a distance of a few meters (yards). The sand streams along above the surface of the ground like a fluid, often rising to heights of about 30 cm (12 in).[37] In a really severe steady blow, 2 m (6 ft 7 in) is about as high as the sand stream can rise as the largest sand grains do not become airborne at all. They are transported by creep, being rolled along the desert floor or performing short jumps.[38]
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+ During a sandstorm, the wind-blown sand particles become electrically charged. Such electric fields, which range in size up to 80 kV/m, can produce sparks and cause interference with telecommunications equipment. They are also unpleasant for humans and can cause headaches and nausea.[38] The electric fields are caused by the collision between airborne particles and by the impacts of saltating sand grains landing on the ground. The mechanism is little understood but the particles usually have a negative charge when their diameter is under 250 μm and a positive one when they are over 500 μm.[41][42]
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+ Deserts take up about one third of the Earth's land surface.[8]
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+ Bottomlands may be salt-covered flats. Eolian processes are major factors in shaping desert landscapes. Polar deserts (also seen as "cold deserts") have similar features, except the main form of precipitation is snow rather than rain. Antarctica is the world's largest cold desert (composed of about 98% thick continental ice sheet and 2% barren rock). Some of the barren rock is to be found in the so-called Dry Valleys of Antarctica that almost never get snow, which can have ice-encrusted saline lakes that suggest evaporation far greater than the rare snowfall due to the strong katabatic winds that even evaporate ice.
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+ Deserts, both hot and cold, play a part in moderating the Earth's temperature. This is because they reflect more of the incoming light and their albedo is higher than that of forests or the sea.[44]
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+ Many people think of deserts as consisting of extensive areas of billowing sand dunes because that is the way they are often depicted on TV and in films,[45] but deserts do not always look like this.[46] Across the world, around 20% of desert is sand, varying from only 2% in North America to 30% in Australia and over 45% in Central Asia.[47] Where sand does occur, it is usually in large quantities in the form of sand sheets or extensive areas of dunes.[47]
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+ A sand sheet is a near-level, firm expanse of partially consolidated particles in a layer that varies from a few centimeters to a few meters thick. The structure of the sheet consists of thin horizontal layers of coarse silt and very fine to medium grain sand, separated by layers of coarse sand and pea-gravel which are a single grain thick. These larger particles anchor the other particles in place and may also be packed together on the surface so as to form a miniature desert pavement.[48] Small ripples form on the sand sheet when the wind exceeds 24 km/h (15 mph). They form perpendicular to the wind direction and gradually move across the surface as the wind continues to blow. The distance between their crests corresponds to the average length of jumps made by particles during saltation. The ripples are ephemeral and a change in wind direction causes them to reorganise.[49]
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+ Sand dunes are accumulations of windblown sand piled up in mounds or ridges. They form downwind of copious sources of dry, loose sand and occur when topographic and climatic conditions cause airborne particles to settle. As the wind blows, saltation and creep take place on the windward side of the dune and individual grains of sand move uphill. When they reach the crest, they cascade down the far side. The upwind slope typically has a gradient of 10° to 20° while the lee slope is around 32°, the angle at which loose dry sand will slip. As this wind-induced movement of sand grains takes place, the dune moves slowly across the surface of the ground.[50] Dunes are sometimes solitary, but they are more often grouped together in dune fields. When these are extensive, they are known as sand seas or ergs.[51]
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+ The shape of the dune depends on the characteristics of the prevailing wind. Barchan dunes are produced by strong winds blowing across a level surface and are crescent-shaped with the concave side away from the wind. When there are two directions from which winds regularly blow, a series of long, linear dunes known as seif dunes may form. These also occur parallel to a strong wind that blows in one general direction. Transverse dunes run at a right angle to the prevailing wind direction. Star dunes are formed by variable winds, and have several ridges and slip faces radiating from a central point. They tend to grow vertically; they can reach a height of 500 m (1,600 ft), making them the tallest type of dune. Rounded mounds of sand without a slip face are the rare dome dunes, found on the upwind edges of sand seas.[51]
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+ A large part of the surface area of the world's deserts consists of flat, stone-covered plains dominated by wind erosion. In "eolian deflation", the wind continually removes fine-grained material, which becomes wind-blown sand. This exposes coarser-grained material, mainly pebbles with some larger stones or cobbles,[36][47] leaving a desert pavement, an area of land overlaid by closely packed smooth stones forming a tessellated mosaic. Different theories exist as to how exactly the pavement is formed. It may be that after the sand and dust is blown away by the wind the stones jiggle themselves into place; alternatively, stones previously below ground may in some way work themselves to the surface. Very little further erosion takes place after the formation of a pavement, and the ground becomes stable. Evaporation brings moisture to the surface by capillary action and calcium salts may be precipitated, binding particles together to form a desert conglomerate.[52] In time, bacteria that live on the surface of the stones accumulate a film of minerals and clay particles, forming a shiny brown coating known as desert varnish.[53]
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+ Other non-sandy deserts consist of exposed outcrops of bedrock, dry soils or aridisols, and a variety of landforms affected by flowing water, such as alluvial fans, sinks or playas, temporary or permanent lakes, and oases.[47] A hamada is a type of desert landscape consisting of a high rocky plateau where the sand has been removed by aeolian processes. Other landforms include plains largely covered by gravels and angular boulders, from which the finer particles have been stripped by the wind. These are called "reg" in the western Sahara, "serir" in the eastern Sahara, "gibber plains" in Australia and "saï" in central Asia.[54] The Tassili Plateau in Algeria is an impressive jumble of eroded sandstone outcrops, canyons, blocks, pinnacles, fissures, slabs and ravines. In some places the wind has carved holes or arches, and in others, it has created mushroom-like pillars narrower at the base than the top.[55] In the Colorado Plateau it is water that has been the eroding force. Here the Colorado River has cut its way over the millennia through the high desert floor creating a canyon that is over a mile (6,000 feet or 1,800 meters) deep in places, exposing strata that are over two billion years old.[56]
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+ One of the driest places on Earth is the Atacama Desert.[57][58][59][60][61] It is virtually devoid of life because it is blocked from receiving precipitation by the Andes mountains to the east and the Chilean Coast Range to the west. The cold Humboldt Current and the anticyclone of the Pacific are essential to keep the dry climate of the Atacama. The average precipitation in the Chilean region of Antofagasta is just 1 mm (0.039 in) per year. Some weather stations in the Atacama have never received rain. Evidence suggests that the Atacama may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971. It is so arid that mountains that reach as high as 6,885 m (22,589 ft) are completely free of glaciers and, in the southern part from 25°S to 27°S, may have been glacier-free throughout the Quaternary, though permafrost extends down to an altitude of 4,400 m (14,400 ft) and is continuous above 5,600 m (18,400 ft).[62][63] Nevertheless, there is some plant life in the Atacama, in the form of specialist plants that obtain moisture from dew and the fogs that blow in from the Pacific.[57]
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+ When rain falls in deserts, as it occasionally does, it is often with great violence. The desert surface is evidence of this with dry stream channels known as arroyos or wadis meandering across its surface. These can experience flash floods, becoming raging torrents with surprising rapidity after a storm that may be many kilometers away. Most deserts are in basins with no drainage to the sea but some are crossed by exotic rivers sourced in mountain ranges or other high rainfall areas beyond their borders. The River Nile, the Colorado River and the Yellow River do this, losing much of their water through evaporation as they pass through the desert and raising groundwater levels nearby. There may also be underground sources of water in deserts in the form of springs, aquifers, underground rivers or lakes. Where these lie close to the surface, wells can be dug and oases may form where plant and animal life can flourish.[47] The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System under the Sahara Desert is the largest known accumulation of fossil water. The Great Man-Made River is a scheme launched by Libya's Muammar Gadaffi to tap this aquifer and supply water to coastal cities.[64] Kharga Oasis in Egypt is 150 km (93 mi) long and is the largest oasis in the Libyan Desert. A lake occupied this depression in ancient times and thick deposits of sandy-clay resulted. Wells are dug to extract water from the porous sandstone that lies underneath.[65] Seepages may occur in the walls of canyons and pools may survive in deep shade near the dried up watercourse below.[66]
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+ Lakes may form in basins where there is sufficient precipitation or meltwater from glaciers above. They are usually shallow and saline, and wind blowing over their surface can cause stress, moving the water over nearby low-lying areas. When the lakes dry up, they leave a crust or hardpan behind. This area of deposited clay, silt or sand is known as a playa. The deserts of North America have more than one hundred playas, many of them relics of Lake Bonneville which covered parts of Utah, Nevada and Idaho during the last ice age when the climate was colder and wetter.[67] These include the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Sevier Lake and many dry lake beds. The smooth flat surfaces of playas have been used for attempted vehicle speed records at Black Rock Desert and Bonneville Speedway and the United States Air Force uses Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert as runways for aircraft and the space shuttle.[47]
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+ Plants face severe challenges in arid environments. Problems they need to solve include how to obtain enough water, how to avoid being eaten and how to reproduce. Photosynthesis is the key to plant growth. It can only take place during the day as energy from the sun is required, but during the day, many deserts become very hot. Opening stomata to allow in the carbon dioxide necessary for the process causes evapotranspiration, and conservation of water is a top priority for desert vegetation. Some plants have resolved this problem by adopting crassulacean acid metabolism, allowing them to open their stomata during the night to allow CO2 to enter, and close them during the day,[68] or by using C4 carbon fixation.[69]
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+ Many desert plants have reduced the size of their leaves or abandoned them altogether. Cacti are desert specialists, and in most species, the leaves have been dispensed with and the chlorophyll displaced into the trunks, the cellular structure of which has been modified to allow them to store water. When rain falls, the water is rapidly absorbed by the shallow roots and retained to allow them to survive until the next downpour, which may be months or years away.[70] The giant saguaro cacti of the Sonoran Desert form "forests", providing shade for other plants and nesting places for desert birds. Saguaro grows slowly but may live for up to two hundred years. The surface of the trunk is folded like a concertina, allowing it to expand, and a large specimen can hold eight tons of water after a good downpour.[70]
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+ Cacti are present in both North and South America with a post-Gondwana origin. Other xerophytic plants have developed similar strategies by a process known as convergent evolution.[71] They limit water loss by reducing the size and number of stomata, by having waxy coatings and hairy or tiny leaves. Some are deciduous, shedding their leaves in the driest season, and others curl their leaves up to reduce transpiration. Others store water in succulent leaves or stems or in fleshy tubers. Desert plants maximize water uptake by having shallow roots that spread widely, or by developing long taproots that reach down to deep rock strata for ground water.[72] The saltbush in Australia has succulent leaves and secretes salt crystals, enabling it to live in saline areas.[72][73] In common with cacti, many have developed spines to ward off browsing animals.[70]
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+ Some desert plants produce seed which lies dormant in the soil until sparked into growth by rainfall. With annuals, such plants grow with great rapidity and may flower and set seed within weeks, aiming to complete their development before the last vestige of water dries up. For perennial plants, reproduction is more likely to be successful if the seed germinates in a shaded position, but not so close to the parent plant as to be in competition with it. Some seed will not germinate until it has been blown about on the desert floor to scarify the seed coat. The seed of the mesquite tree, which grows in deserts in the Americas, is hard and fails to sprout even when planted carefully. When it has passed through the gut of a pronghorn it germinates readily, and the little pile of moist dung provides an excellent start to life well away from the parent tree.[70] The stems and leaves of some plants lower the surface velocity of sand-carrying winds and protect the ground from erosion. Even small fungi and microscopic plant organisms found on the soil surface (so-called cryptobiotic soil) can be a vital link in preventing erosion and providing support for other living organisms. Cold deserts often have high concentrations of salt in the soil. Grasses and low shrubs are the dominant vegetation here and the ground may be covered with lichens. Most shrubs have spiny leaves and shed them in the coldest part of the year.[74]
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+ Animals adapted to live in deserts are called xerocoles. There is no evidence that body temperature of mammals and birds is adaptive to the different climates, either of great heat or cold. In fact, with a very few exceptions, their basal metabolic rate is determined by body size, irrespective of the climate in which they live.[75] Many desert animals (and plants) show especially clear evolutionary adaptations for water conservation or heat tolerance and so are often studied in comparative physiology, ecophysiology, and evolutionary physiology. One well-studied example is the specializations of mammalian kidneys shown by desert-inhabiting species.[76] Many examples of convergent evolution have been identified in desert organisms, including between cacti and Euphorbia, kangaroo rats and jerboas, Phrynosoma and Moloch lizards.[77]
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+ Deserts present a very challenging environment for animals. Not only do they require food and water but they also need to keep their body temperature at a tolerable level. In many ways, birds are the ablest to do this of the higher animals. They can move to areas of greater food availability as the desert blooms after local rainfall and can fly to faraway waterholes. In hot deserts, gliding birds can remove themselves from the over-heated desert floor by using thermals to soar in the cooler air at great heights. In order to conserve energy, other desert birds run rather than fly. The cream-colored courser flits gracefully across the ground on its long legs, stopping periodically to snatch up insects. Like other desert birds, it is well-camouflaged by its coloring and can merge into the landscape when stationary. The sandgrouse is an expert at this and nests on the open desert floor dozens of kilometers (miles) away from the waterhole it needs to visit daily. Some small diurnal birds are found in very restricted localities where their plumage matches the color of the underlying surface. The desert lark takes frequent dust baths which ensures that it matches its environment.[78]
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+ Water and carbon dioxide are metabolic end products of oxidation of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.[79] Oxidising a gram of carbohydrate produces 0.60 grams of water; a gram of protein produces 0.41 grams of water; and a gram of fat produces 1.07 grams of water,[80] making it possible for xerocoles to live with little or no access to drinking water.[81] The kangaroo rat for example makes use of this water of metabolism and conserves water both by having a low basal metabolic rate and by remaining underground during the heat of the day,[82] reducing loss of water through its skin and respiratory system when at rest.[81][83] Herbivorous mammals obtain moisture from the plants they eat. Species such as the addax antelope,[84] dik-dik, Grant's gazelle and oryx are so efficient at doing this that they apparently never need to drink.[85] The camel is a superb example of a mammal adapted to desert life. It minimizes its water loss by producing concentrated urine and dry dung, and is able to lose 40% of its body weight through water loss without dying of dehydration.[86] Carnivores can obtain much of their water needs from the body fluids of their prey.[87] Many other hot desert animals are nocturnal, seeking out shade during the day or dwelling underground in burrows. At depths of more than 50 cm (20 in), these remain at between 30 to 32 °C (86 to 90 °F) regardless of the external temperature.[87] Jerboas, desert rats, kangaroo rats and other small rodents emerge from their burrows at night and so do the foxes, coyotes, jackals and snakes that prey on them. Kangaroos keep cool by increasing their respiration rate, panting, sweating and moistening the skin of their forelegs with saliva.[88] Mammals living in cold deserts have developed greater insulation through warmer body fur and insulating layers of fat beneath the skin. The arctic weasel has a metabolic rate that is two or three times as high as would be expected for an animal of its size. Birds have avoided the problem of losing heat through their feet by not attempting to maintain them at the same temperature as the rest of their bodies, a form of adaptive insulation.[75] The emperor penguin has dense plumage, a downy under layer, an air insulation layer next the skin and various thermoregulatory strategies to maintain its body temperature in one of the harshest environments on Earth.[89]
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+ Being ectotherms, reptiles are unable to live in cold deserts but are well-suited to hot ones. In the heat of the day in the Sahara, the temperature can rise to 50 °C (122 °F). Reptiles cannot survive at this temperature and lizards will be prostrated by heat at 45 °C (113 °F). They have few adaptations to desert life and are unable to cool themselves by sweating so they shelter during the heat of the day. In the first part of the night, as the ground radiates the heat absorbed during the day, they emerge and search for prey. Lizards and snakes are the most numerous in arid regions and certain snakes have developed a novel method of locomotion that enables them to move sidewards and navigate high sand-dunes. These include the horned viper of Africa and the sidewinder of North America, evolutionarily distinct but with similar behavioural patterns because of convergent evolution. Many desert reptiles are ambush predators and often bury themselves in the sand, waiting for prey to come within range.[90]
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+ Amphibians might seem unlikely desert-dwellers, because of their need to keep their skins moist and their dependence on water for reproductive purposes. In fact, the few species that are found in this habitat have made some remarkable adaptations. Most of them are fossorial, spending the hot dry months aestivating in deep burrows. While there they shed their skins a number of times and retain the remnants around them as a waterproof cocoon to retain moisture. In the Sonoran Desert, Couch's spadefoot toad spends most of the year dormant in its burrow. Heavy rain is the trigger for emergence and the first male to find a suitable pool calls to attract others. Eggs are laid and the tadpoles grow rapidly as they must reach metamorphosis before the water evaporates. As the desert dries out, the adult toads rebury themselves. The juveniles stay on the surface for a while, feeding and growing, but soon dig themselves burrows. Few make it to adulthood.[91] The water holding frog in Australia has a similar life cycle and may aestivate for as long as five years if no rain falls.[92] The Desert rain frog of Namibia is nocturnal and survives because of the damp sea fogs that roll in from the Atlantic.[93]
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+ Invertebrates, particularly arthropods, have successfully made their homes in the desert. Flies, beetles, ants, termites, locusts, millipedes, scorpions and spiders[94] have hard cuticles which are impervious to water and many of them lay their eggs underground and their young develop away from the temperature extremes at the surface.[95] The Saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina) uses a heat shock protein in a novel way and forages in the open during brief forays in the heat of the day.[96] The long-legged darkling beetle in Namibia stands on its front legs and raises its carapace to catch the morning mist as condensate, funnelling the water into its mouth.[97] Some arthropods make use of the ephemeral pools that form after rain and complete their life cycle in a matter of days. The desert shrimp does this, appearing "miraculously" in new-formed puddles as the dormant eggs hatch. Others, such as brine shrimps, fairy shrimps and tadpole shrimps, are cryptobiotic and can lose up to 92% of their bodyweight, rehydrating as soon as it rains and their temporary pools reappear.[98]
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+ Humans have long made use of deserts as places to live,[99] and more recently have started to exploit them for minerals[100] and energy capture.[101] Deserts play a significant role in human culture with an extensive literature.[102]
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+ People have been living in deserts for millennia. Many, such as the Bushmen in the Kalahari, the Aborigines in Australia and various tribes of North American Indians, were originally hunter-gatherers. They developed skills in the manufacture and use of weapons, animal tracking, finding water, foraging for edible plants and using the things they found in their natural environment to supply their everyday needs. Their self-sufficient skills and knowledge were passed down through the generations by word of mouth.[99] Other cultures developed a nomadic way of life as herders of sheep, goats, cattle, camels, yaks, llamas or reindeer. They travelled over large areas with their herds, moving to new pastures as seasonal and erratic rainfall encouraged new plant growth. They took with them their tents made of cloth or skins draped over poles and their diet included milk, blood and sometimes meat.[103]
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+ The desert nomads were also traders. The Sahara is a very large expanse of land stretching from the Atlantic rim to Egypt. Trade routes were developed linking the Sahel in the south with the fertile Mediterranean region to the north and large numbers of camels were used to carry valuable goods across the desert interior. The Tuareg were traders and the goods transported traditionally included slaves, ivory and gold going northwards and salt going southwards. Berbers with knowledge of the region were employed to guide the caravans between the various oases and wells.[104] Several million slaves may have been taken northwards across the Sahara between the 8th and 18th centuries.[105] Traditional means of overland transport declined with the advent of motor vehicles, shipping and air freight, but caravans still travel along routes between Agadez and Bilma and between Timbuktu and Taoudenni carrying salt from the interior to desert-edge communities.[106]
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+ Round the rims of deserts, where more precipitation occurred and conditions were more suitable, some groups took to cultivating crops. This may have happened when drought caused the death of herd animals, forcing herdsmen to turn to cultivation. With few inputs, they were at the mercy of the weather and may have lived at bare subsistence level. The land they cultivated reduced the area available to nomadic herders, causing disputes over land. The semi-arid fringes of the desert have fragile soils which are at risk of erosion when exposed, as happened in the American Dust Bowl in the 1930s. The grasses that held the soil in place were ploughed under, and a series of dry years caused crop failures, while enormous dust storms blew the topsoil away. Half a million Americans were forced to leave their land in this catastrophe.[107]
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+ Similar damage is being done today to the semi-arid areas that rim deserts and about twelve million hectares of land are being turned to desert each year.[108] Desertification is caused by such factors as drought, climatic shifts, tillage for agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation. Vegetation plays a major role in determining the composition of the soil. In many environments, the rate of erosion and run off increases dramatically with reduced vegetation cover.[109]
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+ Deserts contain substantial mineral resources, sometimes over their entire surface, giving them their characteristic colors. For example, the red of many sand deserts comes from laterite minerals.[110] Geological processes in a desert climate can concentrate minerals into valuable deposits. Leaching by ground water can extract ore minerals and redeposit them, according to the water table, in concentrated form.[100] Similarly, evaporation tends to concentrate minerals in desert lakes, creating dry lake beds or playas rich in minerals. Evaporation can concentrate minerals as a variety of evaporite deposits, including gypsum, sodium nitrate, sodium chloride and borates.[100] Evaporites are found in the USA's Great Basin Desert, historically exploited by the "20-mule teams" pulling carts of borax from Death Valley to the nearest railway.[100] A desert especially rich in mineral salts is the Atacama Desert, Chile, where sodium nitrate has been mined for explosives and fertilizer since around 1850.[100] Other desert minerals are copper from Chile, Peru, and Iran, and iron and uranium in Australia. Many other metals, salts and commercially valuable types of rock such as pumice are extracted from deserts around the world.[100]
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+ Oil and gas form on the bottom of shallow seas when micro-organisms decompose under anoxic conditions and later become covered with sediment. Many deserts were at one time the sites of shallow seas and others have had underlying hydrocarbon deposits transported to them by the movement of tectonic plates.[111]
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+ Some major oilfields such as Ghawar are found under the sands of Saudi Arabia.[100] Geologists believe that other oil deposits were formed by aeolian processes in ancient deserts as may be the case with some of the major American oil fields.[100]
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+ Traditional desert farming systems have long been established in North Africa, irrigation being the key to success in an area where water stress is a limiting factor to growth. Techniques that can be used include drip irrigation, the use of organic residues or animal manures as fertilisers and other traditional agricultural management practices. Once fertility has been built up, further crop production preserves the soil from destruction by wind and other forms of erosion.[112] It has been found that plant growth-promoting bacteria play a role in increasing the resistance of plants to stress conditions and these rhizobacterial suspensions could be inoculated into the soil in the vicinity of the plants. A study of these microbes found that desert farming hampers desertification by establishing islands of fertility allowing farmers to achieve increased yields despite the adverse environmental conditions.[112] A field trial in the Sonoran Desert which exposed the roots of different species of tree to rhizobacteria and the nitrogen fixing bacterium Azospirillum brasilense with the aim of restoring degraded lands was only partially successful.[112]
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+ The Judean Desert was farmed in the 7th century BC during the Iron Age to supply food for desert forts.[113] Native Americans in the south western United States became agriculturalists around 600 AD when seeds and technologies became available from Mexico. They used terracing techniques and grew gardens beside seeps, in moist areas at the foot of dunes, near streams providing flood irrigation and in areas irrigated by extensive specially built canals. The Hohokam tribe constructed over 500 miles (800 km) of large canals and maintained them for centuries, an impressive feat of engineering. They grew maize, beans, squash and peppers.[114]
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+ A modern example of desert farming is the Imperial Valley in California, which has high temperatures and average rainfall of just 3 in (76 mm) per year.[115] The economy is heavily based on agriculture and the land is irrigated through a network of canals and pipelines sourced entirely from the Colorado River via the All-American Canal. The soil is deep and fertile, being part of the river's flood plains, and what would otherwise have been desert has been transformed into one of the most productive farming regions in California. Other water from the river is piped to urban communities but all this has been at the expense of the river, which below the extraction sites no longer has any above-ground flow during most of the year. Another problem of growing crops in this way is the build-up of salinity in the soil caused by the evaporation of river water.[116] The greening of the desert remains an aspiration and was at one time viewed as a future means for increasing food production for the world's growing population. This prospect has proved false as it disregarded the environmental damage caused elsewhere by the diversion of water for desert project irrigation.[117]
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+ Deserts are increasingly seen as sources for solar energy, partly due to low amounts of cloud cover. Many solar power plants have been built in the Mojave Desert such as the Solar Energy Generating Systems and Ivanpah Solar Power Facility.[118] Large swaths of this desert are covered in mirrors.[119]
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+ The potential for generating solar energy from the Sahara Desert is huge, the highest found on the globe. Professor David Faiman of Ben-Gurion University has stated that the technology now exists to supply all of the world's electricity needs from 10% of the Sahara Desert.[120] Desertec Industrial Initiative was a consortium seeking $560 billion to invest in North African solar and wind installations over the next forty years to supply electricity to Europe via cable lines running under the Mediterranean Sea. European interest in the Sahara Desert stems from its two aspects: the almost continual daytime sunshine and plenty of unused land. The Sahara receives more sunshine per acre than any part of Europe. The Sahara Desert also has the empty space totalling hundreds of square miles required to house fields of mirrors for solar plants.[121]
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+ The Negev Desert, Israel, and the surrounding area, including the Arava Valley, receive plenty of sunshine and are generally not arable. This has resulted in the construction of many solar plants.[101] David Faiman has proposed that "giant" solar plants in the Negev could supply all of Israel's needs for electricity.[120]
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+ The Arabs were probably the first organized force to conduct successful battles in the desert. By knowing back routes and the locations of oases and by utilizing camels, Muslim Arab forces were able to successfully overcome both Roman and Persian forces in the period 600 to 700 AD during the expansion of the Islamic caliphate.[122]
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+ Many centuries later, both world wars saw fighting in the desert. In the First World War, the Ottoman Turks were engaged with the British regular army in a campaign that spanned the Arabian peninsula. The Turks were defeated by the British, who had the backing of irregular Arab forces that were seeking to revolt against the Turks in the Hejaz, made famous in T.E. Lawrence's book Seven Pillars of Wisdom.[123][124]
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+ In the Second World War, the Western Desert Campaign began in Italian Libya. Warfare in the desert offered great scope for tacticians to use the large open spaces without the distractions of casualties among civilian populations. Tanks and armoured vehicles were able to travel large distances unimpeded and land mines were laid in large numbers. However, the size and harshness of the terrain meant that all supplies needed to be brought in from great distances. The victors in a battle would advance and their supply chain would necessarily become longer, while the defeated army could retreat, regroup and resupply. For these reasons, the front line moved back and forth through hundreds of kilometers as each side lost and regained momentum.[125] Its most easterly point was at El Alamein in Egypt, where the Allies decisively defeated the Axis forces in 1942.[126]
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+ The desert is generally thought of as a barren and empty landscape. It has been portrayed by writers, film-makers, philosophers, artists and critics as a place of extremes, a metaphor for anything from death, war or religion to the primitive past or the desolate future.[127]
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+ There is an extensive literature on the subject of deserts.[102] An early historical account is that of Marco Polo (c. 1254–1324), who travelled through Central Asia to China, crossing a number of deserts in his twenty four year trek.[128] Some accounts give vivid descriptions of desert conditions, though often accounts of journeys across deserts are interwoven with reflection, as is the case in Charles Montagu Doughty's major work, Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888).[129] Antoine de Saint-Exupéry described both his flying and the desert in Wind, Sand and Stars[130] and Gertrude Bell travelled extensively in the Arabian desert in the early part of the 20th century, becoming an expert on the subject, writing books and advising the British government on dealing with the Arabs.[131] Another woman explorer was Freya Stark who travelled alone in the Middle East, visiting Turkey, Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Persia and Afghanistan, writing over twenty books on her experiences.[132] The German naturalist Uwe George spent several years living in deserts, recording his experiences and research in his book, In the Deserts of this Earth.[133]
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+ The American poet Robert Frost expressed his bleak thoughts in his poem, Desert Places, which ends with the stanza "They cannot scare me with their empty spaces / Between stars – on stars where no human race is. / I have it in me so much nearer home / To scare myself with my own desert places."[134]
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+ Mars is the only other planet in the Solar System besides Earth on which deserts have been identified.[135] Despite its low surface atmospheric pressure (only 1/100 of that of the Earth), the patterns of atmospheric circulation on Mars have formed a sea of circumpolar sand more than 5 million km2 (1.9 million sq mi) in the area, larger than most deserts on Earth. The Martian deserts principally consist of dunes in the form of half-moons in flat areas near the permanent polar ice caps in the north of the planet. The smaller dune fields occupy the bottom of many of the craters situated in the Martian polar regions.[136] Examination of the surface of rocks by laser beamed from the Mars Exploration Rover have shown a surface film that resembles the desert varnish found on Earth although it might just be surface dust.[137] The surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn, also has a desert-like surface with dune seas.[138]
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+ Dice (singular die or dice[1]) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random numbers, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing games, and games of chance.
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+ A traditional die is a cube with each of its six faces marked with a different number of dots (pips) from one to six. When thrown or rolled, the die comes to rest showing a random integer from one to six on its upper surface, with each value being equally likely. Dice may also have polyhedral or irregular shapes and may have faces marked with numerals or symbols instead of pips. Loaded dice are designed to favor some results over others for cheating or entertainment.
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+ Dice have been used since before recorded history, and it is uncertain where they originated. It is theorized that dice developed from the practice of fortune-telling with the talus of hoofed animals, colloquially known as knucklebones.[2] The Egyptian game of senet was played with flat two-sided throwsticks which indicated the number of squares a player could move, and thus functioned as a form of dice. Senet was played before 3000 BC and up to the 2nd century AD.[3] Perhaps the oldest known dice were excavated as part of a backgammon-like game set at the Burnt City, an archeological site in south-eastern Iran, estimated to be from between 2800–2500 BC.[4] Bone dice from Skara Brae have been dated to 3100-2400 BCE.[5] Excavations from graves at Mohenjo-daro, an Indus Valley civilization settlement, unearthed terracotta dice dating to 2500-1900 BCE.[6]
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+ Games involving dice are mentioned in the ancient Indian Rigveda, Atharvaveda, and Buddhist games list.[7] There are several biblical references to "casting lots" (Hebrew: יפילו גורל yappîlū ḡōrāl), as in Psalm 22, indicating that dicing (or a related activity) was commonplace when the psalm was composed. Knucklebones was a game of skill played in ancient Greece; a derivative form had the four sides of bones receive different values like modern dice.[8]
10
+
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+ Although gambling was illegal, many Romans were passionate gamblers who enjoyed dicing, which was known as aleam ludere ("to play at dice"). There were two sizes of Roman dice. Tali were large dice inscribed with one, three, four, and six on four sides. Tesserae were smaller dice with sides numbered from one to six.[10] Twenty-sided dice date back to the 2nd century AD[11] and from Ptolemaic Egypt as early as the 2nd century BC.[12]
12
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+ Dominoes and playing cards originated in China as developments from dice.[citation needed] The transition from dice to playing cards occurred in China around the Tang dynasty, and coincides with the technological transition from rolls of manuscripts to block printed books.[13] In Japan, dice were used to play a popular game called sugoroku. There are two types of sugoroku. Ban-sugoroku is similar to backgammon and dates to the Heian period, while e-sugoroku is a racing game.[14]
14
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+ Dice are thrown onto a surface either from the hand or from a container designed for this (such as a cup or tray). The face of the die that is uppermost when it comes to rest provides the value of the throw.
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+ The result of a die roll is determined by the way it is thrown, according to the laws of classical mechanics. A die roll is made random by uncertainty in minor factors such as tiny movements in the thrower's hand; they are thus a crude form of hardware random number generator.
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+
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+ One typical contemporary dice game is craps, where two dice are thrown simultaneously and wagers are made on the total value of the two dice. Dice are frequently used to introduce randomness into board games, where they are often used to decide the distance through which a piece will move along the board (as in backgammon and Monopoly).
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+ Common dice are small cubes, most often 1.6 cm (0.63 in) across,[15] whose faces are numbered from one to six, usually by patterns of round dots called pips. (While the use of Arabic numerals is occasionally seen, such dice are less common.)
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+ Opposite sides of a modern die traditionally add up to seven, requiring the 1, 2, and 3 faces to share a vertex.[16] The faces of a die may be placed clockwise or counterclockwise about this vertex. If the 1, 2, and 3 faces run counterclockwise, the die is called "right-handed". If those faces run clockwise, the die is called "left-handed". Western dice are normally right-handed, and Chinese dice are normally left-handed.[17]
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+ The pips on standard six-sided dice are arranged in specific patterns as shown. Asian style dice bear similar patterns to Western ones, but the pips are closer to the center of the face; in addition, the pips are differently sized on Asian style dice, and the pips are colored red on the 1 and 4 sides. Red fours may be of Indian origin.[17][18]
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+ Non-precision dice are manufactured via the plastic injection molding process. The pips or numbers on the die are a part of the mold. Different pigments can be added to the dice to make them opaque or transparent, or multiple pigments may be added to make the dice speckled or marbled.[19]
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+ The coloring for numbering is achieved by submerging the die entirely in paint, which is allowed to dry. The die is then polished via a tumble finishing process similar to rock polishing. The abrasive agent scrapes off all of the paint except for the indents of the numbering. A finer abrasive is then used to polish the die. This process also creates the smoother, rounded edges on the dice.[20]
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+ Precision casino dice may have a polished or sand finish, making them transparent or translucent respectively. Casino dice have their pips drilled, then filled flush with a paint of the same density as the material used for the dice, such that the center of gravity of the dice is as close to the geometric center as possible. This mitigates concerns that the pips will cause a small bias.[21] All such dice are stamped with a serial number to prevent potential cheaters from substituting a die. Precision backgammon dice are made the same way; they tend to be slightly smaller and have rounded corners and edges, to allow better movement inside the dice cup and stop forceful rolls from damaging the playing surface.
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+
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+ The word die comes from Old French dé; from Latin datum "something which is given or played".[22]
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+ While the terms ace, deuce, trey, cater, cinque and sice are generally obsolete, with the names of the numbers preferred, they are still used by some professional gamblers to designate different sides of the dice. Ace is from the Latin as, meaning "a unit";[23] the others are 2 to 6 in Old French.[24]
36
+ The term "snake eyes" is the outcome of rolling the dice and getting only one pip on each die. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces use of the term as far back as 1919.[25]
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+ The term "boxcars", also known as "midnight", is the outcome of rolling the dice and getting a six on each die. The pair of six pips resembles a pair of boxcars on a freight train.
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+
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+ Using Unicode characters, the faces ⚀ ⚁ ⚂ ⚃ ⚄ ⚅, can be shown in text using the range U+2680 to U+2685 or using decimal ⚀ to ⚅.[26]
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+
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+ A loaded, weighted, cheat, or crooked die is one that has been tampered with so that it will land with a specific side facing upwards more or less often than a fair die would. There are several methods for creating loaded dice, including rounded faces, off-square faces, and weights. Casinos and gambling halls frequently use transparent cellulose acetate dice as tampering is easier to detect than with opaque dice.[27]
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+
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+ Various shapes like two-sided or four-sided dice are documented in archaeological findings e.g. from Ancient Egypt or the Middle East. While the cubical six-sided die became the most common type in many parts of the world, other shapes were always known, like 20-sided dice in Ptolemaic and Roman times.
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+ The modern tradition of using sets of polyhedral dice started around the end of the 1960s when non-cubical dice became popular among players of wargames,[28] and since have been employed extensively in role-playing games and trading card games. Dice using both the numerals 6 and 9, which are reciprocally symmetric through rotation, typically distinguish them with a dot or underline.
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+ Dice are often sold in sets, matching in color, of six different shapes. Five of the dice are shaped like the Platonic solids, whose faces are regular polygons. Aside from the cube, the other four Platonic solids have 4, 8, 12, and 20 faces, allowing for those number ranges to be generated. The only other common non-cubical die is the 10-sided die, a pentagonal trapezohedron die, whose faces are ten kites, each with two different edge lengths, three different angles, and two different kinds of vertices. Such sets frequently include a second 10-sided die either of contrasting color or numbered by tens, allowing the pair of 10-sided dice to be combined to generate numbers between 1 and 100.
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+ Using these dice in various ways, games can closely approximate a variety of probability distributions. For instance, 10-sided dice can be rolled in pairs to produce a uniform distribution of random percentages, and summing the values of multiple dice will produce approximations to normal distributions.[29]
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+ Unlike other common dice, a four-sided (tetrahedral) die does not have a side that faces upward when it is at rest on a surface, so it must be read in a different way. On some four-sided dice, each face features multiple numbers, with same number printed near each vertex on all sides. In this case, the number around the vertex pointing up is used. Alternatively, the numbers on a tetrahedral die can be placed at the middles of the edges, in which case the numbers around the base are used.
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+ Normally, the faces on a die will be placed so opposite faces will add up to one more than the number of faces. (This is not possible with 4-sided dice and dice with an odd-number of faces.) Some dice, such as those with 10 sides, are usually numbered sequentially beginning with 0, in which case the opposite faces will add to one less than the number of faces.
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+ Some twenty-sided dice sport a different arrangement used for the purpose of keeping track of a numerical value that counts down, such as health points. These spindown dice are arranged so the faces are consecutively numbered, allowing the user to simply turn to the next lower number to keep track of a declining value. They are commonly used with collectible card games.[30]
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+ "Uniform fair dice" are dice where all faces have equal probability of outcome due to the symmetry of the die as it is face-transitive. Theoretically, these include:
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+ Two other types of polyhedrons are technically not face-transitive, but are still fair dice due to symmetry:
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+ Long dice and teetotums can in principle be made with any number of faces, including odd numbers.[31] Long dice are based on the infinite set of prisms. All the rectangular faces are mutually face-transitive, so they are equally probable. The two ends of the prism may be rounded or capped with a pyramid, designed so that the die cannot rest on those faces. 4-sided long dice are easier to roll than tetrahedra, and are used in the traditional board games dayakattai and daldøs.
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+ The faces of most dice are labelled using sequences of whole numbers, usually starting at one, expressed with either pips or digits. However, there are some applications that require results other than numbers. Examples include letters for Boggle, directions for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Fudge dice, playing card symbols for poker dice, and instructions for sexual acts using sex dice.
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+ Dice may have numbers that do not form a counting sequence starting at one. One variation on the standard die is known as the "average" die.[34][35] These are six-sided dice with sides numbered 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, which have the same arithmetic mean as a standard die (3.5 for a single die, 7 for a pair of dice), but have a narrower range of possible values (2 through 5 for one, 4 through 10 for a pair). They are used in some table-top wargames, where a narrower range of numbers is required.[35] Other numbered variations include Sicherman dice and nontransitive dice.
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+ A die can be constructed in the shape of a sphere, with the addition of an internal cavity in the shape of the dual polyhedron of the desired die shape and an internal weight. The weight will settle in one of the points of the internal cavity, causing it to settle with one of the numbers uppermost. For instance, a sphere with an octahedral cavity and a small internal weight will settle with one of the 6 points of the cavity held downwards by the weight.
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+ Polyhedral dice are commonly used in role-playing games. The fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is largely credited with popularizing dice in such games. Some games use only one type, like Exalted which uses only ten-sided dice. Others use numerous types for different game purposes, such as D&D, which makes use of all common polyhedral dice. Dice are usually used to determine the outcome of events. Games typically determine results either as a total on one or more dice above or below a fixed number, or a certain number of rolls above a certain number on one or more dice. Due to circumstances or character skill, the initial roll may have a number added to or subtracted from the final result, or have the player roll extra or fewer dice. To keep track of rolls easily, dice notation is frequently used.
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+ Many board games use dice to randomize how far pieces move or to settle conflicts. Typically, this has meant that rolling higher numbers is better. Some games, such as Axis & Allies, have inverted this system by making the lower values more potent. In the modern age, a few games and game designers have approached dice in a different way by making each side of the die similarly valuable. In Castles of Burgundy, players spend their dice to take actions based on the die's value. In this game, a six is not better than a one, or vice versa. In Quarriors (and its descendant, Dicemasters), different sides of the dice can offer completely different abilities. Several sides often give resources while others grant the player useful actions.[36]
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+ Dice can be used for divination and using dice for such a purpose is called cleromancy. A pair of common dice is usual, though other forms of polyhedra can be used. Tibetan Buddhists sometimes use this method of divination. It is highly likely that the Pythagoreans used the Platonic solids as dice. They referred to such dice as "the dice of the gods" and they sought to understand the universe through an understanding of geometry in polyhedra.[37]
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+ Astrological dice are a specialized set of three 12-sided dice for divination; the first die represents planets, the Sun, the Moon, and the nodes of the Moon, the second die represents the 12 zodiac signs, and the third represents the 12 houses. A specialized icosahedron die provides the answers of the Magic 8-Ball, conventionally used to provide answers to yes-or-no questions.
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+ Dice can be used to generate random numbers for use in passwords and cryptography applications. The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes a method by which dice can be used to generate passphrases.[38] Diceware is a method recommended for generating secure but memorable passphrases, by repeatedly rolling five dice and picking the corresponding word from a pre-generated list.[39]
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+ In many gaming contexts, especially tabletop role-playing games, shorthand notations representing different dice rolls are used. A "d" or "D" is used to indicate a die with a specific number of sides; for example, d4 denotes a four-sided die. If several dice of the same type are to be rolled, this is indicated by a leading number specifying the number of dice. Hence, 6d8 means the player should roll six eight-sided dice and add the results. Modifiers to a die roll can also be indicated as desired. For example, 3d6+4 instructs the player to roll three six-sided dice, calculate the total, and add four to it.
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+ This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Dice". Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 176–177.
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+ Animation is a method in which figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most animations are made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Computer animation can be very detailed 3D animation, while 2D computer animation can be used for stylistic reasons, low bandwidth or faster real-time renderings. Other common animation methods apply a stop motion technique to two and three-dimensional objects like paper cutouts, puppets or clay figures.
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+ Commonly the effect of animation is achieved by a rapid succession of sequential images that minimally differ from each other. The illusion—as in motion pictures in general—is thought to rely on the phi phenomenon and beta movement, but the exact causes are still uncertain.
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+ Analog mechanical animation media that rely on the rapid display of sequential images include the phénakisticope, zoetrope, flip book, praxinoscope and film. Television and video are popular electronic animation media that originally were analog and now operate digitally. For display on the computer, techniques like animated GIF and Flash animation were developed.
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+ Animation is more pervasive than many people realize. Apart from short films, feature films, television series, animated GIFs and other media dedicated to the display of moving images, animation is also prevalent in video games, motion graphics, user interfaces and visual effects.[1]
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+ The physical movement of image parts through simple mechanics—in for instance moving images in magic lantern shows—can also be considered animation. The mechanical manipulation of three-dimensional puppets and objects to emulate living beings has a very long history in automata. Electronic automata were popularized by Disney as animatronics.
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+ Animators are artists who specialize in creating animation.
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+ The word "animation" stems from the Latin "animātiōn", stem of "animātiō", meaning "a bestowing of life".[2] The primary meaning of the English word is "liveliness" and has been in use much longer than the meaning of "moving image medium".
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+ Hundreds of years before the introduction of true animation, people from all over the world enjoyed shows with moving figures that were created and manipulated manually in puppetry, automata, shadow play and the magic lantern. The multi-media phantasmagoria shows that were very popular in West-European theatres from the late 18th century through the first half of the 19th century, featured lifelike projections of moving ghosts and other frightful imagery in motion.
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+ In 1833, the stroboscopic disc (better known as the phénakisticope) introduced the principle of modern animation with sequential images that were shown one by one in quick succession to form an optical illusion of motion pictures. Series of sequential images had occasionally been made over thousands of years, but the stroboscopic disc provided the first method to represent such images in fluent motion and for the first time had artists creating series with a proper systematic breakdown of movements. The stroboscopic animation principle was also applied in the zoetrope (1866), the flip book (1868) and the praxinoscope (1877). The average 19th-century animation contained about 12 images that were displayed as a continuous loop by spinning a device manually. The flip book often contained more pictures and had a beginning and end, but its animation would not last longer than a few seconds. The first to create much longer sequences seems to have been Charles-Émile Reynaud, who between 1892 and 1900 had much success with his 10- to 15-minute-long Pantomimes Lumineuses.
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+ When cinematography eventually broke through in 1895 after animated pictures had been known for decades, the wonder of the realistic details in the new medium was seen as its biggest accomplishment. Animation on film was not commercialized until a few years later by manufacturers of optical toys, with chromolithography film loops (often traced from live-action footage) for adapted toy magic lanterns intended for kids to use at home. It would take some more years before animation reached movie theatres.
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+ After earlier experiments by movie pioneers J. Stuart Blackton, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper, Segundo de Chomón and Edwin S. Porter (among others), Blackton's The Haunted Hotel (1907) was the first huge stop motion success, baffling audiences by showing objects that apparently moved by themselves in full photographic detail, without signs of any known stage trick.
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+
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+ Émile Cohl's Fantasmagorie (1908) is the oldest known example of what became known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation. Other great artistic and very influential short films were created by Ladislas Starevich with his puppet animations since 1910 and by Winsor McCay with detailed drawn animation in films such as Little Nemo (1911) and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914).
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+ During the 1910s, the production of animated "cartoons" became an industry in the US.[3] Successful producer John Randolph Bray and animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process that dominated the animation industry for the rest of the century.[4][5] Felix the Cat, who debuted in 1919, became the first animated superstar.
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+ In 1928, Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, popularized film with synchronized sound and put Walt Disney's studio at the forefront of the animation industry. In 1932, Disney also introduced the innovation of full colour (in Flowers and Trees) as part of a three-year-long exclusive deal with Technicolor.
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+ The enormous success of Mickey Mouse is seen as the start of the golden age of American animation that would last until the 1960s. The United States dominated the world market of animation with a plethora of cel-animated theatrical shorts. Several studios would introduce characters that would become very popular and would have long-lasting careers, including Walt Disney Productions' Goofy (1932) and Donald Duck (1934), Warner Bros. Cartoons' Looney Tunes characters like Daffy Duck (1937), Bugs Bunny (1938/1940), Tweety (1941/1942), Sylvester the Cat (1945), Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner (1949), Fleischer Studios/Paramount Cartoon Studios' Betty Boop (1930), Popeye (1933), Superman (1941) and Casper (1945), MGM cartoon studio's Tom and Jerry (1940) and Droopy, Walter Lantz Productions/Universal Studio Cartoons' Woody Woodpecker (1940), Terrytoons/20th Century Fox's Mighty Mouse (1942) and United Artists' Pink Panther (1963).
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+ In 1917, Italian-Argentine director Quirino Cristiani made the first feature-length film El Apóstol (now lost), which became a critical and commercial success. It was followed by Cristiani's Sin dejar rastros in 1918, but one day after its premiere the film was confiscated by the government.
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+ After working on it for three years, Lotte Reiniger released the German feature-length silhouette animation Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in 1926, the oldest extant animated feature.
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+ In 1937, Walt Disney Studios premiered their first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, still one of the highest-grossing traditional animation features as of May 2020[update].[7][8] The Fleischer studios followed this example in 1939 with Gulliver's Travels with some success. Partly due to foreign markets being cut off by the Second World War, Disney's next features Pinocchio, Fantasia (both 1940) and Fleischer Studios' second animated feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941/1942) failed at the box office. For decades afterwards Disney would be the only American studio to regularly produce animated features, until Ralph Bakshi became the first to also release more than a handful features. Sullivan-Bluth Studios began to regularly produce animated features starting with An American Tail in 1986.
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+ Although relatively few titles became as successful as Disney's features, other countries developed their own animation industries that produced both short and feature theatrical animations in a wide variety of styles, relatively often including stop motion and cutout animation techniques. Russia's Soyuzmultfilm animation studio, founded in 1936, produced 20 films (including shorts) per year on average and reached 1,582 titles in 2018. China, Czechoslovakia / Czech Republic, Italy, France and Belgium were other countries that more than occasionally released feature films, while Japan became a true powerhouse of animation production, with its own recognizable and influential anime style of effective limited animation.
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+ Animation became very popular on television since the 1950s, when television sets started to become common in most wealthy countries. Cartoons were mainly programmed for children, on convenient time slots, and especially US youth spent many hours watching Saturday-morning cartoons. Many classic cartoons found a new life on the small screen and by the end of the 1950s, production of new animated cartoons started to shift from theatrical releases to TV series. Hanna-Barbera Productions was especially prolific and had huge hit series, such as The Flintstones (1960–1966) (the first prime time animated series), Scooby-Doo (since 1969) and Belgian co-production The Smurfs (1981–1989). The constraints of American television programming and the demand for an enormous quantity resulted in cheaper and quicker limited animation methods and much more formulaic scripts. Quality dwindled until more daring animation surfaced in the late 1980s and in the early 1990s with hit series such as The Simpsons (since 1989) as part of a "renaissance" of American animation.
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+
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+ While US animated series also spawned successes internationally, many other countries produced their own child-oriented programming, relatively often preferring stop motion and puppetry over cel animation. Japanese anime TV series became very successful internationally since the 1960s, and European producers looking for affordable cel animators relatively often started co-productions with Japanese studios, resulting in hit series such as Barbapapa (The Netherlands/Japan/France 1973–1977), Wickie und die starken Männer/小さなバイキング ビッケ (Vicky the Viking) (Austria/Germany/Japan 1974) and Il était une fois... (Once Upon a Time...) (France/Japan 1978).
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+ Computer animation was gradually developed since the 1940s. 3D wireframe animation started popping up in the mainstream in the 1970s, with an early (short) appearance in the sci-fi thriller Futureworld (1976).
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+ The Rescuers Down Under was the first feature film to be completely created digitally without a camera.[9] It was produced in a style that's very similar to traditional cel animation on the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), developed by The Walt Disney Company in collaboration with Pixar in the late 1980s.
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+ The so-called 3D style, more often associated with computer animation, has become extremely popular since Pixar's Toy Story (1995), the first computer-animated feature in this style.
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+ Most of the cel animation studios switched to producing mostly computer animated films around the 1990s, as it proved cheaper and more profitable. Not only the very popular 3D animation style was generated with computers, but also most of the films and series with a more traditional hand-crafted appearance, in which the charming characteristics of cel animation could be emulated with software, while new digital tools helped developing new styles and effects.[10][11][12][13][14][15]
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+ In 2008, the animation market was worth US$68.4 billion.[16] Animated feature-length films returned the highest gross margins (around 52%) of all film genres between 2004 and 2013.[17] Animation as an art and industry continues to thrive as of the early 2020s.
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+ The clarity of animation makes it a powerful tool for instruction, while its total malleability also allows exaggeration that can be employed to convey strong emotions and to thwart reality. It has therefore been widely for other purposed than mere entertainment.
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+ During World War II, animation was widely exploited for propaganda. Many American studios, including Warner Bros. and Disney, lent their talents and their cartoon characters to convey the public of certain war values. Some countries, including China, Japan and the United Kingdom, produced their first feature-length animation for their war efforts.
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+ Animation has been very popular in television commercials, both due to its graphic appeal, and the humour it can provide. Some animated characters in commercials have survived for decades, such as Snap, Crackle and Pop in advertisements for Kellogg's cereals.[18] The legendary animation director Tex Avery was the producer of the first Raid "Kills Bugs Dead" commercials in 1966, which were very successful for the company.[19]
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+ Apart from their success in movie theaters and television series, many cartoon characters would also prove extremely lucrative when licensed for all kinds of merchandise and for other media.
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+ Animation has traditionally been very closely related to comic books. While many comic book characters found their way to the screen (which is often the case in Japan, where many manga are adapted into anime), original animated characters also commonly appear in comic books and magazines. Somewhat similarly, characters and plots for video games (an interactive animation medium) have been derived from films and vice versa.
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+ Some of the original content produced for the screen can be used and marketed in other media. Stories and images can easily be adapted into children's books and other printed media. Songs and music have appeared on records and as streaming media.
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+ While very many animation companies commercially exploit their creations outside moving image media, The Walt Disney Company is the best known and most extreme example. Since first being licensed for a children's writing tablet in 1929, their Mickey Mouse mascot has been depicted on an enormous amount of products, as have many other Disney characters. This may have influenced some pejorative use of Mickey's name, but licensed Disney products sell well, and the so-called Disneyana has many avid collectors, and even a dedicated Disneyana fanclub (since 1984).
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+ Disneyland opened in 1955 and features many attractions that were based on Disney's cartoon characters. Its enormous success spawned several other Disney theme parks and resorts. Disney's earnings from the theme parks has relatively often been higher than those from their movies.
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+ Criticism of animation has been common in media and cinema since its inception. With its popularity, a large amount of criticism has arisen, especially animated feature-length films.[20] Many concerns of cultural representation, psychological effects on children have been brought up around the animation industry, which has remained rather politically unchanged and stagnant since its inception into mainstream culture.[21]
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+ As with any other form of media, animation has instituted awards for excellence in the field. The original awards for animation were presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for animated shorts from the year 1932, during the 5th Academy Awards function. The first winner of the Academy Award was the short Flowers and Trees,[22] a production by Walt Disney Productions.[23][24] The Academy Award for a feature-length animated motion picture was only instituted for the year 2001, and awarded during the 74th Academy Awards in 2002. It was won by the film Shrek, produced by DreamWorks and Pacific Data Images.[25] Disney Animation and Pixar has produced the most films either to win or be nominated for the award. Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film nominated for Best Picture. Up and Toy Story 3 also received Best Picture nominations after the Academy expanded the number of nominees from five to ten.
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+ Several other countries have instituted an award for the best-animated feature film as part of their national film awards: Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Animation (since 2008), BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film (since 2006), César Award for Best Animated Film (since 2011), Golden Rooster Award for Best Animation (since 1981), Goya Award for Best Animated Film (since 1989), Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year (since 2007), National Film Award for Best Animated Film (since 2006). Also since 2007, the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Animated Feature Film has been awarded at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Since 2009, the European Film Awards have awarded the European Film Award for Best Animated Film.
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+ The Annie Award is another award presented for excellence in the field of animation. Unlike the Academy Awards, the Annie Awards are only received for achievements in the field of animation and not for any other field of technical and artistic endeavour. They were re-organized in 1992 to create a new field for Best Animated Feature. The 1990s winners were dominated by Walt Disney; however, newer studios, led by Pixar & DreamWorks, have now begun to consistently vie for this award. The list of awardees is as follows:
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+ The creation of non-trivial animation works (i.e., longer than a few seconds) has developed as a form of filmmaking, with certain unique aspects.[26] Traits common to both live-action and animated feature-length films are labor intensity and high production costs.[27]
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+ The most important difference is that once a film is in the production phase, the marginal cost of one more shot is higher for animated films than live-action films.[28] It is relatively easy for a director to ask for one more take during principal photography of a live-action film, but every take on an animated film must be manually rendered by animators (although the task of rendering slightly different takes has been made less tedious by modern computer animation).[29] It is pointless for a studio to pay the salaries of dozens of animators to spend weeks creating a visually dazzling five-minute scene if that scene fails to effectively advance the plot of the film.[30] Thus, animation studios starting with Disney began the practice in the 1930s of maintaining story departments where storyboard artists develop every single scene through storyboards, then handing the film over to the animators only after the production team is satisfied that all the scenes make sense as a whole.[31] While live-action films are now also storyboarded, they enjoy more latitude to depart from storyboards (i.e., real-time improvisation).[32]
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+ Another problem unique to animation is the requirement to maintain a film's consistency from start to finish, even as films have grown longer and teams have grown larger. Animators, like all artists, necessarily have individual styles, but must subordinate their individuality in a consistent way to whatever style is employed on a particular film.[33] Since the early 1980s, teams of about 500 to 600 people, of whom 50 to 70 are animators, typically have created feature-length animated films. It is relatively easy for two or three artists to match their styles; synchronizing those of dozens of artists is more difficult.[34]
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+
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+ This problem is usually solved by having a separate group of visual development artists develop an overall look and palette for each film before the animation begins. Character designers on the visual development team draw model sheets to show how each character should look like with different facial expressions, posed in different positions, and viewed from different angles.[35][36] On traditionally animated projects, maquettes were often sculpted to further help the animators see how characters would look from different angles.[37][35]
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+
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+ Unlike live-action films, animated films were traditionally developed beyond the synopsis stage through the storyboard format; the storyboard artists would then receive credit for writing the film.[38] In the early 1960s, animation studios began hiring professional screenwriters to write screenplays (while also continuing to use story departments) and screenplays had become commonplace for animated films by the late 1980s.
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+
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+ Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century.[39] The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, first drawn on paper.[40] To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels,[41] which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings.[42] The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one against a painted background by a rostrum camera onto motion picture film.[43]
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+
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+ The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system.[44][45] Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects.[46] The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media with digital video.[47][44] The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years.[37] Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" (a play on the words "traditional" and "digital") to describe cel animation that uses significant computer technology.
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+ Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940),[48] Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), Lucky and Zorba (Italy, 1998), and The Illusionist (British-French, 2010). Traditionally animated films produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994), The Prince of Egypt (US, 1998), Akira (Japan, 1988),[49] Spirited Away (Japan, 2001), The Triplets of Belleville (France, 2003), and The Secret of Kells (Irish-French-Belgian, 2009).
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+
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+ Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films that regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement,[50] having a smooth animation.[51] Fully animated films can be made in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works like those produced by the Walt Disney studio (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King) to the more 'cartoon' styles of the Warner Bros. animation studio. Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works, The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982), The Iron Giant (US, 1999), and Nocturna (Spain, 2007). Fully animated films are animated at 24 frames per second, with a combination of animation on ones and twos, meaning that drawings can be held for one frame out of 24 or two frames out of 24.[52]
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+ Limited animation involves the use of less detailed or more stylized drawings and methods of movement usually a choppy or "skippy" movement animation.[53] Limited animation uses fewer drawings per second, thereby limiting the fluidity of the animation. This is a more economic technique. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America,[54] limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing-Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and certain anime produced in Japan.[55] Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media for television (the work of Hanna-Barbera,[56] Filmation,[57] and other TV animation studios[58]) and later the Internet (web cartoons).
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+
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+ Rotoscoping is a technique patented by Max Fleischer in 1917 where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame.[59] The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings,[60] as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are Fire and Ice (US, 1983), Heavy Metal (1981), and Aku no Hana (2013).
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+
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+ Live-action/animation is a technique combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots or live-action actors into animated shots.[61] One of the earlier uses was in Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live-action footage.[62] Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created a series of Alice Comedies (1923–1927), in which a live-action girl enters an animated world. Other examples include Allegro Non Troppo (Italy, 1976), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (US, 1988), Volere volare (Italy 1991), Space Jam (US, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (US, 2001).
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+
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+ Stop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement.[63] There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the medium used to create the animation.[64] Computer software is widely available to create this type of animation; traditional stop-motion animation is usually less expensive but more time-consuming to produce than current computer animation.[64]
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+ Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer.[46][87] 2D animation techniques tend to focus on image manipulation while 3D techniques usually build virtual worlds in which characters and objects move and interact.[88] 3D animation can create images that seem real to the viewer.[89]
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+ 2D animation figures are created or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics and 2D vector graphics.[90] This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques, interpolated morphing,[91] onion skinning[92] and interpolated rotoscoping.
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+ 2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation, and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated.[93]
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+ Final line advection animation is a technique used in 2D animation,[94] to give artists and animators more influence and control over the final product as everything is done within the same department.[95] Speaking about using this approach in Paperman, John Kahrs said that "Our animators can change things, actually erase away the CG underlayer if they want, and change the profile of the arm."[96]
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+ 3D animation is digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. The animator usually starts by creating a 3D polygon mesh to manipulate.[97] A mesh typically includes many vertices that are connected by edges and faces, which give the visual appearance of form to a 3D object or 3D environment.[97] Sometimes, the mesh is given an internal digital skeletal structure called an armature that can be used to control the mesh by weighting the vertices.[98][99] This process is called rigging and can be used in conjunction with key frames to create movement.[100]
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+ Other techniques can be applied, mathematical functions (e.g., gravity, particle simulations), simulated fur or hair, and effects, fire and water simulations.[101] These techniques fall under the category of 3D dynamics.[102]
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1
+ Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, and various metals (such as silverpoint). Digital drawing is the act of using a computer to draw. Common methods of digital drawing include a stylus or finger on a touchscreen device, stylus- or finger-to-touchpad, or in some cases, a mouse. There are many digital art programs and devices.
2
+
3
+ A drawing instrument releases a small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, wood, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas.[1] The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.
4
+
5
+ In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman or a draughtsman.[2]
6
+
7
+ Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression within the visual arts. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface.[3] Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[4] while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support.
8
+
9
+ Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.
10
+
11
+ There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, and freehand. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, the surrealist method of entopic graphomania (in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots), and tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper, around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through the paper).
12
+
13
+ A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.
14
+
15
+ In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.
16
+
17
+ Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication.[5] It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invention of the written language,[5][6] demonstrated by the production of cave and rock paintings around 30,000 years ago (Art of the Upper Paleolithic).[7]
18
+ These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts.[8] The sketches and paintings produced by Neolithic times were eventually stylised and simplified in to symbol systems (proto-writing) and eventually into early writing systems.
19
+
20
+ Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th-century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation.
21
+
22
+ Drawing diagrams of observations is an important part of scientific study.
23
+
24
+ In 1609, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of Venus and also the sunspots through his observational telescopic drawings.[9] In 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.[9]
25
+
26
+ Drawing is used to express one's creativity, and therefore has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practice.[10] Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.[11] Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work.[12][13] The Renaissance brought about a great sophistication in drawing techniques, enabling artists to represent things more realistically than before,[14] and revealing an interest in geometry and philosophy.[15]
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+ The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the hierarchy of the arts.[16] Photography offered an alternative to drawing as a method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and traditional drawing practice was given less emphasis as an essential skill for artists, particularly so in Western society.[9]
29
+
30
+ Drawing became significant as an art form around the late 15th century, with artists and master engravers such as Albrecht Dürer and Martin Schongauer (c. 1448-1491), the very first Northern engraver known by name. Schongauer came from Alsace, and was born into a family of goldsmiths. Albrecht Dürer, a master of the next generation, was also the son of a goldsmith.[17][18]
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+
32
+ Old Master Drawings often reflect the history of the country in which they were produced, and the fundamental characteristics of a nation at that time. In 17th-century Holland, a Protestant country, there were almost no religious artworks, and, with no King or court, most art was bought privately. Drawings of landscapes or genre scenes were often viewed not as sketches but as highly finished works of art. Italian drawings, however, show the influence of Catholicism and the Church, which played a major role in artistic patronage. The same is often true of French drawings, although in the 17th century the disciplines of French Classicism meant drawings were less Baroque than the more free Italian counterparts, which conveyed a greater sense of movement.[19]
33
+
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+ In the 20th century Modernism encouraged "imaginative originality"[20] and some artists' approach to drawing became less literal, more abstract. World-renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat helped challenge the status quo, with drawing being very much at the centre of their practice, and often re-interpreting traditional technique.[21]
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+
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+ Basquiat's drawings were produced in many different mediums, most commonly ink, pencil, felt-tip or marker, and oil-stick, and he drew on any surface that came to hand, such as doors, clothing, refrigerators, walls and baseball helmets.[22]
37
+
38
+ Modern-day artists such as Tracey Emin observe the legacy and importance of drawing, engraving and print making techniques in their vast array, passed down through millennia.
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+
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+ The centuries have produced a canon of notable artists and draftsmen, each with their own distinct language of drawing, including:
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+
42
+ The medium is the means by which ink, pigment or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media are either dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either of two metals: silver or lead.[24] More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.
43
+
44
+ Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets.[25] Papers vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.
45
+
46
+ Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.
47
+
48
+ Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and becomes brittle much sooner.
49
+
50
+ The basic tools are a drawing board or table, pencil sharpener and eraser, and for ink drawing, blotting paper. Other tools used are circle compass, ruler, and set square. Fixative is used to prevent pencil and crayon marks from smudging. Drafting tape is used to secure paper to drawing surface, and also to mask an area to keep it free of accidental marks, such as sprayed or spattered materials and washes. An easel or slanted table is used to keep the drawing surface in a suitable position, which is generally more horizontal than the position used in painting.
51
+
52
+ Almost all draftsmen use their hands and fingers to apply the media, with the exception of some handicapped individuals who draw with their mouth or feet.[26]
53
+
54
+ Prior to working on an image, the artist typically explores how various media work. They may try different drawing implements on practice sheets to determine value and texture, and how to apply the implement to produce various effects.
55
+
56
+ The artist's choice of drawing strokes affects the appearance of the image. Pen and ink drawings often use hatching – groups of parallel lines.[27] Cross-hatching uses hatching in two or more different directions to create a darker tone. Broken hatching, or lines with intermittent breaks, form lighter tones – and controlling the density of the breaks achieves a gradation of tone. Stippling uses dots to produce tone, texture and shade. Different textures can be achieved depending on the method used to build tone.[28]
57
+
58
+ Drawings in dry media often use similar techniques, though pencils and drawing sticks can achieve continuous variations in tone. Typically a drawing is filled in based on which hand the artist favors. A right-handed artist draws from left to right to avoid smearing the image. Erasers can remove unwanted lines, lighten tones, and clean up stray marks. In a sketch or outline drawing, lines drawn often follow the contour of the subject, creating depth by looking like shadows cast from a light in the artist's position.
59
+
60
+ Sometimes the artist leaves a section of the image untouched while filling in the remainder. The shape of the area to preserve can be painted with masking fluid or cut out of a frisket and applied to the drawing surface, protecting the surface from stray marks until the mask is removed.
61
+
62
+ Another method to preserve a section of the image is to apply a spray-on fixative to the surface. This holds loose material more firmly to the sheet and prevents it from smearing. However the fixative spray typically uses chemicals that can harm the respiratory system, so it should be employed in a well-ventilated area such as outdoors.
63
+
64
+ Another technique is subtractive drawing in which the drawing surface is covered with graphite or charcoal and then erased to make the image.[29]
65
+
66
+ Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.
67
+
68
+ Blending uses an implement to soften or spread the original drawing strokes. Blending is most easily done with a medium that does not immediately fix itself, such as graphite, chalk, or charcoal, although freshly applied ink can be smudged, wet or dry, for some effects. For shading and blending, the artist can use a blending stump, tissue, a kneaded eraser, a fingertip, or any combination of them. A piece of chamois is useful for creating smooth textures, and for removing material to lighten the tone. Continuous tone can be achieved with graphite on a smooth surface without blending, but the technique is laborious, involving small circular or oval strokes with a somewhat blunt point.
69
+
70
+ Shading techniques that also introduce texture to the drawing include hatching and stippling. A number of other methods produce texture. In addition to the choice of paper, drawing material and technique affect texture. Texture can be made to appear more realistic when it is drawn next to a contrasting texture; a coarse texture is more obvious when placed next to a smoothly blended area. A similar effect can be achieved by drawing different tones close together. A light edge next to a dark background stands out to the eye, and almost appears to float above the surface.
71
+
72
+ Measuring the dimensions of a subject while blocking in the drawing is an important step in producing a realistic rendition of the subject. Tools such as a compass can be used to measure the angles of different sides. These angles can be reproduced on the drawing surface and then rechecked to make sure they are accurate. Another form of measurement is to compare the relative sizes of different parts of the subject with each other. A finger placed at a point along the drawing implement can be used to compare that dimension with other parts of the image. A ruler can be used both as a straightedge and a device to compute proportions.
73
+
74
+ When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form. The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent.[30]
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+
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+ A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement. This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.
77
+
78
+ Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface. When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point.
79
+
80
+ When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon (which may be off the drawing paper.) This is a two-point perspective.[31] Converging the vertical lines to a third point above or below the horizon then produces a three-point perspective.
81
+
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+ Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above. Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel. Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.
83
+
84
+ The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.
85
+
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+ The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance. In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.
87
+
88
+ When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space, and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.
89
+
90
+ A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.
91
+
92
+ Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings.[32] A visually accurate drawing is described as being "recognized as a particular object at a particular time and in a particular space, rendered with little addition of visual detail that can not be seen in the object represented or with little deletion of visual detail”.[33]
93
+
94
+ Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others.
95
+ One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: motor skills required for mark-making, the drawer's own perception of their drawing, perception of objects being drawn, and the ability to make good representational decisions.[33] Following this hypothesis, several studies have sought to conclude which of these processes are most significant in affecting the accuracy of drawings.
96
+
97
+ Motor control is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process.[34] It has been suggested that motor control plays a role in drawing ability, though its effects are not significant.[33]
98
+
99
+ It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.[33] This suggestion is supported by the discovery of a robust relationship between perception and drawing ability.[35]
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+
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+ This evidence acted as the basis of Betty Edwards' how-to-draw book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.[36] Edwards aimed to teach her readers how to draw, based on the development of the reader's perceptual abilities.
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+ Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing.[37] He stated that "For I am nearly convinced, that once we see keenly enough, there is very little difficult in drawing what we see".
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+ This has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings.
106
+ Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one's gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.[38]
107
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108
+ Some studies comparing artists to non-artists have found that artists spend more time thinking strategically while drawing. In particular, artists spend more time on 'metacognitive' activities such as considering different hypothetical plans for how they might progress with a drawing.[39]
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+ Notes
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+ Further reading
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1
+ Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, and various metals (such as silverpoint). Digital drawing is the act of using a computer to draw. Common methods of digital drawing include a stylus or finger on a touchscreen device, stylus- or finger-to-touchpad, or in some cases, a mouse. There are many digital art programs and devices.
2
+
3
+ A drawing instrument releases a small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, wood, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas.[1] The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.
4
+
5
+ In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman or a draughtsman.[2]
6
+
7
+ Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression within the visual arts. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface.[3] Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[4] while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support.
8
+
9
+ Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.
10
+
11
+ There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, and freehand. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, the surrealist method of entopic graphomania (in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots), and tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper, around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through the paper).
12
+
13
+ A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.
14
+
15
+ In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.
16
+
17
+ Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication.[5] It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invention of the written language,[5][6] demonstrated by the production of cave and rock paintings around 30,000 years ago (Art of the Upper Paleolithic).[7]
18
+ These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts.[8] The sketches and paintings produced by Neolithic times were eventually stylised and simplified in to symbol systems (proto-writing) and eventually into early writing systems.
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+ Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th-century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation.
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+ Drawing diagrams of observations is an important part of scientific study.
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+ In 1609, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of Venus and also the sunspots through his observational telescopic drawings.[9] In 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.[9]
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+
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+ Drawing is used to express one's creativity, and therefore has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practice.[10] Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.[11] Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work.[12][13] The Renaissance brought about a great sophistication in drawing techniques, enabling artists to represent things more realistically than before,[14] and revealing an interest in geometry and philosophy.[15]
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+
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+ The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the hierarchy of the arts.[16] Photography offered an alternative to drawing as a method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and traditional drawing practice was given less emphasis as an essential skill for artists, particularly so in Western society.[9]
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+ Drawing became significant as an art form around the late 15th century, with artists and master engravers such as Albrecht Dürer and Martin Schongauer (c. 1448-1491), the very first Northern engraver known by name. Schongauer came from Alsace, and was born into a family of goldsmiths. Albrecht Dürer, a master of the next generation, was also the son of a goldsmith.[17][18]
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+ Old Master Drawings often reflect the history of the country in which they were produced, and the fundamental characteristics of a nation at that time. In 17th-century Holland, a Protestant country, there were almost no religious artworks, and, with no King or court, most art was bought privately. Drawings of landscapes or genre scenes were often viewed not as sketches but as highly finished works of art. Italian drawings, however, show the influence of Catholicism and the Church, which played a major role in artistic patronage. The same is often true of French drawings, although in the 17th century the disciplines of French Classicism meant drawings were less Baroque than the more free Italian counterparts, which conveyed a greater sense of movement.[19]
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+
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+ In the 20th century Modernism encouraged "imaginative originality"[20] and some artists' approach to drawing became less literal, more abstract. World-renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat helped challenge the status quo, with drawing being very much at the centre of their practice, and often re-interpreting traditional technique.[21]
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+ Basquiat's drawings were produced in many different mediums, most commonly ink, pencil, felt-tip or marker, and oil-stick, and he drew on any surface that came to hand, such as doors, clothing, refrigerators, walls and baseball helmets.[22]
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+
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+ Modern-day artists such as Tracey Emin observe the legacy and importance of drawing, engraving and print making techniques in their vast array, passed down through millennia.
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+
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+ The centuries have produced a canon of notable artists and draftsmen, each with their own distinct language of drawing, including:
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+
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+ The medium is the means by which ink, pigment or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media are either dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either of two metals: silver or lead.[24] More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.
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+
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+ Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets.[25] Papers vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.
45
+
46
+ Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.
47
+
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+ Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and becomes brittle much sooner.
49
+
50
+ The basic tools are a drawing board or table, pencil sharpener and eraser, and for ink drawing, blotting paper. Other tools used are circle compass, ruler, and set square. Fixative is used to prevent pencil and crayon marks from smudging. Drafting tape is used to secure paper to drawing surface, and also to mask an area to keep it free of accidental marks, such as sprayed or spattered materials and washes. An easel or slanted table is used to keep the drawing surface in a suitable position, which is generally more horizontal than the position used in painting.
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+ Almost all draftsmen use their hands and fingers to apply the media, with the exception of some handicapped individuals who draw with their mouth or feet.[26]
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+
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+ Prior to working on an image, the artist typically explores how various media work. They may try different drawing implements on practice sheets to determine value and texture, and how to apply the implement to produce various effects.
55
+
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+ The artist's choice of drawing strokes affects the appearance of the image. Pen and ink drawings often use hatching – groups of parallel lines.[27] Cross-hatching uses hatching in two or more different directions to create a darker tone. Broken hatching, or lines with intermittent breaks, form lighter tones – and controlling the density of the breaks achieves a gradation of tone. Stippling uses dots to produce tone, texture and shade. Different textures can be achieved depending on the method used to build tone.[28]
57
+
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+ Drawings in dry media often use similar techniques, though pencils and drawing sticks can achieve continuous variations in tone. Typically a drawing is filled in based on which hand the artist favors. A right-handed artist draws from left to right to avoid smearing the image. Erasers can remove unwanted lines, lighten tones, and clean up stray marks. In a sketch or outline drawing, lines drawn often follow the contour of the subject, creating depth by looking like shadows cast from a light in the artist's position.
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+ Sometimes the artist leaves a section of the image untouched while filling in the remainder. The shape of the area to preserve can be painted with masking fluid or cut out of a frisket and applied to the drawing surface, protecting the surface from stray marks until the mask is removed.
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+
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+ Another method to preserve a section of the image is to apply a spray-on fixative to the surface. This holds loose material more firmly to the sheet and prevents it from smearing. However the fixative spray typically uses chemicals that can harm the respiratory system, so it should be employed in a well-ventilated area such as outdoors.
63
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+ Another technique is subtractive drawing in which the drawing surface is covered with graphite or charcoal and then erased to make the image.[29]
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+ Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.
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+ Blending uses an implement to soften or spread the original drawing strokes. Blending is most easily done with a medium that does not immediately fix itself, such as graphite, chalk, or charcoal, although freshly applied ink can be smudged, wet or dry, for some effects. For shading and blending, the artist can use a blending stump, tissue, a kneaded eraser, a fingertip, or any combination of them. A piece of chamois is useful for creating smooth textures, and for removing material to lighten the tone. Continuous tone can be achieved with graphite on a smooth surface without blending, but the technique is laborious, involving small circular or oval strokes with a somewhat blunt point.
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+ Shading techniques that also introduce texture to the drawing include hatching and stippling. A number of other methods produce texture. In addition to the choice of paper, drawing material and technique affect texture. Texture can be made to appear more realistic when it is drawn next to a contrasting texture; a coarse texture is more obvious when placed next to a smoothly blended area. A similar effect can be achieved by drawing different tones close together. A light edge next to a dark background stands out to the eye, and almost appears to float above the surface.
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+ Measuring the dimensions of a subject while blocking in the drawing is an important step in producing a realistic rendition of the subject. Tools such as a compass can be used to measure the angles of different sides. These angles can be reproduced on the drawing surface and then rechecked to make sure they are accurate. Another form of measurement is to compare the relative sizes of different parts of the subject with each other. A finger placed at a point along the drawing implement can be used to compare that dimension with other parts of the image. A ruler can be used both as a straightedge and a device to compute proportions.
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+ When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form. The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent.[30]
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+ A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement. This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.
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+ Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface. When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point.
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+ When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon (which may be off the drawing paper.) This is a two-point perspective.[31] Converging the vertical lines to a third point above or below the horizon then produces a three-point perspective.
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+ Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above. Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel. Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.
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+ The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.
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+ The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance. In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.
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+ When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space, and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.
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+ A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.
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+ Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings.[32] A visually accurate drawing is described as being "recognized as a particular object at a particular time and in a particular space, rendered with little addition of visual detail that can not be seen in the object represented or with little deletion of visual detail”.[33]
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+ Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others.
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+ One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: motor skills required for mark-making, the drawer's own perception of their drawing, perception of objects being drawn, and the ability to make good representational decisions.[33] Following this hypothesis, several studies have sought to conclude which of these processes are most significant in affecting the accuracy of drawings.
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+ Motor control is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process.[34] It has been suggested that motor control plays a role in drawing ability, though its effects are not significant.[33]
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+ It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.[33] This suggestion is supported by the discovery of a robust relationship between perception and drawing ability.[35]
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+ This evidence acted as the basis of Betty Edwards' how-to-draw book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.[36] Edwards aimed to teach her readers how to draw, based on the development of the reader's perceptual abilities.
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+ Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing.[37] He stated that "For I am nearly convinced, that once we see keenly enough, there is very little difficult in drawing what we see".
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+ This has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings.
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+ Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one's gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.[38]
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+ Some studies comparing artists to non-artists have found that artists spend more time thinking strategically while drawing. In particular, artists spend more time on 'metacognitive' activities such as considering different hypothetical plans for how they might progress with a drawing.[39]
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+ Notes
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+ Further reading
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1
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+ Animation is a method in which figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most animations are made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Computer animation can be very detailed 3D animation, while 2D computer animation can be used for stylistic reasons, low bandwidth or faster real-time renderings. Other common animation methods apply a stop motion technique to two and three-dimensional objects like paper cutouts, puppets or clay figures.
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+ Commonly the effect of animation is achieved by a rapid succession of sequential images that minimally differ from each other. The illusion—as in motion pictures in general—is thought to rely on the phi phenomenon and beta movement, but the exact causes are still uncertain.
6
+ Analog mechanical animation media that rely on the rapid display of sequential images include the phénakisticope, zoetrope, flip book, praxinoscope and film. Television and video are popular electronic animation media that originally were analog and now operate digitally. For display on the computer, techniques like animated GIF and Flash animation were developed.
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+ Animation is more pervasive than many people realize. Apart from short films, feature films, television series, animated GIFs and other media dedicated to the display of moving images, animation is also prevalent in video games, motion graphics, user interfaces and visual effects.[1]
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+ The physical movement of image parts through simple mechanics—in for instance moving images in magic lantern shows—can also be considered animation. The mechanical manipulation of three-dimensional puppets and objects to emulate living beings has a very long history in automata. Electronic automata were popularized by Disney as animatronics.
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+ Animators are artists who specialize in creating animation.
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+ The word "animation" stems from the Latin "animātiōn", stem of "animātiō", meaning "a bestowing of life".[2] The primary meaning of the English word is "liveliness" and has been in use much longer than the meaning of "moving image medium".
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+ Hundreds of years before the introduction of true animation, people from all over the world enjoyed shows with moving figures that were created and manipulated manually in puppetry, automata, shadow play and the magic lantern. The multi-media phantasmagoria shows that were very popular in West-European theatres from the late 18th century through the first half of the 19th century, featured lifelike projections of moving ghosts and other frightful imagery in motion.
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+ In 1833, the stroboscopic disc (better known as the phénakisticope) introduced the principle of modern animation with sequential images that were shown one by one in quick succession to form an optical illusion of motion pictures. Series of sequential images had occasionally been made over thousands of years, but the stroboscopic disc provided the first method to represent such images in fluent motion and for the first time had artists creating series with a proper systematic breakdown of movements. The stroboscopic animation principle was also applied in the zoetrope (1866), the flip book (1868) and the praxinoscope (1877). The average 19th-century animation contained about 12 images that were displayed as a continuous loop by spinning a device manually. The flip book often contained more pictures and had a beginning and end, but its animation would not last longer than a few seconds. The first to create much longer sequences seems to have been Charles-Émile Reynaud, who between 1892 and 1900 had much success with his 10- to 15-minute-long Pantomimes Lumineuses.
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+ When cinematography eventually broke through in 1895 after animated pictures had been known for decades, the wonder of the realistic details in the new medium was seen as its biggest accomplishment. Animation on film was not commercialized until a few years later by manufacturers of optical toys, with chromolithography film loops (often traced from live-action footage) for adapted toy magic lanterns intended for kids to use at home. It would take some more years before animation reached movie theatres.
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22
+ After earlier experiments by movie pioneers J. Stuart Blackton, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper, Segundo de Chomón and Edwin S. Porter (among others), Blackton's The Haunted Hotel (1907) was the first huge stop motion success, baffling audiences by showing objects that apparently moved by themselves in full photographic detail, without signs of any known stage trick.
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+ Émile Cohl's Fantasmagorie (1908) is the oldest known example of what became known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation. Other great artistic and very influential short films were created by Ladislas Starevich with his puppet animations since 1910 and by Winsor McCay with detailed drawn animation in films such as Little Nemo (1911) and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914).
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+ During the 1910s, the production of animated "cartoons" became an industry in the US.[3] Successful producer John Randolph Bray and animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process that dominated the animation industry for the rest of the century.[4][5] Felix the Cat, who debuted in 1919, became the first animated superstar.
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+ In 1928, Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, popularized film with synchronized sound and put Walt Disney's studio at the forefront of the animation industry. In 1932, Disney also introduced the innovation of full colour (in Flowers and Trees) as part of a three-year-long exclusive deal with Technicolor.
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+ The enormous success of Mickey Mouse is seen as the start of the golden age of American animation that would last until the 1960s. The United States dominated the world market of animation with a plethora of cel-animated theatrical shorts. Several studios would introduce characters that would become very popular and would have long-lasting careers, including Walt Disney Productions' Goofy (1932) and Donald Duck (1934), Warner Bros. Cartoons' Looney Tunes characters like Daffy Duck (1937), Bugs Bunny (1938/1940), Tweety (1941/1942), Sylvester the Cat (1945), Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner (1949), Fleischer Studios/Paramount Cartoon Studios' Betty Boop (1930), Popeye (1933), Superman (1941) and Casper (1945), MGM cartoon studio's Tom and Jerry (1940) and Droopy, Walter Lantz Productions/Universal Studio Cartoons' Woody Woodpecker (1940), Terrytoons/20th Century Fox's Mighty Mouse (1942) and United Artists' Pink Panther (1963).
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32
+ In 1917, Italian-Argentine director Quirino Cristiani made the first feature-length film El Apóstol (now lost), which became a critical and commercial success. It was followed by Cristiani's Sin dejar rastros in 1918, but one day after its premiere the film was confiscated by the government.
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34
+ After working on it for three years, Lotte Reiniger released the German feature-length silhouette animation Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in 1926, the oldest extant animated feature.
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+ In 1937, Walt Disney Studios premiered their first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, still one of the highest-grossing traditional animation features as of May 2020[update].[7][8] The Fleischer studios followed this example in 1939 with Gulliver's Travels with some success. Partly due to foreign markets being cut off by the Second World War, Disney's next features Pinocchio, Fantasia (both 1940) and Fleischer Studios' second animated feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941/1942) failed at the box office. For decades afterwards Disney would be the only American studio to regularly produce animated features, until Ralph Bakshi became the first to also release more than a handful features. Sullivan-Bluth Studios began to regularly produce animated features starting with An American Tail in 1986.
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+ Although relatively few titles became as successful as Disney's features, other countries developed their own animation industries that produced both short and feature theatrical animations in a wide variety of styles, relatively often including stop motion and cutout animation techniques. Russia's Soyuzmultfilm animation studio, founded in 1936, produced 20 films (including shorts) per year on average and reached 1,582 titles in 2018. China, Czechoslovakia / Czech Republic, Italy, France and Belgium were other countries that more than occasionally released feature films, while Japan became a true powerhouse of animation production, with its own recognizable and influential anime style of effective limited animation.
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40
+ Animation became very popular on television since the 1950s, when television sets started to become common in most wealthy countries. Cartoons were mainly programmed for children, on convenient time slots, and especially US youth spent many hours watching Saturday-morning cartoons. Many classic cartoons found a new life on the small screen and by the end of the 1950s, production of new animated cartoons started to shift from theatrical releases to TV series. Hanna-Barbera Productions was especially prolific and had huge hit series, such as The Flintstones (1960–1966) (the first prime time animated series), Scooby-Doo (since 1969) and Belgian co-production The Smurfs (1981–1989). The constraints of American television programming and the demand for an enormous quantity resulted in cheaper and quicker limited animation methods and much more formulaic scripts. Quality dwindled until more daring animation surfaced in the late 1980s and in the early 1990s with hit series such as The Simpsons (since 1989) as part of a "renaissance" of American animation.
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+ While US animated series also spawned successes internationally, many other countries produced their own child-oriented programming, relatively often preferring stop motion and puppetry over cel animation. Japanese anime TV series became very successful internationally since the 1960s, and European producers looking for affordable cel animators relatively often started co-productions with Japanese studios, resulting in hit series such as Barbapapa (The Netherlands/Japan/France 1973–1977), Wickie und die starken Männer/小さなバイキング ビッケ (Vicky the Viking) (Austria/Germany/Japan 1974) and Il était une fois... (Once Upon a Time...) (France/Japan 1978).
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+ Computer animation was gradually developed since the 1940s. 3D wireframe animation started popping up in the mainstream in the 1970s, with an early (short) appearance in the sci-fi thriller Futureworld (1976).
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+ The Rescuers Down Under was the first feature film to be completely created digitally without a camera.[9] It was produced in a style that's very similar to traditional cel animation on the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), developed by The Walt Disney Company in collaboration with Pixar in the late 1980s.
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+ The so-called 3D style, more often associated with computer animation, has become extremely popular since Pixar's Toy Story (1995), the first computer-animated feature in this style.
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+ Most of the cel animation studios switched to producing mostly computer animated films around the 1990s, as it proved cheaper and more profitable. Not only the very popular 3D animation style was generated with computers, but also most of the films and series with a more traditional hand-crafted appearance, in which the charming characteristics of cel animation could be emulated with software, while new digital tools helped developing new styles and effects.[10][11][12][13][14][15]
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+ In 2008, the animation market was worth US$68.4 billion.[16] Animated feature-length films returned the highest gross margins (around 52%) of all film genres between 2004 and 2013.[17] Animation as an art and industry continues to thrive as of the early 2020s.
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+ The clarity of animation makes it a powerful tool for instruction, while its total malleability also allows exaggeration that can be employed to convey strong emotions and to thwart reality. It has therefore been widely for other purposed than mere entertainment.
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56
+ During World War II, animation was widely exploited for propaganda. Many American studios, including Warner Bros. and Disney, lent their talents and their cartoon characters to convey the public of certain war values. Some countries, including China, Japan and the United Kingdom, produced their first feature-length animation for their war efforts.
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+ Animation has been very popular in television commercials, both due to its graphic appeal, and the humour it can provide. Some animated characters in commercials have survived for decades, such as Snap, Crackle and Pop in advertisements for Kellogg's cereals.[18] The legendary animation director Tex Avery was the producer of the first Raid "Kills Bugs Dead" commercials in 1966, which were very successful for the company.[19]
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+ Apart from their success in movie theaters and television series, many cartoon characters would also prove extremely lucrative when licensed for all kinds of merchandise and for other media.
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+ Animation has traditionally been very closely related to comic books. While many comic book characters found their way to the screen (which is often the case in Japan, where many manga are adapted into anime), original animated characters also commonly appear in comic books and magazines. Somewhat similarly, characters and plots for video games (an interactive animation medium) have been derived from films and vice versa.
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+ Some of the original content produced for the screen can be used and marketed in other media. Stories and images can easily be adapted into children's books and other printed media. Songs and music have appeared on records and as streaming media.
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+ While very many animation companies commercially exploit their creations outside moving image media, The Walt Disney Company is the best known and most extreme example. Since first being licensed for a children's writing tablet in 1929, their Mickey Mouse mascot has been depicted on an enormous amount of products, as have many other Disney characters. This may have influenced some pejorative use of Mickey's name, but licensed Disney products sell well, and the so-called Disneyana has many avid collectors, and even a dedicated Disneyana fanclub (since 1984).
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+ Disneyland opened in 1955 and features many attractions that were based on Disney's cartoon characters. Its enormous success spawned several other Disney theme parks and resorts. Disney's earnings from the theme parks has relatively often been higher than those from their movies.
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+ Criticism of animation has been common in media and cinema since its inception. With its popularity, a large amount of criticism has arisen, especially animated feature-length films.[20] Many concerns of cultural representation, psychological effects on children have been brought up around the animation industry, which has remained rather politically unchanged and stagnant since its inception into mainstream culture.[21]
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+ As with any other form of media, animation has instituted awards for excellence in the field. The original awards for animation were presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for animated shorts from the year 1932, during the 5th Academy Awards function. The first winner of the Academy Award was the short Flowers and Trees,[22] a production by Walt Disney Productions.[23][24] The Academy Award for a feature-length animated motion picture was only instituted for the year 2001, and awarded during the 74th Academy Awards in 2002. It was won by the film Shrek, produced by DreamWorks and Pacific Data Images.[25] Disney Animation and Pixar has produced the most films either to win or be nominated for the award. Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film nominated for Best Picture. Up and Toy Story 3 also received Best Picture nominations after the Academy expanded the number of nominees from five to ten.
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+ Several other countries have instituted an award for the best-animated feature film as part of their national film awards: Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Animation (since 2008), BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film (since 2006), César Award for Best Animated Film (since 2011), Golden Rooster Award for Best Animation (since 1981), Goya Award for Best Animated Film (since 1989), Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year (since 2007), National Film Award for Best Animated Film (since 2006). Also since 2007, the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Animated Feature Film has been awarded at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Since 2009, the European Film Awards have awarded the European Film Award for Best Animated Film.
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+ The Annie Award is another award presented for excellence in the field of animation. Unlike the Academy Awards, the Annie Awards are only received for achievements in the field of animation and not for any other field of technical and artistic endeavour. They were re-organized in 1992 to create a new field for Best Animated Feature. The 1990s winners were dominated by Walt Disney; however, newer studios, led by Pixar & DreamWorks, have now begun to consistently vie for this award. The list of awardees is as follows:
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+ The creation of non-trivial animation works (i.e., longer than a few seconds) has developed as a form of filmmaking, with certain unique aspects.[26] Traits common to both live-action and animated feature-length films are labor intensity and high production costs.[27]
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+ The most important difference is that once a film is in the production phase, the marginal cost of one more shot is higher for animated films than live-action films.[28] It is relatively easy for a director to ask for one more take during principal photography of a live-action film, but every take on an animated film must be manually rendered by animators (although the task of rendering slightly different takes has been made less tedious by modern computer animation).[29] It is pointless for a studio to pay the salaries of dozens of animators to spend weeks creating a visually dazzling five-minute scene if that scene fails to effectively advance the plot of the film.[30] Thus, animation studios starting with Disney began the practice in the 1930s of maintaining story departments where storyboard artists develop every single scene through storyboards, then handing the film over to the animators only after the production team is satisfied that all the scenes make sense as a whole.[31] While live-action films are now also storyboarded, they enjoy more latitude to depart from storyboards (i.e., real-time improvisation).[32]
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+ Another problem unique to animation is the requirement to maintain a film's consistency from start to finish, even as films have grown longer and teams have grown larger. Animators, like all artists, necessarily have individual styles, but must subordinate their individuality in a consistent way to whatever style is employed on a particular film.[33] Since the early 1980s, teams of about 500 to 600 people, of whom 50 to 70 are animators, typically have created feature-length animated films. It is relatively easy for two or three artists to match their styles; synchronizing those of dozens of artists is more difficult.[34]
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+ This problem is usually solved by having a separate group of visual development artists develop an overall look and palette for each film before the animation begins. Character designers on the visual development team draw model sheets to show how each character should look like with different facial expressions, posed in different positions, and viewed from different angles.[35][36] On traditionally animated projects, maquettes were often sculpted to further help the animators see how characters would look from different angles.[37][35]
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+ Unlike live-action films, animated films were traditionally developed beyond the synopsis stage through the storyboard format; the storyboard artists would then receive credit for writing the film.[38] In the early 1960s, animation studios began hiring professional screenwriters to write screenplays (while also continuing to use story departments) and screenplays had become commonplace for animated films by the late 1980s.
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+ Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century.[39] The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, first drawn on paper.[40] To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels,[41] which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings.[42] The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one against a painted background by a rostrum camera onto motion picture film.[43]
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+ The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system.[44][45] Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects.[46] The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media with digital video.[47][44] The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years.[37] Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" (a play on the words "traditional" and "digital") to describe cel animation that uses significant computer technology.
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+ Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940),[48] Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), Lucky and Zorba (Italy, 1998), and The Illusionist (British-French, 2010). Traditionally animated films produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994), The Prince of Egypt (US, 1998), Akira (Japan, 1988),[49] Spirited Away (Japan, 2001), The Triplets of Belleville (France, 2003), and The Secret of Kells (Irish-French-Belgian, 2009).
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+ Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films that regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement,[50] having a smooth animation.[51] Fully animated films can be made in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works like those produced by the Walt Disney studio (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King) to the more 'cartoon' styles of the Warner Bros. animation studio. Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works, The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982), The Iron Giant (US, 1999), and Nocturna (Spain, 2007). Fully animated films are animated at 24 frames per second, with a combination of animation on ones and twos, meaning that drawings can be held for one frame out of 24 or two frames out of 24.[52]
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+ Limited animation involves the use of less detailed or more stylized drawings and methods of movement usually a choppy or "skippy" movement animation.[53] Limited animation uses fewer drawings per second, thereby limiting the fluidity of the animation. This is a more economic technique. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America,[54] limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing-Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and certain anime produced in Japan.[55] Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media for television (the work of Hanna-Barbera,[56] Filmation,[57] and other TV animation studios[58]) and later the Internet (web cartoons).
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+ Rotoscoping is a technique patented by Max Fleischer in 1917 where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame.[59] The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings,[60] as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are Fire and Ice (US, 1983), Heavy Metal (1981), and Aku no Hana (2013).
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+ Live-action/animation is a technique combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots or live-action actors into animated shots.[61] One of the earlier uses was in Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live-action footage.[62] Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created a series of Alice Comedies (1923–1927), in which a live-action girl enters an animated world. Other examples include Allegro Non Troppo (Italy, 1976), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (US, 1988), Volere volare (Italy 1991), Space Jam (US, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (US, 2001).
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+ Stop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement.[63] There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the medium used to create the animation.[64] Computer software is widely available to create this type of animation; traditional stop-motion animation is usually less expensive but more time-consuming to produce than current computer animation.[64]
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+ Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer.[46][87] 2D animation techniques tend to focus on image manipulation while 3D techniques usually build virtual worlds in which characters and objects move and interact.[88] 3D animation can create images that seem real to the viewer.[89]
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+ 2D animation figures are created or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics and 2D vector graphics.[90] This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques, interpolated morphing,[91] onion skinning[92] and interpolated rotoscoping.
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+ 2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation, and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated.[93]
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+ Final line advection animation is a technique used in 2D animation,[94] to give artists and animators more influence and control over the final product as everything is done within the same department.[95] Speaking about using this approach in Paperman, John Kahrs said that "Our animators can change things, actually erase away the CG underlayer if they want, and change the profile of the arm."[96]
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+ 3D animation is digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. The animator usually starts by creating a 3D polygon mesh to manipulate.[97] A mesh typically includes many vertices that are connected by edges and faces, which give the visual appearance of form to a 3D object or 3D environment.[97] Sometimes, the mesh is given an internal digital skeletal structure called an armature that can be used to control the mesh by weighting the vertices.[98][99] This process is called rigging and can be used in conjunction with key frames to create movement.[100]
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+ Other techniques can be applied, mathematical functions (e.g., gravity, particle simulations), simulated fur or hair, and effects, fire and water simulations.[101] These techniques fall under the category of 3D dynamics.[102]
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+ German (Deutsch, pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] (listen)) is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol in Italy, the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The German language is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although they belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
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+ One of the major languages of the world, German is a native language to almost 100 million people worldwide and the most widely spoken native language in the European Union.[6] German is the third most commonly spoken foreign language in the EU after English and French, making it the second biggest language in the EU in terms of overall speakers. German is also the second most widely taught foreign language in the EU after English at primary school level (but third after English and French at lower secondary level), the fourth most widely taught non-English language in the US (after Spanish, French and American Sign Language), the second most commonly used scientific language and the third most widely used language on websites after English and Russian. The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one tenth of all books (including e-books) in the world being published in German. In the United Kingdom, German and French are the most sought-after foreign languages for businesses (with 49% and 50% of businesses identifying these two languages as the most useful, respectively).[7]
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+ German is an inflected language with four cases for nouns, pronouns and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), two numbers (singular, plural), and strong and weak verbs. It derives the majority of its vocabulary from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Some of its vocabulary is derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and Modern English. German is a pluricentric language, with its standardized variants being (German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard German). It is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Italy recognizes all the German-speaking minorities in its territory as national historic minorities and protects the varieties of German spoken in several regions of Northern Italy besides South Tyrol.[8][9] Due to the limited intelligibility between certain varieties and Standard German, as well as the lack of an undisputed, scientific difference between a "dialect" and a "language", some German varieties or dialect groups (e.g. Low German or Plautdietsch[3]) can be described as either "languages" or "dialects".
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+ Modern Standard German is a West Germanic language in the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic, East Germanic, and West Germanic. The first of these branches survives in modern Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic, all of which are descended from Old Norse. The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch, Yiddish, Afrikaans, and others.[10]
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+ Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf-Benrath and Krefeld-Uerdingen, respectively) serve to distinguish the Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects (nos. 29–34 on the map), while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German/Low Saxon (nos. 19–24) and Low Franconian (no. 25) dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian can be further distinguished historically as Irminonic, Ingvaeonic, and Istvaeonic, respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by the Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser-Rhine group).[10]
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+ Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian-Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian and Bavarian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects, belonging to the Irminonic High German dialect group (nos. 29–34). German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects – no. 29), and Yiddish. Also closely related to Standard German are the Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries, such as Swiss German (Alemannic dialects – no. 34), and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est, such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central- and Upper Franconian (no. 32) dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian – no. 29).
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+ After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g. Dutch and Afrikaans) or Low German/Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic: the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are the Frisian languages—North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland – no. 28), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland – no. 27), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland – no. 26)—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects are all members of the Ingvaeonic family of West Germanic languages, which did not take part in the High German consonant shift.
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+ The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, which separated Old High German (OHG) dialects from Old Saxon. This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants (b, d, g, and p, t, k, respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following:
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+ While there is written evidence of the Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the 6th century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.765–775), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 OHG words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans, the first coherent works written in OHG appear in the 9th century, chief among them being the Muspilli, the Merseburg Charms, and the Hildebrandslied, as well as a number of other religious texts (the Georgslied, the Ludwigslied, the Evangelienbuch, and translated hymns and prayers).[11][12] The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment, and the Merseburg Charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from the pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied, a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from the Alamanni, Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group (Irminones), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the 2nd and 6th centuries during the great migration.[11]
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+ In general, the surviving texts of OHG show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as a result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary.[11] At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing.
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+ The German language through the OHG period was still predominantly a spoken language, with a wide range of dialects and a much more extensive oral tradition than a written one. Having just emerged from the High German consonant shift, OHG was also a relatively new and volatile language still undergoing a number of phonetic, phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes. The scarcity of written work, instability of the language, and widespread illiteracy of the time explain the lack of standardization up to the end of the OHG period in 1050.
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+ While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350.[13][14] This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as the Ostsiedlung). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature.[14][15] A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to a greater need for regularity in written conventions.
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+ While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG "house")→haus (MHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→tage (MHG)).[16]
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+ A great wealth of texts survives from the MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied, an epic poem telling the story of the dragon-slayer Siegfried (c. 13th century), and the Iwein, an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue (c. 1203), as well as several lyric poems and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan. Also noteworthy is the Sachsenspiegel, the first book of laws written in Middle Low German (c. 1220). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms.
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+ The Middle High German period is generally seen as ending when the 1346-53 Black Death decimated Europe's population.[13]
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+ Modern German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which the influential German philologist Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War.[13] This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in the German states. While these states were still under the control of the Holy Roman Empire and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout the German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language.
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+ The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch, used in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and the other being Meißner Deutsch, used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.[17] Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages (Druckersprachen) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible.[18] The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardization in the written form of German.
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+ One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony, spending much time among the population of Saxony researching the dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method:
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+ One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in the home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says 'ex abundantia cordis os loquitur,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund. But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No, the mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über.[19]
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+ With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. Furthermore, his Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy.[20] Nevertheless, even with the influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the 18th century.[21]
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+ German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality.
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+ Some cities, such as Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest (Buda, German: Ofen), were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as Pozsony (German: Pressburg, now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava, as well as cities like Zagreb (German: Agram) and Ljubljana (German: Laibach), contained significant German minorities.
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+ In the eastern provinces of Banat, Bukovina, and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns – such as Temeschburg (Timișoara), Hermannstadt (Sibiu) and Kronstadt (Brașov) – but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas.[22]
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+ The most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860.[23] In 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook.[24]
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+ In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a complete standardization of the German language in its written form and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition.[25] The Deutsche Bühnensprache (literally, German stage language) had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres (Bühnendeutsch[26]) three years earlier; however, this was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of Standard German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterize the dialect of the area today – especially the pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, Standard German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of Standard German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century.
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+ Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries.[27] Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German (often called Hochdeutsch, "High German") which is understood in all areas where German is spoken.
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+ Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide
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+ Due to the German diaspora as well as German being the second most widely spoken language in Europe and the third most widely taught foreign language in the US[28] and the EU (in upper secondary education)[29] amongst others, the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. As for the number of speakers of any language worldwide, an assessment is always compromised by the lack of sufficient, reliable data. For an exact, global number of native German speakers, this is further complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and/or linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic (e.g., Alsatian) and Low German/Plautdietsch.[3] Depending on the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language,[30][31] 10–25 million as a second language,[30] and 75–100 million as a foreign language.[1] This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide.[32] It is estimated that including every person studying German, regardless of their actual proficiency, would amount to about 280 million people worldwide with at least some knowledge of German.
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+ In Europe, German is the second most widely spoken mother tongue (after Russian) and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English). The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language is called the "German Sprachraum". It comprises an estimated 88 million native speakers and 10 million who speak German as a second language (e.g. immigrants).[30] Excluding regional minority languages, German is the only official language of the following countries:
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+ German is a co-official language of the following countries:
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+ Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World Wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum.
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+ Within Europe and Asia, German is a recognized minority language in the following countries:
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+ In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as "regional languages", but the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government.[39] In the Netherlands, the Limburgish, Frisian, and Low German languages are protected regional languages according to the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages;[33] however, they are widely considered separate languages and neither German nor Dutch dialects.
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+ Namibia was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1919. Mostly descending from German settlers who immigrated during this time, 25–30,000 people still speak German as a native tongue today.[40] The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called "Namibian Black German", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it.[41]
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+ German, along with English and Afrikaans, was a co-official language of Namibia from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. At this point, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language, stating that it was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time.[40] German, Afrikaans and several indigenous languages became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, German is used in a wide variety of spheres, especially business and tourism, as well as the churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK)), schools (e.g. the Deutsche Höhere Privatschule Windhoek), literature (German-Namibian authors include Giselher W. Hoffmann), radio (the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation produces radio programs in German), and music (e.g. artist EES). The Allgemeine Zeitung is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa.[40]
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+ Mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries, an estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa.[42] One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch",[43] a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg. The small town of Kroondal in the North-West Province also has a mostly German-speaking population. The South African constitution identifies German as a "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it.[44] The community is strong enough that several German International schools are supported, such as the Deutsche Schule Pretoria.
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+ In the United States, the states of North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states where German is the most common language spoken at home after English.[45] German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region of the country, such as New Ulm and many other towns in Minnesota; Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), Munich, Karlsruhe, and Strasburg (named after a town near Odessa in Ukraine)[46] in North Dakota; New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Weimar, and Muenster in Texas; Corn (formerly Korn), Kiefer and Berlin in Oklahoma; and Kiel, Berlin, and Germantown in Wisconsin.
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+ In Brazil, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo and Espírito Santo.[47]
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+ There are important concentrations of German-speaking descendants in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia.[42]
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+ The impact of nineteenth century German immigration to southern Chile was such that Valdivia was for a while a Spanish-German bilingual city with "German signboards and placards alongside the Spanish".[54] The prestige[note 4] the German language caused it to acquire qualities of a superstratum in southern Chile.[56] The word for blackberry, a ubiquitous plant in southern Chile, is murra, instead of the ordinary Spanish words mora and zarzamora, from Valdivia to the Chiloé Archipelago and in some towns in the Aysén Region.[56] The use of rr is an adaptation of guttural sounds found in German but difficult to pronounce in Spanish.[56] Similarly the name for marbles, a traditional children's game, is different in Southern Chile compared to areas further north. From Valdivia to the Aysén Region this game is called bochas, in contrast to the word bolitas used further north.[56] The word bocha is likely a derivative of the German Bocciaspiel.[56]
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+ In Australia, the state of South Australia experienced a pronounced wave of immigration in the 1840s from Prussia (particularly the Silesia region). With the prolonged isolation from other German speakers and contact with Australian English, a unique dialect known as Barossa German developed, spoken predominantly in the Barossa Valley near Adelaide. Usage of German sharply declined with the advent of World War I, due to the prevailing anti-German sentiment in the population and related government action. It continued to be used as a first language into the 20th century, but its use is now limited to a few older speakers.[57]
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+ German migration to New Zealand in the 19th century was less pronounced than migration from Britain, Ireland, and perhaps even Scandinavia. Despite this there were significant pockets of German-speaking communities which lasted until the first decades of the 20th century. German speakers settled principally in Puhoi, Nelson, and Gore. At the last census (2013), 36,642 people in New Zealand spoke German, making it the third most spoken European language after English and French and overall the ninth most spoken language.[58]
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+ There is also an important German creole being studied and recovered, named Unserdeutsch, spoken in the former German colony of German New Guinea, across Micronesia and in northern Australia (i.e. coastal parts of Queensland and Western Australia) by a few elderly people. The risk of its extinction is serious and efforts to revive interest in the language are being implemented by scholars.[59]
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+ Like French and Spanish, German has become a standard second foreign language in the western world.[1][60] German ranks second (after English) among the best known foreign languages in the EU (on a par with French)[1] as well as in Russia.[61] In terms of student numbers across all levels of education, German ranks third in the EU (after English and French)[29] as well as in the United States (after Spanish and French).[28][62] In 2015, approximately 15.4 million people were in the process of learning German across all levels of education worldwide.[60] As this number remained relatively stable since 2005 (± 1 million), roughly 75–100 million people able to communicate in German as a foreign language can be inferred, assuming an average course duration of three years and other estimated parameters. According to a 2012 survey, 47 million people within the EU (i.e., up to two-thirds of the 75–100 million worldwide) claimed to have sufficient German skills to have a conversation. Within the EU, not counting countries where it is an official language, German as a foreign language is most popular in Eastern and northern Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden and Poland.[1][63] German was once, and to some extent still is, a lingua franca in those parts of Europe.[64]
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+ The basis of Standard German is the Luther Bible, which was translated by Martin Luther and which had originated from the Saxon court language (it being a convenient norm).[65] However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by new vernaculars based on standard German; that is the case in large stretches of Northern Germany but also in major cities in other parts of the country. It is important to note, however, that the colloquial standard German differs greatly from the formal written language, especially in grammar and syntax, in which it has been influenced by dialectal speech.
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+ Standard German differs regionally among German-speaking countries in vocabulary and some instances of pronunciation and even grammar and orthography. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the regional varieties of standard German are only somewhat influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language.
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+ In most regions, the speakers use a continuum from more dialectal varieties to more standard varieties depending on the circumstances.
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+ In German linguistics, German dialects are distinguished from varieties of standard German.
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+ The varieties of standard German refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric standard German. They differ only slightly in lexicon and phonology. In certain regions, they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany.
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+ In the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, mixtures of dialect and standard are very seldom used, and the use of Standard German is largely restricted to the written language. About 11% of the Swiss residents speak High German (Standard German) at home, but this is mainly due to German immigrants.[67] This situation has been called a medial diglossia. Swiss Standard German is used in the Swiss education system, while Austrian Standard German is officially used in the Austrian education system.
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+ A mixture of dialect and standard does not normally occur in Northern Germany either. The traditional varieties there are Low German, whereas Standard German is a High German "variety". Because their linguistic distance is greater, they do not mesh with Standard German the way that High German dialects (such as Bavarian, Swabian, and Hessian) can.
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+ The German dialects are the traditional local varieties of the language; many of them are not mutually intelligibile with standard German, and they have great differences in lexicon, phonology, and syntax. If a narrow definition of language based on mutual intelligibility is used, many German dialects are considered to be separate languages (for instance in the Ethnologue). However, such a point of view is unusual in German linguistics.
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+ The German dialect continuum is traditionally divided most broadly into High German and Low German, also called Low Saxon. However, historically, High German dialects and Low Saxon/Low German dialects do not belong to the same language. Nevertheless, in today's Germany, Low Saxon/Low German is often perceived as a dialectal variation of Standard German on a functional level even by many native speakers. The same phenomenon is found in the eastern Netherlands, as the traditional dialects are not always identified with their Low Saxon/Low German origins, but with Dutch.[68][better source needed]
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+ The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with often only neighbouring dialects being mutually intelligible. Some dialects are not intelligible to people who know only Standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German and Low Saxon.
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+ Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany until the 16th century. In 1534, the Luther Bible was published. The translation is considered to be an important step towards the evolution of the Early New High German. It aimed to be understandable to a broad audience and was based mainly on Central and Upper German varieties. The Early New High German language gained more prestige than Low German and became the language of science and literature. Around the same time, the Hanseatic League, based around northern ports, lost its importance as new trade routes to Asia and the Americas were established, and the most powerful German states of that period were located in Middle and Southern Germany.
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+ The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass education in Standard German in schools. Gradually, Low German came to be politically viewed as a mere dialect spoken by the uneducated. Today, Low Saxon can be divided in two groups: Low Saxon varieties with a reasonable level of Standard German influence and varieties of Standard German with a Low Saxon influence known as Missingsch. Sometimes, Low Saxon and Low Franconian varieties are grouped together because both are unaffected by the High German consonant shift. However, the proportion of the population who can understand and speak it has decreased continuously since World War II. The largest cities in the Low German area are Hamburg and Dortmund.
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+ The Low Franconian dialects are the dialects that are more closely related to Dutch than to Low German. Most of the Low Franconian dialects are spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium, where they are considered as dialects of Dutch, which is itself a Low Franconian language. In Germany, Low Franconian dialects are spoken in the northwest of North Rhine-Westphalia, along the Lower Rhine. The Low Franconian dialects spoken in Germany are referred to as Meuse-Rhenish or Low Rhenish. In the north of the German Low Franconian language area, North Low Franconian dialects (also referred to as Cleverlands or as dialects of South Guelderish) are spoken. These dialects are more closely related to Dutch (also North Low Franconian) than the South Low Franconian dialects (also referred to as East Limburgish and, east of the Rhine, Bergish), which are spoken in the south of the German Low Franconian language area. The South Low Franconian dialects are more closely related to Limburgish than to Dutch, and are transitional dialects between Low Franconian and Ripuarian (Central Franconian). The East Bergish dialects are the easternmost Low Franconian dialects, and are transitional dialects between North- and South Low Franconian, and Westphalian (Low German), with most of their features being North Low Franconian. The largest cities in the German Low Franconian area are Düsseldorf and Duisburg.
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+ The High German dialects consist of the Central German, High Franconian, and Upper German dialects. The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. The High German varieties spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews have several unique features and are considered as a separate language, Yiddish, written with the Hebrew alphabet.
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+ The Central German dialects are spoken in Central Germany, from Aachen in the west to Görlitz in the east. They consist of Franconian dialects in the west (West Central German) and non-Franconian dialects in the east (East Central German). Modern Standard German is mostly based on Central German dialects.
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+ The Franconian, West Central German dialects are the Central Franconian dialects (Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian) and the Rhine Franconian dialects (Hessian and Palatine). These dialects are considered as
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+ Luxembourgish as well as the Transylvanian Saxon dialect spoken in Transylvania are based on Moselle Franconian dialects. The largest cities in the Franconian Central German area are Cologne and Frankfurt.
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+ Further east, the non-Franconian, East Central German dialects are spoken (Thuringian, Upper Saxon, Ore Mountainian, and Lusatian-New Markish, and earlier, in the then German-speaking parts of Silesia also Silesian, and in then German southern East Prussia also High Prussian). The largest cities in the East Central German area are Berlin and Leipzig.
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+ The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. They consist of the East and South Franconian dialects.
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+ The East Franconian dialect branch is one of the most spoken dialect branches in Germany. These dialects are spoken in the region of Franconia and in the central parts of Saxon Vogtland. Franconia consists of the Bavarian districts of Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia, the region of South Thuringia (Thuringia), and the eastern parts of the region of Heilbronn-Franken (Tauber Franconia and Hohenlohe) in Baden-Württemberg. The largest cities in the East Franconian area are Nuremberg and Würzburg.
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+ South Franconian is mainly spoken in northern Baden-Württemberg in Germany, but also in the northeasternmost part of the region of Alsace in France. While these dialects are considered as dialects of German in Baden-Württemberg, they are considered as dialects of Alsatian in Alsace (most Alsatian dialects are Low Alemannic, however). The largest cities in the South Franconian area are Karlsruhe and Heilbronn.
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+ The Upper German dialects are the Alemannic dialects in the west and the Bavarian dialects in the east.
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+ Alemannic dialects are spoken in Switzerland (High Alemannic in the densely populated Swiss Plateau, in the south also Highest Alemannic, and Low Alemannic in Basel), Baden-Württemberg (Swabian and Low Alemannic, in the southwest also High Alemannic), Bavarian Swabia (Swabian, in the southwesternmost part also Low Alemannic), Vorarlberg (Low, High, and Highest Alemannic), Alsace (Low Alemannic, in the southernmost part also High Alemannic), Liechtenstein (High and Highest Alemannic), and in the Tyrolean district of Reutte (Swabian). The Alemannic dialects are considered as Alsatian in Alsace. The largest cities in the Alemannic area are Stuttgart and Zürich.
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+ Bavarian dialects are spoken in Austria (Vienna, Lower and Upper Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Burgenland, and in most parts of Tyrol), Bavaria (Upper and Lower Bavaria as well as Upper Palatinate), South Tyrol, southwesternmost Saxony (Southern Vogtlandian), and in the Swiss village of Samnaun. The largest cities in the Bavarian area are Vienna and Munich.
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+ German is a fusional language with a moderate degree of inflection, with three grammatical genders; as such, there can be a large number of words derived from the same root.
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+ German nouns inflect by case, gender, and number:
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+ This degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old High German and other old Indo-European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit, and it is also somewhat less than, for instance, Old English, modern Icelandic, or Russian. The three genders have collapsed in the plural. With four cases and three genders plus plural, there are 16 permutations of case and gender/number of the article (not the nouns), but there are only six forms of the definite article, which together cover all 16 permutations. In nouns, inflection for case is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns only in the genitive and in the dative (only in fixed or archaic expressions), and even this is losing ground to substitutes in informal speech.[69] The singular dative noun ending is considered archaic or at least old-fashioned in almost all contexts and is almost always dropped in writing, except in poetry, songs, proverbs, and other petrified forms. Weak masculine nouns share a common case ending for genitive, dative, and accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns are not declined in the singular. The plural has an inflection for the dative. In total, seven inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: -s, -es, -n, -ns, -en, -ens, -e.
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+ In German orthography, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalised to make it easier for readers to determine the function of a word within a sentence (Am Freitag ging ich einkaufen. – "On Friday I went shopping."; Eines Tages kreuzte er endlich auf. – "One day he finally showed up.") This convention is almost unique to German today (shared perhaps only by the closely related Luxembourgish language and several insular dialects of the North Frisian language), but it was historically common in other languages such as Danish (which abolished the capitalization of nouns in 1948) and English.
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+ Like the other Germanic languages, German forms noun compounds in which the first noun modifies the category given by the second: Hundehütte ("dog hut"; specifically: "dog kennel"). Unlike English, whose newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written "open" with separating spaces, German (like some other Germanic languages) nearly always uses the "closed" form without spaces, for example: Baumhaus ("tree house"). Like English, German allows arbitrarily long compounds in theory (see also English compounds). The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, which, literally translated, is "beef labelling supervision duties assignment law" [from Rind (cattle), Fleisch (meat), Etikettierung(s) (labelling), Überwachung(s) (supervision), Aufgaben (duties), Übertragung(s) (assignment), Gesetz (law)]. However, examples like this are perceived by native speakers as excessively bureaucratic, stylistically awkward, or even satirical.
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+ The inflection of standard German verbs includes:
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+ The meaning of basic verbs can be expanded and sometimes radically changed through the use of a number of prefixes. Some prefixes have a specific meaning; the prefix zer- refers to destruction, as in zerreißen (to tear apart), zerbrechen (to break apart), zerschneiden (to cut apart). Other prefixes have only the vaguest meaning in themselves; ver- is found in a number of verbs with a large variety of meanings, as in versuchen (to try) from suchen (to seek), vernehmen (to interrogate) from nehmen (to take), verteilen (to distribute) from teilen (to share), verstehen (to understand) from stehen (to stand).
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+ Other examples include the following:
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+ haften (to stick), verhaften (to detain); kaufen (to buy), verkaufen (to sell); hören (to hear), aufhören (to cease); fahren (to drive), erfahren (to experience).
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+ Many German verbs have a separable prefix, often with an adverbial function. In finite verb forms, it is split off and moved to the end of the clause and is hence considered by some to be a "resultative particle". For example, mitgehen, meaning "to go along", would be split, giving Gehen Sie mit? (Literal: "Go you with?"; Idiomatic: "Are you going along?").
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+ Indeed, several parenthetical clauses may occur between the prefix of a finite verb and its complement (ankommen = to arrive, er kam an = he arrived, er ist angekommen = he has arrived):
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+ A selectively literal translation of this example to illustrate the point might look like this:
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+ German word order is generally with the V2 word order restriction and also with the SOV word order restriction for main clauses. For polar questions, exclamations, and wishes, the finite verb always has the first position. In subordinate clauses, the verb occurs at the very end.
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+ German requires a verbal element (main verb or auxiliary verb) to appear second in the sentence. The verb is preceded by the topic of the sentence. The element in focus appears at the end of the sentence. For a sentence without an auxiliary, these are several possibilities:
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+ The position of a noun in a German sentence has no bearing on its being a subject, an object or another argument. In a declarative sentence in English, if the subject does not occur before the predicate, the sentence could well be misunderstood.
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+ However, German's flexible word order allows one to emphasise specific words:
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+ Normal word order:
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+ Object in front:
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+
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+ Adverb of time in front:
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+ Both time expressions in front:
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+ Another possibility:
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+ Swapped adverbs:
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+ Swapped object:
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+ The flexible word order also allows one to use language "tools" (such as poetic meter and figures of speech) more freely.
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+ When an auxiliary verb is present, it appears in second position, and the main verb appears at the end. This occurs notably in the creation of the perfect tense. Many word orders are still possible:
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+ The main verb may appear in first position to put stress on the action itself. The auxiliary verb is still in second position.
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+ Sentences using modal verbs place the infinitive at the end. For example, the English sentence "Should he go home?" would be rearranged in German to say "Should he (to) home go?" (Soll er nach Hause gehen?). Thus, in sentences with several subordinate or relative clauses, the infinitives are clustered at the end. Compare the similar clustering of prepositions in the following (highly contrived) English sentence: "What did you bring that book that I do not like to be read to out of up for?"
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+ German subordinate clauses have all verbs clustered at the end. Given that auxiliaries encode future, passive, modality, and the perfect, very long chains of verbs at the end of the sentence can occur. In these constructions, the past participle formed with ge- is often replaced by the infinitive.
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+ The order at the end of such strings is subject to variation, but the second one in the last example is unusual.
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+ Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.[70] However, there is a significant amount of loanwords from other languages, in particular Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and most recently English.[71] In the early 19th century, Joachim Heinrich Campe estimated that one fifth of the total German vocabulary was of French or Latin origin.[72]
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+ Latin words were already imported into the predecessor of the German language during the Roman Empire and underwent all the characteristic phonetic changes in German. Their origin is thus no longer recognizable for most speakers (e.g. Pforte, Tafel, Mauer, Käse, Köln from Latin porta, tabula, murus, caseus, Colonia). Borrowing from Latin continued after the fall of the Roman Empire during Christianization, mediated by the church and monasteries. Another important influx of Latin words can be observed during Renaissance humanism. In a scholarly context, the borrowings from Latin have continued until today, in the last few decades often indirectly through borrowings from English. During the 15th to 17th centuries, the influence of Italian was great, leading to many Italian loanwords in the fields of architecture, finance, and music. The influence of the French language in the 17th to 19th centuries resulted in an even greater import of French words. The English influence was already present in the 19th century, but it did not become dominant until the second half of the 20th century.
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+ Thus, Notker Labeo was able to translate Aristotelian treatises into pure (Old High) German in the decades after the year 1000.[73] The tradition of loan translation was revitalized in the 18th century with linguists like Joachim Heinrich Campe, who introduced close to 300 words that are still used in modern German. Even today, there are movements that try to promote the Ersatz (substitution) of foreign words that are deemed unnecessary with German alternatives.[74] It is claimed that this would also help in spreading modern or scientific notions among the less educated and as well democratise public life.
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+ As in English, there are many pairs of synonyms due to the enrichment of the Germanic vocabulary with loanwords from Latin and Latinized Greek. These words often have different connotations from their Germanic counterparts and are usually perceived as more scholarly.
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+ The size of the vocabulary of German is difficult to estimate. The Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary) initiated by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm already contained over 330,000 headwords in its first edition. The modern German scientific vocabulary is estimated at nine million words and word groups (based on the analysis of 35 million sentences of a corpus in Leipzig, which as of July 2003 included 500 million words in total).[75]
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+
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+ The Duden is the de facto official dictionary of the German language, first published by Konrad Duden in 1880. The Duden is updated regularly, with new editions appearing every four or five years. As of August 2017[update], it was in its 27th edition and in 12 volumes, each covering different aspects such as loanwords, etymology, pronunciation, synonyms, and so forth.The first of these volumes, Die deutsche Rechtschreibung (German Orthography), has long been the prescriptive source for the spelling of German. The Duden has become the bible of the German language, being the definitive set of rules regarding grammar, spelling and usage of German.[76]
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+
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+ The Österreichisches Wörterbuch ("Austrian Dictionary"), abbreviated ÖWB, is the official dictionary of the German language in the Republic of Austria. It is edited by a group of linguists under the authority of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (German: Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur). It is the Austrian counterpart to the German Duden and contains a number of terms unique to Austrian German or more frequently used or differently pronounced there.[77] A considerable amount of this "Austrian" vocabulary is also common in Southern Germany, especially Bavaria, and some of it is used in Switzerland as well. Since the 39th edition in 2001 the orthography of the ÖWB has been adjusted to the German spelling reform of 1996. The dictionary is also officially used in the Italian province of South Tyrol.
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+ This is a selection of cognates in both English and German. Instead of the usual infinitive ending -en, German verbs are indicated by a hyphen after their stems. Words that are written with capital letters in German are nouns.
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+ German is written in the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with an umlaut mark, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as the eszett or scharfes s (sharp s): ß. In Switzerland and Liechtenstein, ss is used instead of ß. Since ß can never occur at the beginning of a word, it has no traditional uppercase form.
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+
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+ Written texts in German are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such as umlauts and certain orthographical features – German is the only major language that capitalizes all nouns, a relic of a widespread practice in Northern Europe in the early modern era (including English for a while, in the 1700s) – and the frequent occurrence of long compounds. Because legibility and convenience set certain boundaries, compounds consisting of more than three or four nouns are almost exclusively found in humorous contexts. (In contrast, although English can also string nouns together, it usually separates the nouns with spaces. For example, "toilet bowl cleaner".)
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+
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+ Before the German orthography reform of 1996, ß replaced ss after long vowels and diphthongs and before consonants, word-, or partial-word endings. In reformed spelling, ß replaces ss only after long vowels and diphthongs.
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+
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+ Since there is no traditional capital form of ß, it was replaced by SS when capitalization was required. For example, Maßband (tape measure) became MASSBAND in capitals. An exception was the use of ß in legal documents and forms when capitalizing names. To avoid confusion with similar names, lower case ß was maintained (thus "KREßLEIN" instead of "KRESSLEIN"). Capital ß (ẞ) was ultimately adopted into German orthography in 2017, ending a long orthographic debate (thus "KREẞLEIN and KRESSLEIN").[78]
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+
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+ Umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) are commonly transcribed with ae, oe, and ue if the umlauts are not available on the keyboard or other medium used. In the same manner ß can be transcribed as ss. Some operating systems use key sequences to extend the set of possible characters to include, amongst other things, umlauts; in Microsoft Windows this is done using Alt codes. German readers understand these transcriptions (although they appear unusual), but they are avoided if the regular umlauts are available, because they are a makeshift and not proper spelling. (In Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, city and family names exist where the extra e has a vowel lengthening effect, e.g. Raesfeld [ˈraːsfɛlt], Coesfeld [ˈkoːsfɛlt] and Itzehoe [ɪtsəˈhoː], but this use of the letter e after a/o/u does not occur in the present-day spelling of words other than proper nouns.)
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+
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+ There is no general agreement on where letters with umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e. Some dictionaries sort each umlauted vowel as a separate letter after the base vowel, but more commonly words with umlauts are ordered immediately after the same word without umlauts. As an example in a telephone book Ärzte occurs after Adressenverlage but before Anlagenbauer (because Ä is replaced by Ae). In a dictionary Ärzte comes after Arzt, but in some dictionaries Ärzte and all other words starting with Ä may occur after all words starting with A. In some older dictionaries or indexes, initial Sch and St are treated as separate letters and are listed as separate entries after S, but they are usually treated as S+C+H and S+T.
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+
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+ Written German also typically uses an alternative opening inverted comma (quotation mark) as in "Guten Morgen!".
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+
225
+ Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in blackletter typefaces (mostly in Fraktur, but also in Schwabacher) and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans-serif Antiqua typefaces used today, and the handwritten forms in particular are difficult for the untrained to read. The printed forms, however, were claimed by some to be more readable when used for Germanic languages.[79] (Often, foreign names in a text were printed in an Antiqua typeface even though the rest of the text was in Fraktur.) The Nazis initially promoted Fraktur and Schwabacher because they were considered Aryan, but they abolished them in 1941, claiming that these letters were Jewish.[80] It is also believed that the Nazi régime had banned this script as they realized that Fraktur would inhibit communication in the territories occupied during World War II.[81]
226
+
227
+ The Fraktur script however remains present in everyday life in pub signs, beer brands and other forms of advertisement, where it is used to convey a certain rusticality and antiquity.
228
+
229
+ A proper use of the long s (langes s), ſ, is essential for writing German text in Fraktur typefaces. Many Antiqua typefaces also include the long s. A specific set of rules applies for the use of long s in German text, but nowadays it is rarely used in Antiqua typesetting. Any lower case "s" at the beginning of a syllable would be a long s, as opposed to a terminal s or short s (the more common variation of the letter s), which marks the end of a syllable; for example, in differentiating between the words Wachſtube (guard-house) and Wachstube (tube of polish/wax). One can easily decide which "s" to use by appropriate hyphenation, (Wach-ſtube vs. Wachs-tube). The long s only appears in lower case.
230
+
231
+ The orthography reform of 1996 led to public controversy and considerable dispute. The states (Bundesländer) of North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria refused to accept it. At one point, the dispute reached the highest court, which quickly dismissed it, claiming that the states had to decide for themselves and that only in schools could the reform be made the official rule – everybody else could continue writing as they had learned it. After 10 years, without any intervention by the federal parliament, a major revision was installed in 2006, just in time for the coming school year. In 2007, some traditional spellings were finally invalidated; however, in 2008, many of the old comma rules were again put in force.
232
+
233
+ The most noticeable change was probably in the use of the letter ß, called scharfes s (Sharp S) or ess-zett (pronounced ess-tsett). Traditionally, this letter was used in three situations:
234
+
235
+ Examples are Füße, paßt, and daß. Currently, only the first rule is in effect, making the correct spellings Füße, passt, and dass. The word Fuß 'foot' has the letter ß because it contains a long vowel, even though that letter occurs at the end of a syllable. The logic of this change is that an 'ß' is a single letter whereas 'ss' are two letters, so the same distinction applies as (for example) between the words den and denn.
236
+
237
+ In German, vowels (excluding diphthongs; see below) are either short or long, as follows:
238
+
239
+ Short /ɛ/ is realized as [ɛ] in stressed syllables (including secondary stress), but as [ə] in unstressed syllables. Note that stressed short /ɛ/ can be spelled either with e or with ä (for instance, hätte 'would have' and Kette 'chain' rhyme). In general, the short vowels are open and the long vowels are close. The one exception is the open /ɛː/ sound of long Ä; in some varieties of standard German, /ɛː/ and /eː/ have merged into [eː], removing this anomaly. In that case, pairs like Bären/Beeren 'bears/berries' or Ähre/Ehre 'spike (of wheat)/honour' become homophonous (see: Captain Bluebear).
240
+
241
+ In many varieties of standard German, an unstressed /ɛr/ is not pronounced [ər] but vocalised to [ɐ].
242
+
243
+ Whether any particular vowel letter represents the long or short phoneme is not completely predictable, although the following regularities exist:
244
+
245
+ Both of these rules have exceptions (e.g. hat [hat] "has" is short despite the first rule; Mond [moːnt] "moon" is long despite the second rule). For an i that is neither in the combination ie (making it long) nor followed by a double consonant or cluster (making it short), there is no general rule. In some cases, there are regional differences. In central Germany (Hesse), the o in the proper name "Hoffmann" is pronounced long, whereas most other Germans would pronounce it short. The same applies to the e in the geographical name "Mecklenburg" for people in that region. The word Städte "cities" is pronounced with a short vowel [ˈʃtɛtə] by some (Jan Hofer, ARD Television) and with a long vowel [ˈʃtɛːtə] by others (Marietta Slomka, ZDF Television). Finally, a vowel followed by ch can be short (Fach [fax] "compartment", Küche [ˈkʏçə] "kitchen") or long (Suche [ˈzuːxə] "search", Bücher [ˈbyːçɐ] "books") almost at random. Thus, Lache is homographous between [laːxə] Lache "puddle" and [laxə] Lache "manner of laughing" (colloquial) or lache! "laugh!" (imperative).
246
+
247
+ German vowels can form the following digraphs (in writing) and diphthongs (in pronunciation); note that the pronunciation of some of them (ei, äu, eu) is very different from what one would expect when considering the component letters:
248
+
249
+ Additionally, the digraph ie generally represents the phoneme /iː/, which is not a diphthong. In many varieties, an /r/ at the end of a syllable is vocalised. However, a sequence of a vowel followed by such a vocalised /r/ is not a phonemic diphthong: Bär [bɛːɐ̯] "bear", er [eːɐ̯] "he", wir [viːɐ̯] "we", Tor [toːɐ̯] "gate", kurz [kʊɐ̯ts] "short", Wörter [vœɐ̯tɐ] "words".
250
+
251
+ In most varieties of standard German, syllables that begin with a vowel are preceded by a glottal stop [ʔ].
252
+
253
+ With approximately 26 phonemes, the German consonant system exhibits an average number of consonants in comparison with other languages. One of the more noteworthy ones is the unusual affricate /p͡f/. The consonant inventory of the standard language is shown below.
254
+
255
+ German does not have any dental fricatives (as English th). The th sound, which the English language still has, disappeared on the continent in German with the consonant shifts between the 8th and 10th centuries.[83] It is sometimes possible to find parallels between English and German by replacing the English th with d in German: "Thank" → in German Dank, "this" and "that" → dies and das, "thou" (old 2nd person singular pronoun) → du, "think" → denken, "thirsty" → durstig and many other examples.
256
+
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+ Likewise, the gh in Germanic English words, pronounced in several different ways in modern English (as an f or not at all), can often be linked to German ch: "to laugh" → lachen, "through" → durch, "high" → hoch, "naught" → nichts, "light" → leicht or Licht, "sight" → Sicht, "daughter" → Tochter, "neighbour" → Nachbar.
258
+
259
+ The German language is used in German literature and can be traced back to the Middle Ages, with the most notable authors of the period being Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach.
260
+ The Nibelungenlied, whose author remains unknown, is also an important work of the epoch. The fairy tales collected and published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century became famous throughout the world.
261
+
262
+ Reformer and theologian Martin Luther, who was the first to translate the Bible into German, is widely credited for having set the basis for the modern "High German" language. Among the best-known poets and authors in German are Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Hoffmann, Brecht, Heine, and Kafka. Fourteen German-speaking people have won the Nobel Prize in literature: Theodor Mommsen, Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Paul von Heyse, Gerhart Hauptmann, Carl Spitteler, Thomas Mann, Nelly Sachs, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll, Elias Canetti, Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller and Peter Handke, making it the second most awarded linguistic region (together with French) after English.
263
+
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+ English has taken many loanwords from German, often without any change of spelling (aside from frequently eliminating umlauts and not capitalizing nouns):
265
+
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+ Several organisations promote the use and learning of the German language:
267
+
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+ The government-backed Goethe-Institut[85] (named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) aims to enhance the knowledge of German culture and language within Europe and the rest of the world. This is done by holding exhibitions and conferences with German-related themes, and providing training and guidance in the learning and use of the German language. For example, the Goethe-Institut teaches the Goethe-Zertifikat German language qualification.
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+
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+ The Dortmund-based Verein Deutsche Sprache (VDS), founded in 1997, supports the German language and is the largest language association of citizens in the world. The VDS has more than thirty-five thousand members in over seventy countries. Its founder, statistics professor Dr. Walter Krämer, has remained chairperson of the association from its formation.[86]
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+
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+ The German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle provides radio and television broadcasts in German and 30 other languages across the globe.[87] Its German language services are spoken slowly and thus tailored for learners. Deutsche Welle also provides an e-learning website for teaching German.
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1
+
2
+
3
+ Coordinates: 51°N 9°E / 51°N 9°E / 51; 9
4
+
5
+ – in Europe (light green & dark grey)– in the European Union (light green)
6
+
7
+ Germany (German: Deutschland, German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃlant]), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, listen),[e] is a country in Central and Western Europe. Covering an area of 357,022 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi), it lies between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west.
8
+
9
+ Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. Following the Napoleonic Wars and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the German Confederation was formed in 1815. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, World War II, and the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, two new German states were founded: West Germany and East Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community and the European Union. The country was reunified on 3 October 1990.
10
+
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+ Today, Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. With 83 million inhabitants of its 16 constituent states, it is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Berlin, and its financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr.
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+
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+ Germany is a great power with a strong economy; it has the largest economy in Europe, the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, and the fifth-largest by PPP. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods. A highly developed country with a very high standard of living, it offers social security and a universal health care system, environmental protections, and a tuition-free university education. Germany is also a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, and the OECD. Known for its long and rich cultural history, Germany has many World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world.
14
+
15
+ The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine.[10] The German term Deutschland, originally diutisciu land ("the German lands") is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "of the people" (from diot or diota "people"), originally used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "of the people" (see also the Latinised form Theodiscus), derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons also originates.[11]
16
+
17
+ Ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago.[12] The first non-modern human fossil (the Neanderthal) was discovered in the Neander Valley.[13] Similarly dated evidence of modern humans has been found in the Swabian Jura, including 42,000-year-old flutes which are the oldest musical instruments ever found,[14] the 40,000-year-old Lion Man,[15] and the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels.[16] The Nebra sky disk, created during the European Bronze Age, is attributed to a German site.[17]
18
+
19
+ The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Nordic Bronze Age or the Pre-Roman Iron Age.[18] From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with the Celtic, Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes.[19]
20
+
21
+ Under Augustus, Rome began to invade Germania. In 9 AD, three Roman legions were defeated by Arminius.[20] By 100 AD, when Tacitus wrote Germania, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of modern Germany. However, Baden Württemberg, southern Bavaria, southern Hesse and the western Rhineland had been incorporated into Roman provinces.[21][22][23] Around 260, Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands.[24] After the invasion of the Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved farther southwest: the Franks established the Frankish Kingdom and pushed east to subjugate Saxony and Bavaria, and areas of what is today eastern Germany were inhabited by Western Slavic tribes.[21]
22
+
23
+ Charlemagne founded the Carolingian Empire in 800; it was divided in 843[25] and the Holy Roman Empire emerged from the eastern portion. The territory initially known as East Francia stretched from the Rhine in the west to the Elbe River in the east and from the North Sea to the Alps.[25] The Ottonian rulers (919–1024) consolidated several major duchies.[26] In 996 Gregory V became the first German Pope, appointed by his cousin Otto III, whom he shortly after crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy under the Salian emperors (1024–1125), although the emperors lost power through the Investiture controversy.[27]
24
+
25
+ Under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), German princes encouraged German settlement to the south and east (Ostsiedlung). Members of the Hanseatic League, mostly north German towns, prospered in the expansion of trade.[28] Population declined starting with the Great Famine in 1315, followed by the Black Death of 1348–50.[29] The Golden Bull issued in 1356 provided the constitutional structure of the Empire and codified the election of the emperor by seven prince-electors.[30]
26
+
27
+ Johannes Gutenberg introduced moveable-type printing to Europe, laying the basis for the democratization of knowledge.[31] In 1517, Martin Luther incited the Protestant Reformation; the 1555 Peace of Augsburg tolerated the "Evangelical" faith (Lutheranism), but also decreed that the faith of the prince was to be the faith of his subjects (cuius regio, eius religio).[32] From the Cologne War through the Thirty Years' Wars (1618–1648), religious conflict devastated German lands and significantly reduced the population.[33][34]
28
+
29
+ The Peace of Westphalia ended religious warfare among the Imperial Estates;[33] their mostly German-speaking rulers were able to choose Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, or the Reformed faith as their official religion.[35] The legal system initiated by a series of Imperial Reforms (approximately 1495–1555) provided for considerable local autonomy and a stronger Imperial Diet.[36] The House of Habsburg held the imperial crown from 1438 until the death of Charles VI in 1740. Following the War of Austrian Succession and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles VI's daughter Maria Theresa ruled as Empress Consort when her husband, Francis I, became Emperor.[37][38]
30
+
31
+ From 1740, dualism between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history. In 1772, 1793, and 1795, Prussia and Austria, along with the Russian Empire, agreed to the Partitions of Poland.[39][40] During the period of the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic era and the subsequent final meeting of the Imperial Diet, most of the Free Imperial Cities were annexed by dynastic territories; the ecclesiastical territories were secularised and annexed. In 1806 the Imperium was dissolved; France, Russia, Prussia and the Habsburgs (Austria) competed for hegemony in the German states during the Napoleonic Wars.[41]
32
+
33
+ Following the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna founded the German Confederation, a loose league of 39 sovereign states. The appointment of the Emperor of Austria as the permanent president reflected the Congress's rejection of Prussia's rising influence. Disagreement within restoration politics partly led to the rise of liberal movements, followed by new measures of repression by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich.[42][43] The Zollverein, a tariff union, furthered economic unity.[44] In light of revolutionary movements in Europe, intellectuals and commoners started the revolutions of 1848 in the German states. King Frederick William IV of Prussia was offered the title of Emperor, but with a loss of power; he rejected the crown and the proposed constitution, a temporary setback for the movement.[45]
34
+
35
+ King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as the Minister President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck successfully concluded the war with Denmark in 1864; the subsequent decisive Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the North German Confederation which excluded Austria. After the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, the German princes proclaimed the founding of the German Empire in 1871. Prussia was the dominant constituent state of the new empire; the King of Prussia ruled as its Kaiser, and Berlin became its capital.[46][47]
36
+
37
+ In the Gründerzeit period following the unification of Germany, Bismarck's foreign policy as Chancellor of Germany secured Germany's position as a great nation by forging alliances and avoiding war.[47] However, under Wilhelm II, Germany took an imperialistic course, leading to friction with neighbouring countries.[48] A dual alliance was created with the multinational realm of Austria-Hungary; the Triple Alliance of 1882 included Italy. Britain, France and Russia also concluded alliances to protect against Habsburg interference with Russian interests in the Balkans or German interference against France.[49] At the Berlin Conference in 1884, Germany claimed several colonies including German East Africa, German South West Africa, Togoland, and Kamerun.[50] Later, Germany further expanded its colonial empire to include holdings in the Pacific and China.[51] The colonial government in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), from 1904 to 1907, carried out the annihilation of the local Herero and Namaqua peoples as punishment for an uprising;[52][53] this was the 20th century's first genocide.[53]
38
+
39
+ The assassination of Austria's crown prince on 28 June 1914 provided the pretext for Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia and trigger World War I. After four years of warfare, in which approximately two million German soldiers were killed,[54] a general armistice ended the fighting. In the German Revolution (November 1918), Emperor Wilhelm II and the ruling princes abdicated their positions and Germany was declared a federal republic. Germany's new leadership signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting defeat by the Allies. Germans perceived the treaty as humiliating, which was seen by historians as influential in the rise of Adolf Hitler.[55] Germany lost around 13% of its European territory and ceded all of its colonial possessions in Africa and the South Sea.[56]
40
+
41
+ On 11 August 1919, President Friedrich Ebert signed the democratic Weimar Constitution.[57] In the subsequent struggle for power, communists seized power in Bavaria, but conservative elements elsewhere attempted to overthrow the Republic in the Kapp Putsch. Street fighting in the major industrial centres, the occupation of the Ruhr by Belgian and French troops, and a period of hyperinflation followed. A debt restructuring plan and the creation of a new currency in 1924 ushered in the Golden Twenties, an era of artistic innovation and liberal cultural life.[58][59][60]
42
+
43
+ The worldwide Great Depression hit Germany in 1929. Chancellor Heinrich Brüning's government pursued a policy of fiscal austerity and deflation which caused unemployment of nearly 30% by 1932.[61] The Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler won a special election in 1932 and Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.[62] After the Reichstag fire, a decree abrogated basic civil rights and the first Nazi concentration camp opened.[63][64] The Enabling Act gave Hitler unrestricted legislative power, overriding the constitution;[65] his government established a centralised totalitarian state, withdrew from the League of Nations, and dramatically increased the country's rearmament.[66] A government-sponsored programme for economic renewal focused on public works, the most famous of which was the autobahn.[67]
44
+
45
+ In 1935, the regime withdrew from the Treaty of Versailles and introduced the Nuremberg Laws which targeted Jews and other minorities.[68] Germany also reacquired control of the Saarland in 1935,[69] remilitarised the Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in 1938, annexed the Sudetenland in 1938 with the Munich Agreement, and in violation of the agreement occupied Czechoslovakia in March 1939.[70] Kristallnacht saw the burning of synagogues, the destruction of Jewish businesses, and mass arrests of Jewish people.[71]
46
+
47
+ In August 1939, Hitler's government negotiated the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.[72] On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II in Europe;[73] Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September.[74] In the spring of 1940, Germany conquered Denmark and Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, forcing the French government to sign an armistice. The British repelled German air attacks in the Battle of Britain in the same year. In 1941, German troops invaded Yugoslavia, Greece and the Soviet Union. By 1942, Germany and her allies controlled most of continental Europe and North Africa, but following the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, the allies' reconquest of North Africa and invasion of Italy in 1943, German forces suffered repeated military defeats. In 1944, the Soviets pushed into Eastern Europe; the Western allies landed in France and entered Germany despite a final German counteroffensive. Following Hitler's suicide during the Battle of Berlin, Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.[73][75] Following the end of the war, surviving Nazi officials were tried for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.[76][77]
48
+
49
+ In what later became known as the Holocaust, the German government persecuted minorities, including interning them in concentration and death camps across Europe. In total 17 million people were systematically murdered, including 6 million Jews, at least 130,000 Romani, 275,000 persons with disabilities, thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses, thousands of homosexuals, and hundreds of thousands of political and religious opponents.[78] Nazi policies in German-occupied countries resulted in the deaths of 2.7 million Poles,[79] 1.3 million Ukrainians, 1 million Belarusians[80] and 3.5 million Soviet prisoners of war.[80][76] German military casualties have been estimated at 5.3 million,[81] and around 900,000 German civilians died.[82] Around 12 million ethnic Germans were expelled from across Eastern Europe, and Germany lost roughly one-quarter of its pre-war territory.[83]
50
+
51
+ After Nazi Germany surrendered, the Allies partitioned Berlin and Germany's remaining territory into four occupation zones. The western sectors, controlled by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were merged on 23 May 1949 to form the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD)); on 7 October 1949, the Soviet Zone became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)). They were informally known as West Germany and East Germany.[85] East Germany selected East Berlin as its capital, while West Germany chose Bonn as a provisional capital, to emphasise its stance that the two-state solution was temporary.[86]
52
+
53
+ West Germany was established as a federal parliamentary republic with a "social market economy". Starting in 1948 West Germany became a major recipient of reconstruction aid under the Marshall Plan.[87] Konrad Adenauer was elected the first Federal Chancellor of Germany in 1949. The country enjoyed prolonged economic growth (Wirtschaftswunder) beginning in the early 1950s.[88] West Germany joined NATO in 1955 and was a founding member of the European Economic Community.[89]
54
+
55
+ East Germany was an Eastern Bloc state under political and military control by the USSR via occupation forces and the Warsaw Pact. Although East Germany claimed to be a democracy, political power was exercised solely by leading members (Politbüro) of the communist-controlled Socialist Unity Party of Germany, supported by the Stasi, an immense secret service.[90] While East German propaganda was based on the benefits of the GDR's social programmes and the alleged threat of a West German invasion, many of its citizens looked to the West for freedom and prosperity.[91] The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, prevented East German citizens from escaping to West Germany, becoming a symbol of the Cold War.[92]
56
+
57
+ Tensions between East and West Germany were reduced in the late 1960s by Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik.[93] In 1989, Hungary decided to dismantle the Iron Curtain and open its border with Austria, causing the emigration of thousands of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary and Austria. This had devastating effects on the GDR, where regular mass demonstrations received increasing support. In an effort to help retain East Germany as a state, the East German authorities eased border restrictions, but this actually led to an acceleration of the Wende reform process culminating in the Two Plus Four Treaty under which Germany regained full sovereignty. This permitted German reunification on 3 October 1990, with the accession of the five re-established states of the former GDR.[94] The fall of the Wall in 1989 became a symbol of the Fall of Communism, the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, German Reunification and Die Wende.[95]
58
+
59
+ United Germany was considered the enlarged continuation of West Germany so it retained its memberships in international organisations.[96] Based on the Berlin/Bonn Act (1994), Berlin again became the capital of Germany, while Bonn obtained the unique status of a Bundesstadt (federal city) retaining some federal ministries.[97] The relocation of the government was completed in 1999, and modernisation of the east German economy was scheduled to last until 2019.[98][99]
60
+
61
+ Since reunification, Germany has taken a more active role in the European Union, signing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and the Lisbon Treaty in 2007,[100] and co-founding the Eurozone.[101] Germany sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the Balkans and sent German troops to Afghanistan as part of a NATO effort to provide security in that country after the ousting of the Taliban.[102][103]
62
+
63
+ In the 2005 elections, Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor. In 2009 the German government approved a €50 billion stimulus plan.[104] Among the major German political projects of the early 21st century are the advancement of European integration, the energy transition (Energiewende) for a sustainable energy supply, the "Debt Brake" for balanced budgets, measures to increase the fertility rate (pronatalism), and high-tech strategies for the transition of the German economy, summarised as Industry 4.0.[105] Germany was affected by the European migrant crisis in 2015: the country took in over a million migrants and developed a quota system which redistributed migrants around its federal states.[106]
64
+
65
+ Germany is in Western and Central Europe, bordering Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria to the southeast, and Switzerland to the south-southwest. France, Luxembourg and Belgium are situated to the west, with the Netherlands to the northwest. Germany is also bordered by the North Sea and, at the north-northeast, by the Baltic Sea. German territory covers 357,022 km2 (137,847 sq mi), consisting of 348,672 km2 (134,623 sq mi) of land and 8,350 km2 (3,224 sq mi) of water. It is the seventh largest country by area in Europe and the 62nd largest in the world.[4]
66
+
67
+ Elevation ranges from the mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,963 metres or 9,721 feet) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the northwest and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the northeast. The forested uplands of central Germany and the lowlands of northern Germany (lowest point: Wilstermarsch at 3.54 metres or 11.6 feet below sea level) are traversed by such major rivers as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe. Significant natural resources include iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt, and nickel.[4]
68
+
69
+ Most of Germany has a temperate climate, ranging from oceanic in the north to continental in the east and southeast. Winters range from cold in the southern Alps to mild and are generally overcast with limited precipitation, while summers can vary from hot and dry to cool and rainy. The northern regions have prevailing westerly winds that bring in moist air from the North Sea, moderating the temperature and increasing precipitation. Conversely, the southeast regions have more extreme temperatures.[107]
70
+
71
+ From February 2019–2020, average monthly temperatures in Germany ranged from a low of 3.3 °C (37.9 °F) in January 2020 to a high of 19.8 °C (67.6 °F) in June 2019.[108] Average monthly precipitation ranged from 30 litres per square metre in February and April 2019 to 125 litres per square metre in February 2020.[109] Average monthly hours of sunshine ranged from 45 in November 2019 to 300 in June 2019.[110]
72
+
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+ The territory of Germany can be divided into two ecoregions: European-Mediterranean montane mixed forests and Northeast-Atlantic shelf marine.[111] As of 2016[update] 51% of Germany's land area is devoted to agriculture, while 30% is forested and 14% is covered by settlements or infrastructure.[112]
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+ Plants and animals include those generally common to Central Europe. According to the National Forest Inventory, beeches, oaks, and other deciduous trees constitute just over 40% of the forests; roughly 60% are conifers, particularly spruce and pine.[113] There are many species of ferns, flowers, fungi, and mosses. Wild animals include roe deer, wild boar, mouflon (a subspecies of wild sheep), fox, badger, hare, and small numbers of the Eurasian beaver.[114] The blue cornflower was once a German national symbol.[115]
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+ The 16 national parks in Germany include the Jasmund National Park, the Vorpommern Lagoon Area National Park, the Müritz National Park, the Wadden Sea National Parks, the Harz National Park, the Hainich National Park, the Black Forest National Park, the Saxon Switzerland National Park, the Bavarian Forest National Park and the Berchtesgaden National Park.[116] In addition, there are 17 Biosphere Reserves[117] and 105 nature parks.[118] More than 400 zoos and animal parks operate in Germany.[119] The Berlin Zoo, which opened in 1844, is the oldest in Germany, and claims the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.[120]
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+ Germany is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic. Federal legislative power is vested in the parliament consisting of the Bundestag (Federal Diet) and Bundesrat (Federal Council), which together form the legislative body. The Bundestag is elected through direct elections: half by majority vote and half by proportional representation. The members of the Bundesrat represent and are appointed by the governments of the sixteen federated states.[4] The German political system operates under a framework laid out in the 1949 constitution known as the Grundgesetz (Basic Law). Amendments generally require a two-thirds majority of both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat; the fundamental principles of the constitution, as expressed in the articles guaranteeing human dignity, the separation of powers, the federal structure, and the rule of law, are valid in perpetuity.[121]
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+ The president, currently Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is the head of state and invested primarily with representative responsibilities and powers. He is elected by the Bundesversammlung (federal convention), an institution consisting of the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of state delegates.[4] The second-highest official in the German order of precedence is the Bundestagspräsident (president of the Bundestag), who is elected by the Bundestag and responsible for overseeing the daily sessions of the body.[122] The third-highest official and the head of government is the chancellor, who is appointed by the Bundespräsident after being elected by the party or coalition with the most seats in the Bundestag.[4] The chancellor, currently Angela Merkel, is the head of government and exercises executive power through their Cabinet.[4]
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+
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+ Since 1949, the party system has been dominated by the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. So far every chancellor has been a member of one of these parties. However, the smaller liberal Free Democratic Party and the Alliance '90/The Greens have also achieved some success. Since 2007, the left-wing populist party The Left has been a staple in the German Bundestag, though they have never been part of the federal government. In the 2017 German federal election, the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany gained enough votes to attain representation in the parliament for the first time.[123][124]
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+ Germany comprises sixteen federal states which are collectively referred to as Bundesländer.[125] Each state has its own state constitution,[126] and is largely autonomous in regard to its internal organisation. As of 2017[update] Germany is divided into 401 districts (Kreise) at a municipal level; these consist of 294 rural districts and 107 urban districts.[127]
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+ Germany has a civil law system based on Roman law with some references to Germanic law.[131] The Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) is the German Supreme Court responsible for constitutional matters, with power of judicial review.[132] Germany's supreme court system is specialised: for civil and criminal cases, the highest court of appeal is the inquisitorial Federal Court of Justice, and for other affairs the courts are the Federal Labour Court, the Federal Social Court, the Federal Finance Court and the Federal Administrative Court.[133]
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+ Criminal and private laws are codified on the national level in the Strafgesetzbuch and the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch respectively. The German penal system seeks the rehabilitation of the criminal and the protection of the public.[134] Except for petty crimes, which are tried before a single professional judge, and serious political crimes, all charges are tried before mixed tribunals on which lay judges (Schöffen) sit side by side with professional judges.[135][136]
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+ Germany has a low murder rate with 1.18 murders per 100,000 as of 2016[update].[137] In 2018, the overall crime rate fell to its lowest since 1992.[138]
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+ Germany has a network of 227 diplomatic missions abroad[140] and maintains relations with more than 190 countries.[141] Germany is a member of NATO, the OECD, the G8, the G20, the World Bank and the IMF. It has played an influential role in the European Union since its inception and has maintained a strong alliance with France and all neighbouring countries since 1990. Germany promotes the creation of a more unified European political, economic and security apparatus.[142][143][144] The governments of Germany and the United States are close political allies.[145] Cultural ties and economic interests have crafted a bond between the two countries resulting in Atlanticism.[146]
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+ The development policy of Germany is an independent area of foreign policy. It is formulated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and carried out by the implementing organisations. The German government sees development policy as a joint responsibility of the international community.[147] It was the world's second biggest aid donor in 2019 after the United States.[148]
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+ Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, is organised into the Heer (Army and special forces KSK), Marine (Navy), Luftwaffe (Air Force), Zentraler Sanitätsdienst der Bundeswehr (Joint Medical Service) and Streitkräftebasis (Joint Support Service) branches. In absolute terms, German military expenditure is the 8th highest in the world.[149] In 2018, military spending was at $49.5 billion, about 1.2% of the country's GDP, well below the NATO target of 2%.[150]
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+ As of January 2020[update], the Bundeswehr has a strength of 184,001 active soldiers and 80,947 civilians.[151] Reservists are available to the armed forces and participate in defence exercises and deployments abroad.[152] Until 2011, military service was compulsory for men at age 18, but this has been officially suspended and replaced with a voluntary service.[153][154] Since 2001 women may serve in all functions of service without restriction.[155] According to SIPRI, Germany was the fourth largest exporter of major arms in the world from 2014 to 2018.[156]
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+ In peacetime, the Bundeswehr is commanded by the Minister of Defence. In state of defence, the Chancellor would become commander-in-chief of the Bundeswehr.[157] The role of the Bundeswehr is described in the Constitution of Germany as defensive only. But after a ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1994 the term "defence" has been defined to not only include protection of the borders of Germany, but also crisis reaction and conflict prevention, or more broadly as guarding the security of Germany anywhere in the world. As of 2017[update], the German military has about 3,600 troops stationed in foreign countries as part of international peacekeeping forces, including about 1,200 supporting operations against Daesh, 980 in the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, and 800 in Kosovo.[158]
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+ Germany has a social market economy with a highly skilled labour force, a low level of corruption, and a high level of innovation.[4][160][161] It is the world's third largest exporter of goods,[4] and has the largest national economy in Europe which is also the world's fourth largest by nominal GDP[162] and the fifth by PPP.[163] Its GDP per capita measured in purchasing power standards amounts to 121% of the EU27 average (100%).[164] The service sector contributes approximately 69% of the total GDP, industry 31%, and agriculture 1% as of 2017[update].[4] The unemployment rate published by Eurostat amounts to 3.2% as of January 2020[update], which is the fourth-lowest in the EU.[165]
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+ Germany is part of the European single market which represents more than 450 million consumers.[166] In 2017, the country accounted for 28% of the Eurozone economy according to the International Monetary Fund.[167] Germany introduced the common European currency, the Euro, in 2002.[168] Its monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank, which is headquartered in Frankfurt.[169][159]
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+ Being home to the modern car, the automotive industry in Germany is regarded as one of the most competitive and innovative in the world,[170] and is the fourth largest by production.[171] The top 10 exports of Germany are vehicles, machinery, chemical goods, electronic products, electrical equipments, pharmaceuticals, transport equipments, basic metals, food products, and rubber and plastics.[172] Germany is one of the largest exporters globally.[173]
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+ Of the world's 500 largest stock-market-listed companies measured by revenue in 2019, the Fortune Global 500, 29 are headquartered in Germany.[174] 30 major Germany-based companies are included in the DAX, the German stock market index which is operated by Frankfurt Stock Exchange.[175] Well-known international brands include Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Siemens, Allianz, Adidas, Porsche, Bosch and Deutsche Telekom.[176] Berlin is a hub for startup companies and has become the leading location for venture capital funded firms in the European Union.[177] Germany is recognised for its large portion of specialised small and medium enterprises, known as the Mittelstand model.[178] These companies represent 48% global market leaders in their segments, labelled Hidden Champions.[179]
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+ Research and development efforts form an integral part of the German economy.[180] In 2018 Germany ranked fourth globally in terms of number of science and engineering research papers published.[181] Research institutions in Germany include the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association, and the Fraunhofer Society and the Leibniz Association.[182] Germany is the largest contributor to the European Space Agency.[183]
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+ With its central position in Europe, Germany is a transport hub for the continent.[184] Its road network is among the densest in Europe.[185] The motorway (Autobahn) is widely known for having no federally mandated speed limit for some classes of vehicles.[186] The InterCityExpress or ICE train network serves major German cities as well as destinations in neighbouring countries with speeds up to 300 km/h (190 mph).[187] The largest German airports are Frankfurt Airport and Munich Airport.[188] The Port of Hamburg is one of the top twenty largest container ports in the world.[189]
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+ In 2015[update], Germany was the world's seventh-largest consumer of energy.[190] The government and the nuclear power industry agreed to phase out all nuclear power plants by 2021.[191] It meets the country's power demands using 40% renewable sources.[192] Germany is committed to the Paris Agreement and several other treaties promoting biodiversity, low emission standards, and water management.[193][194][195] The country's household recycling rate is among the highest in the world—at around 65%.[196] Nevertheless, the country's total greenhouse gas emissions were the highest in the EU in 2017[update].[197] The German energy transition (Energiewende) is the recognised move to a sustainable economy by means of energy efficiency and renewable energy.[198]
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+ Germany is the ninth most visited country in the world as of 2017[update], with 37.4 million visits.[199] Berlin has become the third most visited city destination in Europe.[200] Domestic and international travel and tourism combined directly contribute over €105.3 billion to German GDP. Including indirect and induced impacts, the industry supports 4.2 million jobs.[201]
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+ Germany's most visited and popular landmarks include Cologne Cathedral, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Dresden Frauenkirche, Neuschwanstein Castle, Heidelberg Castle, the Wartburg, and Sanssouci Palace.[202] The Europa-Park near Freiburg is Europe's second most popular theme park resort.[203]
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+ With a population of 80.2 million according to the 2011 census,[204] rising to 83.1 million as of 2019[update],[5] Germany is the most populous country in the European Union, the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the 19th most populous country in the world. Its population density stands at 227 inhabitants per square kilometre (588 per square mile). The overall life expectancy in Germany at birth is 80.19 years (77.93 years for males and 82.58 years for females).[4] The fertility rate of 1.41 children born per woman (2011 estimates) is below the replacement rate of 2.1 and is one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.[4] Since the 1970s, Germany's death rate has exceeded its birth rate. However, Germany is witnessing increased birth rates and migration rates since the beginning of the 2010s, particularly a rise in the number of well-educated migrants. Germany has the third oldest population in the world, with the average age of 47.4 years.[4]
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+ Four sizeable groups of people are referred to as "national minorities" because their ancestors have lived in their respective regions for centuries:[205] There is a Danish minority in the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein;[205] the Sorbs, a Slavic population, are in the Lusatia region of Saxony and Brandenburg.; the Roma and Sinti live throughout the country; and the Frisians are concentrated in Schleswig-Holstein's western coast and in the north-western part of Lower Saxony.[205]
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+ After the United States, Germany is the second most popular immigration destination in the world. The majority of migrants live in western Germany, in particular in urban areas. Of the country's residents, 18.6 million people (22.5%) were of immigrant or partially immigrant descent in 2016 (including persons descending or partially descending from ethnic German repatriates).[206] In 2015, the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs listed Germany as host to the second-highest number of international migrants worldwide, about 5% or 12 million of all 244 million migrants.[207] As of 2018[update], Germany ranks fifth amongst EU countries in terms of the percentage of migrants in the country's population, at 12.9%.[208]
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+ Germany has a number of large cities. There are 11 officially recognised metropolitan regions. The country's largest city is Berlin, while its largest urban area is the Ruhr.[209]
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+ The 2011 German Census showed Christianity as the largest religion in Germany, with 66.8% identified themselves as Christian, with 3.8% of those not being church members.[210] 31.7% declared themselves as Protestants, including members of the Evangelical Church in Germany (which encompasses Lutheran, Reformed and administrative or confessional unions of both traditions) and the free churches (German: Evangelische Freikirchen); 31.2% declared themselves as Roman Catholics, and Orthodox believers constituted 1.3%. According to data from 2016, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church claimed 28.5% and 27.5%, respectively, of the population.[211][212] Islam is the second largest religion in the country.[213] In the 2011 census, 1.9% of the census population (1.52 million people) gave their religion as Islam, but this figure is deemed unreliable because a disproportionate number of adherents of this religion (and other religions, such as Judaism) are likely to have made use of their right not to answer the question.[214] Most of the Muslims are Sunnis and Alevites from Turkey, but there are a small number of Shi'ites, Ahmadiyyas and other denominations. Other religions comprise less than one percent of Germany's population.[213]
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+ A study in 2018 estimated that 38% of the population are not members of any religious organization or denomination,[215] though up to a third may still consider themselves religious. Irreligion in Germany is strongest in the former East Germany, which used to be predominantly Protestant before state atheism, and in major metropolitan areas.[216][217]
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+ German is the official and predominant spoken language in Germany.[218] It is one of 24 official and working languages of the European Union, and one of the three procedural languages of the European Commission.[219] German is the most widely spoken first language in the European Union, with around 100 million native speakers.[220]
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+ Recognised native minority languages in Germany are Danish, Low German, Low Rhenish, Sorbian, Romany, North Frisian and Saterland Frisian; they are officially protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The most used immigrant languages are Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, Polish, the Balkan languages and Russian. Germans are typically multilingual: 67% of German citizens claim to be able to communicate in at least one foreign language and 27% in at least two.[218]
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+ Responsibility for educational supervision in Germany is primarily organised within the individual federal states. Optional kindergarten education is provided for all children between three and six years old, after which school attendance is compulsory for at least nine years. Primary education usually lasts for four to six years.[221] Secondary schooling is divided into tracks based on whether students pursue academic or vocational education.[222] A system of apprenticeship called Duale Ausbildung leads to a skilled qualification which is almost comparable to an academic degree. It allows students in vocational training to learn in a company as well as in a state-run trade school.[221] This model is well regarded and reproduced all around the world.[223]
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+ Most of the German universities are public institutions, and students traditionally study without fee payment.[224] The general requirement for university is the Abitur. According to an OECD report in 2014, Germany is the world's third leading destination for international study.[225] The established universities in Germany include some of the oldest in the world, with Heidelberg University (established in 1386) being the oldest.[226] The Humboldt University of Berlin, founded in 1810 by the liberal educational reformer Wilhelm von Humboldt, became the academic model for many Western universities.[227][228] In the contemporary era Germany has developed eleven Universities of Excellence.
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+ Germany's system of hospitals, called Krankenhäuser, dates from medieval times, and today, Germany has the world's oldest universal health care system, dating from Bismarck's social legislation of the 1880s.[230] Since the 1880s, reforms and provisions have ensured a balanced health care system. The population is covered by a health insurance plan provided by statute, with criteria allowing some groups to opt for a private health insurance contract. According to the World Health Organization, Germany's health care system was 77% government-funded and 23% privately funded as of 2013[update].[231] In 2014, Germany spent 11.3% of its GDP on health care.[232]
142
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+ Germany ranked 20th in the world in 2013 in life expectancy with 77 years for men and 82 years for women, and it had a very low infant mortality rate (4 per 1,000 live births). In 2019[update], the principal cause of death was cardiovascular disease, at 37%.[233] Obesity in Germany has been increasingly cited as a major health issue. A 2014 study showed that 52 percent of the adult German population was overweight or obese.[234]
144
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+ Culture in German states has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically, Germany has been called Das Land der Dichter und Denker ("the land of poets and thinkers"),[235] because of the major role its writers and philosophers have played in the development of Western thought.[236] A global opinion poll for the BBC revealed that Germany is recognised for having the most positive influence in the world in 2013 and 2014.[237][238]
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+ Germany is well known for such folk festival traditions as Oktoberfest and Christmas customs, which include Advent wreaths, Christmas pageants, Christmas trees, Stollen cakes, and other practices.[239][240] As of 2016[update] UNESCO inscribed 41 properties in Germany on the World Heritage List.[241] There are a number of public holidays in Germany determined by each state; 3 October has been a national day of Germany since 1990, celebrated as the Tag der Deutschen Einheit (German Unity Day).[242]
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+ German classical music includes works by some of the world's most well-known composers. Dieterich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel were influential composers of the Baroque period. Ludwig van Beethoven was a crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras. Carl Maria von Weber, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms were significant Romantic composers. Richard Wagner was known for his operas. Richard Strauss was a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. Karlheinz Stockhausen and Wolfgang Rihm are important composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries.[243]
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+ As of 2013, Germany was the second largest music market in Europe, and fourth largest in the world.[244] German popular music of the 20th and 21st centuries includes the movements of Neue Deutsche Welle, pop, Ostrock, heavy metal/rock, punk, pop rock, indie and schlager pop. German electronic music gained global influence, with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream pioneering in this genre.[245] DJs and artists of the techno and house music scenes of Germany have become well known (e.g. Paul van Dyk, Paul Kalkbrenner, and Scooter).[246]
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+ German painters have influenced western art. Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder were important German artists of the Renaissance, Peter Paul Rubens and Johann Baptist Zimmermann of the Baroque, Caspar David Friedrich and Carl Spitzweg of Romanticism, Max Liebermann of Impressionism and Max Ernst of Surrealism. Several German art groups formed in the 20th century; Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) influenced the development of expressionism in Munich and Berlin. The New Objectivity arose in response to expressionism during the Weimar Republic. After World War II, broad trends in German art include neo-expressionism and the New Leipzig School.[247]
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+ Architectural contributions from Germany include the Carolingian and Ottonian styles, which were precursors of Romanesque. Brick Gothic is a distinctive medieval style that evolved in Germany. Also in Renaissance and Baroque art, regional and typically German elements evolved (e.g. Weser Renaissance).[247] Vernacular architecture in Germany is often identified by its timber framing (Fachwerk) traditions and varies across regions, and among carpentry styles.[248] When industrialisation spread across Europe, Classicism and a distinctive style of historism developed in Germany, sometimes referred to as Gründerzeit style. Expressionist architecture developed in the 1910s in Germany and influenced Art Deco and other modern styles. Germany was particularly important in the early modernist movement: it is the home of Werkbund initiated by Hermann Muthesius (New Objectivity), and of the Bauhaus movement founded by Walter Gropius.[247] Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became one of the world's most renowned architects in the second half of the 20th century; he conceived of the glass façade skyscraper.[249] Renowned contemporary architects and offices include Pritzker Prize winners Gottfried Böhm and Frei Otto.[250]
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+ German designers became early leaders of modern product design.[251] The Berlin Fashion Week and the fashion trade fair Bread & Butter are held twice a year.[252]
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+ German literature can be traced back to the Middle Ages and the works of writers such as Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach. Well-known German authors include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Theodor Fontane. The collections of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm popularised German folklore on an international level.[253] The Grimms also gathered and codified regional variants of the German language, grounding their work in historical principles; their Deutsches Wörterbuch, or German Dictionary, sometimes called the Grimm dictionary, was begun in 1838 and the first volumes published in 1854.[254]
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+ Influential authors of the 20th century include Gerhart Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass.[255] The German book market is the third largest in the world, after the United States and China.[256] The Frankfurt Book Fair is the most important in the world for international deals and trading, with a tradition spanning over 500 years.[257] The Leipzig Book Fair also retains a major position in Europe.[258]
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+ German philosophy is historically significant: Gottfried Leibniz's contributions to rationalism; the enlightenment philosophy by Immanuel Kant; the establishment of classical German idealism by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling; Arthur Schopenhauer's composition of metaphysical pessimism; the formulation of communist theory by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Friedrich Nietzsche's development of perspectivism; Gottlob Frege's contributions to the dawn of analytic philosophy; Martin Heidegger's works on Being; Oswald Spengler's historical philosophy; the development of the Frankfurt School has been particularly influential.[259]
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+ The largest internationally operating media companies in Germany are the Bertelsmann enterprise, Axel Springer SE and ProSiebenSat.1 Media. Germany's television market is the largest in Europe, with some 38 million TV households.[260] Around 90% of German households have cable or satellite TV, with a variety of free-to-view public and commercial channels.[261] There are more than 300 public and private radio stations in Germany; Germany's national radio network is the Deutschlandradio and the public Deutsche Welle is the main German radio and television broadcaster in foreign languages.[261] Germany's print market of newspapers and magazines is the largest in Europe.[261] The papers with the highest circulation are Bild, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt.[261] The largest magazines include ADAC Motorwelt and Der Spiegel.[261] Germany has a large video gaming market, with over 34 million players nationwide.[262]
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+ German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film. The first works of the Skladanowsky Brothers were shown to an audience in 1895. The renowned Babelsberg Studio in Potsdam was established in 1912, thus being the first large-scale film studio in the world. Early German cinema was particularly influential with German expressionists such as Robert Wiene and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Director Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) is referred to as the first major science-fiction film. After 1945, many of the films of the immediate post-war period can be characterised as Trümmerfilm (rubble film). East German film was dominated by state-owned film studio DEFA, while the dominant genre in West Germany was the Heimatfilm ("homeland film").[263] During the 1970s and 1980s, New German Cinema directors such as Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder brought West German auteur cinema to critical acclaim.
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+ The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film ("Oscar") went to the German production Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) in 1979, to Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) in 2002, and to Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) in 2007. Various Germans won an Oscar for their performances in other films. The annual European Film Awards ceremony is held every other year in Berlin, home of the European Film Academy. The Berlin International Film Festival, known as "Berlinale", awarding the "Golden Bear" and held annually since 1951, is one of the world's leading film festivals. The "Lolas" are annually awarded in Berlin, at the German Film Awards.[264]
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+ German cuisine varies from region to region and often neighbouring regions share some culinary similarities (e.g. the southern regions of Bavaria and Swabia share some traditions with Switzerland and Austria). International varieties such as pizza, sushi, Chinese food, Greek food, Indian cuisine and doner kebab are also popular.
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+ Bread is a significant part of German cuisine and German bakeries produce about 600 main types of bread and 1,200 types of pastries and rolls (Brötchen).[265] German cheeses account for about 22% of all cheese produced in Europe.[266] In 2012 over 99% of all meat produced in Germany was either pork, chicken or beef. Germans produce their ubiquitous sausages in almost 1,500 varieties, including Bratwursts and Weisswursts.[267] Although wine is becoming more popular in many parts of Germany, especially close to German wine regions,[268] the national alcoholic drink is beer. German beer consumption per person stands at 110 litres (24 imp gal; 29 US gal) in 2013 and remains among the highest in the world.[269] German beer purity regulations date back to the 16th century.[270]
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+ The 2018 Michelin Guide awarded eleven restaurants in Germany three stars, giving the country a cumulative total of 300 stars.[271]
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+ Football is the most popular sport in Germany. With more than 7 million official members, the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) is the largest single-sport organisation worldwide,[272] and the German top league, the Bundesliga, attracts the second highest average attendance of all professional sports leagues in the world.[273] The German men's national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974, 1990, and 2014,[274] the UEFA European Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996,[275] and the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2017.[276]
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+ Germany is one of the leading motor sports countries in the world. Constructors like BMW and Mercedes are prominent manufacturers in motor sport. Porsche has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans race 19 times, and Audi 13 times (as of 2017[update]). The driver Michael Schumacher has set many motor sport records during his career, having won seven Formula One World Drivers' Championships.[277] Sebastian Vettel is also among the top five most successful Formula One drivers of all time.[278]
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+ Historically, German athletes have been successful contenders in the Olympic Games, ranking third in an all-time Olympic Games medal count (when combining East and West German medals). Germany was the last country to host both the summer and winter games in the same year, in 1936: the Berlin Summer Games and the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.[279] Munich hosted the Summer Games of 1972.[280]
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+ After 1291
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+ Northern Crusades (1147–1410)
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+ Popular crusades
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+ Against Christians
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+ Against Ottomans
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+ Reconquista (718–1492)
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+ The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The term refers especially to the Eastern Mediterranean campaigns in the period between 1096 and 1271 that had the objective of recovering the Holy Land from Islamic rule. The term has also been applied to other church-sanctioned campaigns fought to combat paganism and heresy, to resolve conflict among rival Roman Catholic groups, or to gain political and territorial advantage. The difference between these campaigns and other Christian religious conflicts was that they were considered a penitential exercise that brought forgiveness of sins declared by the church. Historians contest the definition of the term "crusade". Some restrict it to only armed pilgrimages to Jerusalem; others include all Catholic military campaigns with a promise of spiritual benefit; all Catholic holy wars; or those with a characteristic of religious fervour.
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+ In 1095, Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for Byzantine Emperor Alexios I against the Seljuk Turks and an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in western Europe there was an enthusiastic popular response. Volunteers took a public vow to join the crusade. Historians now debate the combination of their motivations, which included the prospect of mass ascension into Heaven at Jerusalem, satisfying feudal obligations, opportunities for renown, and economic and political advantage. Initial successes established four Crusader states in the Near East: the County of Edessa; the Principality of Antioch; the Kingdom of Jerusalem; and the County of Tripoli. The crusader presence remained in the region in some form until the city of Acre fell in 1291, leading to the rapid loss of all remaining territory in the Levant. After this, there were no further crusades to recover the Holy Land.
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+ Proclaimed a crusade in 1123, the struggle between the Christians and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula was called the Reconquista by Christians, and only ended in 1492 with the fall of the Muslim Emirate of Granada. From 1147 campaigns in Northern Europe against pagan tribes were considered crusades. In 1199 Pope Innocent III began the practice of proclaiming political crusades against Christian heretics. In the 13th century, crusading was used against the Cathars in Languedoc and against Bosnia; this practice continued against the Waldensians in Savoy and the Hussites in Bohemia in the 15th century and against Protestants in the 16th. From the mid-14th century, crusading rhetoric was used in response to the rise of the Ottoman Empire, only ending in 1699 with the War of the Holy League.
20
+
21
+ In modern historiography, the term "crusade" first referred to military expeditions undertaken by European Christians in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to the Holy Land. The conflicts to which the term is applied has been extended to include other campaigns initiated, supported and sometimes directed by the Roman Catholic Church against pagans, heretics or for alleged religious ends.[1] These differed from other Christian religious wars in that they were considered a penitential exercise, and so earned participants forgiveness for all confessed sins.[2] The term's usage can create a misleading impression of coherence, particularly regarding the early crusades, and the definition is a matter of historiographical debate among contemporary historians.[3][4][5]
22
+
23
+ At the time of the First Crusade, iter, "journey", and peregrinatio, "pilgrimage" were used for the campaign. Crusader terminology remained largely indistinguishable from that of Christian pilgrimage during the 12th century. Only at the end of the century was a specific language of crusading adopted in the form of crucesignatus—"one signed by the cross"—for a crusader. This led to the French croisade—the way of the cross.[3] By the mid 13th century the cross became the major descriptor of the crusades with crux transmarina—"the cross overseas"—used for crusades in the eastern Mediterranean, and crux cismarina—"the cross this side of the sea"—for those in Europe.[6][7] The modern English "crusade" dates to the early 1700s.[8]
24
+
25
+ The Arabic word for struggle or contest, particularly one for the propagation of Islam—jihād—was used for a religious war of Muslims against unbelievers, and it was believed by some Muslims that the Quran and Hadith made this a duty.[9] "Franks" and "Latins" were used by the peoples of the Near East during the crusades for western Europeans, distinguishing them from the Byzantine Christians who were known as "Greeks".[10][11] "Saracen" was used for an Arab Muslim, derived from a Greek and Roman name for the nomadic peoples of the Syro-Arabian desert.[12] Crusader sources used the term "Syrians" to describe Arabic speaking Christians who were members of the Greek Orthodox Church, and "Jacobites" for those who were members of the Syrian Orthodox Church.[13] The Crusader states of Syria and Palestine were known as the "Outremer" from the French outre-mer, or "the land beyond the sea".[14]
26
+
27
+ Christianity was adopted by the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity and Constantinople was founded by the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, in 324. The city developed into the largest in the Christian world, while the Western Roman Empire collapsed at the end of the 5th century. The city and the Eastern Roman Empire are more generally known as Byzantium, the name of the older Greek city it replaced.[15] By the end of the 11th century the period of Islamic Arab territorial expansion had been over for centuries. Its remoteness from focus of Islamic power struggles enabled relative peace and prosperity for the Holy Land in Syria and Palestine. The conflict in the Iberian peninsula was the only location where Muslim-Western European contact was more than minimal.[16]
28
+
29
+ The Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world were long standing centres of wealth, culture and military power. They viewed Western Europe as a backwater that presented little organised threat.[17] The Byzantine Emperor Basil II had extended territorial recovery to its furthest extent in 1025. The Empire's frontiers stretched east to Iran. It controlled Bulgaria, much of southern Italy and suppressed piracy in the Mediterranean Sea. The Empire's relationships with its Islamic neighbours were no more quarrelsome than its relationships with the Slavs or the Western Christians. The Normans in Italy; to the north Pechenegs, Serbs and Cumans; and Seljuk Turks in the east all competed with the Empire and the emperors recruited mercenaries—even on occasions from their enemies—to meet this challenge.[18]
30
+
31
+ After the foundation of the Islamic religion by Muhammad in the 7th century, Muslim Arabs conquered territory from the Indus in the east, and across North Africa and Southern France to the Iberian Peninsula in the West, before political and religious fragmentation halted this expansion. Syria, Egypt, and North Africa were taken from the Byzantine Empire. The emergance of Shia Islam—the belief system that only descendants of Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, and daughter, Fatimah, could lawfully be caliph— had led to a split with Sunni Islam on theology, ritual and law. Muslim Iberia was an independent state in modern Spain and Portugal from the 8th century. The Shi'ite Fatimid dynasty ruled North Africa, swathes of Western Asia including Jerusalem, Damascus and parts of the Mediterranean coastline from 969.[19] Total submission to Islam from Jews or Christians was not required. As People of the Book or dhimmi they could continue in their faith on payment of a poll tax. In the Near East a minority Muslim elite ruled over indigenous Christians—Greeks, Armenians, Syrians and Copts.[20]
32
+
33
+ Waves of Turkic migration into the Middle East enjoined Arab and Turkic history from the 9th century. Prisoners from the borderlands of Khurasan and Transoxania were transported to central Islamic lands, converted to Islam and given military training. Known as ghulam or mamluks, it was expected that as slaves they would be more loyal to their masters. In practice it took these Turks only a few decades to progress from being guards, to commanders, governors, dynastic founders and eventually king makers. Examples include the Tulunids in Egypt and Syria (868–905) and the Ikhshidids who followed in Egypt (935–969).[21]
34
+
35
+ The political situation in Western Asia was further changed by later waves of Turkish migration. In particular, the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the 10th century. Previously a minor ruling clan from Transoxania, they had recently converted to Islam and migrated into Iran to seek their fortune. In the two decades following their arrival they conquered Iran, Iraq and the Near East. The Seljuks and their followers were from the Sunni Islamic tradition which brought them into conflict in Palestine and Syria with the Shi'ite Fatimids.[22] The Seljuks were nomadic, Turkish speaking and occasionally shamanistic, very different to their sedentary, Arabic speaking subjects. This difference and the governance of territory based on political preference, and competition between independent princes rather than geography, weakened power structures.[23] Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes attempted confrontation in 1071 to suppress the Seljuks sporadic raiding leading to defeat at the Battle of Manzikert. Historians once considered this a pivotal event but now Manzikert is regarded as only one further step in the expansion of the Great Seljuk Empire.[24]
36
+
37
+ The papacy had declined in power and influence to little more than a localised bishopric by the start of the 11th century. But in the period from the 1050s until the 1080s, under the influence of the Gregorian Reform movement, it became increasingly assertive. Conflict with eastern Christians resulted from the doctrine of papal supremacy. The Eastern church viewed the pope as only one of the five patriarchs of the Church, alongside the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem. In 1054 differences in custom, creed, and practice spurred Pope Leo IX to send a delegation to the Patriarch of Constantinople, which ended in mutual excommunication and an East–West Schism.[25]
38
+
39
+ The use of violence for communal purposes was not alien to early Christians. The evolution of a Christian theology of war was inevitable when Roman citizenship became linked to Christianity and citizens were required to fight against the Empire's enemies. This was supported by the development of a doctrine of holy war dating from the works of the 4th-century theologian Augustine. Augustine maintained that an aggressive war was sinful, but acknowledged a "just war" could be rationalised if it was proclaimed by a legitimate authority such as a king or bishop, was defensive or for the recovery of lands, and a without an excessive degree of violence.[26][27]
40
+
41
+ Violent acts were commonly used for dispute resolution in Western Europe, and the papacy attempted to mitigate it.[28] Historians, such as Carl Erdmann, thought the Peace and Truce of God movements restricted conflict between Christians from the 10th century; the influence is apparent in Pope Urban II's speeches. But later historians, such as Marcus Bull, assert that the effectiveness was limited and it had died out by the time of the crusades.[29]
42
+
43
+ Pope Alexander II developed a system of recruitment via oaths for military resourcing that Gregory VII extended across Europe. [30] Christian conflict with Muslims on the southern peripheries of Christendom was sponsored by the Church in the 11th century, including the siege of Barbastro and fighting in Sicily[31] In 1074 Gregory VII planned a display of military power to reinforce the principle of papal sovereignty. His vision of a holy war supporting Byzantium against the Seljuks was the first crusade prototype, but lacked support.[32] Theologian Anselm of Lucca took the decisive step towards an authentic crusader ideology, stating that fighting for legitimate purposes could result in the remission of sins.[33]
44
+
45
+ The first crusade was advocated by Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095, promising absolution for the participants' sins.[34] An equivalence was created between crusades for the Holy Land and the Reconquista by Calixtus II in 1123. During the period of the Second Crusade Eugenius III was persuaded by the Cistercian abbot, Bernard of Clairvaux, that the German's conquest of the pagan Slavs was also comparable.[35] The 1146 papal bull Divina dispensatione declared pagan conversion was a goal worthy of crusade.[36] Papal protection, penance and salvation for those killed was extended to participants in the suppression of heretical sects in 1179 during the Third Council of the Lateran.[37]
46
+
47
+ Elected pope in 1198, Innocent III reshaped the ideology and practice of crusading. He emphasised crusader oaths and penitence, and clarified that the absolution of sins was a gift from God, rather than a reward for the crusaders' sufferings. Taxation to fund crusading was introduced and donation encouraged.[38][39] In 1199 he was the first pope to deploy the conceptual and legal apparatus developed for crusading to enforce papal rights. With his 1213 bull Quia maior he appealled to all Christians, not just the nobility, offering the possibility of vow redemption without crusading. This set a precedent for trading in spiritual rewards, a practice that scandalised devout Christians and later became one of the causes of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation.[40][41] From the 1220s crusader privileges were regularly granted to those who fought against heretics, schismatics or Christians the papacy considered non-conformist.[42] When Frederick II's army threatened Rome, Gregory IX used crusading terminology. Rome was seen as the Patrimony of Saint Peter, and canon law regarded crusades as defensive wars to protect theoretical Christian territory.[43]
48
+
49
+ Innocent IV rationalised crusading ideology on the basis of the Christians' right to ownership. He acknowledged Muslims' land ownership, but emphasised that this was subject to Christ's authority.[44] In the 16th century the rivalry between Catholic monarchs prevented anti-Protestant crusades but individual military actions were rewarded with crusader privileges, including Irish Catholic rebellions against English Protestant rule and the Spanish Armada's attack on Queen Elizabeth I and England.[45]
50
+
51
+ The First Crusade was an unexpected event for contemporary chroniclers, but historical analysis demonstrates it had its roots in developments earlier in the 11th century. Clerics and laity increasingly recognised Jerusalem as worthy of penitential pilgrimage. In 1071, Jerusalem was captured by the Turkish warlord Atsiz, who seized most of Syria and Palestine as part of the expansion of the Seljuk Turks throughout the Middle East. The Seljuk hold on the city was weak and returning pilgrims reported difficulties and the oppression of Christians. Byzantine desire for military aid converged with increasing willingness of the western nobility to accept papal military direction.[46][47]
52
+
53
+ The desire of Christians for a more effective Church was evident in increased piety. Pilgrimage to the Holy Land expanded after safer routes through Hungary developed from 1000. There was an increasingly articulate piety within the knighthood and the developing devotional and penitential practises of the aristocracy created a fertile ground for crusading appeals.[30] Crusaders' motivations may never be understood. One factor may have been spiritual – a desire for penance through warfare. The historian Georges Duby's explanation was that crusades offered economic advancement and social status for younger, landless sons of the aristocracy. This has been challenged by other academics because it does not account for the wider kinship groups in Germany and Southern France. The anonymous Gesta Francorum talks about the economic attraction of gaining "great booty". This was true to an extent, but the rewards often did not include the seizing of land, as fewer crusaders settled than returned. Another explanation was adventure and an enjoyment of warfare, but the deprivations the crusaders experienced and the costs they incurred weigh against this. One sociological explanation was that crusaders had no choice as they were embedded in extended patronage systems and obliged to follow their feudal lords.[48]
54
+
55
+ From 1092 the status quo in the Middle East disintegrated following the death of the vizier and effective ruler of the Seljuk Empire, Nizam al-Mulk. This was closely followed by the deaths of the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah and the Fatimid khalif, Al-Mustansir Billah. The Islamic historian Carole Hillenbrand has described this as analogous to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 with the phrase "familiar political entities gave way to disorientation and disunity".[49] The confusion and division meant the Islamic world disregarded the world beyond; this made it vulnerable to, and surprised by, the First Crusade.[50]
56
+
57
+ In 1095 the Byzantine emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, requested military support from the Council of Piacenza for the fight with the Seljuk Turks. Later that year, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban supported this and exhorted war.[51] Thousands of predominantly poor Christians, led by the French priest Peter the Hermit, formed the first response known as the People's Crusade. Passing through Germany they indulged in wide-ranging anti-Jewish activities and massacres. On leaving Byzantine-controlled territory in Anatolia they were annihilated in a Turkish ambush at the Battle of Civetot in October 1096.[52]
58
+
59
+ They were followed by independent military contingents in loose, fluid arrangements based on bonds of lordship, family, ethnicity and language led by members of the high nobility. Foremost were five princes: Count Raymond of Toulouse; two Normans from southern Italy—Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew Tancred—Godfrey of Bouillon; and his brother Baldwin who led a force from Lotharingia, and Germany. They were joined by a northern French army led by Robert Curthose; Count Stephen of Blois; and Count Robert of Flanders. The army may have numbered 100,000 including non-combatant. They travelled east by land and were cautiously welcomed to Byzantium by Alexios late in 1096.[53] He made them promise to return all recovered Byzantine territory and that their first objective should be Nicaea. While the Seljuk Sultan of Rûm, Kilij Arslan, was away resolving a dispute a Frankish siege and Byzantine naval assault captured the city in June 1097. The crusade then embarked on an arduous march across Anatolia, suffering starvation, thirst and disease. The crusaders gained experience in countering the Turkish tactics of employing lightly armoured mounted archers at the Battle of Dorylaeum. They also developed links with local Armenians. Baldwin left with a small force to establish the County of Edessa, the first Crusader state, early in 1098.[54]
60
+
61
+ In June 1098 the crusaders gained entry to Antioch after an eight-month siege, massacring most inhabitants, including local Christians. Kerbogha, the Atabeg of Mosul, led a relief force to the city, but Bohemond repulsed him. There was a delay of months while the crusaders decided who would keep the city. This ended on the news that the Fatimid Egyptians had taken Jerusalem from the Seljuks. Despite his promise to Alexios, Bohemond retained Antioch and remained while Raymond led the army along the coast to Jerusalem.[55] Support transported by the Genoese to Jaffa tilted the balance at the siege of Jerusalem, which fell to the Crusaders. They massacred the inhabitants and pillaged the city. Historians believe that contemporary accounts of the numbers killed were exaggerated, but the narrative of massacre reinforced the crusaders' reputation for barbarism.[56] Godfrey secured the Frankish position by defeating an Egyptian force at the Battle of Ascalon.[57]
62
+
63
+ Many crusaders now considered their pilgrimage complete and returned to Europe. Only 300 knights and 2,000 infantry remained to defend Palestine. The support of troops from Lorraine enabled Godfrey, over the claims of Raymond, to take the position of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. A year later the Lorrainers foiled an attempt by Dagobert of Pisa, the papal legate, to make Jerusalem a theocracy on Godfrey's death. Baldwin was chosen as the first Latin king.[58] Bohemond returned to Europe to fight the Byzantines from Italy, but his 1108 expedition ended in failure. Raymond's successors captured the city of Tripoli after his death, with the support of the Genoese. [59] Relations between Edessa and Antioch were variable: they fought together in the crusader defeat at the Battle of Harran; but the Antiocheans claimed suzerainty and attempted to block the return of Count Baldwin—later king of Jerusalem—from his captivity after the battle.[60] The Franks engaged in Near East politics, with Muslims and Christians often fighting on both sides. The expansion of Antioch came to an end in 1119 with a major defeat by the Turks at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis, also known as the Field of Blood.[61]
64
+
65
+ The limited written evidence available from before 1160 indicates the crusade was barely noticed in the Islamic world. This was probably the result of cultural misunderstanding: the Muslims did not recognise the crusaders as religiously motivated warriors intent on conquest and settlement. They assumed this was the latest in a long line of attacks by Byzantine mercenaries. The Islamic world was divided, with rival rulers in Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo and Baghdad. This gave the crusaders an opportunity for consolidation before a pan-Islamic counter-attack.[62]
66
+
67
+ The rise of Imad al-Din Zengi threatened the Franks. He became Atabeg of Mosul in 1127, expanded his control to Aleppo and in 1144 he conquered Edessa. Two years later Pope Eugenius III called for a second crusade. Bernard of Clairvaux spread the message that the loss was the result of sinfulness. Simultaneously, the anti-Semitic preaching of the Cistercian monk, Rudolf, initiated more massacres of Jews in the Rhineland.[63] This was part of a general increase in crusading activity, including in the Iberian peninsula and northern Europe.[64]
68
+
69
+ Zengi was murdered in uncertain circumstances. His elder son Sayf ad-Din succeeded him as atabeg of Mosul while a younger son Nur ad-Din succeeded in Aleppo.[65] Kings Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany were the first ruling monarchs to campaign, but the crusade was not a success. Edessa's destruction made its recovery impossible, and the objectives were unclear. The French held the Byzantines responsible for their defeats by the Seljuks in Anatolia, while the Byzantines reiterated claims on any future territorial gains in northern Syria. The crusaders decided to attack Damascus, breaking a long period of cooperation between Jerusalem and the city's Seljuk rulers. Bad luck, poor tactics and a feeble five-day siege of the city led to argument; the barons of Jerusalem withdrew support and the crusaders retreated before Zengi's sons' army. The chronicler William of Tyre related, and modern historians have concurred, that morale fell, hostility to the Byzantines grew and distrust developed between the newly arrived crusaders and those that had made the region their home.[63]
70
+
71
+ Jerusalem demonstrated an increasing interest in expanding into Egyptian territory after the capture of Ascalon in 1153 opened the road south. A year later Nur ad-Din became the first Muslim in the crusading era to unite Aleppo and Damascus.[66] In 1163 King Amalric of Jerusalem initiated a failed invasion of Egypt which prompted Nur ad-Din to move against the Franks and gain a strategic foothold on the Nile. His Kurdish general, Shirkuh, stormed Egypt and only an Egyptian–Jerusalemite alliance forced his return to Syria. Amalric broke the alliance in a series of ferocious attacks and the Egyptians requested military support. Shirkuh was deployed for a second time, accompanied by his nephew, Yusuf ibn Ayyub, who became known by his Arabic honorific Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn ("the goodness of faith"), which has been westernised as Saladin. Amalric retreated and the Fatimid caliph appointed the Sunni Shirkuh as vizier. Saladin successfully intrigued to become Shirkuh's successor on his death in 1171. Saladin imprisoned the last Fatimids and established a Sunni regime in Egypt.[67]
72
+
73
+ Nur al-Din died in 1174 and Saladin became regent for his 11-year-old son, As-Salih Ismail al-Malik. The prince died seven years later, but Saladin had already seized Damascus and much of Syria from his ward's relatives.[68] Overconfidence led to an initial defeat by the Franks at the Battle of Montgisard, but Saladin established a domain stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates through a decade of politics, coercion and low-level military action.[69] In 1186 a life-threatening illness prompted him to make good on his propaganda as the champion of Islam and intensify the campaign against the Franks.[70] King Guy of Jerusalem responded by raising the largest army that Jerusalem had ever put into the field. This force was lured into inhospitable terrain without water and routed by Saladin's forces at the Battle of Hattin. Numerous Christian nobles were taken prisoner, including Guy. Saladin offered them the option of leaving within 40 days or remaining in peace under Islamic rule. Jerusalem and much of Palestine quickly fell to Saladin.[71]
74
+
75
+ Pope Gregory VIII issued a papal bull titled Audita tremendi, that proposed what became known as the Third Crusade. In August 1189, the freed King Guy attempted to recover Acre by surrounding the city and a long stalemate ensued.[72] Travelling overland Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I died crossing the Saleph River in Cilicia and only a few of his men reached their destination. King Richard I of England travelled by sea. Philip II of France was the first king to arrive at the siege.[73] Richard I conquered Cyprus in transit in response to his sister and his fiancée being take prisoner by the Cypriot ruler, Isaac Komnenos.[74] A year later Richard would facilitate the sale of the island to King Guy for 40,000 bezants as part of the settlement replacing Guy as king of Jerusalem with Conrad of Montferrat.[75]
76
+
77
+ The arrival of the French and English turned the tide in the conflict, and the Muslim garrison of Acre surrendered. Philip considered his vow fulfilled and returned to France, leaving most of his forces behind. Richard travelled south along the Mediterranean coast and recaptured Jaffa. Twice he advanced to within a day's march of Jerusalem, but lacked the resources to capture and defend the city. A negotiated three-year truce allowed Frankish access to Jerusalem. This was the end of Richard's crusading career and damaged Frankish morale.[76] The Crusader states survived, confined to a narrow coastal strip.[77] Emperor Frederick I's successor, Henry VI, announced a new crusade without papal encouragement in 1195. Henry died before departing on the crusade, but the arrival of the German crusaders prompted Saladin's brother, Al-Adil I to sign a five-year truce in 1198.[78]
78
+
79
+ In 1198 the recently elected Pope Innocent III announced a new crusade, organised by three Frenchmen: Theobald of Champagne; Louis of Blois; and Baldwin of Flanders. The Italian Boniface of Montferrat replaced Theobald on the latter's premature death, as the new commander of the campaign. They contracted with the Republic of Venice for the transportation of 30,000 crusaders at a cost of 85,000 marks. However, many choose other embarkation ports and only around 15,000 arrived at Venice. Unable to fully pay the Venetians they accepted two offers. The Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo proposed that Venice would be repaid with the profits of future conquests beginning with the seizure of the Christian city of Zara. Secondly, the exiled Byzantine prince Alexios Angelos offered 10,000 troops, 200,000 marks and the reunion of the Greek Church with Rome if they toppled his uncle Emperor Alexios III.[79]
80
+
81
+ Innocent III excommunicated the crusaders for their capture of Zara, but quickly absolved the French. The crusade entered Constantinople, Alexios III fled and was replaced by his nephew. The Greeks resisted the imposition of Alexios IV and harried the crusaders, so he encouraged the crusade to support him until he could fulfil his commitments. This situation ended in a violent anti-Latin revolt and the assassination of Alexios IV. Without ships, supplies or food the crusaders had little option than to take by force what Alexios had promised. The Sack of Constantinople involved three days pillaging churches and killing much of the Greek Orthodox Christian populance.[80] While not unusual behaviour for the time, contemporaries such as Innocent III and Ali ibn al-Athir saw it as an atrocity against centuries of classical and Christian civilisation.[81]
82
+
83
+ A council of six Venetians and six Franks partitioned the territorial gains, establishing a Latin Empire. Baldwin became Emperor of seven-eights of Constantinople, Thrace, northwest Anatolia and the Aegean Islands. Venice gained a maritime domain including the remaining portion of the city. Boniface received Thessalonika, and his conquest of Attica and Boeotia formed the Duchy of Athens. His vassals, William of Champlitte and Geoffrey of Villehardouin, conquered Morea, establishing the Principality of Achaea. Both Baldwin and Boniface died fighting the Bulgarians, leading the papal legate to release the crusaders from their obligations.[82][83] As many as a fifth of the crusaders continued to Palestine via other routes, including a large Flemish fleet. Joining King Aimery on campaign they forced al-Adil into a six-year truce.[84]
84
+
85
+ The Latin states established were a fragile patchwork of petty realms threatened by Byzantine successor states—the Despotate of Epirus, the Empire of Nicaea and the Empire of Trebizond. Thessaloniki fell to Epirus in 1224, and Constantinople to Nicaea in 1261. Achaea and Athens survived under the French after the Treaty of Viterbo.[85][86] The Venetians endured a long-standing conflict with the Ottoman Empire until the final possessions were lost in the Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War in the 18th century. This period of Greek history is known as the Frankokratia or Latinokratia ("Frankish or Latin rule") and designates a period when western European Catholics ruled Orthodox Byzantine Greeks.[87]
86
+
87
+ There were repeated popular outbursts of ecstatic piety in 13th-century Western Europe such as the Children's Crusade of 1212, when large groups of young adults and children gathered spontaneously in the belief that their innocence would lead to success where others had failed. Few, if any, journeyed to the eastern Mediterranean.[40] Crusading did not resume until 1217. There was no immediate threat and a number of treaties had to expire first. Little was achieved by a Fifth Crusade, primarily raised from Hungary, Germany, Flanders and led by King Andrew II of Hungary and Leopold VI, Duke of Austria. The crusaders attacked Egypt to break the Muslim hold of Jerusalem. Egypt was isolated from the other Islamic power centres, it would be easier to defend and was self-sufficient in food. Damietta was captured but then returned and an eight-year truce agreed after the Franks advancing into Egypt surrendered.[88]
88
+
89
+ Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II had frequently postponed fulfilling his crusading commitments before he acquired the Kingdom of Jerusalem through marriage in 1225. In 1227 he embarked on crusade, but was forced to abandon it due to illness. This prompted his excommunication by Pope Gregory IX. Despite this Frederick launched a campaign of forceful negotiation that won the Franks most of Jerusalem, a strip of territory linking the city to Acre and an alliance with Al-Kamil, Sultan of Egypt. When the Pope attacked Frederick's Italian possessions he returned to defend them.[89] The kingdom could no longer rely on Frederick's resources and was left dependent on Ayyubid division, the military orders and western aid for survival.[90] The popes' conflict with Frederick left the responsibility for crusading to secular, rather than papal, leadership. The Barons' Crusade was led by King Theobald I of Navarre and when he returned home, by the king of England's brother, Richard of Cornwall. The Franks followed Frederick's tactics of forceful diplomacy and playing rival factions off against each other when Sultan Al-Kamil died and his family fell into disputes over the succession in Egypt and Syria.[91]
90
+
91
+ The Mongols provided a new military threat to the Christian and Islamic worlds, sweeping west through southern Russia, Poland and Hungary; defeating the Seljuks and threatening the Crusader states. Although predominantly pagan, some Mongols were Nestorian Christians. This gave the papacy hope they might become allies. But when Pope Innocent IV wrote to the Mongols to question their attacks on Christians they replied demanding his total submission.[92] The Mongols displaced a central Asian Turkish people, the Khwarazmian, providing Al-Kamil's son As-Salah with useful allies. The Khwarazmians captured Jerusalem and savagely sacked it. An Egyptian–Khwarazmian army then annihilated a Frankish–Damascene army at the Battle of La Forbie. This was the last time the Franks had the resources to raise a field army in Palestine. As-Salah conquered almost all of the crusaders' mainland territories, confining them to a few coastal towns.[93][94]
92
+
93
+ The devout French king, Louis IX, and his brother, Charles I of Anjou, dominated 13th-century politics in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1249 Louis led a crusade attacking Egypt and was defeated at the Battle of Al Mansurah and the crusaders were captured as they retreated. Louis and his nobles were ransomed, other prisoners were given a choice of conversion to Islam or beheading. A ten-year truce was established and Louis remained in Syria until 1254 consolidating the Frankish position. In Egypt a power struggle developed between the Mamluks and the Ayyubid rulers. This led to one of the Mamluk leaders, Qutuz, seizing the sultanate in 1259 and uniting with another Mamluk faction led by Baibars. The Mamluks defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut before gaining control of Damascus and Aleppo. Qutuz was assassinated and Baibars assumed control.[95][96]
94
+
95
+ Division in the crusader states led to conflicts such as the War of Saint Sabas. Venice drove the Genoese from Acre to Tyre where they continued trading with the Egyptians.[97] In 1270 Charles turned Louis's new crusade to his advantage by persuading him to attack Tunis. Their army was devastated by disease, and Louis died at Tunis. Prince Edward, the future king of England, and a small retinue arrived too late for the conflict but continued to the Holy Land. Edward survived an assassination attempt, negotiated a ten-year truce, and then returned to manage his affairs in England. This ended the last significant crusading effort in the eastern Mediterranean.[98] The mainland crusader states were finally extinguished with the fall of Tripoli in 1289 and Acre in 1291.[99]
96
+
97
+ The causes of the decline in crusading and the failure of the crusader states are multi-faceted. The nature of crusades was unsuited to the defence of the Holy Land. Crusaders were on a personal pilgrimage and usually returned when it was completed. Although the ideology of crusading changed over time, crusades continued to be conducted without centralised leadership by short-lived armies led by independently minded potentates, but the crusader states needed large standing armies. Religious fervour was difficult to direct and control even though it enabled significant feats of military endeavour. Political and religious conflict in Europe combined with failed harvests reduced Europe's interest in Jerusalem. The distances involved made the mounting of crusades and the maintenance of communications difficult. It enabled the Islamic world, under the charismatic leadership of Zengi, Nur al-Din, Saladin, the ruthless Baibars and others, to use the logistical advantages of proximity.[100]
98
+
99
+ After the First Crusade most of the crusaders considered their personal pilgrimage complete and returned to Europe.[57] Modern research indicates that Muslim and indigenous Christian populations were less integrated than previously thought. Palestinian Christians lived around Jerusalem and in an arc stretching from Jericho and the Jordan to Hebron in the south.[101] Archaeological research on Byzantine churches and Ottoman census records from the 16th century demonstrate that Greek Orthodox communities survived centuries after the fall of the Crusader states. Maronites were concentrated in Tripoli, the Jacobites in Antioch and Edessa. Armenians also lived in the north but communities existed in all major towns. Central areas had a Muslim majority population, predominantly Sunni but with Shi'ite communities in Galilee. Druze Muslims lived in the mountains of Tripoli. The Jewish population resided in coastal towns and some Galilean villages.[102][103] The Frankish population of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was concentrated in three major cities. By the 13th century the population of Acre probably exceeded 60,000, then came Tyre and the capital itself was the smallest of the three with a population somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000.[104] The Latin population of the region peaked at c250,000 with Jerusalem's population numbering c120,000 and the combined total in Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa being broadly comparable.[105] In context, Josiah Russell roughly estimates the population of what he calls "Islamic territory" as 12.5 million in 1000 with the European areas that provided crusaders having a population of 23.7 million. He estimates that by 1200 that these figures had risen to 13.7 million in Islamic territory while the Crusaders' home countries population was 35.6 million. Russell acknowledges that much of Anatolia was Christian or under the Byzantines and "Islamic" areas such as Mosul and Baghdad had significant Christian populations.[106]
100
+
101
+ The Outremer was a frontier society in which a Frankish elite ruled over of a native population related to the neighbouring communities, many of whom were hostile to the Franks.[107] It was politically and legally stratified with self-governing ethnic communities. Relations between communities were controlled by the Franks.[108] The basic division in society was between Frank and non-Frank, and not between Christian and Muslim. All Franks were considered free men while the native peoples lived like western serfs. The Franks imposed officials in the military, legal and administrative systems using the law and lordships to control the natives. Few Franks could speak more than basic Arabic. Dragomans—interpreters—and ruʾasāʾ—village headmen—were used as mediators. Civil disputes and minor criminality were administered by the native communities, but major offences and those involving Franks were dealt by the Frankish cour des bourgeois. The key differentiator in status and economic position was between urban and rural dwellers. Indigenous Christians could gain higher status and acquire wealth through commerce and industry in towns but few Muslims lived in urban areas except servants.[109]
102
+
103
+ The Crusader States presented an obstacle to Muslim trade with the west by sea and the land routes from Mesopotamia and Syria to the urban economies of the Nile. However, despite this commerce continued, coastal cities remained maritime outlets for the Islamic hinterland, Eastern wares were exported to Europe in unprecedented volumes. Byzantine-Muslim mercantile growth in the 12th and 13th  centuries may have occurred anyway. Western Europe’s population, wealth and the demand for sophisticated Eastern products was booming but it is likely that the Crusades hastened the developments. European fleets expanded, better ships were built, navigation improved and fare paying pilgrims subsidised many voyages. The mainly native agricultural production flourished before the fall of the First Kingdom in 1187, but was negligible afterwards. Italian, Provençal and Catalan merchants monopolised shipping, imports, exports, transportation and banking while the income of the Franks was based on income from estates, market tolls and taxation.[110] Production centred in Antioch, Tripoli, Tyre and Beirut. The Franks exported textiles, glass dyestuffs, olives, wine, sesame oil, sugar and prized Silk and imported clothing and finished goods.[111] The indigenous monetised economic system was adopted with northern Italian and southern French silver European coins, Frankish copper coins minted in Arabic and Byzantine styles, local silver and gold dirhams and dinars. After 1124, Egyptian dinars were copied creating Jerusalem's gold bezant. Following the collapse of the First Kingdom in 1187, trade rather than agriculture increasingly dominated the economy and western coins dominated the coinage and despite some local minting of silver pennies and coppers there is little evidence of systematic attempts to create a unified local currency.[112]
104
+
105
+ During the near constant warfare in the early decades of the 12th century, the king of Jerusalem's foremost role was leader of the feudal host. They rewarded their followers' loyalty with city incomes rarely granting land and when holdings became vacant, due to the conflict’s high mortality rate this reverted to the crown. The result was that the royal domain of the first five rulers was greater than the combined holdings of the nobility. This gave the rulers of Jerusalem greater internal power than comparative western monarchs but without the necessary administrative machinery to govern a large realm.[113] Baronial dynasties evolved in the second quarter of the century often acting as autonomous rulers. Royal powers were abrogated and effectively governance undertaken locally within the feudatories. Central control that remained was exercised through the Haute Cour or High Court. This was meetings between the king and his tenants in chief. The duty of the vassal to give counsel became a privilege until the legitimacy of the monarch depended on the agreement of the court.[114] The barons have been poorly regarded by both contemporary and modern commentators who note their superficial rhetoric, pedantry and spurious legal justification for political action.[115]
106
+
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+ The High Court consisted of the great barons and the king's direct vassals with a quorum of the king and three tenants in chief. The 1162 Assise sur la ligece expanded membership to all the 600+ Franks who paid homage directly to the king. They were joined by the heads of the military orders before the end of the 12th century and the Italian communes in the 13th century.[116] Before the defeat at Hattin in 1187 the laws developed were documented as Assises in Letters of the Holy Sepulchre.[117] The entire body of written law was lost in the fall of Jerusalem leaving a legal system largely based on the custom and memory of the lost legislation. Philip of Novara wrote We know [the laws] rather poorly, for they are known by hearsay and usage...and we think an assize is something we have seen as an assize...in the kingdom of Jerusalem [the barons] made much better use of the laws and acted on them more surely before the land was lost. A myth was created of an idyllic early 12th century legal system that the barons used to reinterpret the Assise sur la ligece that Almalric I intended to strengthen the crown to rather than constrain the monarch’s ability to confiscate feudal fiefs without trial. When the rural fiefs were lost the barons became an urban mercantile class whose knowledge of the law was a valuable skill and career path to higher status.[118] The leaders of the Third Crusade considered the monarchy of Jerusalem of secondary importance. They decided on the grants of land and even granted the throne itself in 1190 and 1192, to Conrad of Montferrat and Henry II, Count of Champagne.[119] Emperor Frederick II married Queen Isabella in 1225 and claimed the throne from her father, the King Regent—John of Brienne. In 1228 Isabella II died after giving birth to a son, Conrad, who through his mother was now legally king of Jerusalem and Frederick's heir.[89] Frederick II left the Holy Land to defend his Italian and German lands beginning a period of absent monarchs from 1225 until 1254. In contrast to Western monarchies with powerful, with centralised bureaucracies government in Jerusalem developed in the opposite direction. Jerusalem’s royalty had title but little power.[120] Magnates fought for regency control with an Italian army led by Frederick's viceroy Richard Filangieri in the War of the Lombards. Tyre, the Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights and Pisa supported Filangieri. In opposition were the Ibelins, Acre, the Templars and Genoa. For twelve years the rebels held a surrogate parliament in Acre before prevailing in 1242, leading toy a succession of Ibelin and Cypriot regents .[121][122] Centralised government collapsed and the nobility, military orders and Italian communes took the lead. Three Cypriot Lusignan kings succeeded without the resources to recover the lost territory. The title of king was sold to Charles of Anjou who gained power for a short while but never visited the kingdom. [123]
108
+
109
+ The early crusaders filled ecclesiastical positions left vacant by the Orthodox church and replaced Orthodox bishops with Latin clerics. The Greek Orthodox monks of the Holy Sepulchre were expelled but recalled when the miracle of Easter Fire failed in their absence. Armenians, Copts, Jacobites, Nestorians and Maronites were considered autonomous, retaining their own bishops.[124] Assimilation was prevented by discriminatory laws for Jews and Muslims and an absence of effort by the Franks. Muslims were banned from living in Jerusalem and sexual relationships between Muslims and Christians was punished by mutilation. [125]
110
+
111
+ Largely based in the ports of Acre, Tyre, Tripoli and Sidon, Italian, Provençal and Catalan communes had distinct cultural characteristics and exerted significant political power. Separate from the Frankish nobles or burgesses, the communes were autonomous political entities closely linked to their hometowns. They monopolised foreign trade and almost all banking and shipping and aggressively extended trade privileges. Despite all efforts, the ports were unable supersede Alexandria and Constantinople as the primary regional commercia centres but the communes did compete with the monarchs and each other for economic advantage. Power derived from the support of the communards' native cities rather than their number, which never reached more than hundreds. By the middle of the 13th century, the rulers of the communes were barely recognised crusader authority and divided Acre into several fortified miniature republics.[126][127]
112
+
113
+ There were few cultural innovations in the Outremer beyond the establishment of the military orders and the development of tactics and military architecture.[128] John of Ibelin records in around 1170 that the military force of the kingdom of Jerusalem was based on a feudal host of about 647 to 675 heavily armoured knights. Each knight would also provide his own armed retainers. Non-noble light cavalry and infantry were known as serjants and these numbered around 5,025. These numbers were augmented by mercenaries such as the Turcopoles recruited from among the natives. [129] Joshua Prawer estimated that the military orders matched this force in number giving an estimated military strength of 1,200 knights and 10,000 serjants. This was sufficient for territorial gains, but fewer than the required to maintain military domination. This defensive problem was that putting an army into the field required draining castles and cities of every able-bodied fighting man. In the case of a defeat such as at Hattin, no one remained to resist the invaders. The Franks adopted delaying tactics when faced with a superior invading Muslim force, avoiding direct confrontation, retreating to strongholds and waiting for the Muslim army to disperse. Muslim armies were incohesive and seldom campaigned beyond a period between sowing and harvest. It took generations before the Muslims identified that in order to conquer the Crusader states they needed to destroy the Frankish fortresses. This strategic change forced the crusaders away from focussing on the gaining and holding territory but rather on attacking and destroying Egypt, neutralising this regional challenge and gaining the time to improve the kingdom's demographic weaknesses.[130]
114
+
115
+ The disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba in southern Spain created the opportunity for the Reconquista, beginning in 1031. The Christian realms had no common identity or shared history based on tribe or ethnicity. As a result, León, Navarre and Catalonia united and divided several times during the 11th and 12th centuries. Although small, all developed an aristocratic military technique.[131] By the time of the Second Crusade the three kingdoms were powerful enough to conquer Islamic territory—Castile, Aragon and Portugal.[132] In 1212 the Spanish were victorious at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa with the support of 70,000 foreign combatants who responded to the preaching of Innocent III. Many foreigners deserted because of the tolerance the Spanish demonstrated for the defeated Muslims. For the Spanish, the Reconquista was a war of domination rather than a war of extermination.[133] This contrasted with the treatment of the Christians formerly living under Muslim rule, the Mozarabs. The Roman Rite was relentlessly imposed on them, and the native Christians were absorbed into mainstream Catholicism.[101] Al-Andalus, Islamic Spain, was completely suppressed in 1492 when the Emirate of Granada surrendered. At this point the remaining Muslim and Jewish inhabitants were expelled from the peninsula.[134]
116
+
117
+ There were modest efforts to suppress a dualistic Christian sect called the Cathars in southern France around 1180.[37] After a thirty-year delay Innocent III proclaimed the Albigensian Crusade, named after the city of Albi, one of the centres of Catharism.[135] This proved that it was more effective waging a war against the heretics' supporters than the heretics themselves. Tolerant feudal lords had their lands confiscated and titles forfeited. In 1212 pressure was exerted on the city of Milan for tolerating Catharism.[136] Two Hungarian invasions of Bosnia, the home of a legendary Cathar anti-pope, were proclaimed crusades in 1234 and 1241. A crusade forced the Stedinger peasants of north-western Germany to pay tithes in 1234.[137] The historian Norman Housley notes the connection between heterodoxy and anti-papalism in Italy. Indulgences were offered to anti-heretical groups such as the Militia of Jesus Christ and the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[138] Anti-Christian crusading declined in the 15th century, the exceptions were the six failed crusades against the religiously radical Hussites in Bohemia and attacks on the Waldensians in Savoy.[45]
118
+
119
+ The Albigensian Crusades established a precedent for popes and the Inquisition to claim their Christian opponents were heretics.[139][140] When Frederick threatened to take Rome in 1240, Gregory IX used crusading terminology to raise support. On Frederick II's death the focus moved to Sicily. Until his death the regent, Markward von Annweiler, faced a crusade by Innocent III. In 1263, Pope Urban IV offered crusading indulgences to Charles of Anjou in return for Sicily's conquest. But, these wars had no clear objectives or limitations making them unsuitable for crusading.[43] The 1281 election of a French pope, Martin IV, brought the power of the papacy behind Charles. Charles's preparations for a crusade against Constantinople were foiled by the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, who instigated an uprising called the Sicilian Vespers. Instead, Peter III of Aragon was proclaimed king of Sicily, despite his excommunication and an unsuccessful Aragonese Crusade.[141] Political crusading continued against Venice over Ferrara; Louis IV, King of Germany when he marched to Rome for his imperial coronation; and the free companies of mercenaries.[142]
120
+
121
+ In 1147 Bernard of Clairvaux persuaded Pope Eugenius III that the Germans' and Danes' conflict with the pagan Wends was a holy war analogous to the Reconquista; he urged a crusade until all heathens were baptised or killed. The new crusaders' motivation was primarily economic: the acquisition of new arable lands and serfs; the control of Baltic trade routes; and the abolishment of the Novgorodian merchants' monopoly of the fur trade.[143] From the early 13th century the military orders provided garrisons in the Baltic and defended the German commercial centre, Riga. The Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the Order of Dobrzyń were established by local bishops. The Sword Brothers were notorious for cruelty to pagans and converts alike. The Teutonic Knights were founded during the 1190s in Palestine, but their strong links to Germany diverted efforts from the Holy Land to the Baltic. Between 1229 and 1290, the Teutonic Knights absorbed both the Brothers of the Sword and the Order of Dobrzyń, subjugated most of the Baltic tribes and established a ruthless and exploitative monastic state.[144][145] The Knights invited foreign nobility to join their regular Reisen, or raids, against the last unconquered Baltic people, the Lithuanians. These were fashionable events of chivalric entertainment among young aristocrats. Jogaila, Grand Prince of Lithuania, converted to Catholicism and married Queen Jadwiga of Poland resulting in a united Polish–Lithuanian army routing the Knights at Tannenberg in 1410. The Knights' state survived, from 1466 under Polish suzerainty. Prussia was transformed into a secular duchy in 1525, and Livonia in 1562.[146]
122
+
123
+ The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum fragmented in the late 13th century. The Ottoman Turks, located in north-eastern Anatolia, took advantage of a Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 and established a strong presence in Europe. They captured the Byzantine fortress at Gallipoli in 1354 and defeated the Serbians at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, winning control of the Balkans from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth. This was further confirmed by victory over French crusaders and King Sigismund of Hungary at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. Sultan Murad II destroyed a large crusading Serbian and Hungarian force at Varna in 1444 and four years later defeated the Hungarians at Kosovo again.[147][148]
124
+
125
+ After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 the crusading response was largely symbolic. One example was Duke Phillip of Burgundy's 1454 promotion of a crusade, that never materialised, at the Feast of the Pheasant.[149] The 16th century saw growing rapprochement. The Habsburgs, French, Spanish and Venetians all signed treaties with the Ottomans. King Francis I of France sought allies from all quarters, including from German Protestant princes and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.[150] Crusading became chiefly a financial exercise with precedence given to the commercial and political aspects. As the military threat presented by the Turks diminished, anti-Ottoman crusading became obsolete with the Holy League in 1699.[151]
126
+
127
+ The crusaders' propensity to follow the customs of their Western European homelands meant that there were few innovations developed in the crusader states. Three notable exceptions to this were the military orders, warfare and fortifications.[152] The Knights Hospitaller, formally the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, had a medical function in Jerusalem before the First Crusade. The order later adding a martial element and became a much larger military order.[153] In this way knighthood entered the previously monastic and ecclesiastical sphere.[154] The Templars, formally the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon were founded around 1119 by a small band of knights who dedicated themselves to protecting pilgrims en route to Jerusalem.[155] King Baldwin II granted the order the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1129 they were formally recognised by the papacy at the 1129 Council of Troyes. Military orders like the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar provided Latin Christendom's first professional armies in support of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other crusader states.[156]
128
+
129
+ The Hospitallers and the Templars became supranational organisations as papal support led to rich donations of land and revenue across Europe. This, in turn, led to a steady flow of new recruits and the wealth to maintain multiple fortifications in the crusader states. In time, they developed into autonomous powers in the region.[157] After the fall of Acre the Hospitallers relocated to Cyprus, then ruled Rhodes until the island was taken by the Ottomans in 1522, and Malta until Napoleon captured the island in 1798. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta continues in existence to the present-day.[158] King Philip IV of France probably had financial and political reasons to oppose the Knights Templar, which led to him exerting pressure on Pope Clement V. The Pope responded in 1312 with a series of papal bulls including Vox in excelso and Ad providam that dissolved the order on the alleged and probably false grounds of sodomy, magic and heresy.[159]
130
+
131
+ According to the historian Joshua Prawer no major European poet, theologian, scholar or historian settled in the crusader states. Some went on pilgrimage, and this is seen in new imagery and ideas in western poetry. Although they did not migrate east themselves, their output often encouraged others to journey there on pilgrimage.[160]
132
+
133
+ Historians consider the crusader military architecture of the Middle East to demonstrate a synthesis of the European, Byzantine and Muslim traditions and to be the most original and impressive artistic achievement of the crusades. Castles were a tangible symbol of the dominance of a Latin Christian minority over a largely hostile majority population. They also acted as centres of administration.[161] Modern historiography rejects the 19th-century consensus that Westerners learnt the basis of military architecture from the Near East, as Europe had already experienced rapid development in defensive technology before the First Crusade. Direct contact with Arab fortifications originally constructed by the Byzantines did influence developments in the east, but the lack of documentary evidence means that it remains difficult to differentiate between the importance of this design culture and the constraints of situation. The latter led to the inclusion of oriental design features such as large water reservoirs and the exclusion of occidental features such as moats.[162]
134
+
135
+ Typically, crusader church design was in the French Romanesque style. This can be seen in the 12th-century rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre. It retained some of the Byzantine details, but new arches and chapels were built to northern French, Aquitanian and Provençal patterns. There is little trace of any surviving indigenous influence in sculpture, although in the Holy Sepulchre the column capitals of the south facade follow classical Syrian patterns.[163]
136
+
137
+ In contrast to architecture and sculpture, it is in the area of visual culture that the assimilated nature of the society was demonstrated. Throughout the 12th and 13th centuries the influence of indigenous artists was demonstrated in the decoration of shrines, paintings and the production of illuminated manuscripts. Frankish practitioners borrowed methods from the Byzantines and indigenous artists and iconographical practice leading to a cultural synthesis, illustrated by the Church of the Nativity. Wall mosaics were unknown in the west but in widespread use in the crusader states. Whether this was by indigenous craftsmen or learnt by Frankish ones is unknown, but a distinctive original artistic style evolved.[164]
138
+
139
+ Manuscripts were produced and illustrated in workshops housing Italian, French, English and local craftsmen leading to a cross-fertilisation of ideas and techniques. An example of this is the Melisende Psalter, created by several hands in a workshop attached to the Holy Sepulchre. This style could have both reflected and influenced the taste of patrons of the arts. But what is seen is an increase in stylised, Byzantine-influenced content. This extended to the production of icons, unknown at the time to the Franks, sometimes in a Frankish style and even of western saints. This is seen as the origin of Italian panel painting.[165] While it is difficult to track illumination of manuscripts and castle design back to their origins, textual sources are simpler. The translations made in Antioch are notable, but they are considered of secondary importance to the works emanating from Muslim Spain and from the hybrid culture of Sicily.[166]
140
+
141
+ Until the requirement was abolished by Innocent III married men needed to obtain their wives' consent before taking the cross, which was not always readily forthcoming. Muslim and Byzantine observers viewed with disdain the many women who joined the armed pilgrimages, including female fighters. Western chroniclers indicated that female crusaders were wives, merchants, servants and sex workers. Attempts were made to control the women's behaviour in ordinances of 1147 and 1190. Aristocratic women had a significant impact: Ida of Formbach-Ratelnberg led her own force in 1101; Eleanor of Aquitaine conducted her own political strategy; and Margaret of Provence negotiated her husband Louis IX's ransom with an opposing woman—the Egyptian sultana Shajar al-Durr. Misogyny meant that there was male disapproval; chroniclers tell of immorality and Jerome of Prague blamed the failure of the Second Crusade on the presence of women. Even though they often promoted crusading, preachers would typecast them as obstructing recruitment, despite their donations, legacies and vow redemptions. The wives of crusaders shared their plenary indulgences.[167]
142
+
143
+ Despite the common misconception concerning deliberate, widespread pillaging the First Crusade, from its onset, was never intended as a greed-ridden escapade; in fact, Pope Urban II, in his speech at the Council of Clermont, urged his acolytes to "rent their lands and collect money for their expenses" rather than relying on the acquired treasures.[169] The Pope, self-depicted as such in his speech, was not driven by avarice and did not condone the pillaging of Christian and Muslim provinces that were to be encountered throughout the journey. That said, plundering did occur.[170] The mob led by Peter the Hermit ransacked Christian villages in Hungary and Greece, and robbed its inhabitants.[171] Numerous Jewish populaces were robbed and, for some, murdered. But the spoils belonging to the Muslims, significantly greater than those of the two aforementioned religious groups, supplied the crusading forces with an abundance of precious goods, and deposits of gold and silver.[170]
144
+
145
+ For most participants, however, crusading was ruinously expensive and required extensive financial preparation. The prudent crusader, cognizant of both his militant and at-home obligations, endowed his family, if possible, with the requisite coinage before setting out to crusade, taking with him "great bags and chests of money."[172] That said, Fred Cazel noted: "Few crusaders had sufficient cash both to pay their obligations at home and to support themselves decently on a crusade."[173] Those adamant crusaders, unwilling to forego battle, sold their estates, stocks, and valuables to subsidize the journey ahead; and some even borrowed significant funds from kings and princes, from bishops and monasteries, from merchants and craftsmen, from whoever could sustain lending the ample amount.[170]
146
+
147
+ The Crusades created national mythologies, tales of heroism, a few place names, and developed Europe's political topology.[174] Historical parallelism and the tradition of drawing inspiration from the Middle Ages have become keystones of political Islam encouraging ideas of a modern jihad and a centuries-long struggle against Christian states, while secular Arab nationalism highlights the role of western imperialism.[175] Modern Muslim thinkers, politicians and historians have drawn parallels between the crusades and political developments such as the establishment of Israel in 1948.[176] Right-wing circles in the western world have drawn opposing parallels, considering Christianity to be under an Islamic religious and demographic threat that is analogous to the situation at the time of the crusades. Crusader symbols and anti-Islamic rhetoric are presented as an appropriate response, even if only for propaganda purposes. These symbols and rhetoric are used to provide a religious justification and inspiration for a struggle against a religious enemy.[177]
148
+
149
+ Originally, medieval understanding of the crusades was narrowly focussed on a limited set of interrelated texts, most notably Gesta Francorum which possibly dates from as early as 1099. The Gesta was reworked by Robert of Rheims who created a papalist, northern French template for later works. These all demonstrated a degree of martial advocacy that attributed both success and failure to God's will.[178] This clerical view was soon challenged by vernacular adventure stories based on the work of Albert of Aachen. William of Tyre expanded on Albert's writing in his Historia. Completed by 1184, William's work describes the warrior state that Outremer had become through the tensions between divine providence and humankind.[179] Medieval crusade historiography remained more interested in presenting moralistic lessons than information, extolling the crusades as a moral exemplar and a cultural norm.[180]
150
+
151
+ Attitudes toward the crusades during the Reformation were shaped by confessional debates and the Ottoman expansion. The Protestant martyrologist John Foxe in his History of the Turks (1566) blamed the sins of the Catholic Church for the failure of the crusades. He also condemned the use of crusades against those he considered had maintained the faith, such as the Albigensians and Waldensians. The Lutheran scholar Matthew Dresser (1536–1607) extended this view; the crusaders were lauded for their faith but Urban II's motivation was seen as part of his conflict with Emperor Henry IV. On this view, the crusade was flawed, and the idea of restoring the physical holy places was "detestable superstition".[181] The French Catholic lawyer Étienne Pasquier (1529–1615) was one of the first to number the crusades; he suggested there were six. His work highlights the failures of the crusades and the damage that religious conflict had inflicted on France and the church; it lists victims of papal aggression, sale of indulgences, church abuses, corruption, and conflicts at home.[182]
152
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153
+ Age of Enlightenment philosopher-historians such as David Hume, Voltaire and Edward Gibbon used crusading as a conceptual tool to critique religion, civilisation and cultural mores. For them the positives effects of crusading, such as the increasing liberty that municipalities were able to purchase from feudal lords, were only by-products. This view was then criticised in the 19th century by crusade enthusiasts as being unnecessarily hostile to, and ignorant of, the crusades.[183] Alternatively, Claude Fleury and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz proposed that the crusades were one stage in the improvement of European civilisation; that paradigm was further developed by the Rationalists.[184]
154
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155
+ The idea that the crusades were an important part of national history and identity continued to evolve. In scholarly literature, the term "holy war" was replaced by the neutral German kreuzzug and French croisade.[185] Gibbon followed Thomas Fuller in dismissing the concept that the crusades were a legitimate defence, as they were disproportionate to the threat presented; Palestine was an objective, not because of reason but because of fanaticism and superstition.[186] William Robertson expanded on Fleury in a new, empirical, objective approach, placing crusading in a narrative of progress towards modernity. The cultural consequences of growth in trade, the rise of the Italian cities and progress are elaborated in his work. In this he influenced his student Walter Scott.[187] Much of the popular understanding of the crusades derives from the 19th century novels of Scott and the French histories by Joseph François Michaud.[188]
156
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+ In a 2001 article—"The Historiography of the Crusades"—Giles Constable attempted to categorise what is meant by "Crusade" into four areas of contemporary crusade study. His view was that Traditionalists such as Hans Eberhard Mayer are concerned with where the crusades were aimed, Pluralists such as Jonathan Riley-Smith concentrate on how the crusades were organised, Popularists including Paul Alphandery and Etienne Delaruelle focus on the popular groundswells of religious fervour, and Generalists, such as Ernst-Dieter Hehl focus on the phenomenon of Latin holy wars.[4][5] The historian Thomas F. Madden argues that modern tensions are the result of a constructed view of the crusades created by colonial powers in the 19th century and transmitted into Arab nationalism. For him the crusades are a medieval phenomenon in which the crusaders were engaged in a defensive war on behalf of their co-religionists.[189]
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+ The Muslim world exhibited little interest in the crusades until the middle of the 19th century. Arabic-speaking Syrian Christians began translating French histories into Arabic, leading to the replacement of the term "wars of the Ifranj" – Franks – with al-hurub al Salabiyya – "wars of the Cross". The Ottoman Turk Namık Kemal published the first modern Saladin biography in 1872. The Jerusalem visit in 1898 of Kaiser Wilhelm prompted further interest, with the Egyptian Sayyid Ali al-Hariri producing the first Arabic history of the crusades. Modern studies can be driven by political motives, such as the hope of learning from the Muslim forces' triumph over their enemies.[190]
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+ World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. In a state of total war, directly involving more than 100 million people from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 70 to 85 million fatalities. Tens of millions of people died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), premeditated death from starvation, massacres, and disease. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, including in the use of strategic bombing of population centres, and the only uses of nuclear weapons in war.
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+ World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours: Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, and the Fall of France in mid-1940, the war continued primarily between the European Axis powers and the British Empire, with war in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, and the Battle of the Atlantic. On 22 June 1941, Germany led the European Axis powers in an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history and trapping the Axis, crucially the German Wehrmacht, in a war of attrition.
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+ Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with the Republic of China by 1937. In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European colonies in East Asia and the Pacific. Following an immediate US declaration of war against Japan, supported by one from the UK, the European Axis powers declared war on the United States in solidarity with their ally. Japan soon captured much of the Western Pacific, but its advances were halted in 1942 after Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway; later, Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Key setbacks in 1943—which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, and Allied offensives in the Pacific—cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned towards Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945, the Japanese suffered reversals in mainland Asia, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.
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+ The war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender on its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August, respectively. Faced with an imminent invasion of the Japanese archipelago, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, and the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria on 9 August, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. In the wake of the war, Germany and Japan were occupied and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.
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+ World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the globe. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts, and the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—became the permanent members of its Security Council. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century-long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion. Political integration, especially in Europe, began as an effort to forestall future hostilities, end pre-war enmities and forge a sense of common identity.
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+ The start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939,[1][2] beginning with the German invasion of Poland; the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937,[3][4] or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931.[5][6][7]
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+ Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously, and the two wars merged in 1941. This article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935.[8] The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939.[9]
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+ The exact date of the war's end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945 (V-J Day), rather than the formal surrender of Japan, which was on 2 September 1945 that officially ended the war in Asia. A peace treaty with Japan was signed in 1951.[10] A treaty regarding Germany's future allowed the reunification of East and West Germany to take place in 1990 and resolved most post-World War II issues.[11] No formal peace treaty between Japan and the Soviet Union was ever signed.[12]
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+ World War I had radically altered the political European map, with the defeat of the Central Powers—including Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire—and the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, which eventually led to the founding of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the victorious Allies of World War I, such as France, Belgium, Italy, Romania, and Greece, gained territory, and new nation-states were created out of the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman and Russian Empires.
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+ To prevent a future world war, the League of Nations was created during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The organisation's primary goals were to prevent armed conflict through collective security, military and naval disarmament, and settling international disputes through peaceful negotiations and arbitration.
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+ Despite strong pacifist sentiment after World War I,[13] its aftermath still caused irredentist and revanchist nationalism in several European states. These sentiments were especially marked in Germany because of the significant territorial, colonial, and financial losses incurred by the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home territory and all its overseas possessions, while German annexation of other states was prohibited, reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of the country's armed forces.[14]
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+ The German Empire was dissolved in the German Revolution of 1918–1919, and a democratic government, later known as the Weimar Republic, was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the new republic and hardline opponents on both the right and left. Italy, as an Entente ally, had made some post-war territorial gains; however, Italian nationalists were angered that the promises made by the United Kingdom and France to secure Italian entrance into the war were not fulfilled in the peace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, the Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian, and class collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist, left-wing and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive expansionist foreign policy aimed at making Italy a world power, promising the creation of a "New Roman Empire".[15]
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+ Adolf Hitler, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923, eventually became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. He abolished democracy, espousing a radical, racially motivated revision of the world order, and soon began a massive rearmament campaign.[16] Meanwhile, France, to secure its alliance, allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia, which Italy desired as a colonial possession. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Territory of the Saar Basin was legally reunited with Germany and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, accelerated his rearmament programme, and introduced conscription.[17]
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+ The United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front in April 1935 in order to contain Germany, a key step towards military globalisation; however, that June, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany, easing prior restrictions. The Soviet Union, concerned by Germany's goals of capturing vast areas of Eastern Europe, drafted a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect, though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless.[18] The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August of the same year.[19]
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+ Hitler defied the Versailles and Locarno treaties by remilitarising the Rhineland in March 1936, encountering little opposition due to appeasement.[20] In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed the Rome–Berlin Axis. A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy joined the following year.[21]
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+ The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese Communist Party allies[22] and new regional warlords. In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Empire of Japan, which had long sought influence in China[23] as the first step of what its government saw as the country's right to rule Asia, staged the Mukden Incident as a pretext to invade Manchuria and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo.[24]
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+ China appealed to the League of Nations to stop the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after being condemned for its incursion into Manchuria. The two nations then fought several battles, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei, until the Tanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.[25] After the 1936 Xi'an Incident, the Kuomintang and communist forces agreed on a ceasefire to present a united front to oppose Japan.[26]
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+ The Second Italo–Ethiopian War was a brief colonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war began with the invasion of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia) by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia), which was launched from Italian Somaliland and Eritrea.[27] The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI); in addition it exposed the weakness of the League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations, but the League did little when the former clearly violated Article X of the League's Covenant.[28] The United Kingdom and France supported imposing sanctions on Italy for the invasion, but they were not fully enforced and failed to end the Italian invasion.[29] Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany's goal of absorbing Austria.[30]
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+ When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to the Nationalist rebels, led by General Francisco Franco. Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis did: altogether Mussolini sent to Spain more than 70,000 ground troops and 6,000 aviation personnel, as well as about 720 aircraft.[31] The Soviet Union supported the existing government, the Spanish Republic. More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, remained officially neutral during World War II but generally favoured the Axis.[32] His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending of volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front.[33]
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+ In July 1937, Japan captured the former Chinese imperial capital of Peking after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China.[34] The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China's prior co-operation with Germany. From September to November, the Japanese attacked Taiyuan, engaged the Kuomintang Army around Xinkou,[35] and fought Communist forces in Pingxingguan.[36][37] Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai, but, after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in December 1937. After the fall of Nanking, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants were murdered by the Japanese.[38][39]
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+ In March 1938, Nationalist Chinese forces won their first major victory at Taierzhuang but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by Japanese in May.[40] In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan, but the city was taken by October.[41] Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve; instead, the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war.[42][43]
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+ In the mid-to-late 1930s, Japanese forces in Manchukuo had sporadic border clashes with the Soviet Union and Mongolia. The Japanese doctrine of Hokushin-ron, which emphasised Japan's expansion northward, was favoured by the Imperial Army during this time. With the Japanese defeat at Khalkin Gol in 1939, the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War[44] and ally Nazi Germany pursuing neutrality with the Soviets, this policy would prove difficult to maintain. Japan and the Soviet Union eventually signed a Neutrality Pact in April 1941, and Japan adopted the doctrine of Nanshin-ron, promoted by the Navy, which took its focus southward, eventually leading to its war with the United States and the Western Allies.[45][46]
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+ In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming more aggressive. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, again provoking little response from other European powers.[47] Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population. Soon the United Kingdom and France followed the appeasement policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement, which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands.[48] Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary, and Poland annexed Czechoslovakia's Zaolzie region.[49]
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+ Although all of Germany's stated demands had been satisfied by the agreement, privately Hitler was furious that British interference had prevented him from seizing all of Czechoslovakia in one operation. In subsequent speeches Hitler attacked British and Jewish "war-mongers" and in January 1939 secretly ordered a major build-up of the German navy to challenge British naval supremacy. In March 1939, Germany invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia and subsequently split it into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a pro-German client state, the Slovak Republic.[50] Hitler also delivered 20 March 1939 ultimatum to Lithuania, forcing the concession of the Klaipėda Region, formerly the German Memelland.[51]
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+ Greatly alarmed and with Hitler making further demands on the Free City of Danzig, the United Kingdom and France guaranteed their support for Polish independence; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to Romania and Greece.[52] Shortly after the Franco-British pledge to Poland, Germany and Italy formalised their own alliance with the Pact of Steel.[53] Hitler accused the United Kingdom and Poland of trying to "encircle" Germany and renounced the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact.[54]
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+ The situation reached a general crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. On 23 August, when tripartite negotiations about a military alliance between France, the United Kingdom and Soviet Union stalled,[55] the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany.[56] This pact had a secret protocol that defined German and Soviet "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the Soviet Union), and raised the question of continuing Polish independence.[57] The pact neutralised the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and assured that Germany would not have to face the prospect of a two-front war, as it had in World War I. Immediately after that, Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that the United Kingdom had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland, and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it.[58]
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+ In response to British requests for direct negotiations to avoid war, Germany made demands on Poland, which only served as a pretext to worsen relations.[59] On 29 August, Hitler demanded that a Polish plenipotentiary immediately travel to Berlin to negotiate the handover of Danzig, and to allow a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor in which the German minority would vote on secession.[59] The Poles refused to comply with the German demands, and on the night of 30–31 August in a stormy meeting with the British ambassador Neville Henderson, Ribbentrop declared that Germany considered its claims rejected.[60]
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+ On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as a pretext to initiate the invasion.[61] The first German attack of the war came against the Polish defenses at Westerplatte.[62] The United Kingdom responded with an ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, France and Britain declared war on Germany, followed by Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. The alliance provided no direct military support to Poland, outside of a cautious French probe into the Saarland.[63] The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and the war effort.[64] Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which would later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic.[65]
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+ On 8 September, German troops reached the suburbs of Warsaw. The Polish counter offensive to the west halted the German advance for several days, but it was outflanked and encircled by the Wehrmacht. Remnants of the Polish army broke through to besieged Warsaw. On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Eastern Poland[66] under a pretext that the Polish state had ostensibly ceased to exist.[67] On 27 September, the Warsaw garrison surrendered to the Germans, and the last large operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October. Despite the military defeat, Poland never surrendered; instead it formed the Polish government-in-exile and a clandestine state apparatus remained in occupied Poland.[68] A significant part of Polish military personnel evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of them would fight against the Axis in other theatres of the war.[69]
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+ Germany annexed the western and occupied the central part of Poland, and the Soviet Union annexed its eastern part; small shares of Polish territory were transferred to Lithuania and Slovakia. On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to the United Kingdom and France but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. The proposal was rejected,[60] and Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France,[70] which would be postponed until the spring of 1940 due to bad weather.[71][72][73]
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+ The Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the states that were in the Soviet "sphere of influence" under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact—to sign "mutual assistance pacts" that stipulated stationing Soviet troops in these countries. Soon after, significant Soviet military contingents were moved there.[74][75][76] Finland refused to sign a similar pact and rejected ceding part of its territory to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939,[77] and the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations.[78] Despite overwhelming numerical superiority, Soviet military success was modest, and the Finno-Soviet war ended in March 1940 with minimal Finnish concessions.[79]
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+ In June 1940, the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,[75] and the disputed Romanian regions of Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and Hertza. Meanwhile, Nazi-Soviet political rapprochement and economic co-operation[80][81] gradually stalled,[82][83] and both states began preparations for war.[84]
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+ In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were attempting to cut off.[85] Denmark capitulated after a few hours, and Norway was conquered within two months[86] despite Allied support. British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the appointment of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940.[87]
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+ On the same day, Germany launched an offensive against France. To circumvent the strong Maginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.[88] The Germans carried out a flanking manoeuvre through the Ardennes region,[89] which was mistakenly perceived by Allies as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles.[90][91] By successfully implementing new blitzkrieg tactics, the Wehrmacht rapidly advanced to the Channel and cut off the Allied forces in Belgium, trapping the bulk of the Allied armies in a cauldron on the Franco-Belgian border near Lille. The United Kingdom was able to evacuate a significant number of Allied troops from the continent by early June, although abandoning almost all their equipment.[92]
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+ On 10 June, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom.[93] The Germans turned south against the weakened French army, and Paris fell to them on 14 June. Eight days later France signed an armistice with Germany; it was divided into German and Italian occupation zones,[94] and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime, which, though officially neutral, was generally aligned with Germany. France kept its fleet, which the United Kingdom attacked on 3 July in an attempt to prevent its seizure by Germany.[95]
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+ The Battle of Britain[96] began in early July with Luftwaffe attacks on shipping and harbours.[97] The United Kingdom rejected Hitler's ultimatum,[which?][98] and the German air superiority campaign started in August but failed to defeat RAF Fighter Command, forcing the indefinite postponement of the proposed German invasion of Britain. The German strategic bombing offensive intensified with night attacks on London and other cities in the Blitz, but failed to significantly disrupt the British war effort[97] and largely ended in May 1941.[99]
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+ Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic.[100] The British Home Fleet scored a significant victory on 27 May 1941 by sinking the German battleship Bismarck.[101]
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+ In November 1939, the United States was taking measures to assist China and the Western Allies, and amended the Neutrality Act to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies.[102] In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased. In September the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases.[103] Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention in the conflict well into 1941.[104] In December 1940 Roosevelt accused Hitler of planning world conquest and ruled out any negotiations as useless, calling for the United States to become an "arsenal of democracy" and promoting Lend-Lease programmes of aid to support the British war effort.[98] The United States started strategic planning to prepare for a full-scale offensive against Germany.[105]
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+ At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy, and Germany as the Axis Powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three.[106] The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia and Romania joined.[107] Romania and Hungary would make major contributions to the Axis war against the Soviet Union, in Romania's case partially to recapture territory ceded to the Soviet Union.[108]
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+ In early June 1940 the Italian Regia Aeronautica attacked and besieged Malta, a British possession. In late summer through early autumn Italy conquered British Somaliland and made an incursion into British-held Egypt. In October Italy attacked Greece, but the attack was repulsed with heavy Italian casualties; the campaign ended within months with minor territorial changes.[109] Germany started preparation for an invasion of the Balkans to assist Italy, to prevent the British from gaining a foothold there, which would be a potential threat for Romanian oil fields, and to strike against the British dominance of the Mediterranean.[110]
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+ In December 1940, British Empire forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa.[111] The offensives were highly successful; by early February 1941 Italy had lost control of eastern Libya, and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken, prisoner. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission by a carrier attack at Taranto and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan.[112]
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+ Italian defeats prompted Germany to deploy an expeditionary force to North Africa, and at the end of March 1941 Rommel's Afrika Korps launched an offensive which drove back the Commonwealth forces.[113] In under a month, Axis forces advanced to western Egypt and besieged the port of Tobruk.[114]
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+ By late March 1941 Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact; however, the Yugoslav government was overthrown two days later by pro-British nationalists. Germany responded with simultaneous invasions of both Yugoslavia and Greece, commencing on 6 April 1941; both nations were forced to surrender within the month.[115] The airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete at the end of May completed the German conquest of the Balkans.[116] Although the Axis victory was swift, bitter and large-scale partisan warfare subsequently broke out against the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, which continued until the end of the war.[117]
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+ In the Middle East, in May Commonwealth forces quashed an uprising in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria.[118] Between June and July they invaded and occupied the French possessions Syria and Lebanon, with the assistance of the Free French.[119]
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+ With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations. With the Soviets wary of mounting tensions with Germany and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia, the two powers signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941.[120] By contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, massing forces on the Soviet border.[121]
102
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+ Hitler believed that the United Kingdom's refusal to end the war was based on the hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war against Germany sooner or later.[122] He, therefore, decided to try to strengthen Germany's relations with the Soviets, or failing that to attack and eliminate them as a factor. In November 1940, negotiations took place to determine if the Soviet Union would join the Tripartite Pact. The Soviets showed some interest but asked for concessions from Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unacceptable. On 18 December 1940, Hitler issued the directive to prepare for an invasion of the Soviet Union.[123]
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+ On 22 June 1941, Germany, supported by Italy and Romania, invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, with Germany accusing the Soviets of plotting against them. They were joined shortly by Finland and Hungary.[124] The primary targets of this surprise offensive[125] were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine, with the ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, from the Caspian to the White Seas. Hitler's objectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Communism, generate Lebensraum ("living space")[126] by dispossessing the native population[127] and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Germany's remaining rivals.[128]
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+ Although the Red Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the war,[129] Barbarossa forced the Soviet supreme command to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, the Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in both personnel and materiel. By mid-August, however, the German Army High Command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Centre, and to divert the 2nd Panzer Group to reinforce troops advancing towards central Ukraine and Leningrad.[130] The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made possible further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine (the First Battle of Kharkov).[131]
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+ The diversion of three quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front[132] prompted the United Kingdom to reconsider its grand strategy.[133] In July, the UK and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany[134] and in August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter, which outlined British and American goals for the postwar world.[135] In late August the British and Soviets invaded neutral Iran to secure the Persian Corridor, Iran's oil fields, and preempt any Axis advances through Iran toward the Baku oil fields or British India.[136]
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+ By October Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only the sieges of Leningrad[137] and Sevastopol continuing.[138] A major offensive against Moscow was renewed; after two months of fierce battles in increasingly harsh weather, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops[139] were forced to suspend their offensive.[140] Large territorial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in Soviet hands, the Soviet capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of the war in Europe had ended.[141]
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+ By early December, freshly mobilised reserves[142] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops.[143] This, as well as intelligence data which established that a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East would be sufficient to deter any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army,[144] allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on 5 December all along the front and pushed German troops 100–250 kilometres (62–155 mi) west.[145]
114
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+ Following the Japanese false flag Mukden Incident in 1931, the Japanese shelling of the American gunboat USS Panay in 1937, and the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre Japanese-American relations deteriorated. In 1939, the United States notified Japan that it would not be extending its trade treaty and American public opinion opposing Japanese expansionism led to a series of economic sanctions, the Export Control Acts, which banned U.S. exports of chemicals, minerals and military parts to Japan and increased economic pressure on the Japanese regime.[98][146][147] During 1939 Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, a strategically important Chinese city, but was repulsed by late September.[148] Despite several offensives by both sides, the war between China and Japan was stalemated by 1940. To increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the Western powers, Japan invaded and occupied northern Indochina in September, 1940.[149]
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+ Chinese nationalist forces launched a large-scale counter-offensive in early 1940. In August, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China; in retaliation, Japan instituted harsh measures in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists.[150] Continued antipathy between Chinese communist and nationalist forces culminated in armed clashes in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation.[151] In March, the Japanese 11th army attacked the headquarters of the Chinese 19th army but was repulsed during Battle of Shanggao.[152] In September, Japan attempted to take the city of Changsha again and clashed with Chinese nationalist forces.[153]
118
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+ German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in Southeast Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan some oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, but negotiations for additional access to their resources ended in failure in June 1941.[154] In July 1941 Japan sent troops to southern Indochina, thus threatening British and Dutch possessions in the Far East. The United States, United Kingdom, and other Western governments reacted to this move with a freeze on Japanese assets and a total oil embargo.[155][156] At the same time, Japan was planning an invasion of the Soviet Far East, intending to capitalise off the German invasion in the west, but abandoned the operation after the sanctions.[157]
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+ Since early 1941 the United States and Japan had been engaged in negotiations in an attempt to improve their strained relations and end the war in China. During these negotiations, Japan advanced a number of proposals which were dismissed by the Americans as inadequate.[158] At the same time the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands engaged in secret discussions for the joint defence of their territories, in the event of a Japanese attack against any of them.[159] Roosevelt reinforced the Philippines (an American protectorate scheduled for independence in 1946) and warned Japan that the United States would react to Japanese attacks against any "neighboring countries".[159]
122
+
123
+ Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American–British–Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. On 20 November, a new government under Hideki Tojo presented an interim proposal as its final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and for lifting the embargo on the supply of oil and other resources to Japan. In exchange, Japan promised not to launch any attacks in Southeast Asia and to withdraw its forces from southern Indochina.[158] The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers.[160] That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in China, or seizing the natural resources it needed in the Dutch East Indies by force;[161][162] the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[163]
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+
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+ Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific. The Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war.[164][165] To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter, it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet and the American military presence in the Philippines from the outset.[166] On 7 December 1941 (8 December in Asian time zones), Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific.[167] These included an attack on the American fleets at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, landings in Malaya,[167], Thailand and the Battle of Hong Kong.[168]
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+
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+ The Japanese invasion of Thailand led to Thailand's decision to ally itself with Japan and the other Japanese attacks led the United States, United Kingdom, China, Australia, and several other states to formally declare war on Japan, whereas the Soviet Union, being heavily involved in large-scale hostilities with European Axis countries, maintained its neutrality agreement with Japan.[169] Germany, followed by the other Axis states, declared war on the United States[170] in solidarity with Japan, citing as justification the American attacks on German war vessels that had been ordered by Roosevelt.[124][171]
128
+
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+ On 1 January 1942, the Allied Big Four[172]—the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom and the United States—and 22 smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations, thereby affirming the Atlantic Charter,[173] and agreeing not to sign a separate peace with the Axis powers.[174]
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+
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+ During 1942, Allied officials debated on the appropriate grand strategy to pursue. All agreed that defeating Germany was the primary objective. The Americans favoured a straightforward, large-scale attack on Germany through France. The Soviets were also demanding a second front. The British, on the other hand, argued that military operations should target peripheral areas to wear out German strength, leading to increasing demoralisation, and bolster resistance forces. Germany itself would be subject to a heavy bombing campaign. An offensive against Germany would then be launched primarily by Allied armour without using large-scale armies.[175] Eventually, the British persuaded the Americans that a landing in France was infeasible in 1942 and they should instead focus on driving the Axis out of North Africa.[176]
132
+
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+ At the Casablanca Conference in early 1943, the Allies reiterated the statements issued in the 1942 Declaration, and demanded the unconditional surrender of their enemies. The British and Americans agreed to continue to press the initiative in the Mediterranean by invading Sicily to fully secure the Mediterranean supply routes.[177] Although the British argued for further operations in the Balkans to bring Turkey into the war, in May 1943, the Americans extracted a British commitment to limit Allied operations in the Mediterranean to an invasion of the Italian mainland and to invade France in 1944.[178]
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+
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+ By the end of April 1942, Japan and its ally Thailand had almost fully conquered Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, and Rabaul, inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners.[179] Despite stubborn resistance by Filipino and US forces, the Philippine Commonwealth was eventually captured in May 1942, forcing its government into exile.[180] On 16 April, in Burma, 7,000 British soldiers were encircled by the Japanese 33rd Division during the Battle of Yenangyaung and rescued by the Chinese 38th Division.[181] Japanese forces also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean,[182] and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. In January 1942, the only Allied success against Japan was a Chinese victory at Changsha.[183] These easy victories over unprepared US and European opponents left Japan overconfident, as well as overextended.[184]
136
+
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+ In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby by amphibious assault and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United States and Australia. The planned invasion was thwarted when an Allied task force, centred on two American fleet carriers, fought Japanese naval forces to a draw in the Battle of the Coral Sea.[185] Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlier Doolittle Raid, was to seize Midway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.[186] In mid-May, Japan started the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign in China, with the goal of inflicting retribution on the Chinese who aided the surviving American airmen in the Doolittle Raid by destroying air bases and fighting against the Chinese 23rd and 32nd Army Groups.[187][188] In early June, Japan put its operations into action, but the Americans, having broken Japanese naval codes in late May, were fully aware of the plans and order of battle, and used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory at Midway over the Imperial Japanese Navy.[189]
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+
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+ With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan chose to focus on a belated attempt to capture Port Moresby by an overland campaign in the Territory of Papua.[190] The Americans planned a counter-attack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.[191]
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+
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+ Both plans started in July, but by mid-September, the Battle for Guadalcanal took priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island, where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna-Gona.[192] Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops.[193] In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first, an offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942, went disastrously, forcing a retreat back to India by May 1943.[194] The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved mixed results.[195]
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+
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+ Despite considerable losses, in early 1942 Germany and its allies stopped a major Soviet offensive in central and southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they had achieved during the previous year.[196] In May the Germans defeated Soviet offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkov,[197] and then launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia in June 1942, to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus and occupy Kuban steppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans split Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A advanced to the lower Don River and struck south-east to the Caucasus, while Army Group B headed towards the Volga River. The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad on the Volga.[198]
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+
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+ By mid-November, the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighting. The Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad,[199] and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously.[200] By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been defeated,[201] and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkov, creating a salient in their front line around the Soviet city of Kursk.[202]
146
+
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+ Exploiting poor American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.[203] By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operation Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made.[204] In North Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February,[205] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[206] Concerns the Japanese might use bases in Vichy-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May 1942.[207] An Axis offensive in Libya forced an Allied retreat deep inside Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein.[208] On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the disastrous Dieppe Raid,[209] demonstrated the Western Allies' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.[210][page needed]
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+
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+ In August 1942, the Allies succeeded in repelling a second attack against El Alamein[211] and, at a high cost, managed to deliver desperately needed supplies to the besieged Malta.[212] A few months later, the Allies commenced an attack of their own in Egypt, dislodging the Axis forces and beginning a drive west across Libya.[213] This attack was followed up shortly after by Anglo-American landings in French North Africa, which resulted in the region joining the Allies.[214] Hitler responded to the French colony's defection by ordering the occupation of Vichy France;[214] although Vichy forces did not resist this violation of the armistice, they managed to scuttle their fleet to prevent its capture by German forces.[214][215] The Axis forces in Africa withdrew into Tunisia, which was conquered by the Allies in May 1943.[214][216]
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+
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+ In June 1943 the British and Americans began a strategic bombing campaign against Germany with a goal to disrupt the war economy, reduce morale, and "de-house" the civilian population.[217] The firebombing of Hamburg was among the first attacks in this campaign, inflicting significant casualties and considerable losses on infrastructure of this important industrial centre.[218]
152
+
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+ After the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Allies initiated several operations against Japan in the Pacific. In May 1943, Canadian and US forces were sent to eliminate Japanese forces from the Aleutians.[219] Soon after, the United States, with support from Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islander forces, began major ground, sea and air operations to isolate Rabaul by capturing surrounding islands, and breach the Japanese Central Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands.[220] By the end of March 1944, the Allies had completed both of these objectives and had also neutralised the major Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands. In April, the Allies launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea.[221]
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+
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+ In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 preparing for large offensives in central Russia. On 4 July 1943, Germany attacked Soviet forces around the Kursk Bulge. Within a week, German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets' deeply echeloned and well-constructed defences,[222] and for the first time in the war Hitler cancelled the operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success.[223] This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies' invasion of Sicily launched on 9 July, which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.[224]
156
+
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+ On 12 July 1943, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives, thereby dispelling any chance of German victory or even stalemate in the east. The Soviet victory at Kursk marked the end of German superiority,[225] giving the Soviet Union the initiative on the Eastern Front.[226][227] The Germans tried to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther–Wotan line, but the Soviets broke through it at Smolensk and by the Lower Dnieper Offensives.[228]
158
+
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+ On 3 September 1943, the Western Allies invaded the Italian mainland, following Italy's armistice with the Allies.[229] Germany with the help of fascists responded by disarming Italian forces that were in many places without superior orders, seizing military control of Italian areas,[230] and creating a series of defensive lines.[231] German special forces then rescued Mussolini, who then soon established a new client state in German-occupied Italy named the Italian Social Republic,[232] causing an Italian civil war. The Western Allies fought through several lines until reaching the main German defensive line in mid-November.[233]
160
+
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+ German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizeable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign.[234] In November 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran.[235] The former conference determined the post-war return of Japanese territory[236] and the military planning for the Burma Campaign,[237] while the latter included agreement that the Western Allies would invade Europe in 1944 and that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan within three months of Germany's defeat.[238]
162
+
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+ From November 1943, during the seven-week Battle of Changde, the Chinese forced Japan to fight a costly war of attrition, while awaiting Allied relief.[239][240][241] In January 1944, the Allies launched a series of attacks in Italy against the line at Monte Cassino and tried to outflank it with landings at Anzio.[242]
164
+
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+ On 27 January 1944, Soviet troops launched a major offensive that expelled German forces from the Leningrad region, thereby ending the most lethal siege in history.[243] The following Soviet offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. This delay slowed subsequent Soviet operations in the Baltic Sea region.[244] By late May 1944, the Soviets had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Axis forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which were repulsed by the Axis troops.[245] The Allied offensives in Italy had succeeded and, at the expense of allowing several German divisions to retreat, on 4 June Rome was captured.[246]
166
+
167
+ The Allies had mixed success in mainland Asia. In March 1944, the Japanese launched the first of two invasions, an operation against British positions in Assam, India,[247] and soon besieged Commonwealth positions at Imphal and Kohima.[248] In May 1944, British forces mounted a counter-offensive that drove Japanese troops back to Burma by July,[248] and Chinese forces that had invaded northern Burma in late 1943 besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina.[249] The second Japanese invasion of China aimed to destroy China's main fighting forces, secure railways between Japanese-held territory and capture Allied airfields.[250] By June, the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a new attack on Changsha in Hunan province.[251]
168
+
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+ On 6 June 1944 (known as D-Day), after three years of Soviet pressure,[252] the Western Allies invaded northern France. After reassigning several Allied divisions from Italy, they also attacked southern France.[253] These landings were successful, and led to the defeat of the German Army units in France. Paris was liberated on 25 August by the local resistance assisted by the Free French Forces, both led by General Charles de Gaulle,[254] and the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in western Europe during the latter part of the year. An attempt to advance into northern Germany spearheaded by a major airborne operation in the Netherlands failed.[255] After that, the Western Allies slowly pushed into Germany, but failed to cross the Rur river in a large offensive. In Italy, Allied advance also slowed due to the last major German defensive line.[256]
170
+
171
+ On 22 June, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus ("Operation Bagration") that destroyed the German Army Group Centre almost completely.[257] Soon after that, another Soviet strategic offensive forced German troops from Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland. The Soviets formed the Polish Committee of National Liberation to control territory in Poland and combat the Polish Armia Krajowa; The Soviet Red Army remained in the Praga district on the other side of the Vistula and watched passively as the Germans quelled the Warsaw Uprising initiated by the Armia Krajowa.[258] The national uprising in Slovakia was also quelled by the Germans.[259] The Soviet Red Army's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there and triggered a successful coup d'état in Romania and in Bulgaria, followed by those countries' shift to the Allied side.[260]
172
+
173
+ In September 1944, Soviet troops advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia to rescue them from being cut off.[261] By this point, the Communist-led Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who had led an increasingly successful guerrilla campaign against the occupation since 1941, controlled much of the territory of Yugoslavia and engaged in delaying efforts against German forces further south. In northern Serbia, the Soviet Red Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Partisans in a joint liberation of the capital city of Belgrade on 20 October. A few days later, the Soviets launched a massive assault against German-occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.[262] Unlike impressive Soviet victories in the Balkans, bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviets occupation of Finland and led to a Soviet-Finnish armistice on relatively mild conditions,[263] although Finland was forced to fight their former ally Germany.[264][broken footnote]
174
+
175
+ By the start of July 1944, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Japanese sieges in Assam, pushing the Japanese back to the Chindwin River[265] while the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In September 1944, Chinese forces captured Mount Song and reopened the Burma Road.[266] In China, the Japanese had more successes, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August.[267] Soon after, they invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November[268] and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by mid-December.[269]
176
+
177
+ In the Pacific, US forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944, they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands, and decisively defeated Japanese forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. These defeats led to the resignation of the Japanese Prime Minister, Hideki Tojo, and provided the United States with air bases to launch intensive heavy bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history.[270]
178
+
179
+ On 16 December 1944, Germany made a last attempt on the Western Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes and along with the French-German border to split the Western Allies, encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp to prompt a political settlement.[271] By January, the offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled.[271] In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the German defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Soviets and Poles attacked in Poland, pushing from the Vistula to the Oder river in Germany, and overran East Prussia.[272] On 4 February Soviet, British, and US leaders met for the Yalta Conference. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany, and on when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.[273]
180
+
181
+ In February, the Soviets entered Silesia and Pomerania, while Western Allies entered western Germany and closed to the Rhine river. By March, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr, encircling the German Army Group B.[274] In early March, in an attempt to protect its last oil reserves in Hungary and to retake Budapest, Germany launched its last major offensive against Soviet troops near Lake Balaton. In two weeks, the offensive had been repulsed, the Soviets advanced to Vienna, and captured the city. In early April, Soviet troops captured Königsberg, while the Western Allies finally pushed forward in Italy and swept across western Germany capturing Hamburg and Nuremberg. American and Soviet forces met at the Elbe river on 25 April, leaving several unoccupied pockets in southern Germany and around Berlin.
182
+
183
+ Soviet and Polish forces stormed and captured Berlin in late April. In Italy, German forces surrendered on 29 April. On 30 April, the Reichstag was captured, signalling the military defeat of Nazi Germany,[275] Berlin garrison surrendered on 2 May.
184
+
185
+ Several changes in leadership occurred during this period. On 12 April, President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman. Benito Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans on 28 April.[276] Two days later, Hitler committed suicide in besieged Berlin, and he was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.[277]
186
+ Total and unconditional surrender in Europe was signed on 7 and 8 May, to be effective by the end of 8 May.[278] German Army Group Centre resisted in Prague until 11 May.[279]
187
+
188
+ In the Pacific theatre, American forces accompanied by the forces of the Philippine Commonwealth advanced in the Philippines, clearing Leyte by the end of April 1945. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and recaptured Manila in March. Fighting continued on Luzon, Mindanao, and other islands of the Philippines until the end of the war.[280] Meanwhile, the United States Army Air Forces launched a massive firebombing campaign of strategic cities in Japan in an effort to destroy Japanese war industry and civilian morale. A devastating bombing raid on Tokyo of 9–10 March was the deadliest conventional bombing raid in history.[281]
189
+
190
+ In May 1945, Australian troops landed in Borneo, over-running the oilfields there. British, American, and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northern Burma in March, and the British pushed on to reach Rangoon by 3 May.[282] Chinese forces started a counterattack in the Battle of West Hunan that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945. American naval and amphibious forces also moved towards Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa by the end of June.[283] At the same time, American submarines cut off Japanese imports, drastically reducing Japan's ability to supply its overseas forces.[284]
191
+
192
+ On 11 July, Allied leaders met in Potsdam, Germany. They confirmed earlier agreements about Germany,[285] and the American, British and Chinese governments reiterated the demand for unconditional surrender of Japan, specifically stating that "the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction".[286] During this conference, the United Kingdom held its general election, and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as Prime Minister.[287]
193
+
194
+ The call for unconditional surrender was rejected by the Japanese government, which believed it would be capable of negotiating for more favourable surrender terms.[288] In early August, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Between the two bombings, the Soviets, pursuant to the Yalta agreement, invaded Japanese-held Manchuria and quickly defeated the Kwantung Army, which was the largest Japanese fighting force.[289] These two events persuaded previously adamant Imperial Army leaders to accept surrender terms.[290] The Red Army also captured the southern part of Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands. On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed at Tokyo Bay on the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war.[291]
195
+
196
+ The Allies established occupation administrations in Austria and Germany. The former became a neutral state, non-aligned with any political bloc. The latter was divided into western and eastern occupation zones controlled by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. A denazification programme in Germany led to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg trials and the removal of ex-Nazis from power, although this policy moved towards amnesty and re-integration of ex-Nazis into West German society.[292]
197
+
198
+ Germany lost a quarter of its pre-war (1937) territory. Among the eastern territories, Silesia, Neumark and most of Pomerania were taken over by Poland,[293] and East Prussia was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union, followed by the expulsion to Germany of the nine million Germans from these provinces,[294][295] as well as three million Germans from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. By the 1950s, one-fifth of West Germans were refugees from the east. The Soviet Union also took over the Polish provinces east of the Curzon line,[296] from which 2 million Poles were expelled;[295][297] north-east Romania,[298][299] parts of eastern Finland,[300] and the three Baltic states were incorporated into the Soviet Union.[301][302]
199
+
200
+ In an effort to maintain world peace,[303] the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945,[304] and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 as a common standard for all member nations.[305] The great powers that were the victors of the war—France, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States—became the permanent members of the UN's Security Council.[306] The five permanent members remain so to the present, although there have been two seat changes, between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China in 1971, and between the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over.[307]
201
+
202
+ Germany had been de facto divided, and two independent states, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany),[308] were created within the borders of Allied and Soviet occupation zones. The rest of Europe was also divided into Western and Soviet spheres of influence.[309] Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to establishment of Communist-led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. As a result, East Germany,[310] Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Albania[311] became Soviet satellite states. Communist Yugoslavia conducted a fully independent policy, causing tension with the Soviet Union.[312]
203
+
204
+ Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.[313] The long period of political tensions and military competition between them, the Cold War, would be accompanied by an unprecedented arms race and proxy wars.[314]
205
+
206
+ In Asia, the United States led the occupation of Japan and administrated Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.[315] Korea, formerly under Japanese rule, was divided and occupied by the Soviet Union in the North and the United States in the South between 1945 and 1948. Separate republics emerged on both sides of the 38th parallel in 1948, each claiming to be the legitimate government for all of Korea, which led ultimately to the Korean War.[316]
207
+
208
+ In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. Communist forces were victorious and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan in 1949.[317] In the Middle East, the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and the creation of Israel marked the escalation of the Arab–Israeli conflict. While European powers attempted to retain some or all of their colonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading to decolonisation.[318][319]
209
+
210
+ The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although participating nations were affected differently. The United States emerged much richer than any other nation, leading to a baby boom, and by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much higher than that of any of the other powers, and it dominated the world economy.[320] The UK and US pursued a policy of industrial disarmament in Western Germany in the years 1945–1948.[321] Because of international trade interdependencies this led to European economic stagnation and delayed European recovery for several years.[322][323]
211
+
212
+ Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in Western Germany, and was sped up by the liberalisation of European economic policy that the Marshall Plan (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused.[324][325] The post-1948 West German recovery has been called the German economic miracle.[326] Italy also experienced an economic boom[327] and the French economy rebounded.[328] By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin,[329] and although receiving a quarter of the total Marshall Plan assistance, more than any other European country,[330] it continued in relative economic decline for decades.[331]
213
+
214
+ The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era.[332] Japan recovered much later.[333] China returned to its pre-war industrial production by 1952.[334]
215
+
216
+ Estimates for the total number of casualties in the war vary, because many deaths went unrecorded.[335] Most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians.[336][337][338]
217
+ Many of the civilians died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass bombings, disease, and starvation.
218
+
219
+ The Soviet Union alone lost around 27 million people during the war,[339] including 8.7 million military and 19 million civilian deaths.[340] A quarter of the people in the Soviet Union were wounded or killed.[341] Germany sustained 5.3 million military losses, mostly on the Eastern Front and during the final battles in Germany.[342]
220
+
221
+ An estimated 11[343] to 17 million[344] civilians died as a direct or as an indirect result of Nazi racist policies, including mass killing of around 6 million Jews, along with Roma, homosexuals, at least 1.9 million ethnic Poles[345][346] and millions of other Slavs (including Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians), and other ethnic and minority groups.[347][344] Between 1941 and 1945, more than 200,000 ethnic Serbs, along with gypsies and Jews, were persecuted and murdered by the Axis-aligned Croatian Ustaše in Yugoslavia.[348] Also, more than 100,000 Poles were massacred by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the Volhynia massacres, between 1943 and 1945.[349] At the same time about 10,000–15,000 Ukrainians were killed by the Polish Home Army and other Polish units, in reprisal attacks.[350]
222
+
223
+ In Asia and the Pacific, between 3 million and more than 10 million civilians, mostly Chinese (estimated at 7.5 million[351]), were killed by the Japanese occupation forces.[352] The most infamous Japanese atrocity was the Nanking Massacre, in which fifty to three hundred thousand Chinese civilians were raped and murdered.[353] Mitsuyoshi Himeta reported that 2.7 million casualties occurred during the Sankō Sakusen. General Yasuji Okamura implemented the policy in Heipei and Shantung.[354]
224
+
225
+ Axis forces employed biological and chemical weapons. The Imperial Japanese Army used a variety of such weapons during its invasion and occupation of China (see Unit 731)[355][356] and in early conflicts against the Soviets.[357] Both the Germans and the Japanese tested such weapons against civilians,[358] and sometimes on prisoners of war.[359]
226
+
227
+ The Soviet Union was responsible for the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers,[360] and the imprisonment or execution of thousands of political prisoners by the NKVD, along with mass civilian deportations to Siberia, in the Baltic states and eastern Poland annexed by the Red Army.[361]
228
+
229
+ The mass bombing of cities in Europe and Asia has often been called a war crime, although no positive or specific customary international humanitarian law with respect to aerial warfare existed before or during World War II.[362] The USAAF firebombed a total of 67 Japanese cities, killing 393,000 civilians and destroying 65% of built-up areas.[363]
230
+
231
+ Nazi Germany was responsible for the Holocaust (which killed approximately 6 million Jews) as well as for killing 2.7 million ethnic Poles[364] and 4 million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet prisoners of war, Romani, homosexuals, Freemasons, and Jehovah's Witnesses) as part of a programme of deliberate extermination, in effect becoming a "genocidal state".[365] Soviet POWs were kept in especially unbearable conditions, and 3.6 million Soviet POWs out of 5.7 died in Nazi camps during the war.[366][367] In addition to concentration camps, death camps were created in Nazi Germany to exterminate people on an industrial scale. Nazi Germany extensively used forced labourers; about 12 million Europeans from German occupied countries were abducted and used as a slave work force in German industry, agriculture and war economy.[368]
232
+
233
+ The Soviet Gulag became a de facto system of deadly camps during 1942–43, when wartime privation and hunger caused numerous deaths of inmates,[369] including foreign citizens of Poland and other countries occupied in 1939–40 by the Soviet Union, as well as Axis POWs.[370] By the end of the war, most Soviet POWs liberated from Nazi camps and many repatriated civilians were detained in special filtration camps where they were subjected to NKVD evaluation, and 226,127 were sent to the Gulag as real or perceived Nazi collaborators.[371]
234
+
235
+ Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, many of which were used as labour camps, also had high death rates. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found the death rate of Western prisoners was 27 per cent (for American POWs, 37 per cent),[372] seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians.[373] While 37,583 prisoners from the UK, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from the United States were released after the surrender of Japan, the number of Chinese released was only 56.[374]
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+ At least five million Chinese civilians from northern China and Manchukuo were enslaved between 1935 and 1941 by the East Asia Development Board, or Kōain, for work in mines and war industries. After 1942, the number reached 10 million.[375] In Java, between 4 and 10 million rōmusha (Japanese: "manual labourers"), were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese labourers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia, and only 52,000 were repatriated to Java.[376]
238
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+ In Europe, occupation came under two forms. In Western, Northern, and Central Europe (France, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and the annexed portions of Czechoslovakia) Germany established economic policies through which it collected roughly 69.5 billion reichmarks (27.8 billion US dollars) by the end of the war; this figure does not include the sizeable plunder of industrial products, military equipment, raw materials and other goods.[377] Thus, the income from occupied nations was over 40 per cent of the income Germany collected from taxation, a figure which increased to nearly 40 per cent of total German income as the war went on.[378]
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+ In the East, the intended gains of Lebensraum were never attained as fluctuating front-lines and Soviet scorched earth policies denied resources to the German invaders.[379] Unlike in the West, the Nazi racial policy encouraged extreme brutality against what it considered to be the "inferior people" of Slavic descent; most German advances were thus followed by mass executions.[380] Although resistance groups formed in most occupied territories, they did not significantly hamper German operations in either the East[381] or the West[382] until late 1943.
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+ In Asia, Japan termed nations under its occupation as being part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, essentially a Japanese hegemony which it claimed was for purposes of liberating colonised peoples.[383] Although Japanese forces were sometimes welcomed as liberators from European domination, Japanese war crimes frequently turned local public opinion against them.[384] During Japan's initial conquest it captured 4,000,000 barrels (640,000 m3) of oil (~5.5×105 tonnes) left behind by retreating Allied forces, and by 1943 was able to get production in the Dutch East Indies up to 50 million barrels (~6.8×10^6 t), 76 per cent of its 1940 output rate.[384]
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+ In Europe, before the outbreak of the war, the Allies had significant advantages in both population and economics. In 1938, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and the British Dominions) had a 30 per cent larger population and a 30 per cent higher gross domestic product than the European Axis powers (Germany and Italy); if colonies are included, the Allies had more than a 5:1 advantage in population and a nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP.[385] In Asia at the same time, China had roughly six times the population of Japan but only an 89 per cent higher GDP; this is reduced to three times the population and only a 38 per cent higher GDP if Japanese colonies are included.[385]
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+ The United States produced about two-thirds of all the munitions used by the Allies in WWII, including warships, transports, warplanes, artillery, tanks, trucks, and ammunition.[386]
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+ Though the Allies' economic and population advantages were largely mitigated during the initial rapid blitzkrieg attacks of Germany and Japan, they became the decisive factor by 1942, after the United States and Soviet Union joined the Allies, as the war largely settled into one of attrition.[387] While the Allies' ability to out-produce the Axis is often attributed[by whom?] to the Allies having more access to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and Japan's reluctance to employ women in the labour force,[388] Allied strategic bombing,[389] and Germany's late shift to a war economy[390] contributed significantly. Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan planned to fight a protracted war, and had not equipped themselves to do so.[391] To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millions of slave labourers;[392] Germany used about 12 million people, mostly from Eastern Europe,[368] while Japan used more than 18 million people in Far East Asia.[375][376]
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+ Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, as fighters, bombers, and ground-support, and each role was advanced considerably. Innovation included airlift (the capability to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment, and personnel);[393] and of strategic bombing (the bombing of enemy industrial and population centres to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war).[394] Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such as radar and surface-to-air artillery. The use of the jet aircraft was pioneered and, though late introduction meant it had little impact, it led to jets becoming standard in air forces worldwide.[395] Although guided missiles were being developed, they were not advanced enough to reliably target aircraft until some years after the war.
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+ Advances were made in nearly every aspect of naval warfare, most notably with aircraft carriers and submarines. Although aeronautical warfare had relatively little success at the start of the war, actions at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, and the Coral Sea established the carrier as the dominant capital ship in place of the battleship.[396][397][398] In the Atlantic, escort carriers proved to be a vital part of Allied convoys, increasing the effective protection radius and helping to close the Mid-Atlantic gap.[399] Carriers were also more economical than battleships because of the relatively low cost of aircraft[400] and their not requiring to be as heavily armoured.[401] Submarines, which had proved to be an effective weapon during the First World War,[402] were anticipated by all sides to be important in the second. The British focused development on anti-submarine weaponry and tactics, such as sonar and convoys, while Germany focused on improving its offensive capability, with designs such as the Type VII submarine and wolfpack tactics.[403][better source needed] Gradually, improving Allied technologies such as the Leigh light, hedgehog, squid, and homing torpedoes proved victorious over the German submarines.[citation needed]
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+ Land warfare changed from the static front lines of trench warfare of World War I, which had relied on improved artillery that outmatched the speed of both infantry and cavalry, to increased mobility and combined arms. The tank, which had been used predominantly for infantry support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon.[404] In the late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced than it had been during World War I,[405] and advances continued throughout the war with increases in speed, armour and firepower.[citation needed] At the start of the war, most commanders thought enemy tanks should be met by tanks with superior specifications.[406] This idea was challenged by the poor performance of the relatively light early tank guns against armour, and German doctrine of avoiding tank-versus-tank combat. This, along with Germany's use of combined arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg tactics across Poland and France.[404] Many means of destroying tanks, including indirect artillery, anti-tank guns (both towed and self-propelled), mines, short-ranged infantry antitank weapons, and other tanks were used.[406] Even with large-scale mechanisation, infantry remained the backbone of all forces,[407] and throughout the war, most infantry were equipped similarly to World War I.[408] The portable machine gun spread, a notable example being the German MG34, and various submachine guns which were suited to close combat in urban and jungle settings.[408] The assault rifle, a late war development incorporating many features of the rifle and submachine gun, became the standard postwar infantry weapon for most armed forces.[409]
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+ Most major belligerents attempted to solve the problems of complexity and security involved in using large codebooks for cryptography by designing ciphering machines, the most well known being the German Enigma machine.[410] Development of SIGINT (signals intelligence) and cryptanalysis enabled the countering process of decryption. Notable examples were the Allied decryption of Japanese naval codes[411] and British Ultra, a pioneering method for decoding Enigma benefiting from information given to the United Kingdom by the Polish Cipher Bureau, which had been decoding early versions of Enigma before the war.[412] Another aspect of military intelligence was the use of deception, which the Allies used to great effect, such as in operations Mincemeat and Bodyguard.[411][413]
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+ Other technological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war include the world's first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear weapons, operations research and the development of artificial harbours and oil pipelines under the English Channel.[citation needed] Penicillin was first mass-produced and used during the war (see Stabilization and mass production of penicillin).[414]
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+ Mediterranean and Middle East
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+ Other campaigns
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+ Coups
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+ World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. In a state of total war, directly involving more than 100 million people from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 70 to 85 million fatalities. Tens of millions of people died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), premeditated death from starvation, massacres, and disease. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, including in the use of strategic bombing of population centres, and the only uses of nuclear weapons in war.
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+ World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours: Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, and the Fall of France in mid-1940, the war continued primarily between the European Axis powers and the British Empire, with war in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, and the Battle of the Atlantic. On 22 June 1941, Germany led the European Axis powers in an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history and trapping the Axis, crucially the German Wehrmacht, in a war of attrition.
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+ Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with the Republic of China by 1937. In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European colonies in East Asia and the Pacific. Following an immediate US declaration of war against Japan, supported by one from the UK, the European Axis powers declared war on the United States in solidarity with their ally. Japan soon captured much of the Western Pacific, but its advances were halted in 1942 after Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway; later, Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Key setbacks in 1943—which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, and Allied offensives in the Pacific—cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned towards Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945, the Japanese suffered reversals in mainland Asia, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.
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+ The war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender on its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August, respectively. Faced with an imminent invasion of the Japanese archipelago, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, and the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria on 9 August, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. In the wake of the war, Germany and Japan were occupied and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.
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+ World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the globe. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts, and the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—became the permanent members of its Security Council. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century-long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion. Political integration, especially in Europe, began as an effort to forestall future hostilities, end pre-war enmities and forge a sense of common identity.
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+ The start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939,[1][2] beginning with the German invasion of Poland; the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937,[3][4] or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931.[5][6][7]
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+ Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously, and the two wars merged in 1941. This article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935.[8] The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939.[9]
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+ The exact date of the war's end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945 (V-J Day), rather than the formal surrender of Japan, which was on 2 September 1945 that officially ended the war in Asia. A peace treaty with Japan was signed in 1951.[10] A treaty regarding Germany's future allowed the reunification of East and West Germany to take place in 1990 and resolved most post-World War II issues.[11] No formal peace treaty between Japan and the Soviet Union was ever signed.[12]
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+ World War I had radically altered the political European map, with the defeat of the Central Powers—including Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire—and the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, which eventually led to the founding of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the victorious Allies of World War I, such as France, Belgium, Italy, Romania, and Greece, gained territory, and new nation-states were created out of the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman and Russian Empires.
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+ To prevent a future world war, the League of Nations was created during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The organisation's primary goals were to prevent armed conflict through collective security, military and naval disarmament, and settling international disputes through peaceful negotiations and arbitration.
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+ Despite strong pacifist sentiment after World War I,[13] its aftermath still caused irredentist and revanchist nationalism in several European states. These sentiments were especially marked in Germany because of the significant territorial, colonial, and financial losses incurred by the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home territory and all its overseas possessions, while German annexation of other states was prohibited, reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of the country's armed forces.[14]
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+ The German Empire was dissolved in the German Revolution of 1918–1919, and a democratic government, later known as the Weimar Republic, was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the new republic and hardline opponents on both the right and left. Italy, as an Entente ally, had made some post-war territorial gains; however, Italian nationalists were angered that the promises made by the United Kingdom and France to secure Italian entrance into the war were not fulfilled in the peace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, the Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian, and class collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist, left-wing and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive expansionist foreign policy aimed at making Italy a world power, promising the creation of a "New Roman Empire".[15]
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37
+ Adolf Hitler, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923, eventually became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. He abolished democracy, espousing a radical, racially motivated revision of the world order, and soon began a massive rearmament campaign.[16] Meanwhile, France, to secure its alliance, allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia, which Italy desired as a colonial possession. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Territory of the Saar Basin was legally reunited with Germany and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, accelerated his rearmament programme, and introduced conscription.[17]
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+ The United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front in April 1935 in order to contain Germany, a key step towards military globalisation; however, that June, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany, easing prior restrictions. The Soviet Union, concerned by Germany's goals of capturing vast areas of Eastern Europe, drafted a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect, though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless.[18] The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August of the same year.[19]
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+ Hitler defied the Versailles and Locarno treaties by remilitarising the Rhineland in March 1936, encountering little opposition due to appeasement.[20] In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed the Rome–Berlin Axis. A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy joined the following year.[21]
42
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+ The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese Communist Party allies[22] and new regional warlords. In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Empire of Japan, which had long sought influence in China[23] as the first step of what its government saw as the country's right to rule Asia, staged the Mukden Incident as a pretext to invade Manchuria and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo.[24]
44
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+ China appealed to the League of Nations to stop the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after being condemned for its incursion into Manchuria. The two nations then fought several battles, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei, until the Tanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.[25] After the 1936 Xi'an Incident, the Kuomintang and communist forces agreed on a ceasefire to present a united front to oppose Japan.[26]
46
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+ The Second Italo–Ethiopian War was a brief colonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war began with the invasion of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia) by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia), which was launched from Italian Somaliland and Eritrea.[27] The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI); in addition it exposed the weakness of the League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations, but the League did little when the former clearly violated Article X of the League's Covenant.[28] The United Kingdom and France supported imposing sanctions on Italy for the invasion, but they were not fully enforced and failed to end the Italian invasion.[29] Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany's goal of absorbing Austria.[30]
48
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+ When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to the Nationalist rebels, led by General Francisco Franco. Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis did: altogether Mussolini sent to Spain more than 70,000 ground troops and 6,000 aviation personnel, as well as about 720 aircraft.[31] The Soviet Union supported the existing government, the Spanish Republic. More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, remained officially neutral during World War II but generally favoured the Axis.[32] His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending of volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front.[33]
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+ In July 1937, Japan captured the former Chinese imperial capital of Peking after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China.[34] The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China's prior co-operation with Germany. From September to November, the Japanese attacked Taiyuan, engaged the Kuomintang Army around Xinkou,[35] and fought Communist forces in Pingxingguan.[36][37] Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai, but, after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in December 1937. After the fall of Nanking, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants were murdered by the Japanese.[38][39]
52
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+ In March 1938, Nationalist Chinese forces won their first major victory at Taierzhuang but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by Japanese in May.[40] In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan, but the city was taken by October.[41] Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve; instead, the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war.[42][43]
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+ In the mid-to-late 1930s, Japanese forces in Manchukuo had sporadic border clashes with the Soviet Union and Mongolia. The Japanese doctrine of Hokushin-ron, which emphasised Japan's expansion northward, was favoured by the Imperial Army during this time. With the Japanese defeat at Khalkin Gol in 1939, the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War[44] and ally Nazi Germany pursuing neutrality with the Soviets, this policy would prove difficult to maintain. Japan and the Soviet Union eventually signed a Neutrality Pact in April 1941, and Japan adopted the doctrine of Nanshin-ron, promoted by the Navy, which took its focus southward, eventually leading to its war with the United States and the Western Allies.[45][46]
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+ In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming more aggressive. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, again provoking little response from other European powers.[47] Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population. Soon the United Kingdom and France followed the appeasement policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement, which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands.[48] Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary, and Poland annexed Czechoslovakia's Zaolzie region.[49]
58
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+ Although all of Germany's stated demands had been satisfied by the agreement, privately Hitler was furious that British interference had prevented him from seizing all of Czechoslovakia in one operation. In subsequent speeches Hitler attacked British and Jewish "war-mongers" and in January 1939 secretly ordered a major build-up of the German navy to challenge British naval supremacy. In March 1939, Germany invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia and subsequently split it into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a pro-German client state, the Slovak Republic.[50] Hitler also delivered 20 March 1939 ultimatum to Lithuania, forcing the concession of the Klaipėda Region, formerly the German Memelland.[51]
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+ Greatly alarmed and with Hitler making further demands on the Free City of Danzig, the United Kingdom and France guaranteed their support for Polish independence; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to Romania and Greece.[52] Shortly after the Franco-British pledge to Poland, Germany and Italy formalised their own alliance with the Pact of Steel.[53] Hitler accused the United Kingdom and Poland of trying to "encircle" Germany and renounced the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact.[54]
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+ The situation reached a general crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. On 23 August, when tripartite negotiations about a military alliance between France, the United Kingdom and Soviet Union stalled,[55] the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany.[56] This pact had a secret protocol that defined German and Soviet "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the Soviet Union), and raised the question of continuing Polish independence.[57] The pact neutralised the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and assured that Germany would not have to face the prospect of a two-front war, as it had in World War I. Immediately after that, Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that the United Kingdom had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland, and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it.[58]
64
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+ In response to British requests for direct negotiations to avoid war, Germany made demands on Poland, which only served as a pretext to worsen relations.[59] On 29 August, Hitler demanded that a Polish plenipotentiary immediately travel to Berlin to negotiate the handover of Danzig, and to allow a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor in which the German minority would vote on secession.[59] The Poles refused to comply with the German demands, and on the night of 30–31 August in a stormy meeting with the British ambassador Neville Henderson, Ribbentrop declared that Germany considered its claims rejected.[60]
66
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+ On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as a pretext to initiate the invasion.[61] The first German attack of the war came against the Polish defenses at Westerplatte.[62] The United Kingdom responded with an ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, France and Britain declared war on Germany, followed by Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. The alliance provided no direct military support to Poland, outside of a cautious French probe into the Saarland.[63] The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and the war effort.[64] Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which would later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic.[65]
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+ On 8 September, German troops reached the suburbs of Warsaw. The Polish counter offensive to the west halted the German advance for several days, but it was outflanked and encircled by the Wehrmacht. Remnants of the Polish army broke through to besieged Warsaw. On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Eastern Poland[66] under a pretext that the Polish state had ostensibly ceased to exist.[67] On 27 September, the Warsaw garrison surrendered to the Germans, and the last large operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October. Despite the military defeat, Poland never surrendered; instead it formed the Polish government-in-exile and a clandestine state apparatus remained in occupied Poland.[68] A significant part of Polish military personnel evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of them would fight against the Axis in other theatres of the war.[69]
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+ Germany annexed the western and occupied the central part of Poland, and the Soviet Union annexed its eastern part; small shares of Polish territory were transferred to Lithuania and Slovakia. On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to the United Kingdom and France but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. The proposal was rejected,[60] and Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France,[70] which would be postponed until the spring of 1940 due to bad weather.[71][72][73]
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+ The Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the states that were in the Soviet "sphere of influence" under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact—to sign "mutual assistance pacts" that stipulated stationing Soviet troops in these countries. Soon after, significant Soviet military contingents were moved there.[74][75][76] Finland refused to sign a similar pact and rejected ceding part of its territory to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939,[77] and the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations.[78] Despite overwhelming numerical superiority, Soviet military success was modest, and the Finno-Soviet war ended in March 1940 with minimal Finnish concessions.[79]
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+ In June 1940, the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,[75] and the disputed Romanian regions of Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and Hertza. Meanwhile, Nazi-Soviet political rapprochement and economic co-operation[80][81] gradually stalled,[82][83] and both states began preparations for war.[84]
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+ In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were attempting to cut off.[85] Denmark capitulated after a few hours, and Norway was conquered within two months[86] despite Allied support. British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the appointment of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940.[87]
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+ On the same day, Germany launched an offensive against France. To circumvent the strong Maginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.[88] The Germans carried out a flanking manoeuvre through the Ardennes region,[89] which was mistakenly perceived by Allies as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles.[90][91] By successfully implementing new blitzkrieg tactics, the Wehrmacht rapidly advanced to the Channel and cut off the Allied forces in Belgium, trapping the bulk of the Allied armies in a cauldron on the Franco-Belgian border near Lille. The United Kingdom was able to evacuate a significant number of Allied troops from the continent by early June, although abandoning almost all their equipment.[92]
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+ On 10 June, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom.[93] The Germans turned south against the weakened French army, and Paris fell to them on 14 June. Eight days later France signed an armistice with Germany; it was divided into German and Italian occupation zones,[94] and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime, which, though officially neutral, was generally aligned with Germany. France kept its fleet, which the United Kingdom attacked on 3 July in an attempt to prevent its seizure by Germany.[95]
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+ The Battle of Britain[96] began in early July with Luftwaffe attacks on shipping and harbours.[97] The United Kingdom rejected Hitler's ultimatum,[which?][98] and the German air superiority campaign started in August but failed to defeat RAF Fighter Command, forcing the indefinite postponement of the proposed German invasion of Britain. The German strategic bombing offensive intensified with night attacks on London and other cities in the Blitz, but failed to significantly disrupt the British war effort[97] and largely ended in May 1941.[99]
84
+
85
+ Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic.[100] The British Home Fleet scored a significant victory on 27 May 1941 by sinking the German battleship Bismarck.[101]
86
+
87
+ In November 1939, the United States was taking measures to assist China and the Western Allies, and amended the Neutrality Act to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies.[102] In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased. In September the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases.[103] Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention in the conflict well into 1941.[104] In December 1940 Roosevelt accused Hitler of planning world conquest and ruled out any negotiations as useless, calling for the United States to become an "arsenal of democracy" and promoting Lend-Lease programmes of aid to support the British war effort.[98] The United States started strategic planning to prepare for a full-scale offensive against Germany.[105]
88
+
89
+ At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy, and Germany as the Axis Powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three.[106] The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia and Romania joined.[107] Romania and Hungary would make major contributions to the Axis war against the Soviet Union, in Romania's case partially to recapture territory ceded to the Soviet Union.[108]
90
+
91
+ In early June 1940 the Italian Regia Aeronautica attacked and besieged Malta, a British possession. In late summer through early autumn Italy conquered British Somaliland and made an incursion into British-held Egypt. In October Italy attacked Greece, but the attack was repulsed with heavy Italian casualties; the campaign ended within months with minor territorial changes.[109] Germany started preparation for an invasion of the Balkans to assist Italy, to prevent the British from gaining a foothold there, which would be a potential threat for Romanian oil fields, and to strike against the British dominance of the Mediterranean.[110]
92
+
93
+ In December 1940, British Empire forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa.[111] The offensives were highly successful; by early February 1941 Italy had lost control of eastern Libya, and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken, prisoner. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission by a carrier attack at Taranto and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan.[112]
94
+
95
+ Italian defeats prompted Germany to deploy an expeditionary force to North Africa, and at the end of March 1941 Rommel's Afrika Korps launched an offensive which drove back the Commonwealth forces.[113] In under a month, Axis forces advanced to western Egypt and besieged the port of Tobruk.[114]
96
+
97
+ By late March 1941 Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact; however, the Yugoslav government was overthrown two days later by pro-British nationalists. Germany responded with simultaneous invasions of both Yugoslavia and Greece, commencing on 6 April 1941; both nations were forced to surrender within the month.[115] The airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete at the end of May completed the German conquest of the Balkans.[116] Although the Axis victory was swift, bitter and large-scale partisan warfare subsequently broke out against the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, which continued until the end of the war.[117]
98
+
99
+ In the Middle East, in May Commonwealth forces quashed an uprising in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria.[118] Between June and July they invaded and occupied the French possessions Syria and Lebanon, with the assistance of the Free French.[119]
100
+
101
+ With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations. With the Soviets wary of mounting tensions with Germany and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia, the two powers signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941.[120] By contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, massing forces on the Soviet border.[121]
102
+
103
+ Hitler believed that the United Kingdom's refusal to end the war was based on the hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war against Germany sooner or later.[122] He, therefore, decided to try to strengthen Germany's relations with the Soviets, or failing that to attack and eliminate them as a factor. In November 1940, negotiations took place to determine if the Soviet Union would join the Tripartite Pact. The Soviets showed some interest but asked for concessions from Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unacceptable. On 18 December 1940, Hitler issued the directive to prepare for an invasion of the Soviet Union.[123]
104
+
105
+ On 22 June 1941, Germany, supported by Italy and Romania, invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, with Germany accusing the Soviets of plotting against them. They were joined shortly by Finland and Hungary.[124] The primary targets of this surprise offensive[125] were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine, with the ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, from the Caspian to the White Seas. Hitler's objectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Communism, generate Lebensraum ("living space")[126] by dispossessing the native population[127] and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Germany's remaining rivals.[128]
106
+
107
+ Although the Red Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the war,[129] Barbarossa forced the Soviet supreme command to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, the Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in both personnel and materiel. By mid-August, however, the German Army High Command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Centre, and to divert the 2nd Panzer Group to reinforce troops advancing towards central Ukraine and Leningrad.[130] The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made possible further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine (the First Battle of Kharkov).[131]
108
+
109
+ The diversion of three quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front[132] prompted the United Kingdom to reconsider its grand strategy.[133] In July, the UK and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany[134] and in August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter, which outlined British and American goals for the postwar world.[135] In late August the British and Soviets invaded neutral Iran to secure the Persian Corridor, Iran's oil fields, and preempt any Axis advances through Iran toward the Baku oil fields or British India.[136]
110
+
111
+ By October Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only the sieges of Leningrad[137] and Sevastopol continuing.[138] A major offensive against Moscow was renewed; after two months of fierce battles in increasingly harsh weather, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops[139] were forced to suspend their offensive.[140] Large territorial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in Soviet hands, the Soviet capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of the war in Europe had ended.[141]
112
+
113
+ By early December, freshly mobilised reserves[142] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops.[143] This, as well as intelligence data which established that a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East would be sufficient to deter any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army,[144] allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on 5 December all along the front and pushed German troops 100–250 kilometres (62–155 mi) west.[145]
114
+
115
+ Following the Japanese false flag Mukden Incident in 1931, the Japanese shelling of the American gunboat USS Panay in 1937, and the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre Japanese-American relations deteriorated. In 1939, the United States notified Japan that it would not be extending its trade treaty and American public opinion opposing Japanese expansionism led to a series of economic sanctions, the Export Control Acts, which banned U.S. exports of chemicals, minerals and military parts to Japan and increased economic pressure on the Japanese regime.[98][146][147] During 1939 Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, a strategically important Chinese city, but was repulsed by late September.[148] Despite several offensives by both sides, the war between China and Japan was stalemated by 1940. To increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the Western powers, Japan invaded and occupied northern Indochina in September, 1940.[149]
116
+
117
+ Chinese nationalist forces launched a large-scale counter-offensive in early 1940. In August, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China; in retaliation, Japan instituted harsh measures in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists.[150] Continued antipathy between Chinese communist and nationalist forces culminated in armed clashes in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation.[151] In March, the Japanese 11th army attacked the headquarters of the Chinese 19th army but was repulsed during Battle of Shanggao.[152] In September, Japan attempted to take the city of Changsha again and clashed with Chinese nationalist forces.[153]
118
+
119
+ German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in Southeast Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan some oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, but negotiations for additional access to their resources ended in failure in June 1941.[154] In July 1941 Japan sent troops to southern Indochina, thus threatening British and Dutch possessions in the Far East. The United States, United Kingdom, and other Western governments reacted to this move with a freeze on Japanese assets and a total oil embargo.[155][156] At the same time, Japan was planning an invasion of the Soviet Far East, intending to capitalise off the German invasion in the west, but abandoned the operation after the sanctions.[157]
120
+
121
+ Since early 1941 the United States and Japan had been engaged in negotiations in an attempt to improve their strained relations and end the war in China. During these negotiations, Japan advanced a number of proposals which were dismissed by the Americans as inadequate.[158] At the same time the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands engaged in secret discussions for the joint defence of their territories, in the event of a Japanese attack against any of them.[159] Roosevelt reinforced the Philippines (an American protectorate scheduled for independence in 1946) and warned Japan that the United States would react to Japanese attacks against any "neighboring countries".[159]
122
+
123
+ Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American–British–Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. On 20 November, a new government under Hideki Tojo presented an interim proposal as its final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and for lifting the embargo on the supply of oil and other resources to Japan. In exchange, Japan promised not to launch any attacks in Southeast Asia and to withdraw its forces from southern Indochina.[158] The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers.[160] That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in China, or seizing the natural resources it needed in the Dutch East Indies by force;[161][162] the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[163]
124
+
125
+ Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific. The Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war.[164][165] To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter, it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet and the American military presence in the Philippines from the outset.[166] On 7 December 1941 (8 December in Asian time zones), Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific.[167] These included an attack on the American fleets at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, landings in Malaya,[167], Thailand and the Battle of Hong Kong.[168]
126
+
127
+ The Japanese invasion of Thailand led to Thailand's decision to ally itself with Japan and the other Japanese attacks led the United States, United Kingdom, China, Australia, and several other states to formally declare war on Japan, whereas the Soviet Union, being heavily involved in large-scale hostilities with European Axis countries, maintained its neutrality agreement with Japan.[169] Germany, followed by the other Axis states, declared war on the United States[170] in solidarity with Japan, citing as justification the American attacks on German war vessels that had been ordered by Roosevelt.[124][171]
128
+
129
+ On 1 January 1942, the Allied Big Four[172]—the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom and the United States—and 22 smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations, thereby affirming the Atlantic Charter,[173] and agreeing not to sign a separate peace with the Axis powers.[174]
130
+
131
+ During 1942, Allied officials debated on the appropriate grand strategy to pursue. All agreed that defeating Germany was the primary objective. The Americans favoured a straightforward, large-scale attack on Germany through France. The Soviets were also demanding a second front. The British, on the other hand, argued that military operations should target peripheral areas to wear out German strength, leading to increasing demoralisation, and bolster resistance forces. Germany itself would be subject to a heavy bombing campaign. An offensive against Germany would then be launched primarily by Allied armour without using large-scale armies.[175] Eventually, the British persuaded the Americans that a landing in France was infeasible in 1942 and they should instead focus on driving the Axis out of North Africa.[176]
132
+
133
+ At the Casablanca Conference in early 1943, the Allies reiterated the statements issued in the 1942 Declaration, and demanded the unconditional surrender of their enemies. The British and Americans agreed to continue to press the initiative in the Mediterranean by invading Sicily to fully secure the Mediterranean supply routes.[177] Although the British argued for further operations in the Balkans to bring Turkey into the war, in May 1943, the Americans extracted a British commitment to limit Allied operations in the Mediterranean to an invasion of the Italian mainland and to invade France in 1944.[178]
134
+
135
+ By the end of April 1942, Japan and its ally Thailand had almost fully conquered Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, and Rabaul, inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners.[179] Despite stubborn resistance by Filipino and US forces, the Philippine Commonwealth was eventually captured in May 1942, forcing its government into exile.[180] On 16 April, in Burma, 7,000 British soldiers were encircled by the Japanese 33rd Division during the Battle of Yenangyaung and rescued by the Chinese 38th Division.[181] Japanese forces also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean,[182] and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. In January 1942, the only Allied success against Japan was a Chinese victory at Changsha.[183] These easy victories over unprepared US and European opponents left Japan overconfident, as well as overextended.[184]
136
+
137
+ In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby by amphibious assault and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United States and Australia. The planned invasion was thwarted when an Allied task force, centred on two American fleet carriers, fought Japanese naval forces to a draw in the Battle of the Coral Sea.[185] Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlier Doolittle Raid, was to seize Midway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.[186] In mid-May, Japan started the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign in China, with the goal of inflicting retribution on the Chinese who aided the surviving American airmen in the Doolittle Raid by destroying air bases and fighting against the Chinese 23rd and 32nd Army Groups.[187][188] In early June, Japan put its operations into action, but the Americans, having broken Japanese naval codes in late May, were fully aware of the plans and order of battle, and used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory at Midway over the Imperial Japanese Navy.[189]
138
+
139
+ With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan chose to focus on a belated attempt to capture Port Moresby by an overland campaign in the Territory of Papua.[190] The Americans planned a counter-attack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.[191]
140
+
141
+ Both plans started in July, but by mid-September, the Battle for Guadalcanal took priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island, where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna-Gona.[192] Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops.[193] In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first, an offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942, went disastrously, forcing a retreat back to India by May 1943.[194] The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved mixed results.[195]
142
+
143
+ Despite considerable losses, in early 1942 Germany and its allies stopped a major Soviet offensive in central and southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they had achieved during the previous year.[196] In May the Germans defeated Soviet offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkov,[197] and then launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia in June 1942, to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus and occupy Kuban steppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans split Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A advanced to the lower Don River and struck south-east to the Caucasus, while Army Group B headed towards the Volga River. The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad on the Volga.[198]
144
+
145
+ By mid-November, the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighting. The Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad,[199] and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously.[200] By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been defeated,[201] and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkov, creating a salient in their front line around the Soviet city of Kursk.[202]
146
+
147
+ Exploiting poor American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.[203] By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operation Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made.[204] In North Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February,[205] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[206] Concerns the Japanese might use bases in Vichy-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May 1942.[207] An Axis offensive in Libya forced an Allied retreat deep inside Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein.[208] On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the disastrous Dieppe Raid,[209] demonstrated the Western Allies' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.[210][page needed]
148
+
149
+ In August 1942, the Allies succeeded in repelling a second attack against El Alamein[211] and, at a high cost, managed to deliver desperately needed supplies to the besieged Malta.[212] A few months later, the Allies commenced an attack of their own in Egypt, dislodging the Axis forces and beginning a drive west across Libya.[213] This attack was followed up shortly after by Anglo-American landings in French North Africa, which resulted in the region joining the Allies.[214] Hitler responded to the French colony's defection by ordering the occupation of Vichy France;[214] although Vichy forces did not resist this violation of the armistice, they managed to scuttle their fleet to prevent its capture by German forces.[214][215] The Axis forces in Africa withdrew into Tunisia, which was conquered by the Allies in May 1943.[214][216]
150
+
151
+ In June 1943 the British and Americans began a strategic bombing campaign against Germany with a goal to disrupt the war economy, reduce morale, and "de-house" the civilian population.[217] The firebombing of Hamburg was among the first attacks in this campaign, inflicting significant casualties and considerable losses on infrastructure of this important industrial centre.[218]
152
+
153
+ After the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Allies initiated several operations against Japan in the Pacific. In May 1943, Canadian and US forces were sent to eliminate Japanese forces from the Aleutians.[219] Soon after, the United States, with support from Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islander forces, began major ground, sea and air operations to isolate Rabaul by capturing surrounding islands, and breach the Japanese Central Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands.[220] By the end of March 1944, the Allies had completed both of these objectives and had also neutralised the major Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands. In April, the Allies launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea.[221]
154
+
155
+ In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 preparing for large offensives in central Russia. On 4 July 1943, Germany attacked Soviet forces around the Kursk Bulge. Within a week, German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets' deeply echeloned and well-constructed defences,[222] and for the first time in the war Hitler cancelled the operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success.[223] This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies' invasion of Sicily launched on 9 July, which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.[224]
156
+
157
+ On 12 July 1943, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives, thereby dispelling any chance of German victory or even stalemate in the east. The Soviet victory at Kursk marked the end of German superiority,[225] giving the Soviet Union the initiative on the Eastern Front.[226][227] The Germans tried to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther–Wotan line, but the Soviets broke through it at Smolensk and by the Lower Dnieper Offensives.[228]
158
+
159
+ On 3 September 1943, the Western Allies invaded the Italian mainland, following Italy's armistice with the Allies.[229] Germany with the help of fascists responded by disarming Italian forces that were in many places without superior orders, seizing military control of Italian areas,[230] and creating a series of defensive lines.[231] German special forces then rescued Mussolini, who then soon established a new client state in German-occupied Italy named the Italian Social Republic,[232] causing an Italian civil war. The Western Allies fought through several lines until reaching the main German defensive line in mid-November.[233]
160
+
161
+ German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizeable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign.[234] In November 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran.[235] The former conference determined the post-war return of Japanese territory[236] and the military planning for the Burma Campaign,[237] while the latter included agreement that the Western Allies would invade Europe in 1944 and that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan within three months of Germany's defeat.[238]
162
+
163
+ From November 1943, during the seven-week Battle of Changde, the Chinese forced Japan to fight a costly war of attrition, while awaiting Allied relief.[239][240][241] In January 1944, the Allies launched a series of attacks in Italy against the line at Monte Cassino and tried to outflank it with landings at Anzio.[242]
164
+
165
+ On 27 January 1944, Soviet troops launched a major offensive that expelled German forces from the Leningrad region, thereby ending the most lethal siege in history.[243] The following Soviet offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. This delay slowed subsequent Soviet operations in the Baltic Sea region.[244] By late May 1944, the Soviets had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Axis forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which were repulsed by the Axis troops.[245] The Allied offensives in Italy had succeeded and, at the expense of allowing several German divisions to retreat, on 4 June Rome was captured.[246]
166
+
167
+ The Allies had mixed success in mainland Asia. In March 1944, the Japanese launched the first of two invasions, an operation against British positions in Assam, India,[247] and soon besieged Commonwealth positions at Imphal and Kohima.[248] In May 1944, British forces mounted a counter-offensive that drove Japanese troops back to Burma by July,[248] and Chinese forces that had invaded northern Burma in late 1943 besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina.[249] The second Japanese invasion of China aimed to destroy China's main fighting forces, secure railways between Japanese-held territory and capture Allied airfields.[250] By June, the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a new attack on Changsha in Hunan province.[251]
168
+
169
+ On 6 June 1944 (known as D-Day), after three years of Soviet pressure,[252] the Western Allies invaded northern France. After reassigning several Allied divisions from Italy, they also attacked southern France.[253] These landings were successful, and led to the defeat of the German Army units in France. Paris was liberated on 25 August by the local resistance assisted by the Free French Forces, both led by General Charles de Gaulle,[254] and the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in western Europe during the latter part of the year. An attempt to advance into northern Germany spearheaded by a major airborne operation in the Netherlands failed.[255] After that, the Western Allies slowly pushed into Germany, but failed to cross the Rur river in a large offensive. In Italy, Allied advance also slowed due to the last major German defensive line.[256]
170
+
171
+ On 22 June, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus ("Operation Bagration") that destroyed the German Army Group Centre almost completely.[257] Soon after that, another Soviet strategic offensive forced German troops from Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland. The Soviets formed the Polish Committee of National Liberation to control territory in Poland and combat the Polish Armia Krajowa; The Soviet Red Army remained in the Praga district on the other side of the Vistula and watched passively as the Germans quelled the Warsaw Uprising initiated by the Armia Krajowa.[258] The national uprising in Slovakia was also quelled by the Germans.[259] The Soviet Red Army's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there and triggered a successful coup d'état in Romania and in Bulgaria, followed by those countries' shift to the Allied side.[260]
172
+
173
+ In September 1944, Soviet troops advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia to rescue them from being cut off.[261] By this point, the Communist-led Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who had led an increasingly successful guerrilla campaign against the occupation since 1941, controlled much of the territory of Yugoslavia and engaged in delaying efforts against German forces further south. In northern Serbia, the Soviet Red Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Partisans in a joint liberation of the capital city of Belgrade on 20 October. A few days later, the Soviets launched a massive assault against German-occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.[262] Unlike impressive Soviet victories in the Balkans, bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviets occupation of Finland and led to a Soviet-Finnish armistice on relatively mild conditions,[263] although Finland was forced to fight their former ally Germany.[264][broken footnote]
174
+
175
+ By the start of July 1944, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Japanese sieges in Assam, pushing the Japanese back to the Chindwin River[265] while the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In September 1944, Chinese forces captured Mount Song and reopened the Burma Road.[266] In China, the Japanese had more successes, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August.[267] Soon after, they invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November[268] and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by mid-December.[269]
176
+
177
+ In the Pacific, US forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944, they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands, and decisively defeated Japanese forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. These defeats led to the resignation of the Japanese Prime Minister, Hideki Tojo, and provided the United States with air bases to launch intensive heavy bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history.[270]
178
+
179
+ On 16 December 1944, Germany made a last attempt on the Western Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes and along with the French-German border to split the Western Allies, encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp to prompt a political settlement.[271] By January, the offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled.[271] In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the German defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Soviets and Poles attacked in Poland, pushing from the Vistula to the Oder river in Germany, and overran East Prussia.[272] On 4 February Soviet, British, and US leaders met for the Yalta Conference. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany, and on when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.[273]
180
+
181
+ In February, the Soviets entered Silesia and Pomerania, while Western Allies entered western Germany and closed to the Rhine river. By March, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr, encircling the German Army Group B.[274] In early March, in an attempt to protect its last oil reserves in Hungary and to retake Budapest, Germany launched its last major offensive against Soviet troops near Lake Balaton. In two weeks, the offensive had been repulsed, the Soviets advanced to Vienna, and captured the city. In early April, Soviet troops captured Königsberg, while the Western Allies finally pushed forward in Italy and swept across western Germany capturing Hamburg and Nuremberg. American and Soviet forces met at the Elbe river on 25 April, leaving several unoccupied pockets in southern Germany and around Berlin.
182
+
183
+ Soviet and Polish forces stormed and captured Berlin in late April. In Italy, German forces surrendered on 29 April. On 30 April, the Reichstag was captured, signalling the military defeat of Nazi Germany,[275] Berlin garrison surrendered on 2 May.
184
+
185
+ Several changes in leadership occurred during this period. On 12 April, President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman. Benito Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans on 28 April.[276] Two days later, Hitler committed suicide in besieged Berlin, and he was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.[277]
186
+ Total and unconditional surrender in Europe was signed on 7 and 8 May, to be effective by the end of 8 May.[278] German Army Group Centre resisted in Prague until 11 May.[279]
187
+
188
+ In the Pacific theatre, American forces accompanied by the forces of the Philippine Commonwealth advanced in the Philippines, clearing Leyte by the end of April 1945. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and recaptured Manila in March. Fighting continued on Luzon, Mindanao, and other islands of the Philippines until the end of the war.[280] Meanwhile, the United States Army Air Forces launched a massive firebombing campaign of strategic cities in Japan in an effort to destroy Japanese war industry and civilian morale. A devastating bombing raid on Tokyo of 9–10 March was the deadliest conventional bombing raid in history.[281]
189
+
190
+ In May 1945, Australian troops landed in Borneo, over-running the oilfields there. British, American, and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northern Burma in March, and the British pushed on to reach Rangoon by 3 May.[282] Chinese forces started a counterattack in the Battle of West Hunan that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945. American naval and amphibious forces also moved towards Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa by the end of June.[283] At the same time, American submarines cut off Japanese imports, drastically reducing Japan's ability to supply its overseas forces.[284]
191
+
192
+ On 11 July, Allied leaders met in Potsdam, Germany. They confirmed earlier agreements about Germany,[285] and the American, British and Chinese governments reiterated the demand for unconditional surrender of Japan, specifically stating that "the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction".[286] During this conference, the United Kingdom held its general election, and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as Prime Minister.[287]
193
+
194
+ The call for unconditional surrender was rejected by the Japanese government, which believed it would be capable of negotiating for more favourable surrender terms.[288] In early August, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Between the two bombings, the Soviets, pursuant to the Yalta agreement, invaded Japanese-held Manchuria and quickly defeated the Kwantung Army, which was the largest Japanese fighting force.[289] These two events persuaded previously adamant Imperial Army leaders to accept surrender terms.[290] The Red Army also captured the southern part of Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands. On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed at Tokyo Bay on the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war.[291]
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+ The Allies established occupation administrations in Austria and Germany. The former became a neutral state, non-aligned with any political bloc. The latter was divided into western and eastern occupation zones controlled by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. A denazification programme in Germany led to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg trials and the removal of ex-Nazis from power, although this policy moved towards amnesty and re-integration of ex-Nazis into West German society.[292]
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+ Germany lost a quarter of its pre-war (1937) territory. Among the eastern territories, Silesia, Neumark and most of Pomerania were taken over by Poland,[293] and East Prussia was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union, followed by the expulsion to Germany of the nine million Germans from these provinces,[294][295] as well as three million Germans from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. By the 1950s, one-fifth of West Germans were refugees from the east. The Soviet Union also took over the Polish provinces east of the Curzon line,[296] from which 2 million Poles were expelled;[295][297] north-east Romania,[298][299] parts of eastern Finland,[300] and the three Baltic states were incorporated into the Soviet Union.[301][302]
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+ In an effort to maintain world peace,[303] the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945,[304] and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 as a common standard for all member nations.[305] The great powers that were the victors of the war—France, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States—became the permanent members of the UN's Security Council.[306] The five permanent members remain so to the present, although there have been two seat changes, between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China in 1971, and between the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over.[307]
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+ Germany had been de facto divided, and two independent states, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany),[308] were created within the borders of Allied and Soviet occupation zones. The rest of Europe was also divided into Western and Soviet spheres of influence.[309] Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to establishment of Communist-led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. As a result, East Germany,[310] Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Albania[311] became Soviet satellite states. Communist Yugoslavia conducted a fully independent policy, causing tension with the Soviet Union.[312]
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+ Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.[313] The long period of political tensions and military competition between them, the Cold War, would be accompanied by an unprecedented arms race and proxy wars.[314]
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+ In Asia, the United States led the occupation of Japan and administrated Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.[315] Korea, formerly under Japanese rule, was divided and occupied by the Soviet Union in the North and the United States in the South between 1945 and 1948. Separate republics emerged on both sides of the 38th parallel in 1948, each claiming to be the legitimate government for all of Korea, which led ultimately to the Korean War.[316]
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+ In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. Communist forces were victorious and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan in 1949.[317] In the Middle East, the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and the creation of Israel marked the escalation of the Arab–Israeli conflict. While European powers attempted to retain some or all of their colonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading to decolonisation.[318][319]
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+ The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although participating nations were affected differently. The United States emerged much richer than any other nation, leading to a baby boom, and by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much higher than that of any of the other powers, and it dominated the world economy.[320] The UK and US pursued a policy of industrial disarmament in Western Germany in the years 1945–1948.[321] Because of international trade interdependencies this led to European economic stagnation and delayed European recovery for several years.[322][323]
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+ Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in Western Germany, and was sped up by the liberalisation of European economic policy that the Marshall Plan (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused.[324][325] The post-1948 West German recovery has been called the German economic miracle.[326] Italy also experienced an economic boom[327] and the French economy rebounded.[328] By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin,[329] and although receiving a quarter of the total Marshall Plan assistance, more than any other European country,[330] it continued in relative economic decline for decades.[331]
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+ The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era.[332] Japan recovered much later.[333] China returned to its pre-war industrial production by 1952.[334]
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+ Estimates for the total number of casualties in the war vary, because many deaths went unrecorded.[335] Most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians.[336][337][338]
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+ Many of the civilians died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass bombings, disease, and starvation.
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+ The Soviet Union alone lost around 27 million people during the war,[339] including 8.7 million military and 19 million civilian deaths.[340] A quarter of the people in the Soviet Union were wounded or killed.[341] Germany sustained 5.3 million military losses, mostly on the Eastern Front and during the final battles in Germany.[342]
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+ An estimated 11[343] to 17 million[344] civilians died as a direct or as an indirect result of Nazi racist policies, including mass killing of around 6 million Jews, along with Roma, homosexuals, at least 1.9 million ethnic Poles[345][346] and millions of other Slavs (including Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians), and other ethnic and minority groups.[347][344] Between 1941 and 1945, more than 200,000 ethnic Serbs, along with gypsies and Jews, were persecuted and murdered by the Axis-aligned Croatian Ustaše in Yugoslavia.[348] Also, more than 100,000 Poles were massacred by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the Volhynia massacres, between 1943 and 1945.[349] At the same time about 10,000–15,000 Ukrainians were killed by the Polish Home Army and other Polish units, in reprisal attacks.[350]
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+ In Asia and the Pacific, between 3 million and more than 10 million civilians, mostly Chinese (estimated at 7.5 million[351]), were killed by the Japanese occupation forces.[352] The most infamous Japanese atrocity was the Nanking Massacre, in which fifty to three hundred thousand Chinese civilians were raped and murdered.[353] Mitsuyoshi Himeta reported that 2.7 million casualties occurred during the Sankō Sakusen. General Yasuji Okamura implemented the policy in Heipei and Shantung.[354]
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+ Axis forces employed biological and chemical weapons. The Imperial Japanese Army used a variety of such weapons during its invasion and occupation of China (see Unit 731)[355][356] and in early conflicts against the Soviets.[357] Both the Germans and the Japanese tested such weapons against civilians,[358] and sometimes on prisoners of war.[359]
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+ The Soviet Union was responsible for the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers,[360] and the imprisonment or execution of thousands of political prisoners by the NKVD, along with mass civilian deportations to Siberia, in the Baltic states and eastern Poland annexed by the Red Army.[361]
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+ The mass bombing of cities in Europe and Asia has often been called a war crime, although no positive or specific customary international humanitarian law with respect to aerial warfare existed before or during World War II.[362] The USAAF firebombed a total of 67 Japanese cities, killing 393,000 civilians and destroying 65% of built-up areas.[363]
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+ Nazi Germany was responsible for the Holocaust (which killed approximately 6 million Jews) as well as for killing 2.7 million ethnic Poles[364] and 4 million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet prisoners of war, Romani, homosexuals, Freemasons, and Jehovah's Witnesses) as part of a programme of deliberate extermination, in effect becoming a "genocidal state".[365] Soviet POWs were kept in especially unbearable conditions, and 3.6 million Soviet POWs out of 5.7 died in Nazi camps during the war.[366][367] In addition to concentration camps, death camps were created in Nazi Germany to exterminate people on an industrial scale. Nazi Germany extensively used forced labourers; about 12 million Europeans from German occupied countries were abducted and used as a slave work force in German industry, agriculture and war economy.[368]
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+ The Soviet Gulag became a de facto system of deadly camps during 1942–43, when wartime privation and hunger caused numerous deaths of inmates,[369] including foreign citizens of Poland and other countries occupied in 1939–40 by the Soviet Union, as well as Axis POWs.[370] By the end of the war, most Soviet POWs liberated from Nazi camps and many repatriated civilians were detained in special filtration camps where they were subjected to NKVD evaluation, and 226,127 were sent to the Gulag as real or perceived Nazi collaborators.[371]
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+ Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, many of which were used as labour camps, also had high death rates. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found the death rate of Western prisoners was 27 per cent (for American POWs, 37 per cent),[372] seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians.[373] While 37,583 prisoners from the UK, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from the United States were released after the surrender of Japan, the number of Chinese released was only 56.[374]
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+ At least five million Chinese civilians from northern China and Manchukuo were enslaved between 1935 and 1941 by the East Asia Development Board, or Kōain, for work in mines and war industries. After 1942, the number reached 10 million.[375] In Java, between 4 and 10 million rōmusha (Japanese: "manual labourers"), were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese labourers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia, and only 52,000 were repatriated to Java.[376]
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+ In Europe, occupation came under two forms. In Western, Northern, and Central Europe (France, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and the annexed portions of Czechoslovakia) Germany established economic policies through which it collected roughly 69.5 billion reichmarks (27.8 billion US dollars) by the end of the war; this figure does not include the sizeable plunder of industrial products, military equipment, raw materials and other goods.[377] Thus, the income from occupied nations was over 40 per cent of the income Germany collected from taxation, a figure which increased to nearly 40 per cent of total German income as the war went on.[378]
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+ In the East, the intended gains of Lebensraum were never attained as fluctuating front-lines and Soviet scorched earth policies denied resources to the German invaders.[379] Unlike in the West, the Nazi racial policy encouraged extreme brutality against what it considered to be the "inferior people" of Slavic descent; most German advances were thus followed by mass executions.[380] Although resistance groups formed in most occupied territories, they did not significantly hamper German operations in either the East[381] or the West[382] until late 1943.
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+ In Asia, Japan termed nations under its occupation as being part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, essentially a Japanese hegemony which it claimed was for purposes of liberating colonised peoples.[383] Although Japanese forces were sometimes welcomed as liberators from European domination, Japanese war crimes frequently turned local public opinion against them.[384] During Japan's initial conquest it captured 4,000,000 barrels (640,000 m3) of oil (~5.5×105 tonnes) left behind by retreating Allied forces, and by 1943 was able to get production in the Dutch East Indies up to 50 million barrels (~6.8×10^6 t), 76 per cent of its 1940 output rate.[384]
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+ In Europe, before the outbreak of the war, the Allies had significant advantages in both population and economics. In 1938, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and the British Dominions) had a 30 per cent larger population and a 30 per cent higher gross domestic product than the European Axis powers (Germany and Italy); if colonies are included, the Allies had more than a 5:1 advantage in population and a nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP.[385] In Asia at the same time, China had roughly six times the population of Japan but only an 89 per cent higher GDP; this is reduced to three times the population and only a 38 per cent higher GDP if Japanese colonies are included.[385]
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+ The United States produced about two-thirds of all the munitions used by the Allies in WWII, including warships, transports, warplanes, artillery, tanks, trucks, and ammunition.[386]
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+ Though the Allies' economic and population advantages were largely mitigated during the initial rapid blitzkrieg attacks of Germany and Japan, they became the decisive factor by 1942, after the United States and Soviet Union joined the Allies, as the war largely settled into one of attrition.[387] While the Allies' ability to out-produce the Axis is often attributed[by whom?] to the Allies having more access to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and Japan's reluctance to employ women in the labour force,[388] Allied strategic bombing,[389] and Germany's late shift to a war economy[390] contributed significantly. Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan planned to fight a protracted war, and had not equipped themselves to do so.[391] To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millions of slave labourers;[392] Germany used about 12 million people, mostly from Eastern Europe,[368] while Japan used more than 18 million people in Far East Asia.[375][376]
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+ Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, as fighters, bombers, and ground-support, and each role was advanced considerably. Innovation included airlift (the capability to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment, and personnel);[393] and of strategic bombing (the bombing of enemy industrial and population centres to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war).[394] Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such as radar and surface-to-air artillery. The use of the jet aircraft was pioneered and, though late introduction meant it had little impact, it led to jets becoming standard in air forces worldwide.[395] Although guided missiles were being developed, they were not advanced enough to reliably target aircraft until some years after the war.
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+ Advances were made in nearly every aspect of naval warfare, most notably with aircraft carriers and submarines. Although aeronautical warfare had relatively little success at the start of the war, actions at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, and the Coral Sea established the carrier as the dominant capital ship in place of the battleship.[396][397][398] In the Atlantic, escort carriers proved to be a vital part of Allied convoys, increasing the effective protection radius and helping to close the Mid-Atlantic gap.[399] Carriers were also more economical than battleships because of the relatively low cost of aircraft[400] and their not requiring to be as heavily armoured.[401] Submarines, which had proved to be an effective weapon during the First World War,[402] were anticipated by all sides to be important in the second. The British focused development on anti-submarine weaponry and tactics, such as sonar and convoys, while Germany focused on improving its offensive capability, with designs such as the Type VII submarine and wolfpack tactics.[403][better source needed] Gradually, improving Allied technologies such as the Leigh light, hedgehog, squid, and homing torpedoes proved victorious over the German submarines.[citation needed]
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+ Land warfare changed from the static front lines of trench warfare of World War I, which had relied on improved artillery that outmatched the speed of both infantry and cavalry, to increased mobility and combined arms. The tank, which had been used predominantly for infantry support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon.[404] In the late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced than it had been during World War I,[405] and advances continued throughout the war with increases in speed, armour and firepower.[citation needed] At the start of the war, most commanders thought enemy tanks should be met by tanks with superior specifications.[406] This idea was challenged by the poor performance of the relatively light early tank guns against armour, and German doctrine of avoiding tank-versus-tank combat. This, along with Germany's use of combined arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg tactics across Poland and France.[404] Many means of destroying tanks, including indirect artillery, anti-tank guns (both towed and self-propelled), mines, short-ranged infantry antitank weapons, and other tanks were used.[406] Even with large-scale mechanisation, infantry remained the backbone of all forces,[407] and throughout the war, most infantry were equipped similarly to World War I.[408] The portable machine gun spread, a notable example being the German MG34, and various submachine guns which were suited to close combat in urban and jungle settings.[408] The assault rifle, a late war development incorporating many features of the rifle and submachine gun, became the standard postwar infantry weapon for most armed forces.[409]
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+ Most major belligerents attempted to solve the problems of complexity and security involved in using large codebooks for cryptography by designing ciphering machines, the most well known being the German Enigma machine.[410] Development of SIGINT (signals intelligence) and cryptanalysis enabled the countering process of decryption. Notable examples were the Allied decryption of Japanese naval codes[411] and British Ultra, a pioneering method for decoding Enigma benefiting from information given to the United Kingdom by the Polish Cipher Bureau, which had been decoding early versions of Enigma before the war.[412] Another aspect of military intelligence was the use of deception, which the Allies used to great effect, such as in operations Mincemeat and Bodyguard.[411][413]
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+ Other technological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war include the world's first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear weapons, operations research and the development of artificial harbours and oil pipelines under the English Channel.[citation needed] Penicillin was first mass-produced and used during the war (see Stabilization and mass production of penicillin).[414]
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+ The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 BC to 146 BC. The main cause of the Punic Wars was the conflicts of interest between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily (which at that time was a cultural melting pot), part of which lay under Carthaginian control. At the start of the First Punic War (264–241 BC), Carthage was the dominant power of the Western Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire. Rome was a rapidly ascending power in Italy, but it lacked the naval power of Carthage. The Second Punic War (218–201 BC) witnessed Hannibal's crossing of the Alps in 218 BC, followed by a prolonged but ultimately failed campaign of Carthage's Hannibal in mainland Italy. By the end of the Third Punic War (149–146 BC), after more than a hundred years and the loss of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage's empire, completely destroyed the city, and became the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean.
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+ With the end of the Macedonian Wars – which ran concurrently with the Punic Wars – and the defeat of the Seleucid King Antiochus III the Great in the Roman–Seleucid War (Treaty of Apamea, 188 BC) in the eastern sea, Rome emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and one of the most powerful cities in classical antiquity. The Roman victories over Carthage in these wars gave Rome a preeminent status it would retain until the 5th century AD.
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+ The main source for almost every aspect of the Punic Wars[note 1] is the historian Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC), a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage.[2] His works include a now-lost manual on military tactics,[3] but he is now known for The Histories, written sometime after 146 BC.[4][5] Polybius's work is considered broadly objective and largely neutral as between Carthaginian and Roman points of view.[6][7] Polybius was an analytical historian and wherever possible personally interviewed participants, from both sides, in the events he wrote about.[8][9][10] He accompanied the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus during his campaign in North Africa which resulted in a Roman victory in the Third Punic War.[11]
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+ The accuracy of Polybius's account has been much debated over the past 150 years, but the modern consensus is to accept it largely at face value, and the details of the war in modern sources are largely based on interpretations of Polybius's account.[2][12][13] The modern historian Andrew Curry sees Polybius as being "fairly reliable";[14] while Craige Champion describes him as "a remarkably well-informed, industrious, and insightful historian".[15]
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+ Other, later, ancient histories of the war exist, although often in fragmentary or summary form.[16] Modern historians usually take into account the writings of various Roman annalists, some contemporary; the Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus; the later Roman historians Livy (who relied heavily on Polybius[17]), Plutarch, Appian (whose account of the Third Punic War is especially valuable[18]) and Dio Cassius.[19] The classicist Adrian Goldsworthy states "Polybius' account is usually to be preferred when it differs with any of our other accounts".[note 2][9] Other sources include inscriptions, archaeological evidence and empirical evidence from reconstructions such as the trireme Olympias.[20]
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+ The Roman Republic had been aggressively expanding in the southern Italian mainland for a century before the First Punic War.[21] It had conquered peninsular Italy south of the River Arno by 272 BC, when the Greek cities of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) submitted at the conclusion of the Pyrrhic War.[22] During this period Carthage, with its capital in what is now Tunisia, had come to dominate southern Spain, much of the coastal regions of North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and the western half of Sicily in a military and commercial empire.[23]
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+ Beginning in 480 BC, Carthage had fought a series of inconclusive wars against the Greek city states of Sicily, led by Syracuse.[24] By 264 BC Carthage and Rome were the preeminent powers in the western Mediterranean.[25] The two states had several times asserted their mutual friendship via formal alliances: in 509 BC, 348 BC and around 279 BC. Relationships were good, with strong commercial links. During the Pyrrhic War of 280–275 BC, against a king of Epirus who alternately fought Rome in Italy and Carthage on Sicily, Carthage provided materiel to the Romans and on at least one occasion used its navy to ferry a Roman force.[26][27]
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+ The two states had several times asserted their mutual friendship via formal alliances: in 509 BC, 348 BC and around 279 BC. Relationships were good, with strong commercial links. During the Pyrrhic War of 280–275 BC, against a king of Epirus who alternately fought Rome in Italy and Carthage on Sicily, Carthage provided materiel to the Romans and on at least one occasion used its navy to ferry a Roman force.[26][27] Rome's expansion into southern Italy probably made it inevitable that it would eventually clash with Carthage over Sicily on some pretext. The immediate cause of the war was the issue of control of the Sicilian town of Messana (modern Messina).[28] In 264 BC Carthage and Rome went to war, starting the First Punic War.[29]
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+ Most male Roman citizens were eligible for military service and would serve as infantry, a better-off minority providing a cavalry component. Traditionally, when at war the Romans would raise two legions, each of 4,200 infantry[note 3] and 300 cavalry. A few infantry served as javelin-armed skirmishers. The balance were equipped as heavy infantry, with body armour, a large shield and short thrusting swords. They were divided into three ranks, of which the front rank also carried two javelins, while the second and third ranks had a thrusting spear instead. Both legionary sub-units and individual legionaries fought in relatively open order. It was the long-standing Roman procedure to elect two men each year, known as consuls, to each lead an army. An army was usually formed by combining a Roman legion with a similarly sized and equipped legion provided by their Latin allies.[32][33]
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+ Carthaginian citizens only served in their army if there was a direct threat to the city. When they did they fought as well-armoured heavy infantry armed with long thrusting spears, although they were notoriously ill-trained and ill-disciplined. In most circumstances Carthage recruited foreigners to make up its army. Many would be from North Africa, a majority during the First Punic War, which provided several types of fighters including: close-order infantry equipped with large shields, helmets, short swords and long thrusting spears; javelin-armed light infantry skirmishers; close-order shock cavalry carrying spears; and light cavalry skirmishers who threw javelins from a distance and avoided close combat.[34][35][36] Both Spain and Gaul provided large numbers of experienced infantry, especially during the Second Punic War; they were mostly unarmoured troops who would charge ferociously, but had a reputation for breaking off if a combat was protracted.[37][38][39] The close order Libyan infantry and the citizen-militia would fight in a tightly packed formation known as a phalanx.[35] On occasion some of the infantry would wear captured Roman armour, especially among Hannibal's troops.[40] Slingers were frequently recruited from the Balearic Islands.[41][42] The Carthaginians also employed war elephants; North Africa had indigenous African forest elephants at the time.[note 4][38][44]
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+ Garrison duty and land blockades were the most common operations for both armies.[45][46] When armies were campaigning, surprise attacks, ambushes and strategems were common.[35][47] More formal battles were usually preceded by the two armies camping a mile or two apart (2–3 km) for days or weeks; sometimes forming up in battle order each day. If neither commander could see an advantage, both sides might march off without engaging.[48] Forming up in battle order was a complicated and premeditated affair, which took several hours. Infantry were usually positioned in the centre of the battle line, with light infantry skirmishers to their front and cavalry on each flank.[49] Many battles were decided when one side's infantry force was attacked in the flank or rear and they were partially or wholly enveloped.[35]
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+ Quinqueremes, meaning "five-oarsmen",[50] provided the workhorses of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout the Punic Wars.[51] So ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for "warship" in general.[52] A quinquereme carried a crew of 300: 280 oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers.[53] It would also normally carry a complement of 40 marines,[54] if battle was thought to be imminent this would be increased to as many as 120.[55][56] In 260 BC Romans set out to construct a fleet and used a shipwrecked Carthaginian quinquereme as a blueprint for their own.[57]
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+ As novice shipwrights, the Romans built copies that were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, and so slower and less manoeuvrable.[58] Getting the oarsmen to row as a unit, let alone to execute more complex battle manoeuvres, required long and arduous training.[59] At least half of the oarsmen would need to have had some experience if the ship was to be handled effectively.[60] As a result, the Romans were initially at a disadvantage against the more experienced Carthaginians. To counter this, the Romans introduced the corvus, a bridge 1.2 metres (4 feet) wide and 11 metres (36 feet) long, with a heavy spike on the underside, which was designed to pierce and anchor into an enemy ship's deck.[55] This allowed Roman legionaries acting as marines to board enemy ships and capture them, rather than employing the previously traditional tactic of ramming.[61]
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+ All warships were equipped with rams, a triple set of 60-centimetre-wide (2 ft) bronze blades weighing up to 270 kilograms (600 lb) positioned at the waterline. In the century prior to the Punic Wars, boarding had become increasingly common and ramming had declined, as the larger and heavier vessels adopted in this period lacked the speed and manoeuvrability necessary to ram, while their sturdier construction reduced the ram's effect even in case of a successful attack. The Roman adaptation of the corvus was a continuation of this trend and compensated for their initial disadvantage in ship-manoeuvring skills. The added weight in the prow compromised both the ship's manoeuvrability and its seaworthiness, and in rough sea conditions the corvus became useless; part way through the First Punic War the Romans ceased using it.[61][62][63]
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+ The war began with the Romans gaining a foothold on Sicily at Messana (modern Messina).[64] The Romans then pressed Syracuse, the only significant independent power on the island, into allying with them[65] and laid siege to Carthage's main base at Akragas.[66] A large Carthaginian army attempted to lift the siege in 262 BC, but was heavily defeated at the Battle of Akragas. That night the Carthaginian garrison escaped and the Romans seized the city and its inhabitants, selling 25,000 of them into slavery.[67] The Romans then built a navy to challenge Carthage's,[68] and using the corvus inflicted several defeats.[69][70][71] A Carthaginian base on Corsica was seized, but an attack on Sardinia was repulsed; the base on Corsica was then lost.[72]
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+ Taking advantage of their naval victories the Romans launched an invasion of North Africa,[73] which the Carthaginians intercepted. At the Battle of Cape Ecnomus the Carthaginians were again beaten;[74] this was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved.[75][76][77] The invasion initially went well and in 255 BC the Carthaginians sued for peace; the proposed terms were so harsh they fought on,[78] defeating the invaders.[79] The Romans sent a fleet to evacuate their survivors and the Carthaginians opposed it at the Battle of Cape Hermaeum off Africa; the Carthaginians were heavily defeated.[80] The Roman fleet, in turn, was devastated by a storm while returning to Italy, losing most of its ships and over 100,000 men.[80][81][82]
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+
37
+ The war continued, with neither side able to gain a decisive advantage.[83] The Carthaginians attacked and recaptured Akragas in 255 BC, but not believing they could hold the city, they razed and abandoned it.[84][85] The Romans rapidly rebuilt their fleet, adding 220 new ships, and captured Panormus (modern Palermo) in 254 BC.[86] The next year they lost another 150 ships to a storm.[87] In 251 BC the Carthaginians attempted to recapture Panormus, but were defeated in a battle outside the walls.[88][89] Slowly the Romans had occupied most of Sicily; in 249 BC they besieged the last two Carthaginian strongholds – in the extreme west.[90] They also launched a surprise attack on the Carthaginian fleet, but were defeated at the Battle of Drepana.[91] The Carthaginians followed up their victory and most of the remaining Roman warships were lost at the Battle of Phintias.[92] After several years of stalemate,[93] the Romans rebuilt their fleet again in 243 BC[94] and effectively blockaded the Carthaginian garrisons[95]. Carthage assembled a fleet which attempted to relieve them, but it was destroyed at the Battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC,[96][97] forcing the cut-off Carthaginian troops on Sicily to negotiate for peace.[98][95]
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+
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+ A treaty was agreed. By its terms Carthage paid 3,200 talents of silver[note 5][note 6] in reparations and Sicily was annexed as a Roman province.[96] Henceforth Rome considered itself the leading military power in the western Mediterranean, and increasingly the Mediterranean region as a whole. The immense effort of repeatedly building large fleets of galleys during the war laid the foundation for Rome's maritime dominance for 600 years.[100]
40
+
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+ The Mercenary War began in 241 BC as a dispute over the payment of wages owed to 20,000 foreign soldiers who had fought for Carthage on Sicily during the First Punic War. When a compromise seemed to have been reached the army erupted into full-scale mutiny under the leadership of Spendius and Matho. 70,000 Africans from Carthage's oppressed dependant territories flocked to join them, bringing supplies and finance. War-weary Carthage fared poorly in the initial engagements, especially under the generalship of Hanno. Hamilcar Barca, a veteran of the campaigns in Sicily (and father of Hannibal Barca), was given joint command of the army in 240 BC; and supreme command in 239 BC. He campaigned successfully, initially demonstrating leniency in an attempt to woo the rebels over. To prevent this, in 240 BC Spendius tortured 700 Carthaginian prisoners to death, and henceforth the war was pursued with great brutality.
42
+
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+ By early 237 BC, after numerous setbacks, the rebels were defeated and their cities brought back under Carthaginian rule. An expedition was prepared to reoccupy Sardinia, where mutinous soldiers had slaughtered all Carthaginians. The Roman Senate stated they considered the preparation of this force an act of war, and demanded Carthage cede Sardinia and Corsica, and pay an additional 1,200-talent indemnity.[101][102][note 7] Weakened by 30 years of war, Carthage agreed rather than again enter into conflict with Rome.[103] Polybius considered this "contrary to all justice"[101] and modern historians have variously described the Romans' behaviour as "unprovoked aggression and treaty-breaking",[101] "shamelessly opportunistic"[104] and an "unscrupulous act".[105] These events fuelled resentment in Carthage, which was not reconciled to Rome's perception of its situation. This breach of the recently signed treaty has been considered to be the single greatest cause of war with Carthage breaking out again in 218 BC in the Second Punic War.[106][107][108]
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+
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+ With the suppression of the rebellion, Hamilcar Barca understood that Carthage needed to strengthen its economic and military base if it were to again confront Rome.[110] After the First Punic War, Carthaginian possessions in Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) were limited to a handful of prosperous coastal cities.[111] Hamilcar took the army which he had led to victory in the Mercenary War and led it to Iberia in 237 BC. He carved out a quasi-monarchial, autonomous state in south-east Iberia.[112] This gave Carthage the silver mines, agricultural wealth, manpower, military facilities such as shipyards and territorial depth to stand up to future Roman demands with confidence.[113][114] Hamilcar ruled as a viceroy and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, in the early 220s BC and then his son, Hannibal, in 221 BC.[115] In 226 BC the Ebro Treaty was agreed, specifying the Ebro River as the northern boundary of the Carthaginian sphere of influence.[116] A little later Rome made a separate treaty with the city of Saguntum, well south of the Ebro.[117]
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+
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+ In 219 BC a Carthaginian army under Hannibal besieged, captured and sacked Saguntum.[106][118] In spring 218 BC Rome declared war on Carthage.[119] There were three main military theatres in the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success until moving into Italy; and Africa, where the war was decided.
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+ In 218 BC there was some naval skirmishing in the waters around Sicily. The Romans beat off a Carthaginian attack[120][121] and captured the island of Malta.[122] In Cisalpine Gaul (modern northern Italy), the major Gallic tribes attacked the Roman colonies, causing the Romans to flee to Mutina (modern Modena), which the they besieged. A Roman relief army raised the siege, but was then ambushed and besieged itself.[123] An army had been raised to campaign in Iberia under the brothers Gnaeus and Publius Scipio and the Roman Senate detached one Roman and one allied legion from it tosend to the region. The Scipios had to raise fresh troops to replace these and thus could not set out for Iberia until September.[124]
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+
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+ Meanwhile, Hannibal assembled a Carthaginian army in New Carthage (modern Cartagena) and led it northwards along the coast in May or June. It entered Gaul and took an inland route, to avoid the Roman allies along the coast.[125] At the Battle of Rhone Crossing, Hannibal defeated a force of local Allobroges that sought to bar his way.[126] A Roman fleet carrying the Scipio brothers' army landed at Rome's ally Massalia (modern Marseille) at the mouth of the Rhone.[127] Hannibal evaded the Romans and Gnaeus Scipio continued to Iberia with the Roman army;[128][129] Publius returned to Rome.[129] The Carthaginians reached the foot of the Alps by late autumn[125] and crossed them, surmounting the difficulties of climate, terrain[125]> and the guerrilla tactics of the native tribes. The exact route is disputed. Hannibal arrived with 20,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and an unknown number of elephants[65] in what is now Piedmont, northern Italy. The Romans were still in their winter quarters. His surprise entry into the Italian peninsula led to the termination of Rome's planned campaign for the year, an invasion of Africa.[130]
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+
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+ Hannibal's first action was to take the chief city of the hostile Taurini (in the area of modern-day Turin). His army then routed the cavalry and light infantry of the Romans under Publius Scipio at the Battle of Ticinus.[131] As a result, most of the Gallic tribes declared for the Carthaginian cause, and Hannibal's army grew to over 40,000 men.[132] A large Roman army under the command of Sempronius Longus was lured into combat by Hannibal at the Battle of the Trebia, encircled and destroyed.[133] Only 10,000 Romans out of 42,000 were able to cut their way to safety. Gauls now joined Hannibal's army in large numbers, bringing it up to 60,000 men.[132] The Romans stationed an army at Arretium and one on the Adriatic coast to block Hannibal's advance into central Italy.[134]
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+ In early spring 217 BC, the Carthaginians crossed the Apennines unopposed, taking a difficult but unguarded route.[135] Hannibal attempted without success to draw the main Roman army under Gaius Flaminius into a pitched battle by devastating the area they had been sent to protect.[136] Hannibal then cut off the Roman army from Rome, which provoked Flaminius into a hasty pursuit without proper reconnaissance.[137] Then, in a defile on the shore of Lake Trasimenus, Hannibal set an ambush[137] and in the Battle of Lake Trasimene completely defeated the Roman army and killed Flaminius.[137] 15,000 Romans were killed and 15,000 taken prisoner. 4,000 Roman cavalry from their other army were also engaged and wiped out.[138] The prisoners were sold as slaves if they were Romans, but released if they were from one of Rome's Latin allies.[139] Hannibal hoped that some of these allies could be persuaded to defect, and marched south in the hope of winning over allies among the ethnic Greek and Italic city states.[134]
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+ The Romans, panicked by these heavy defeats, appointed Quintus Fabius Maximus as dictator.[139] Fabius invented the Fabian strategy of avoiding open battle with his opponent, but constantly skirmishing with small detachments of the enemy. This was not popular among the soldiers, the Roman public nor the Roman elite, since he avoided battle while Italy was being devastated by the enemy.[134] Hannibal marched through the richest and most fertile provinces of Italy, hoping that the devastation would draw Fabius into battle, but Fabius refused.[140]
58
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+ At the elections of 216 BC the more aggressive minded Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus were elected as consuls.[141] The Roman Senate authorized the raising of double-sized armies, a force of 86,000 men, the largest in Roman history up to that point.[141] Paullus and Varro marched southward to confront Hannibal, who accepted battle on the open plain near Cannae. In the Battle of Cannae The Roman legions forced their way through Hannibal's deliberately weak centre, but the Libyans on the wings swung around their advance, menacing their flanks.[142] Hasdrubal led Carthaginian cavalry on the left wing and routed the Roman cavalry opposite, then swept around the rear of the Romans to attack the cavalry on the other wing. He then charged into the legions' from behind.[142] As a result, the Roman infantry was surrounded with no means of escape.[142] At least 67,500 Romans were killed or captured.[142].
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+ Gnaeus Scipio continued on from Massala in the summer of 218 BC to Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal), where he won support among the local tribes.[128] The Carthaginian commander in the area refused to wait for reinforcements and attacked Scipio at the Battle of Cissa in late 218 BC and was defeated.[128][143] In 217 BC, the Carthaginians moved to engage the combined Roman and Massalian fleet at the Battle of Ebro River. The 40 Carthaginian and Iberian vessels were beaten by 55 Roman and Massalian ships in the second naval engagement of the war, with 29 Carthaginian ships lost. Carthaginian forces retreated, but the Romans remained confined to the area between the Ebro and Pyrenees.[143]
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+ The Roman army in Spain was preventing the Carthaginians from sending reinforcements from Iberia to Hannibal or to the insurgent Gauls in northern Italy.[143] Hasdrubal marched into Roman territory in 215 BC, besieged a pro-Roman town and offered battle at Dertosa. After a hard-fought battle, he was defeated although both sides suffered heavy losses.[144] Hasdrubal was now unable to reinforce Hannibal in Italy.[144][128]
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+ The Carthaginians suffered a wave of defections of local Celtiberian tribes to Rome.[128] The Scipio brothers captured Saguntum in 212 BC.[144] In 211, they hired 20,000 Celtiberian mercenaries to reinforce their army.[144] Observing that the three Carthaginian armies were deployed apart from each other, the Scipios split their forces.[144] Publius moved to attack Mago Barca near Castulo, while Gnaeus marched on Hasdrubal.[144] This stratagy resulted in the Battle of Castulo and the Battle of Ilorca, usually combined as the Battle of the Upper Baetis.[128][144] Both battles ended in complete defeat for the Romans, with both of the Scipio brothers being killed, as Hasdrubal had bribed the Romans' mercenaries to desert.[128][144] The Romans retreated to their coastal stronghold north of the Ebro, from which the Carthaginians failed to expel them.[144][128] Claudius Nero brought over reinforcements in 210 and stabilized the situation.[144]
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+ In 210 BC, Scipio Africanus arrived in Spain with further reinforcements.[145] In a carefully planned assault in 209 BC, he captured the lightly-defended centre of Carthaginian power in Spain, Cartago Nova.[146][145] Scipio had the population slaughtered and a vast booty of gold, silver and siege artillery was taken.[147][145] He liberated the Iberian hostages kept by the Carthaginians to ensure the loyalty of the Iberian tribes,[147][145] although many of them were subsequently to fight against the Romans.[145]
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+ In 206 BC, at the Battle of Ilipa, Scipio with 48,000 men, half Italians and half Iberians, defeated a Carthaginian army of 54,500 men and 32 elephants under the command of Mago Barca, Hasdrubal Gisco and Masinissa This sealed the fate of the Carthaginian presence in Iberia.[148][145] It was followed by the Roman capture of Gades after the city rebelled against Carthaginian rule.[149]
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+ Later that year a dangerous mutiny broke out among Roman troops at their camp at Sucro. It initially attracted support from Iberian leaders, disappointed that Roman forces had remained in the peninsula after the expulsion of the Carthaginians. It was effectively put down by Scipio Africanus. In 205 BC a last attempt was made by Mago to recapture New Carthage when the Roman occupiers were shaken by another mutiny and an Iberian uprising, but he was repulsed. Mago left Spain for Italy with his remaining forces.[147] In 203 BC Carthage succeeded in recruiting at least 4,000 mercenaries from Iberia, despite Rome's nominal control.[150]
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+ In 213 BC Syphax, a powerful Numidian king in North Africa,[144] declared for Rome. Rome sent advisers to train his soldiers[144] and he waged war against the Carthaginian ally Gala.[144] In 206 BC the Carthaginians ended this drain on their resources by dividing several Numidian kingdoms with him. One of those disinherited was the Numidian prince Masinissa, who was thus driven into the arms of Rome.[151]
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+ In 205 BC Scipio Africanus was given command of the legions in Sicily and allowed to enroll volunteers for his plan to end the war by an invasion of Africa.[152] After landing in Africa in 204 BC, he was joined by Masinissa and a force of Numidian cavalry.[153] Scipio then besieged and failed to take the city of Utica.[154] When a Carthaginian and Numidian relief army under Hasdrubal Barca and Syphax moved to confront him, he mounted a surprise attack and destroyed it.[155] In 203 BC Scipio confronted a second Carthaginian army and destroyed at the Battle of the Great Plains. King Syphax was pursued and taken prisoner at the Battle of Cirta and Masinissa seized a large part of his kingdom with Roman help.[156]
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+ Rome and Carthage entered into peace negotiations, and Carthage recalled Hannibal from Italy.[157] Largely due to mutual mistrust the negotiations came to nothing.[158] Hannibal was placed in command of another army, based his veterans from Italy and newly raised troops from Africa, but with few cavalry.[159] The decisive Battle of Zama followed in October 202 BC.[160] Unlike most battles of the Second Punic War, the Romans had superiority in cavalry and the Carthaginians in infantry.[159] Hannibal attempted to use 80 elephants to break into the Roman infantry formation, but the Romans countered them effectively and they routed back through the Carthaginian ranks.[161] The Roman and Allied Numidian cavalry drove the Carthaginian cavalry from the field. The two sides' infantry fought inconclusively until the Roman cavalry returned and attacked his rear. The Carthaginian formation collapsed; Hannibal was one of the few to escape the field.[160]
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+ The peace treaty imposed on the Carthaginians stripped them of all of their overseas territories, and some of their African ones. An indemnity of 10,000 silver talents[note 8] was to be paid over 50 years. Hostages were taken. Carthage was forbidden to possess war elephants and its fleet was restricted to 10 warships. It was prohibited from waging war outside Africa, and in Africa only with Rome's express permission. Many senior Carthaginians wanted to reject it, but Hannibal spoke strongly in its favour and it was accepted in spring 201 BC.[162] Henceforth it was clear that Carthage was politically subordinate to Rome.[163]
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+ At the end of the war, Masinissa emerged as by far the most powerful ruler among the Numidians.[164] Over the following 48 years he repeatedly took advantage of Carthage's inability to protect its possessions. Whenever Carthage petioned Rome for redress, or permission to take military action, Rome backed its ally, Masinissa, and refused.[165] Masinissa's seizures of and raids into Carthaginian territory became increasingly flagrant. In 151 BC Carthage raised a large army, the treaty notwithstanding, and counter attacked the Numidians. The campaign ended in disaster and the army surrendered.[166] Carthage had paid off its indemnity and was prospering economically, but was no military threat to Rome.[167][168] Elements in the Roman Senate had long wished to destroy Carthage, and with the breach of the treaty as a casus belli, war was declared in 149 BC.[166]
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+ In 149 BC a Roman army of approximately 50,000 men, jointly commanded by both consuls, landed near Utica, 35 kilometres (22 mi) north of Carthage.[169] Rome demanded that if war were to be avoided, the Carthaginians must hand over all of their armaments. Vast amounts of materiel delivered, including 200,000 sets of armour, 2,000 catapults and a large number of warships.[170] This done, the Romans demanded that the Carthaginians burn their city and relocate at least 10 miles (16 km) from the sea; the Carthaginians broke off negotiations and set to recreating their armoury.[171]
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+ As well as manning the walls of Carthage, the Carthaginians formed a field army under Hasdrubal, which was based 25 kilometres (16 mi) to the south.[173][174] The Roman army moved to lay siege to Carthage, but its walls were so strong and its citizen-militia so determined that it was unable to make any impact, while the Carthaginians struck back effectively. Their army effectively raided the Roman lines of communication,[174] and in 148 BC Carthaginian fire ships destroyed many Roman vessels. The main Roman camp was in a swamp, which caused many deaths from disease during the summer.[175] The Romans moved their camp, and their ships, further away; so that they were more blockading thab closely besieging the city.[176] The war dragged on into 147 BC.[174]
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+ under the command of Scipio Aemilianus resulted in a three-year siege before he breached the walls, sacked the city, and systematically burned Carthage to the ground in 146 BC. When the war ended, the surviving 50,000 Carthaginians, a small part of the pre-war population, were sold into slavery.[177] Carthage was systematically burned for 17 days; the city's walls and buildings were utterly destroyed.[178] The notion that Roman forces then sowed the city with salt to ensure that nothing would grow there again is a 20th-century invention.[179]
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+ The remaining Carthaginian territories were annexed by Rome and reconstituted to become the Roman province of Africa. Numerous significant Punic cities, such as those in Mauretania, were taken over and rebuilt by the Romans.[180] Utica, the Punic city which changed loyalties at the beginning of the siege, became the capital of the Roman province of Africa.[181] A century later, the site of Carthage was rebuilt as a Roman city by Julius Caesar, and would become one of the main cities of Roman Africa by the time of the Empire.
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+ Rome still exists as the capital of Italy; the ruins of Carthage lie 16 kilometres (10 mi) east of modern Tunis on the North African coast.[182]
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+ The German Empire or the Imperial State of Germany[a][4][5][6][7] also referred to Imperial Germany,[8] was the German nation state[9] that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II in 1918.
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+ It was founded on 1 January 1871 when the south German states, except for Austria, joined the North German Confederation and the new constitution came into force changing the name of the federal state to the German Empire and introduced the title of German Emperor for Wilhelm I, King of Prussia from the House of Hohenzollern.[10] Berlin remained its capital, and Bismarck, Minister-President of Prussia became Chancellor, the head of government. As these events occurred, the Prussian-led North German Confederation and its southern German allies were still engaged in the Franco-Prussian War.
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+ The German Empire consisted of 26 states, most of them ruled by royal families. They included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies (six before 1876), seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia was one of four kingdoms in the realm, it contained about two thirds of Germany's population and territory. Prussian dominance had also been established constitutionally.
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+ After 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron (and later steel), chemicals, and railways. In 1871, Germany had a population of 41 million people; by 1913, this had increased to 68 million. A heavily rural collection of states in 1815, the now united Germany became predominantly urban.[11] During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire was an industrial, technological, and scientific giant, gaining more Nobel Prizes in science than any other country.[12] Between 1901 and 1918, the Germans won 4 Nobel Prizes in Medicine, 6 Prizes in Physics, 7 Prizes in Chemistry and 3 Prizes in Literature. By 1913, Germany was the largest economy in Continental Europe, surpassing the United Kingdom (excluding its Empire and Dominions), as well as the third-largest in the world, only behind the United States and the British Empire.[13]
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+ From 1867 to 1878/9, Otto von Bismarck's tenure as the first and to this day longest-serving Chancellor was marked by relative liberalism, but it became more conservative afterwards. Broad reforms, and the Kulturkampf marked his period in the office. Late in Bismarck's chancellorship and in spite of his personal opposition, Germany became involved in colonialism. Claiming much of the leftover territory that was yet unclaimed in the Scramble for Africa, it managed to build the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and the French ones.[14] As a colonial state, it sometimes clashed with other European powers, especially the British Empire.
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+ Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly developing rail network, the world's strongest army,[15] and a fast-growing industrial base.[16] Starting very small in 1871, in a decade, the navy became second only to Britain's Royal Navy. After the removal of Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II in 1890, the Empire embarked on Weltpolitik – a bellicose new course that ultimately contributed to the outbreak of World War I. In addition, Bismarck's successors were incapable of maintaining their predecessor's complex, shifting, and overlapping alliances which had kept Germany from being diplomatically isolated. This period was marked by various factors influencing the Emperor's decisions, which were often perceived as contradictory or unpredictable by the public. In 1879, the German Empire consolidated the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary, followed by the Triple Alliance with Italy in 1882. It also retained strong diplomatic ties to the Ottoman Empire. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, Italy left the alliance and the Ottoman Empire formally allied with Germany.
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+ In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in the autumn of 1914 failed. The war on the Western Front became a stalemate. The Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. However, Imperial Germany had success on the Eastern Front; it occupied a large amount of territory to its east following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 contributed to bringing the United States into the war.
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+ The high command under Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff increasingly controlled the country, but in October after the failed offensive in spring 1918, the German armies were in retreat, allies Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, and Bulgaria had surrendered. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution with the abdications of its monarchs. This left a post-war federal republic and a devastated and unsatisfied populace, faced with post-war reparation costs of nearly 270 billion dollars,[17] all in all leading to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.[18]
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+ The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, after being alluded to in Article 6 of the 1814 Treaty of Paris.[19]
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+ Bourgeois revolutions of 1848, associated with highly educated and middle class were crushed in favor of peasants, artisans and Otto von Bismarck's pragmatic Realpolitik.[20] Bismarck sought to extend Hohenzollern hegemony throughout the German states; to do so meant unification of the German states and the exclusion of Prussia's main German rival, Austria, from the subsequent German Empire. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany. Three wars led to military successes and helped to persuade German people to do this: the Second Schleswig War against Denmark in 1864, the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871.
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+ The German Confederation ended as a result of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 between the constituent Confederation entities of the Austrian Empire and its allies on one side and the Prussia and its allies on the other. The war resulted in the partial replacement of the Confederation in 1867 by a North German Confederation, comprising the 22 states north of the Main River. The patriotic fervour generated by the Franco-Prussian War overwhelmed the remaining opposition to a unified Germany (aside from Austria) in the four states south of the Main and during November 1870 they joined the North German Confederation by treaty.[21]
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+ On 10 December 1870, the North German Confederation Reichstag renamed the Confederation the "German Empire" and gave the title of German Emperor to William I, the King of Prussia, as Bundespräsidium of the Confederation.[22] The new constitution (Constitution of the German Confederation) and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871. During the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.[23]
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+ The second German Constitution, adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April,[23] was substantially based upon Bismarck's North German Constitution. The political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage. However, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas. As a result, by the time of the great expansion of German cities in the 1890s and 1900s, rural areas were grossly over-represented.
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+ Legislation also required the consent of the Bundesrat, the federal council of deputies from the 27 states. Executive power was vested in the emperor, or Kaiser, who was assisted by a Chancellor responsible only to him. The emperor was given extensive powers by the constitution. He alone appointed and dismissed the chancellor (so in practice the emperor ruled the empire through the chancellor), was supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and final arbiter of all foreign affairs, and could also disband the Reichstag to call for new elections. Officially, the chancellor was a one-man cabinet and was responsible for the conduct of all state affairs; in practice, the State Secretaries (bureaucratic top officials in charge of such fields as finance, war, foreign affairs, etc.) functioned much like ministers in other monarchies. The Reichstag had the power to pass, amend, or reject bills and to initiate legislation. However, as mentioned above, in practice the real power was vested in the emperor, who exercised it through his chancellor.
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+ Although nominally a federal empire and league of equals, in practice, the empire was dominated by the largest and most powerful state, Prussia. Prussia stretched across the northern two-thirds of the new Reich and contained three-fifths of its population. The imperial crown was hereditary in the ruling house of Prussia, the House of Hohenzollern. With the exception of 1872–1873 and 1892–1894, the chancellor was always simultaneously the prime minister of Prussia. With 17 out of 58 votes in the Bundesrat, Berlin needed only a few votes from the smaller states to exercise effective control.
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+ The other states retained their own governments, but had only limited aspects of sovereignty. For example, both postage stamps and currency were issued for the empire as a whole. Coins through one mark were also minted in the name of the empire, while higher-valued pieces were issued by the states. However, these larger gold and silver issues were virtually commemorative coins and had limited circulation.
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+ While the states issued their own decorations and some had their own armies, the military forces of the smaller ones were put under Prussian control. Those of the larger states, such as the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony, were coordinated along Prussian principles and would in wartime be controlled by the federal government.
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+ The evolution of the German Empire is somewhat in line with parallel developments in Italy, which became a united nation-state a decade earlier. Some key elements of the German Empire's authoritarian political structure were also the basis for conservative modernization in Imperial Japan under Meiji and the preservation of an authoritarian political structure under the tsars in the Russian Empire.
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+ One factor in the social anatomy of these governments was the retention of a very substantial share in political power by the landed elite, the Junkers, resulting from the absence of a revolutionary breakthrough by the peasants in combination with urban areas.
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+ Although authoritarian in many respects, the empire had some democratic features. Besides universal suffrage, it permitted the development of political parties. Bismarck's intention was to create a constitutional façade which would mask the continuation of authoritarian policies. In the process, he created a system with a serious flaw. There was a significant disparity between the Prussian and German electoral systems. Prussia used a highly restrictive three-class voting system in which the richest third of the population could choose 85% of the legislature, all but assuring a conservative majority. As mentioned above, the king and (with two exceptions) the prime minister of Prussia were also the emperor and chancellor of the empire – meaning that the same rulers had to seek majorities from legislatures elected from completely different franchises. Universal suffrage was significantly diluted by gross over-representation of rural areas from the 1890s onward. By the turn of the century, the urban-rural population balance was completely reversed from 1871; more than two-thirds of the empire's people lived in cities and towns.
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+ Bismarck's domestic policies played an important role in forging the authoritarian political culture of the Kaiserreich. Less preoccupied by continental power politics following unification in 1871, Germany's semi-parliamentary government carried out a relatively smooth economic and political revolution from above that pushed them along the way towards becoming the world's leading industrial power of the time.
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+ Bismarck's "revolutionary conservatism" was a conservative state-building strategy designed to make ordinary Germans—not just the Junker elite—more loyal to throne and empire. According to Kees van Kersbergen and Barbara Vis, his strategy was:
46
+
47
+ granting social rights to enhance the integration of a hierarchical society, to forge a bond between workers and the state so as to strengthen the latter, to maintain traditional relations of authority between social and status groups, and to provide a countervailing power against the modernist forces of liberalism and socialism.[24]
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+
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+ Bismarck created the modern welfare state in Germany in the 1880s and enacted universal male suffrage in 1871.[25] He became a great hero to German conservatives, who erected many monuments to his memory and tried to emulate his policies.[26]
50
+
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+ Bismarck's post-1871 foreign policy was conservative and sought to preserve the balance of power in Europe. British historian Eric Hobsbawm concludes that he "remained undisputed world champion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess for almost twenty years after 1871, [devoting] himself exclusively, and successfully, to maintaining peace between the powers".[27] This was a departure from his adventurous foreign policy for Prussia, where he favored strength and expansion, punctuating this by saying "The great question of the age are not settled by speeches and majority votes – this was the error of 1848–49 – but by iron and blood."[28]
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+
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+ Bismarck's chief concern was that France would plot revenge after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. As the French lacked the strength to defeat Germany by themselves, they sought an alliance with Russia, which would trap Germany between the two in a war (as would ultimately happen in 1914). Bismarck wanted to prevent this at all costs and maintain friendly relations with the Russians, and thereby formed an alliance with them and Austria-Hungary, the Dreikaiserbund (League of Three Emperors) in 1881. The alliance was further cemented by a separate non-aggression pact with Russia called Reinsurance Treaty, which was signed in 1887.[29] During this period, individuals within the German military were advocating a preemptive strike against Russia, but Bismarck knew that such ideas were foolhardy. He once wrote that "the most brilliant victories would not avail against the Russian nation, because of its climate, its desert, and its frugality, and having but one frontier to defend", and because it would leave Germany with another bitter, resentful neighbour.
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+
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+ Meanwhile, the chancellor remained wary of any foreign policy developments that looked even remotely warlike. In 1886, he moved to stop an attempted sale of horses to France on the grounds that they might be used for cavalry and also ordered an investigation into large Russian purchases of medicine from a German chemical works. Bismarck stubbornly refused to listen to Georg Herbert zu Munster (ambassador to France), who reported back that the French were not seeking a revanchist war, and in fact were desperate for peace at all costs.
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+
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+ Bismarck and most of his contemporaries were conservative-minded and focused their foreign policy attention on Germany's neighbouring states. In 1914, 60% of German foreign investment was in Europe, as opposed to just 5% of British investment. Most of the money went to developing nations such as Russia that lacked the capital or technical knowledge to industrialize on their own. The construction of the Baghdad Railway, financed by German banks, was designed to eventually connect Germany with the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Gulf, but it also collided with British and Russian geopolitical interests. Conflict over the Baghdad Railway was resolved in June 1914.
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+
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+ Many consider Bismarck's foreign policy as a coherent system and partly responsible for the preservation of Europe's stability.[30] It was also marked by the need to balance circumspect defensiveness and the desire to be free from the constraints of its position as a major European power.[30] Unfortunately, Bismark's successors did not pursue his foreign policy legacy. For instance, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who dismissed the chancellor in 1890, let the treaty with Russia lapse in favor of Germany's alliance with Austria, which finally led to a stronger coalition-building between Russia and France.[29]
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+
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+ Bismarck secured a number of German colonial possessions during the 1880s in Africa and the Pacific, but he never considered an overseas colonial empire valuable due to fierce resistance to German colonial rule from the natives. Thus, Germany's colonies remained badly undeveloped.[31] However they excited the interest of the religious-minded, who supported an extensive network of missionaries.
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+ Germans had dreamed of colonial imperialism since 1848.[32] Bismarck began the process, and by 1884 had acquired German New Guinea.[33] By the 1890s, German colonial expansion in Asia and the Pacific (Kiauchau in China, Tientsin in China, the Marianas, the Caroline Islands, Samoa) led to frictions with the UK, Russia, Japan, and the US. The largest colonial enterprises were in Africa,[34] where the Herero Wars in what is now Namibia in 1906–1907 resulted in the Herero and Namaqua genocide.[35]
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+ By 1900, Germany became the largest economy in Continental Europe and the third largest in the world behind the United States and the British Empire. Germany's main economic rivals were Great Britain and the United States. Throughout its existence, it experienced economic growth and modernization led by heavy industry. In 1871, it had a largely rural population of 41 million, while by 1913 this had increased to a predominantly urban population of 68 million.
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+ For 30 years, Germany struggled against Britain to be Europe's leading industrial power. Representative of Germany's industry was the steel giant Krupp, whose first factory was built in Essen. By 1902, the factory alone became "A great city with its own streets, its own police force, fire department and traffic laws. There are 150 kilometres of rail, 60 different factory buildings, 8,500 machine tools, seven electrical stations, 140 kilometres of underground cable and 46 overhead."[36]
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+
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+ Under Bismarck, Germany was a world innovator in building the welfare state. German workers enjoyed health, accident and maternity benefits, canteens, changing rooms and a national pension scheme.[37]
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+
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+ Lacking a technological base at first, the Germans imported their engineering and hardware from Britain, but quickly learned the skills needed to operate and expand the railways. In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by 1850, Germany was self-sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction, and the railways were a major impetus for the growth of the new steel industry. However, German unification in 1870 stimulated consolidation, nationalisation into state-owned companies, and further rapid growth. Unlike the situation in France, the goal was support of industrialisation, and so heavy lines crisscrossed the Ruhr and other industrial districts, and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen. By 1880, Germany had 9,400 locomotives pulling 43,000 passengers and 30,000 tons of freight, and forged ahead of France.[38] The total length of German railroad tracks expanded from 21,000 kilometers in 1871 to 63,000 kilometres by 1913, establishing the largest rail network in the world after the United States, and effectively surpassing the 32,000 kilometers of rail that connected Britain in the same year.[39]
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+
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+ Industrialisation progressed dynamically in Germany, and German manufacturers began to capture domestic markets from British imports, and also to compete with British industry abroad, particularly in the U.S. The German textile and metal industries had by 1870 surpassed those of Britain in organisation and technical efficiency and superseded British manufacturers in the domestic market. Germany became the dominant economic power on the continent and was the second largest exporting nation after Britain.
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+ Technological progress during German industrialisation occurred in four waves: the railway wave (1877–1886), the dye wave (1887–1896), the chemical wave (1897–1902), and the wave of electrical engineering (1903–1918).[40] Since Germany industrialised later than Britain, it was able to model its factories after those of Britain, thus making more efficient use of its capital and avoiding legacy methods in its leap to the envelope of technology. Germany invested more heavily than the British in research, especially in chemistry, motors and electricity. Germany's dominance in physics and chemistry was such that one-third of all Nobel Prizes went to German inventors and researchers.
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+ The German cartel system (known as Konzerne), being significantly concentrated, was able to make more efficient use of capital. Germany was not weighted down with an expensive worldwide empire that needed defense. Following Germany's annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871, it absorbed parts of what had been France's industrial base.[41]
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+ By 1900, the German chemical industry dominated the world market for synthetic dyes.[42] The three major firms BASF,[43] Bayer and Hoechst produced several hundred different dyes, along with the five smaller firms. In 1913, these eight firms produced almost 90% of the world supply of dyestuffs and sold about 80% of their production abroad. The three major firms had also integrated upstream into the production of essential raw materials and they began to expand into other areas of chemistry such as pharmaceuticals, photographic film, agricultural chemicals and electrochemicals. Top-level decision-making was in the hands of professional salaried managers; leading Chandler to call the German dye companies "the world's first truly managerial industrial enterprises".[44] There were many spinoffs from research—such as the pharmaceutical industry, which emerged from chemical research.[45]
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+ By the start of World War I (1914–1918), German industry switched to war production. The heaviest demands were on coal and steel for artillery and shell production, and on chemicals for the synthesis of materials that were subject to import restrictions and for chemical weapons and war supplies.
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+
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+ The creation of the Empire under Prussian leadership was a victory for the concept of Kleindeutschland (Smaller Germany) over the Großdeutschland concept. This meant that Austria-Hungary, a multi-ethnic Empire with a considerable German-speaking population, would remain outside of the German nation state. Bismarck's policy was to pursue a solution diplomatically. The effective alliance between Germany and Austria played a major role in Germany's decision to enter World War I in 1914.
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+
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+ Bismarck announced there would be no more territorial additions to Germany in Europe, and his diplomacy after 1871 was focused on stabilizing the European system and preventing any wars. He succeeded, and only after his departure from office in 1890 did the diplomatic tensions start rising again.[46]
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+
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+ After achieving formal unification in 1871, Bismarck devoted much of his attention to the cause of national unity. He opposed Catholic civil rights and emancipation, especially the influence of the Vatican under Pope Pius IX, and working class radicalism, represented by the emerging Social Democratic Party.
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+
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+ Prussia in 1871 included 16,000,000 Protestants, both Reformed and Lutheran, and 8,000,000 Catholics. Most people were generally segregated into their own religious worlds, living in rural districts or city neighbourhoods that were overwhelmingly of the same religion, and sending their children to separate public schools where their religion was taught. There was little interaction or intermarriage. On the whole, the Protestants had a higher social status, and the Catholics were more likely to be peasant farmers or unskilled or semiskilled industrial workers. In 1870, the Catholics formed their own political party, the Centre Party, which generally supported unification and most of Bismarck's policies. However, Bismarck distrusted parliamentary democracy in general and opposition parties in particular, especially when the Centre Party showed signs of gaining support among dissident elements such as the Polish Catholics in Silesia. A powerful intellectual force of the time was anti-Catholicism, led by the liberal intellectuals who formed a vital part of Bismarck's coalition. They saw the Catholic Church as a powerful force of reaction and anti-modernity, especially after the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1870, and the tightening control of the Vatican over the local bishops.[47]
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+
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+ The Kulturkampf launched by Bismarck 1871–1880 affected Prussia; although there were similar movements in Baden and Hesse, the rest of Germany was not affected. According to the new imperial constitution, the states were in charge of religious and educational affairs; they funded the Protestant and Catholic schools. In July 1871 Bismarck abolished the Catholic section of the Prussian Ministry of ecclesiastical and educational affairs, depriving Catholics of their voice at the highest level. The system of strict government supervision of schools was applied only in Catholic areas; the Protestant schools were left alone.[48]
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+ Much more serious were the May laws of 1873. One made the appointment of any priest dependent on his attendance at a German university, as opposed to the seminaries that the Catholics typically used. Furthermore, all candidates for the ministry had to pass an examination in German culture before a state board which weeded out intransigent Catholics. Another provision gave the government a veto power over most church activities. A second law abolished the jurisdiction of the Vatican over the Catholic Church in Prussia; its authority was transferred to a government body controlled by Protestants.[49]
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+ Nearly all German bishops, clergy, and laymen rejected the legality of the new laws, and were defiant in the face of heavier and heavier penalties and imprisonments imposed by Bismarck's government. By 1876, all the Prussian bishops were imprisoned or in exile, and a third of the Catholic parishes were without a priest. In the face of systematic defiance, the Bismarck government increased the penalties and its attacks, and were challenged in 1875 when a papal encyclical declared the whole ecclesiastical legislation of Prussia was invalid, and threatened to excommunicate any Catholic who obeyed. There was no violence, but the Catholics mobilized their support, set up numerous civic organizations, raised money to pay fines, and rallied behind their church and the Centre Party. The "Old Catholic Church", which rejected the First Vatican Council, attracted only a few thousand members. Bismarck, a devout pietistic Protestant, realized his Kulturkampf was backfiring when secular and socialist elements used the opportunity to attack all religion. In the long run, the most significant result was the mobilization of the Catholic voters, and their insistence on protecting their religious identity. In the elections of 1874, the Centre party doubled its popular vote, and became the second-largest party in the national parliament—and remained a powerful force for the next 60 years, so that after Bismarck it became difficult to form a government without their support.[50][51]
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+
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+ Bismarck built on a tradition of welfare programs in Prussia and Saxony that began as early as in the 1840s. In the 1880s he introduced old-age pensions, accident insurance, medical care and unemployment insurance that formed the basis of the modern European welfare state. He came to realize that this sort of policy was very appealing, since it bound workers to the state, and also fit in very well with his authoritarian nature. The social security systems installed by Bismarck (health care in 1883, accident insurance in 1884, invalidity and old-age insurance in 1889) at the time were the largest in the world and, to a degree, still exist in Germany today.
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+
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+ Bismarck's paternalistic programs won the support of German industry because its goals were to win the support of the working classes for the Empire and reduce the outflow of immigrants to America, where wages were higher but welfare did not exist.[37][52] Bismarck further won the support of both industry and skilled workers by his high tariff policies, which protected profits and wages from American competition, although they alienated the liberal intellectuals who wanted free trade.[53]
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+ One of the effects of the unification policies was the gradually increasing tendency to eliminate the use of non-German languages in public life, schools and academic settings with the intent of pressuring the non-German population to abandon their national identity in what was called "Germanisation". These policies often had the reverse effect of stimulating resistance, usually in the form of home schooling and tighter unity in the minority groups, especially the Poles.[54]
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+ The Germanisation policies were targeted particularly against the significant Polish minority of the empire, gained by Prussia in the partitions of Poland. Poles were treated as an ethnic minority even where they made up the majority, as in the Province of Posen, where a series of anti-Polish measures was enforced.[55] Numerous anti-Polish laws had no great effect especially in the province of Posen where the German-speaking population dropped from 42.8% in 1871 to 38.1% in 1905, despite all efforts.[56]
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+
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+ Antisemitism was endemic in Germany during the period. Before Napoleon's decrees ended the ghettos in Germany, it had been religiously motivated, but by the 19th century, it was a factor in German nationalism. The last legal barriers on Jews in Prussia were lifted by the 1860s, and within 20 years, they were over-represented in the white-collar professions and much of academia.[citation needed] In the popular mind Jews became a symbol of capitalism and wealth. On the other hand, the constitution and legal system protected the rights of Jews as German citizens. Antisemitic parties were formed but soon collapsed.[57]
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+ Bismarck's efforts also initiated the levelling of the enormous differences between the German states, which had been independent in their evolution for centuries, especially with legislation. The completely different legal histories and judicial systems posed enormous complications, especially for national trade. While a common trade code had already been introduced by the Confederation in 1861 (which was adapted for the Empire and, with great modifications, is still in effect today), there was little similarity in laws otherwise.
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+ In 1871, a common Criminal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch) was introduced; in 1877, common court procedures were established in the court system (Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz), civil procedures (Zivilprozessordnung) and criminal procedures (Strafprozessordnung). In 1873 the constitution was amended to allow the Empire to replace the various and greatly differing Civil Codes of the states (If they existed at all; for example, parts of Germany formerly occupied by Napoleon's France had adopted the French Civil Code, while in Prussia the Allgemeines Preußisches Landrecht of 1794 was still in effect). In 1881, a first commission was established to produce a common Civil Code for all of the Empire, an enormous effort that would produce the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB), possibly one of the most impressive legal works in the world; it was eventually put into effect on 1 January 1900. All of these codifications are, albeit with many amendments, still in effect today.
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+ Different legal systems in Germany prior to 1900
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+ Fields of law in the German Empire
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+ On 9 March 1888, Wilhelm I died shortly before his 91st birthday, leaving his son Frederick III as the new emperor. Frederick was a liberal and an admirer of the British constitution,[58] while his links to Britain strengthened further with his marriage to Princess Victoria, eldest child of Queen Victoria. With his ascent to the throne, many hoped that Frederick's reign would lead to a liberalisation of the Reich and an increase of parliament's influence on the political process. The dismissal of Robert von Puttkamer, the highly-conservative Prussian interior minister, on 8 June was a sign of the expected direction and a blow to Bismarck's administration.
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+ By the time of his accession, however, Frederick had developed incurable laryngeal cancer, which had been diagnosed in 1887. He died on the 99th day of his rule, on 15 June 1888. His son Wilhelm II became emperor.
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+ Wilhelm II wanted to reassert his ruling prerogatives at a time when other monarchs in Europe were being transformed into constitutional figureheads. This decision led the ambitious Kaiser into conflict with Bismarck. The old chancellor had hoped to guide Wilhelm as he had guided his grandfather, but the emperor wanted to be the master in his own house and had many sycophants telling him that Frederick the Great would not have been great with a Bismarck at his side.[59] A key difference between Wilhelm II and Bismarck was their approaches to handling political crises, especially in 1889, when German coal miners went on strike in Upper Silesia. Bismarck demanded that the German Army be sent in to crush the strike, but Wilhelm II rejected this authoritarian measure, responding "I do not wish to stain my reign with the blood of my subjects."[60] Instead of condoning repression, Wilhelm had the government negotiate with a delegation from the coal miners, which brought the strike to an end without violence.[59] The fractious relationship ended in March 1890, after Wilhelm II and Bismarck quarrelled, and the chancellor resigned days later.[59] Bismarck's last few years had seen power slip from his hands as he grew older, more irritable, more authoritarian, and less focused.
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+ With Bismarck's departure, Wilhelm II became the dominant ruler of Germany. Unlike his grandfather, Wilhelm I, who had been largely content to leave government affairs to the chancellor, Wilhelm II wanted to be fully informed and actively involved in running Germany, not an ornamental figurehead, although most Germans found his claims of divine right to rule amusing.[61] Wilhelm allowed politician Walther Rathenau to tutor him in European economics and industrial and financial realities in Europe.[61]
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+ As Hull (2004) notes, Bismarckian foreign policy "was too sedate for the reckless Kaiser".[62] Wilhelm became internationally notorious for his aggressive stance on foreign policy and his strategic blunders (such as the Tangier Crisis), which pushed the German Empire into growing political isolation and eventually helped to cause World War I.
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+ Under Wilhelm II, Germany no longer had long-ruling strong chancellors like Bismarck. The new chancellors had difficulty in performing their roles, especially the additional role as Prime Minister of Prussia assigned to them in the German Constitution. The reforms of Chancellor Leo von Caprivi, which liberalized trade and so reduced unemployment, were supported by the Kaiser and most Germans except for Prussian landowners, who feared loss of land and power and launched several campaigns against the reforms[63]
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+ While Prussian aristocrats challenged the demands of a united German state, in the 1890s several organizations were set up to challenge the authoritarian conservative Prussian militarism which was being imposed on the country. Educators opposed to the German state-run schools, which emphasized military education, set up their own independent liberal schools, which encouraged individuality and freedom.[64] However nearly all the schools in Imperial Germany had a very high standard and kept abreast with modern developments in knowledge.[65]
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+ Artists began experimental art in opposition to Kaiser Wilhelm's support for traditional art, to which Wilhelm responded "art which transgresses the laws and limits laid down by me can no longer be called art".[66] It was largely thanks to Wilhelm's influence that most printed material in Germany used blackletter instead of the Roman type used in the rest of Western Europe. At the same time, a new generation of cultural creators emerged.[67]
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+ From the 1890s onwards, the most effective opposition to the monarchy came from the newly formed Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), whose radicals advocated Marxism. The threat of the SPD to the German monarchy and industrialists caused the state both to crack down on the party's supporters and to implement its own programme of social reform to soothe discontent. Germany's large industries provided significant social welfare programmes and good care to their employees, as long as they were not identified as socialists or trade-union members. The larger industrial firms provided pensions, sickness benefits and even housing to their employees.[64]
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+ Having learned from the failure of Bismarck's Kulturkampf, Wilhelm II maintained good relations with the Roman Catholic Church and concentrated on opposing socialism.[68] This policy failed when the Social Democrats won a third of the votes in the 1912 elections to the Reichstag, and became the largest political party in Germany. The government remained in the hands of a succession of conservative coalitions supported by right-wing liberals or Catholic clerics and heavily dependent on the Kaiser's favour. The rising militarism under Wilhelm II caused many Germans to emigrate to the U.S. and the British colonies to escape mandatory military service.
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+ During World War I, the Kaiser increasingly devolved his powers to the leaders of the German High Command, particularly future President of Germany, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff. Hindenburg took over the role of commander–in–chief from the Kaiser, while Ludendorff became de facto general chief of staff. By 1916, Germany was effectively a military dictatorship run by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, with the Kaiser reduced to a mere figurehead.[69]
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+ Wilhelm II wanted Germany to have her "place in the sun", like Britain, which he constantly wished to emulate or rival.[70] With German traders and merchants already active worldwide, he encouraged colonial efforts in Africa and the Pacific ("new imperialism"), causing the German Empire to vie with other European powers for remaining "unclaimed" territories. With the encouragement or at least the acquiescence of Britain, which at this stage saw Germany as a counterweight to her old rival France, Germany acquired German Southwest Africa (modern Namibia), German Kamerun (modern Cameroon), Togoland (modern Togo) and German East Africa (modern Rwanda, Burundi, and the mainland part of current Tanzania). Islands were gained in the Pacific through purchase and treaties and also a 99-year lease for the territory of Kiautschou in northeast China. But of these German colonies only Togoland and German Samoa (after 1908) became self-sufficient and profitable; all the others required subsidies from the Berlin treasury for building infrastructure, school systems, hospitals and other institutions.
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+
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+ Bismarck had originally dismissed the agitation for colonies with contempt; he favoured a Eurocentric foreign policy, as the treaty arrangements made during his tenure in office show. As a latecomer to colonization, Germany repeatedly came into conflict with the established colonial powers and also with the United States, which opposed German attempts at colonial expansion in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. Native insurrections in German territories received prominent coverage in other countries, especially in Britain; the established powers had dealt with such uprisings decades earlier, often brutally, and had secured firm control of their colonies by then. The Boxer Rising in China, which the Chinese government eventually sponsored, began in the Shandong province, in part because Germany, as colonizer at Kiautschou, was an untested power and had only been active there for two years. Eight western nations, including the United States, mounted a joint relief force to rescue westerners caught up in the rebellion. During the departure ceremonies for the German contingent, Wilhelm II urged them to behave like the Hun invaders of continental Europe – an unfortunate remark that would later be resurrected by British propagandists to paint Germans as barbarians during World War I and World War II. On two occasions, a French-German conflict over the fate of Morocco seemed inevitable.
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+
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+ Upon acquiring Southwest Africa, German settlers were encouraged to cultivate land held by the Herero and Nama. Herero and Nama tribal lands were used for a variety of exploitative goals (much as the British did before in Rhodesia), including farming, ranching, and mining for minerals and diamonds. In 1904, the Herero and the Nama revolted against the colonists in Southwest Africa, killing farm families, their laborers and servants. In response to the attacks, troops were dispatched to quell the uprising which then resulted in the Herero and Namaqua Genocide. In total, some 65,000 Herero (80% of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Nama (50% of the total Nama population) perished. The commander of the punitive expedition, General Lothar von Trotha, was eventually relieved and reprimanded for his usurpation of orders and the cruelties he inflicted. These occurrences were sometimes referred to as "the first genocide of the 20th century" and officially condemned by the United Nations in 1985. In 2004 a formal apology by a government minister of the Federal Republic of Germany followed.
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+ Bismarck and Wilhelm II after him sought closer economic ties with the Ottoman Empire. Under Wilhelm II, with the financial backing of the Deutsche Bank, the Baghdad Railway was begun in 1900, although by 1914 it was still 500 km (310 mi) short of its destination in Baghdad.[71] In an interview with Wilhelm in 1899, Cecil Rhodes had tried "to convince the Kaiser that the future of the German empire abroad lay in the Middle East" and not in Africa; with a grand Middle-Eastern empire, Germany could afford to allow Britain the unhindered completion of the Cape-to-Cairo railway that Rhodes favoured.[72] Britain initially supported the Baghdad Railway; but by 1911 British statesmen came to fear it might be extended to Basra on the Persian Gulf, threatening Britain's naval supremacy in the Indian Ocean. Accordingly, they asked to have construction halted, to which Germany and the Ottoman Empire acquiesced.
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+
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+ Wilhelm II and his advisers committed a fatal diplomatic error when they allowed the "Reinsurance Treaty" that Bismarck had negotiated with Tsarist Russia to lapse. Germany was left with no firm ally but Austria-Hungary, and her support for action in annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 further soured relations with Russia.[73] Wilhelm missed the opportunity to secure an alliance with Britain in the 1890s when it was involved in colonial rivalries with France, and he alienated British statesmen further by openly supporting the Boers in the South African War and building a navy to rival Britain's. By 1911 Wilhelm had completely picked apart the careful power balance established by Bismarck and Britain turned to France in the Entente Cordiale. Germany's only other ally besides Austria was the Kingdom of Italy, but it remained an ally only pro forma. When war came, Italy saw more benefit in an alliance with Britain, France, and Russia, which, in the secret Treaty of London in 1915 promised it the frontier districts of Austria where Italians formed the majority of the population and also colonial concessions. Germany did acquire a second ally that same year when the Ottoman Empire entered the war on its side, but in the long run supporting the Ottoman war effort only drained away German resources from the main fronts.
146
+
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+ Following the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke of Franz Ferdinand by a Bosnian Serb, the Kaiser offered Emperor Franz Joseph full support for Austro-Hungarian plans to invade the Kingdom of Serbia, which Austria-Hungary blamed for the assassination. This unconditional support for Austria-Hungary was called a "blank cheque" by historians, including German Fritz Fischer. Subsequent interpretation – for example at the Versailles Peace Conference – was that this "blank cheque" licensed Austro-Hungarian aggression regardless of the diplomatic consequences, and thus Germany bore responsibility for starting the war, or at least provoking a wider conflict.
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+ Germany began the war by targeting its chief rival, France. Germany saw France as its principal danger on the European continent as it could mobilize much faster than Russia and bordered Germany's industrial core in the Rhineland. Unlike Britain and Russia, the French entered the war mainly for revenge against Germany, in particular for France's loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in 1871. The German high command knew that France would muster its forces to go into Alsace-Lorraine. Aside from the very unofficial Septemberprogramm, the Germans never stated a clear list of goals that they wanted out of the war.[74]
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+ Germany did not want to risk lengthy battles along the Franco-German border and instead adopted the Schlieffen Plan, a military strategy designed to cripple France by invading Belgium and Luxembourg, sweeping down to encircle and crush both Paris and the French forces along the Franco-German border in a quick victory. After defeating France, Germany would turn to attack Russia. The plan required violating the official neutrality of Belgium and Luxembourg, which Britain had guaranteed by treaty. However, the Germans had calculated that Britain would enter the war regardless of whether they had formal justification to do so.[citation needed] At first the attack was successful: the German Army swept down from Belgium and Luxembourg and advanced on Paris, at the nearby River Marne. However, the evolution of weapons over the last century heavily favored defense over offense, especially thanks to the machine gun, so that it took proportionally more offensive force to overcome a defensive position. This resulted in the German lines on the offense contracting to keep up the offensive time table while correspondingly the French lines were extending. In addition, some German units that were originally slotted for the German far right were transferred to the Eastern Front in reaction to Russia mobilizing far faster than anticipated. The combined effect had the German right flank sweeping down in front of Paris instead of behind it exposing the German Right flank to the extending French lines and attack from strategic French reserves stationed in Paris. Attacking the exposed German right flank, the French Army and the British Army put up a strong resistance to the defense of Paris at the First Battle of the Marne, resulting in the German Army retreating to defensive positions along the river Aisne. A subsequent Race to the Sea resulted in a long-held stalemate between the German Army and the Allies in dug-in trench warfare positions from Alsace to Flanders.
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+
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+ German attempts to break through failed at the two battles of Ypres (1st/2nd) with huge casualties. A series of allied offensives in 1915 against German positions in Artois and Champagne resulted in huge allied casualties and little territorial change. German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn decided to exploit the defensive advantages that had shown themselves in the 1915 Allied offensives by attempting to goad France into attacking strong defensive positions near the ancient city of Verdun. Verdun had been one of the last cities to hold out against the German Army in 1870, and Falkenhayn predicted that as a matter of national pride the French would do anything to ensure that it was not taken. He expected that he could take strong defensive positions in the hills overlooking Verdun on the east bank of the River Meuse to threaten the city and the French would launch desperate attacks against these positions. He predicted that French losses would be greater than those of the Germans and that continued French commitment of troops to Verdun would "bleed the French Army white." In 1916, the Battle of Verdun began, with the French positions under constant shelling and poison gas attack and taking large casualties under the assault of overwhelmingly large German forces. However, Falkenhayn's prediction of a greater ratio of French killed proved to be wrong as both sides took heavy casualties. Falkenhayn was replaced by Erich Ludendorff, and with no success in sight, the German Army pulled out of Verdun in December 1916 and the battle ended.
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+
155
+ While the Western Front was a stalemate for the German Army, the Eastern Front eventually proved to be a great success. Despite initial setbacks due to the unexpectedly rapid mobilisation of the Russian army, which resulted in a Russian invasion of East Prussia and Austrian Galicia, the badly organised and supplied Russian Army faltered and the German and Austro-Hungarian armies thereafter steadily advanced eastward. The Germans benefited from political instability in Russia and its population's desire to end the war. In 1917 the German government allowed Russia's communist Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin to travel through Germany from Switzerland into Russia. Germany believed that if Lenin could create further political unrest, Russia would no longer be able to continue its war with Germany, allowing the German Army to focus on the Western Front.
156
+
157
+ In March 1917, the Tsar was ousted from the Russian throne, and in November a Bolshevik government came to power under the leadership of Lenin. Facing political opposition from the Bolsheviks, he decided to end Russia's campaign against Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria in order to redirect Bolshevik energy to eliminating internal dissent. In March 1918, by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Bolshevik government gave Germany and the Ottoman Empire enormous territorial and economic concessions in exchange for an end to war on the Eastern Front. All of the modern-day Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) were given over to the German occupation authority Ober Ost, along with Belarus and Ukraine. Thus Germany had at last achieved its long-wanted dominance of "Mitteleuropa" (Central Europe) and could now focus fully on defeating the Allies on the Western Front. In practice, however, the forces that were needed to garrison and secure the new territories were a drain on the German war effort.
158
+
159
+ Germany quickly lost almost all its colonies. However, in German East Africa, an impressive guerrilla campaign was waged by the colonial army leader there, General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. Using Germans and native Askaris, Lettow-Vorbeck launched multiple guerrilla raids against British forces in Kenya and Rhodesia. He also invaded Portuguese Mozambique to gain his forces supplies and to pick up more Askari recruits. His force was still active at war's end.[75]
160
+
161
+ The defeat of Russia in 1917 enabled Germany to transfer hundreds of thousands of troops from the Eastern to the Western Front, giving it a numerical advantage over the Allies. By retraining the soldiers in new stormtrooper tactics, the Germans expected to unfreeze the battlefield and win a decisive victory before the army of the United States, which had now entered the war on the side of the Allies, arrived in strength.[76] However, the repeated German offensives in the spring of 1918 all failed, as the Allies fell back and regrouped and the Germans lacked the reserves needed to consolidate their gains. Meanwhile, soldiers had become radicalised by the Russian Revolution and were less willing to continue fighting. The war effort sparked civil unrest in Germany, while the troops, who had been constantly in the field without relief, grew exhausted and lost all hope of victory. In the summer of 1918, the British Army was at its peak strength with as many as 4.5 million men on the western front and 4,000 tanks for the Hundred Days Offensive, the Americans arriving at the rate of 10,000 a day, Germany's allies facing collapse and the German Empire's manpower exhausted, it was only a matter of time before multiple Allied offensives destroyed the German army.[77]
162
+
163
+ The concept of "total war" meant that supplies had to be redirected towards the armed forces and, with German commerce being stopped by the Allied naval blockade, German civilians were forced to live in increasingly meagre conditions. First food prices were controlled, then rationing was introduced. During the war about 750,000 German civilians died from malnutrition.[78]
164
+
165
+ Towards the end of the war conditions deteriorated rapidly on the home front, with severe food shortages reported in all urban areas. The causes included the transfer of many farmers and food workers into the military, combined with the overburdened railway system, shortages of coal, and the British blockade. The winter of 1916–1917 was known as the "turnip winter", because the people had to survive on a vegetable more commonly reserved for livestock, as a substitute for potatoes and meat, which were increasingly scarce. Thousands of soup kitchens were opened to feed the hungry, who grumbled that the farmers were keeping the food for themselves. Even the army had to cut the soldiers' rations.[79] The morale of both civilians and soldiers continued to sink.
166
+
167
+ Many Germans wanted an end to the war and increasing numbers began to associate with the political left, such as the Social Democratic Party and the more radical Independent Social Democratic Party, which demanded an end to the war. The entry of the U.S. into the war in April 1917 tipped the long-run balance of power even more in favour of the Allies.
168
+
169
+ The end of October 1918, in Kiel, in northern Germany, saw the beginning of the German Revolution of 1918–1919. Units of the German Navy refused to set sail for a last, large-scale operation in a war which they saw as good as lost, initiating the uprising. On 3 November, the revolt spread to other cities and states of the country, in many of which workers' and soldiers' councils were established. Meanwhile, Hindenburg and the senior generals lost confidence in the Kaiser and his government.
170
+
171
+ Bulgaria signed the Armistice of Salonica on 29 September 1918. The Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918. Between 24 October and 3 November 1918, Italy defeated Austria-Hungary in the battle of Vittorio Veneto, which forced Austria-Hungary to sign the Armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918. So, in November 1918, with internal revolution, the Allies advancing toward Germany on the Western Front, Austria-Hungary falling apart from multiple ethnic tensions, its other allies out of the war and pressure from the German high command, the Kaiser and all German ruling kings, dukes, and princes abdicated, and German nobility was abolished. On 9 November, the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a republic. The new government led by the German Social Democrats called for and received an armistice on 11 November. It was succeeded by the Weimar Republic.[80] Those opposed, including disaffected veterans, joined a diverse set of paramilitary and underground political groups such as the Freikorps, the Organisation Consul, and the Communists.
172
+
173
+ The Empire's legislation was based on two organs, the Bundesrat and the Reichstag (parliament). There was universal male suffrage for the Reichstag, however legislation would have to pass both houses. The Bundesrat contained representatives of the states.
174
+
175
+ Before unification, German territory (excluding Austria and Switzerland) was made up of 27 constituent states. These states consisted of kingdoms, grand duchies, duchies, principalities, free Hanseatic cities and one imperial territory. The free cities had a republican form of government on the state level, even though the Empire at large was constituted as a monarchy, and so were most of the states. Prussia was the largest of the constituent states, covering two-thirds of the empire's territory.
176
+
177
+ Several of these states had gained sovereignty following the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and had been de facto sovereign from the mid-1600s onward. Others were created as sovereign states after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Territories were not necessarily contiguous—many existed in several parts, as a result of historical acquisitions, or, in several cases, divisions of the ruling families. Some of the initially existing states, in particular Hanover, were abolished and annexed by Prussia as a result of the war of 1866.
178
+
179
+ Each component of the German Empire sent representatives to the Federal Council (Bundesrat) and, via single-member districts, the Imperial Diet (Reichstag). Relations between the Imperial centre and the Empire's components were somewhat fluid and were developed on an ongoing basis. The extent to which the German Emperor could, for example, intervene on occasions of disputed or unclear succession was much debated on occasion—for example in the inheritance crisis of the Lippe-Detmold.
180
+
181
+ Unusually for a federation and/or a nation-state, the German states maintained limited autonomy over foreign affairs and continued to exchange ambassadors and other diplomats (both with each other and directly with foreign nations) for the Empire's entire existence. Shortly after the Empire was proclaimed, Bismarck implemented a convention in which his sovereign would only send and receive envoys to and from other German states as the King of Prussia, while envoys from Berlin sent to foreign nations always received credentials from the monarch in his capacity as German Emperor. In this way, the Prussian foreign ministry was largely tasked with managing relations with the other German states while the Imperial foreign ministry managed Germany's external relations.
182
+
183
+ Administrative map
184
+
185
+ Population density (c. 1885)
186
+
187
+ Election constituencies for the Reichstag
188
+
189
+ Detailed map in 1893 with cities and larger towns
190
+
191
+ About 92% of the population spoke German as their first language. The only minority language with a significant number of speakers (5.4%) was Polish (a figure that rises to over 6% when including the related Kashubian and Masurian languages).
192
+
193
+ The non-German Germanic languages (0.5%), like Danish, Dutch and Frisian, were located in the north and northwest of the empire, near the borders with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Low German was spoken throughout northern Germany and, though linguistically as distinct from High German (Hochdeutsch) as from Dutch and English, is considered "German", hence also its name. Danish and Frisian were spoken predominantly in the north of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein and Dutch in the western border areas of Prussia (Hanover, Westphalia, and the Rhine Province).
194
+
195
+ Polish and other Slavic languages (6.28%) were spoken chiefly in the east.[b]
196
+
197
+ A few (0.5%) spoke French, the vast majority of these in the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen where francophones formed 11.6% of the total population.
198
+
199
+ Danish
200
+
201
+ Dutch
202
+
203
+ Frisian
204
+
205
+ Polish
206
+
207
+ Czech (and Moravian)
208
+
209
+ Masurian
210
+
211
+ Kashubian
212
+
213
+ Sorbian
214
+
215
+ French
216
+
217
+ Walloon
218
+
219
+ Italian
220
+
221
+ Lithuanian
222
+
223
+ non-German
224
+
225
+ Generally, religious demographics of the early modern period hardly changed. Still, there were almost entirely Catholic areas (Lower and Upper Bavaria, northern Westphalia, Upper Silesia, etc.) and almost entirely Protestant areas (Schleswig-Holstein, Pomerania, Saxony, etc.). Confessional prejudices, especially towards mixed marriages, were still common. Bit by bit, through internal migration, religious blending was more and more common. In eastern territories, confession was almost uniquely perceived to be connected to one's ethnicity and the equation "Protestant = German, Catholic = Polish" was held to be valid. In areas affected by immigration in the Ruhr area and Westphalia, as well as in some large cities, religious landscape changed substantially. This was especially true in largely Catholic areas of Westphalia, which changed through Protestant immigration from the eastern provinces.
226
+
227
+ Politically, the confessional division of Germany had considerable consequences. In Catholic areas, the Centre Party had a big electorate. On the other hand, Social Democrats and Free Trade Unions usually received hardly any votes in the Catholic areas of the Ruhr. This began to change with the secularization arising in the last decades of the German Empire.
228
+
229
+ In Germany's overseas colonial empire, millions of subjects practiced various Indigenous religions in addition to the Christian missionaries and colonists. Over two million Muslims also lived under German colonial rule, primarily in German East Africa.[82]
230
+
231
+ Distribution of Protestants and Catholics in Imperial Germany
232
+
233
+ Distribution of Protestants, Catholics and Jews in Imperial Germany (Meyers Konversationslexikon)
234
+
235
+ Distribution of Jews in Imperial Germany
236
+
237
+ Greater Imperial coat of arms of Germany
238
+
239
+ Middle Imperial coat of arms of Germany
240
+
241
+ Lesser Imperial coat of arms of Germany
242
+
243
+ The defeat and aftermath of the First World War and the penalties imposed by the Treaty of Versailles shaped the positive memory of the Empire, especially among Germans who distrusted and despised the Weimar Republic. Conservatives, liberals, socialists, nationalists, Catholics and Protestants all had their own interpretations, which led to a fractious political and social climate in Germany in the aftermath of the empire's collapse.
244
+
245
+ Under Bismarck, a united German state had finally been achieved, but it remained a Prussian-dominated state and did not include German Austria as Pan-German nationalists had desired. The influence of Prussian militarism, the Empire's colonial efforts and its vigorous, competitive industrial prowess all gained it the dislike and envy of other nations. The German Empire enacted a number of progressive reforms, such as Europe's first social welfare system and freedom of press. There was also a modern system for electing the federal parliament, the Reichstag, in which every adult man had one vote. This enabled the Socialists and the Catholic Centre Party to play considerable roles in the empire's political life despite the continued hostility of Prussian aristocrats.
246
+
247
+ The era of the German Empire is well remembered in Germany as one of great cultural and intellectual vigour. Thomas Mann published his novel Buddenbrooks in 1901. Theodor Mommsen received the Nobel prize for literature a year later for his Roman history. Painters like the groups Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke made a significant contribution to modern art. The AEG turbine factory in Berlin by Peter Behrens from 1909 was a milestone in classic modern architecture and an outstanding example of emerging functionalism. The social, economic, and scientific successes of this Gründerzeit, or founding epoch, have sometimes led the Wilhelmine era to be regarded as a golden age.
248
+
249
+ In the field of economics, the "Kaiserzeit" laid the foundation of Germany's status as one of the world's leading economic powers. The iron and coal industries of the Ruhr, the Saar and Upper Silesia especially contributed to that process. The first motorcar was built by Karl Benz in 1886. The enormous growth of industrial production and industrial potential also led to a rapid urbanisation of Germany, which turned the Germans into a nation of city dwellers. More than 5 million people left Germany for the United States during the 19th century.[83]
250
+
251
+ Many historians have emphasized the central importance of a German Sonderweg or "special path" (or "exceptionalism") as the root of Nazism and the German catastrophe in the 20th century. According to the historiography by Kocka (1988), the process of nation-building from above had very grievous long-term implications. In terms of parliamentary democracy, Parliament was kept weak, the parties were fragmented, and there was a high level of mutual distrust. The Nazis built on the illiberal, anti-pluralist elements of Weimar's political culture. The Junker elites (the large landowners in the east) and senior civil servants used their great power and influence well into the twentieth century to frustrate any movement toward democracy. They played an especially negative role in the crisis of 1930–1933. Bismarck's emphasis on military force amplified the voice of the officer corps, which combined advanced modernisation of military technology with reactionary politics. The rising upper-middle class elites, in the business, financial and professional worlds, tended to accept the values of the old traditional elites. The German Empire was for Hans-Ulrich Wehler a strange mixture of highly successful capitalist industrialisation and socio-economic modernisation on the one hand, and of surviving pre-industrial institutions, power relations and traditional cultures on the other. Wehler argues that it produced a high degree of internal tension, which led on the one hand to the suppression of socialists, Catholics and reformers, and on the other hand to a highly aggressive foreign policy. For these reasons Fritz Fischer and his students emphasised Germany's primary guilt for causing the First World War.[84]
252
+
253
+ Hans-Ulrich Wehler, a leader of the Bielefeld School of social history, places the origins of Germany's path to disaster in the 1860s–1870s, when economic modernisation took place, but political modernisation did not happen and the old Prussian rural elite remained in firm control of the army, diplomacy and the civil service. Traditional, aristocratic, premodern society battled an emerging capitalist, bourgeois, modernising society. Recognising the importance of modernising forces in industry and the economy and in the cultural realm, Wehler argues that reactionary traditionalism dominated the political hierarchy of power in Germany, as well as social mentalities and in class relations (Klassenhabitus). The catastrophic German politics between 1914 and 1945 are interpreted in terms of a delayed modernisation of its political structures. At the core of Wehler's interpretation is his treatment of "the middle class" and "revolution", each of which was instrumental in shaping the 20th century. Wehler's examination of Nazi rule is shaped by his concept of "charismatic domination", which focuses heavily on Hitler.[85]
254
+
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+ The historiographical concept of a German Sonderweg has had a turbulent history. 19th century scholars who emphasised a separate German path to modernity saw it as a positive factor that differentiated Germany from the "western path" typified by Great Britain. They stressed the strong bureaucratic state, reforms initiated by Bismarck and other strong leaders, the Prussian service ethos, the high culture of philosophy and music, and Germany's pioneering of a social welfare state. In the 1950s, historians in West Germany argued that the Sonderweg led Germany to the disaster of 1933–1945. The special circumstances of German historical structures and experiences, were interpreted as preconditions that, while not directly causing National Socialism, did hamper the development of a liberal democracy and facilitate the rise of fascism. The Sonderweg paradigm has provided the impetus for at least three strands of research in German historiography: the "long 19th century", the history of the bourgeoisie, and comparisons with the West. After 1990, increased attention to cultural dimensions and to comparative and relational history moved German historiography to different topics, with much less attention paid to the Sonderweg. While some historians have abandoned the Sonderweg thesis, they have not provided a generally accepted alternative interpretation.[86]
256
+
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+ The Empire of Germany had 2 militaries; the:
258
+
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+ In addition to present-day Germany, large parts of what comprised the German Empire now belong to several other modern European countries.
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1
+
2
+
3
+ Sanskrit (/ˈsænskrɪt/;[7] Sanskrit: संस्कृतम्, romanized: saṃskṛtam, IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] (listen)) is an Indo-Aryan or Indic[8] language of the ancient Indian subcontinent with a 3,500-year history.[9][10][11] It is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism and the predominant language of most works of Hindu philosophy as well as some of the principal texts of Buddhism and Jainism. Sanskrit, in its variants and numerous dialects, was the lingua franca of ancient and medieval India.[12][13][14] In the early 1st millennium AD, along with Buddhism and Hinduism, Sanskrit migrated to Southeast Asia,[15] parts of East Asia[16] and Central Asia,[17] emerging as a language of high culture and of local ruling elites in these regions.[18][19]
4
+
5
+ Sanskrit is an Old Indo-Aryan language.[9] As one of the oldest documented members of the Indo-European family of languages,[20][note 1][note 2] Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies.[23] It is related to Greek and Latin,[9] as well as Hittite, Luwian, Old Avestan and many other living and extinct languages with historical significance to Europe, West Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. It traces its linguistic ancestry to the Proto-Indo-Aryan, Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo-European languages.[24]
6
+
7
+ Sanskrit is traceable to the 2nd millennium BCE in a form known as Vedic Sanskrit,[25] with the Rigveda as the earliest-known composition. A more refined and standardized grammatical form called Classical Sanskrit emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE with the Aṣṭādhyāyī treatise of Pāṇini.[9] Sanskrit, though not necessarily Classical Sanskrit, is the root language of many Prakrit languages.[26] Examples include numerous, modern, North Indian, subcontinental daughter languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Kumaoni, Garhwali, Urdu, Dogri, Maithili, Konkani, Assamese, Odia, and Nepali.[27][28][29] Sanskrit has significantly influenced the grammar, phonology and vocabulary of the Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam languages of South India.[30][31][32]
8
+
9
+ The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama, scientific, technical and other texts. In the ancient era, Sanskrit compositions were orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity.[33][34] The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the few discovered in Ayodhya and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh).[35][note 3] Sanskrit texts dated to the 1st millennium CE were written in the Brahmi script, the Nāgarī script, the historic South Indian scripts and their derivative scripts.[39][40][41] Sanskrit is one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since India's independence in 1947.[42] Sanskrit is a living language and spoken as a primary language in some villages in India. It is taught in a large number of schools in India. It also continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hinduism and some Buddhist practices such as recitation of hymns and chants.
10
+
11
+ In Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sam (together, good, well, perfected) and krta- (made, formed, work).[43][44] It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred".[45][46][47] According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined the alphabet, the structure of words and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold", states Biderman, as an integral language they called Sanskrit.[44] From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that weaved all ideas and inspirations became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit.[48][49]
12
+
13
+ Sanskrit as a language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages (prākṛta-). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth.[50] The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to the problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involve "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view is found in the writing of Bharata Muni, the author of the ancient Nāṭyaśāstra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam (came before, origin) and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar".[51]
14
+
15
+ Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. It is one of three ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European language:[21][52][53]
16
+
17
+ Other Indo-European languages related to Sanskrit include archaic and classical Latin (c. 600 BCE – 100 CE, old Italian), Gothic (archaic Germanic language, c. 350 CE), Old Norse (c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan (c. late 2nd millennium BCE[55]) and Younger Avestan (c. 900 BCE).[52][53] The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in the Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of the northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas,[53][56][57] as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian—both Iranian languages.[58][59][60] Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages.
18
+
19
+ Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of the Sanskrit language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe.[note 4] It suggested a common root and historical links between some of the major distant ancient languages of the world.[note 5]
20
+
21
+ In order to explain the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages, the Indo-Aryan migration theory states that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in the Indian subcontinent from the north-west sometime during the early second millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes the close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages, vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages, and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna.[63] The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on the relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia.[64] The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into the Indian subcontinent in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India, the Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language.[65]
22
+
23
+ The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit. The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda, a Hindu scripture, from the mid-to-late second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive if they ever existed. However, scholars are confident that the oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they were ceremonial literature where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition.[66][67][68]
24
+
25
+ The Rigveda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors from distant parts of ancient India. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest.[69][70] Yet, the Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Rigveda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou—an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Rigveda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE.[71] Beyond the Rigveda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into the modern age include the Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and the early Upanishads.[66] These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern and eastern Indian subcontinent.[9][72]
26
+
27
+ Vedic Sanskrit was both a spoken and literary language of ancient India. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of the semi-nomadic Aryas who temporarily settled in one place, maintained cattle herds, practiced limited agriculture and after some time moved by wagon trains they called grama.[73][11] The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the "Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that are now parts of Syria and Turkey.[74][note 6] Parts of this treaty such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes the gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature.[74][76]
28
+
29
+ O Brihaspati, when in giving names
30
+    they first set forth the beginning of Language,
31
+ Their most excellent and spotless secret
32
+    was laid bare through love,
33
+ When the wise ones formed Language with their mind,
34
+    purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan,
35
+ Then friends knew friendships –
36
+    an auspicious mark placed on their language.
37
+
38
+ — Rigveda 10.71.1–4Translated by Roger Woodard[77]
39
+
40
+ The Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rigveda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.[78] According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton—Indologists known for their translation of the Rigveda—, the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times, the social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations and some of the poetic meters.[79][note 7] While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Rigveda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Rigvedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different.[81]
41
+
42
+ The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous, and it evolved over time into a more structured and homogeneous language, ultimately into the Classical Sanskrit by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. The language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages, states Gombrich.[82]
43
+
44
+ The formalization of the Sanskrit language is credited to Pāṇini, along with Patanjali's Mahabhasya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patanjali's work.[83] Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ("Eight-Chapter Grammar"). The century in which he lived is unclear and debated, but his work is generally accepted to be from sometime between 6th and 4th centuries BCE.[84][85][86]
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+
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+ The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full. Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as the variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India.[87] The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Apisali, Kashyapa, Gargya, Galava, Cakravarmana, Bharadvaja, Sakatayana, Sakalya, Senaka and Sphotayana.[88] The Aṣṭādhyāyī of Panini became the foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedanga.[89] In the Aṣṭādhyāyī, language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, defines the linguistic expression and a classic that set the standard for the Sanskrit language.[90] Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced.[91]
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+
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+ Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit.[92] His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia.[93] It is unclear whether Pāṇini wrote his treatise on Sanskrit language or he orally created the detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as lipi ("script") and lipikara ("scribe") in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī.[94][95][96][note 8]
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+
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+ The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and a restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded".[103] The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond the Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language.[104]
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+
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+ The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit are negligible when compared to the intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between Indo-Aryan language and the Vedic Sanskrit.[105] The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax.[106] There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as the sandhi rules, both internal and external.[106] Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature.[106]
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+
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+ Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of the differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit.[106][107] Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir.[108]
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+
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+ The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in the context of a language, is found in verses 3.16.14 and 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana.[110][note 9]. Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects (Prakrits) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa, literally "spoiled".[112][113] The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in the regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism, the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times.[114][115][116] However, states Paul Dundas, a scholar of Jainism, these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly the same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin."[116] The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had the capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi.[116][note 10]
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+
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+ Colonial era scholars questioned whether Sanskrit was ever a spoken language, or just a literary language.[118] Scholars disagree in their answers. A section of Western scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language, while others and particularly most Indian scholars state the opposite.[119] Those who affirm Sanskrit to have been a vernacular language point to the necessity of Sanskrit being a spoken language for the oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. Secondly, they state that the textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini and Patanajali affirms that the Classical Sanskrit in their era was a language that is spoken (bhasha) by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit.[119] The 7th-century Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region.[119]
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+
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+ According to Sanskrit linguist Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit.[13] This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in the literary works.[13] The Indian tradition, states Moriz Winternitz, has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata Purana, the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language.[120] The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages.[13] Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the vernacular Prakrits.[13] Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. Centres in Varanasi, Paithan, Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era.[121]
61
+
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+ According to Étienne Lamotte—an Indologist and Buddhism scholar, Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied so did its spread and influence.[122] Sanskrit was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms as "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE.[123]
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+
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+ — Foreword of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf[124][125][note 11]
65
+
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+ Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama, scientific, technical and others.[127][128] It is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh).[35]
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+ Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism.[129][130] The structure and capabilities of the Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language?[129][131] They speculated on the role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other.[131][note 12] These speculations became particularly important to the Mimamsa and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal—a scholar of Linguistics with a focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit.[129] Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship ;[134] for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts.[135] According to Renou, Sanskrit had a limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature.[136] Sanskrit was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati.[137][138]
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+
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+ The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE.[38] Xuanzang, another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in the 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong.[142][143] By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia,[15] parts of the East Asia[16] and the Central Asia.[17] It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions.[144] According to the Dalai Lama, the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet.[145]
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+
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+ The Sanskrit language created a pan-Indic accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally.[121][148] It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent.[148] As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language.[148] It connected scholars from distant parts of the Indian subcontinent such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given the first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indic people together, particularly its elite scholars.[121] Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to the more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as "namah".[121]
73
+
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+ Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE.[149] Its position in the cultures of Greater India is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent, particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent.[27][28][29]
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+
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+ Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century.[123][150] This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of the Indian subcontinent to create, and thereafter expand the Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire.[151] With the fall of Kashmir around the 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared,[152] perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Sheldon Pollock.[153]:397–398 The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century.[153]:398 As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and the South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire, so did Sanskrit.[152] There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar.[154] Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with the Muslim rulers.[155] Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire, reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity.[155][156][157] After Islamic rule disintegrated in the Indian subcontinent and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support the historic Sanskrit literary culture.[152]
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+
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+ Scholars are divided on whether or when Sanskrit died. Western authors such as John Snelling state that Sanskrit and Pali are both dead Indian languages.[158] Indian authors such as M Ramakrishnan Nair state that Sanskrit was a dead language by the 1st millennium BCE.[159] Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead".[153]:393 After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with the previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock.[153]:398
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+
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+ Other scholars state that Sanskrit language did not die, only declined. Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes a negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder,[160]
81
+
82
+ On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be a dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead."[152]
83
+
84
+ The Sanskrit language scholar Moriz Winternitz states, Sanskrit was never a dead language and it is still alive though its prevalence is lesser than ancient and medieval times. Sanskrit remains an integral part of Hindu journals, festivals, Ramlila plays, drama, rituals and the rites-of-passage.[161] Similarly, Brian Hatcher states that the "metaphors of historical rupture" by Pollock are not valid, that there is ample proof that Sanskrit was very much alive in the narrow confines of surviving Hindu kingdoms between the 13th and 18th centuries, and its reverence and tradition continues.[162]
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+
86
+ Hanneder states that modern works in Sanskrit are either ignored or their "modernity" contested.[163]
87
+
88
+ According to Robert Goldman and Sally Sutherland, Sanskrit is neither "dead" nor "living" in the conventional sense. It is a special, timeless language that lives in the numerous manuscripts, daily chants and ceremonial recitations, a heritage language that Indians contextually prize and some practice.[164]
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+
90
+ When the British introduced English to India in the 19th century, knowledge of Sanskrit and ancient literature continued to flourish as the study of Sanskrit changed from a more traditional style into a form of analytical and comparative scholarship mirroring that of Europe.[165]
91
+
92
+ The relationship of Sanskrit to the Prakrit languages, particularly the modern form of Indian languages, is complex and spans about 3,500 years, states Colin Masica—a linguist specializing in South Asian languages. A part of the difficulty is the lack of sufficient textual, archaeological and epigraphical evidence for the ancient Prakrit languages with rare exceptions such as Pali, leading to a tendency of anachronistic errors.[166] Sanskrit and Prakrit languages may be divided into Old Indo-Aryan (1500 BCE–600 BCE), Middle Indo-Aryan (600 BCE–1000 CE) and New Indo-Aryan (1000 CE–current), each can further be subdivided in early, middle or second, and late evolutionary substages.[166]
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+
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+ Vedic Sanskrit belongs to the early Old Indo-Aryan while Classical Sanskrit to the later Old Indo-Aryan stage. The evidence for Prakrits such as Pali (Theravada Buddhism) and Ardhamagadhi (Jainism), along with Magadhi, Maharashtri, Sinhala, Sauraseni and Niya (Gandhari), emerge in the Middle Indo-Aryan stage in two versions—archaic and more formalized—that may be placed in early and middle substages of the 600 BCE–1000 CE period.[166] Two literary Indic languages can be traced to the late Middle Indo-Aryan stage and these are Apabhramsa and Elu (a form of literary Sinhalese). Numerous North, Central, Eastern and Western Indian languages, such as Hindi, Gujarati, Sindhi, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Nepali, Braj, Awadhi, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Marathi, and others belong to the New Indo-Aryan stage.[166]
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+
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+ There is an extensive overlap in the vocabulary, phonetics and other aspects of these New Indo-Aryan languages with Sanskrit, but it is neither universal nor identical across the languages. They likely emerged from a synthesis of the ancient Sanskrit language traditions and an admixture of various regional dialects. Each language has some unique and regionally creative aspects, with unclear origins. Prakrit languages do have a grammatical structure, but like the Vedic Sanskrit, it is far less rigorous than Classical Sanskrit. The roots of all Prakrit languages may be in the Vedic Sanskrit and ultimately the Indo-Aryan language, their structural details vary from the Classical Sanskrit.[26][166] It is generally accepted by scholars and widely believed in India that the modern Indic languages, such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi and Punjabi are descendants of the Sanskrit language.[167][168][169] Sanskrit, states Burjor Avari, can be described as "the mother language of almost all the languages of north India".[170]
97
+
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+ The Sanskrit language's historic presence is attested across a wide geography beyond the Indian subcontinent. Inscriptions and literary evidence suggests that Sanskrit language was already being adopted in Southeast Asia and Central Asia in the 1st millennium CE, through monks, religious pilgrims and merchants.[171][172][173]
99
+
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+ The Indian subcontinent has been the geographic range of the largest collection of the ancient and pre-18th-century Sanskrit manuscripts and inscriptions.[126] Beyond ancient India, significant collections of Sanskrit manuscripts and inscriptions have been found in China (particularly the Tibetan monasteries),[174][175] Myanmar,[176] Indonesia,[177] Cambodia,[178] Laos,[179] Vietnam,[180] Thailand,[181] and Malaysia.[179] Sanskrit inscriptions, manuscripts or its remnants, including some of the oldest known Sanskrit written texts, have been discovered in dry high deserts and mountainous terrains such as in Nepal,[182][183][note 13] Tibet,[175][184] Afghanistan,[185][186] Mongolia,[187] Uzbekistan,[188] Turkmenistan, Tajikistan,[188] and Kazakhstan.[189] Some Sanskrit texts and inscriptions have also been discovered in Korea and Japan.[190][191][192]
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+
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+ In India, Sanskrit is among the 22 official languages of India in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution.[193] In 2010, Uttarakhand became the first state in India to make Sanskrit its second official language.[194] In 2019, Himachal Pradesh made Sanskrit its second official language, becoming the second state in India to do so.[195]
103
+
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+ Sanskrit shares many Proto-Indo-European phonological features, although it features a larger inventory of distinct phonemes. The consonantal system is the same, though it systematically enlarged the inventory of distinct sounds. For example, Sanskrit added a voiceless aspirated "tʰ", to the voiceless "t", voiced "d" and voiced aspirated "dʰ" found in PIE languages.[196]
105
+
106
+ The most significant and distinctive phonological development in Sanskrit is vowel-merger, states Stephanie Jamison—an Indo-European linguist specializing in Sanskrit literature.[196] The short *e, *o and *a, all merge as a (अ) in Sanskrit, while long *ē, *ō and *ā, all merge as long ā (आ). These mergers occurred very early and significantly impacted Sanskrit's morphological system.[196] Some phonological developments in it mirror those in other PIE languages. For example, the labiovelars merged with the plain velars as in other satem languages. The secondary palatalization of the resulting segments is more thorough and systematic within Sanskrit, states Jamison.[196] A series of retroflex dental stops were innovated in Sanskrit to more thoroughly articulate sounds for clarity. For example, unlike the loss of the morphological clarity from vowel contraction that is found in early Greek and related southeast European languages, Sanskrit deployed *y, *w, and *s intervocalically to provide morphological clarity.[196]
107
+
108
+ The cardinal vowels (svaras) i (इ), u (उ), a (अ) distinguish length in Sanskrit, states Jamison.[197][198] The short a (अ) in Sanskrit is a closer vowel than ā, equivalent to schwa. The mid-vowels ē (ए) and ō (ओ) in Sanskrit are monophthongizations of the Indo-Iranian diphthongs *ai and *au. The Old Iranian language preserved *ai and *au.[197] The Sanskrit vowels are inherently long, though often transcribed e and o without the diacritic. The vocalic liquid r̥ in Sanskrit is a merger of PIE *r̥ and *l̥. The long r̥ is an innovation and it is used in a few analogically generated morphological categories.[197][199][200]
109
+
110
+ According to Masica, Sanskrit has four traditional semivowels, with which were classed, "for morphophonemic reasons, the liquids: y, r, l, and v; that is, as y and v were the non-syllabics corresponding to i, u, so were r, l in relation to r̥ and l̥".[205] The northwestern, the central and the eastern Sanskrit dialects have had a historic confusion between "r" and "l". The Paninian system that followed the central dialect preserved the distinction, likely out of reverence for the Vedic Sanskrit that distinguished the "r" and "l". However, the northwestern dialect only had "r", while the eastern dialect probably only had "l", states Masica. Thus literary works from different parts of ancient India appear inconsistent in their use of "r" and "l", resulting in doublets that is occasionally semantically differentiated.[205]
111
+
112
+ Sanskrit possesses a symmetric consonantal phoneme structure based on how the sound is articulated, though the actual usage of these sounds conceals the lack of parallelism in the apparent symmetry possibly from historical changes within the language.[206]
113
+
114
+ /t͡ɕ/
115
+
116
+ /t͡ɕʰ/
117
+
118
+ /d͡ʑ/
119
+
120
+ /d͡ʑʱ/
121
+
122
+ Sanskrit had a series of retroflex stops. All the retroflexes in Sanskrit are in "origin conditioned alternants of dentals, though from the beginning of the language they have a qualified independence", states Jamison.[206]
123
+
124
+ Regarding the palatal plosives, the pronunciation is a matter of debate. In contemporary attestation, the palatal plosives are a regular series of palatal stops, supported by most Sanskrit sandhi rules. However, the reflexes in descendant languages, as well as a few of the sandhi rules regarding ch, could suggest an affricate pronunciation.
125
+
126
+ jh was a marginal phoneme in Sanskrit, hence its phonology is more difficult to reconstruct; it was more commonly employed in the Middle Indo-Aryan languages as a result of phonological processes resulting in the phoneme.
127
+
128
+ The palatal nasal is a conditioned variant of n occurring next to palatal obstruents.[206] The anusvara that Sanskrit deploys is a conditioned alternant of postvocalic nasals, under certain sandhi conditions.[207] Its visarga is a word-final or morpheme-final conditioned alternant of s and r under certain sandhi conditions.[207]
129
+
130
+ — A. M. Ruppel, The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit[208]
131
+
132
+ The voiceless aspirated series is also an innovation in Sanskrit but is significantly rarer than the other three series.[206]
133
+
134
+ While the Sanskrit language organizes sounds for expression beyond those found in the PIE language, it retained many features found in the Iranian and Balto-Slavic languages. An example of a similar process in all three, states Jamison, is the retroflex sibilant ʂ being the automatic product of dental s following i, u, r, and k (mnemonically "ruki").[207]
135
+
136
+ Sanskrit deploys extensive phonological alternations on different linguistic levels through sandhi rules (literally, the rules of "putting together, union, connection, alliance"). This is similar to the English alteration of "going to" as gonna, states Jamison.[209] The Sanskrit language accepts such alterations within it, but offers formal rules for the sandhi of any two words next to each other in the same sentence or linking two sentences. The external sandhi rules state that similar short vowels coalesce into a single long vowel, while dissimilar vowels form glides or undergo diphthongization.[209] Among the consonants, most external sandhi rules recommend regressive assimilation for clarity when they are voiced. According to Jamison, these rules ordinarily apply at compound seams and morpheme boundaries.[209] In Vedic Sanskrit, the external sandhi rules are more variable than in Classical Sanskrit.[210]
137
+
138
+ The internal sandhi rules are more intricate and account for the root and the canonical structure of the Sanskrit word. These rules anticipate what are now known as the Bartholomae's law and Grassmann's law. For example, states Jamison, the "voiceless, voiced, and voiced aspirated obstruents of a positional series regularly alternate with each other (p ≈ b ≈ bʰ; t ≈ d ≈ dʰ, etc.; note, however, c ≈ j ≈ h), such that, for example, a morpheme with an underlying voiced aspirate final may show alternants[clarification needed] with all three stops under differing internal sandhi conditions".[211] The velar series (k, g, gʰ) alternate with the palatal series (c, j, h), while the structural position of the palatal series is modified into a retroflex cluster when followed by dental. This rule create two morphophonemically distinct series from a single palatal series.[211]
139
+
140
+ Vocalic alternations in the Sanskrit morphological system is termed "strengthening", and called guna and vriddhi in the preconsonantal versions. There is an equivalence to terms deployed in Indo-European descriptive grammars, wherein Sanskrit's unstrengthened state is same as the zero-grade, guna corresponds to normal-grade, while vriddhi is same as the lengthened-state.[212] The qualitative ablaut is not found in Sanskrit just like it is absent in Iranian, but Sanskrit retains quantitative ablaut through vowel strengthening.[212] The transformations between unstrengthened to guna is prominent in the morphological system, states Jamison, while vriddhi is a particularly significant rule when adjectives of origin and appurtenance are derived. The manner in which this is done slightly differs between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit.[212][213]
141
+
142
+ Sanskrit grants a very flexible syllable structure, where they may begin or end with vowels, be single consonants or clusters. Similarly, the syllable may have an internal vowel of any weight. The Vedic Sanskrit shows traces of following the Sievers-Edgerton Law, but Classical Sanskrit doesn't. Vedic Sanskrit has a pitch accent system, states Jamison, which were acknowledged by Panini, but in his Classical Sanskrit the accents disappear.[214] Most Vedic Sanskrit words have one accent. However, this accent is not phonologically predictable, states Jamison.[214] It can fall anywhere in the word and its position often conveys morphological and syntactic information.[214] According to Masica, the presence of an accent system in Vedic Sanskrit is evidenced from the markings in the Vedic texts. This is important because of Sanskrit's connection to the PIE languages and comparative Indo-European linguistics.[215]
143
+
144
+ Sanskrit, like most early Indo-European languages, lost the so-called "laryngeal consonants (cover-symbol *H) present in the Proto-Indo-European", states Jamison.[214] This significantly impacted the evolutionary path of the Sanskrit phonology and morphology, particularly in the variant forms of roots.[216]
145
+
146
+ Because Sanskrit is not anyone's native language, it does not have a fixed pronunciation. People tend to pronounce it as they do their native language. The articles on Hindustani, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya and Bengali phonology will give some indication of the variation that is encountered. When Sanskrit was a spoken language, its pronunciation varied regionally and also over time. Nonetheless, Panini described the sound system of Sanskrit well enough that people have a fairly good idea of what he intended.
147
+
148
+ The basis of Sanskrit morphology is the root, states Jamison, "a morpheme bearing lexical meaning".[226] The verbal and nominal stems of Sanskrit words are derived from this root through the phonological vowel-gradation processes, the addition of affixes, verbal and nominal stems. It then adds an ending to establish the grammatical and syntactic identity of the stem. According to Jamison, the "three major formal elements of the morphology are (i) root, (ii) affix, and (iii) ending; and they are roughly responsible for (i) lexical meaning, (ii) derivation, and (iii) inflection respectively".[227]
149
+
150
+ A Sanskrit word has the following canonical structure:[226]
151
+
152
+ The root structure has certain phonological constraints. Two of the most important constraints of a "root" is that it does not end in a short "a" (अ) and that it is monosyllabic.[226] In contrast, the affixes and endings commonly do. The affixes in Sanskrit are almost always suffixes, with exceptions such as the augment "a-" added as prefix to past tense verb forms and the "-na/n-" infix in single verbal present class, states Jamison.[226]
153
+
154
+ A verb in Sanskrit has the following canonical structure:[228]
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+ According to Ruppel, verbs in Sanskrit express the same information as other Indo-European languages such as English.[229] Sanskrit verbs describe an action or occurrence or state, its embedded morphology informs as to "who is doing it" (person or persons), "when it is done" (tense) and "how it is done" (mood, voice). The Indo-European languages differ in the detail. For example, the Sanskrit language attaches the affixes and ending to the verb root, while the English language adds small independent words before the verb. In Sanskrit, these elements co-exist within the word.[229][note 16]
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+ Both verbs and nouns in Sanskrit are either thematic or athematic, states Jamison.[231] Guna (strengthened) forms in the active singular regularly alternate in athematic verbs. The finite verbs of Classical Sanskrit have the following grammatical categories: person, number, voice, tense-aspect, and mood. According to Jamison, a portmanteau morpheme generally expresses the person-number-voice in Sanskrit, and sometimes also the ending or only the ending. The mood of the word is embedded in the affix.[231]
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+ These elements of word architecture are the typical building blocks in Classical Sanskrit, but in Vedic Sanskrit these elements fluctuate and are unclear. For example, in the Rigveda preverbs regularly occur in tmesis, states Jamison, which means they are "separated from the finite verb".[226] This indecisiveness is likely linked to Vedic Sanskrit's attempt to incorporate accent. With nonfinite forms of the verb and with nominal derivatives thereof, states Jamison, "preverbs show much clearer univerbation in Vedic, both by position and by accent, and by Classical Sanskrit, tmesis is no longer possible even with finite forms".[226]
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+ While roots are typical in Sanskrit, some words do not follow the canonical structure.[227] A few forms lack both inflection and root. Many words are inflected (and can enter into derivation) but lack a recognizable root. Examples from the basic vocabulary include kinship terms such as mātar- (mother), nas- (nose), śvan- (dog). According to Jamison, pronouns and some words outside the semantic categories also lack roots, as do the numerals. Similarly, the Sanskrit language is flexible enough to not mandate inflection.[227]
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+ The Sanskrit words can contain more than one affix that interact with each other. Affixes in Sanskrit can be athematic as well as thematic, according to Jamison.[232] Athematic affixes can be alternating. Sanskrit deploys eight cases, namely nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, locative, vocative.[232]
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+ Stems, that is "root + affix", appear in two categories in Sanskrit: vowel stems and consonant stems. Unlike some Indo-European languages such as Latin or Greek, according to Jamison, "Sanskrit has no closed set of conventionally denoted noun declensions". Sanskrit includes a fairly large set of stem-types.[233] The linguistic interaction of the roots, the phonological segments, lexical items and the grammar for the Classical Sanskrit consist of four Paninian components. These, states Paul Kiparsky, are the Astadhyaayi, a comprehensive system of 4,000 grammatical rules, of which a small set are frequently used; Sivasutras, an inventory of anubandhas (markers) that partition phonological segments for efficient abbreviations through the pratyharas technique; Dhatupatha, a list of 2,000 verbal roots classified by their morphology and syntactic properties using diacritic markers, a structure that guides its writing systems; and, the Ganapatha, an inventory of word groups, classes of lexical systems.[234] There are peripheral adjuncts to these four, such as the Unadisutras, which focus on irregularly formed derivatives from the roots.[234]
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+ Sanskrit morphology is generally studied in two broad fundamental categories: the nominal forms and the verbal forms. These differ in the types of endings and what these endings mark in the grammatical context.[227] Pronouns and nouns share the same grammatical categories, though they may differ in inflection. Verb-based adjectives and participles are not formally distinct from nouns. Adverbs are typically frozen case forms of adjectives, states Jamison, and "nonfinite verbal forms such as infinitives and gerunds also clearly show frozen nominal case endings".[227]
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+ The Sanskrit language includes five tenses: present, future, past imperfect, past aorist and past perfect.[230] It outlines three types of voices: active, passive and the middle.[230] The middle is also referred to as the mediopassive, or more formally in Sanskrit as parasmaipada (word for another) and atmanepada (word for oneself).[228]
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+ The paradigm for the tense-aspect system in Sanskrit is the three-way contrast between the "present", the "aorist" and the "perfect" architecture.[235] Vedic Sanskrit is more elaborate and had several additional tenses. For example, the Rigveda includes perfect and a marginal pluperfect. Classical Sanskrit simplifies the "present" system down to two tenses, the perfect and the imperfect, while the "aorist" stems retain the aorist tense and the "perfect" stems retain the perfect and marginal pluperfect.[235] The classical version of the language has elaborate rules for both voice and the tense-aspect system to emphasize clarity, and this is more elaborate than in other Indo-European languages. The evolution of these systems can be seen from the earliest layers of the Vedic literature to the late Vedic literature.[236]
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+ Sanskrit recognizes three numbers—singular, dual, and plural.[232] The dual is a fully functioning category, used beyond naturally paired objects such as hands or eyes, extending to any collection of two. The elliptical dual is notable in the Vedic Sanskrit, according to Jamison, where a noun in the dual signals a paired opposition.[232] Illustrations include dyāvā (literally, "the two heavens" for heaven-and-earth), mātarā (literally, "the two mothers" for mother-and-father).[232] A verb may be singular, dual or plural, while the person recognized in the language are forms of "I", "you", "he/she/it", "we" and "they".[230]
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+ There are three persons in Sanskrit: first, second and third.[228] Sanskrit uses the 3×3 grid formed by the three numbers and the three persons parameters as the paradigm and the basic building block of its verbal system.[236]
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+ The Sanskrit language incorporates three genders: feminine, masculine and neuter.[232] All nouns have inherent gender, but with some exceptions, personal pronouns have no gender. Exceptions include demonstrative and anaphoric pronouns.[232] Derivation of a word is used to express the feminine. Two most common derivations come from feminine-forming suffixes, the -ā- (आ, Rādhā) and -ī- (ई, Rukmīnī). The masculine and neuter are much simpler, and the difference between them is primarily inflectional.[232][237] Similar affixes for the feminine are found in many Indo-European languages, states Burrow, suggesting links of the Sanskrit to its PIE heritage.[238]
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+ Pronouns in Sanskrit include the personal pronouns of the first and second persons, unmarked for gender, and a larger number of gender-distinguishing pronouns and adjectives.[231] Examples of the former include ahám (first singular), vayám (first plural) and yūyám (second plural). The latter can be demonstrative, deictic or anaphoric.[231] Both the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit share the sá/tám pronominal stem, and this is the closest element to a third person pronoun and an article in the Sanskrit language, states Jamison.[231]
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+ Indicative, potential and imperative are the three mood forms in Sanskrit.[230]
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+ The Sanskrit language formally incorporates poetic metres.[239] By the late Vedic era, this developed into a field of study and it was central to the composition of the Hindu literature including the later Vedic texts. This study of Sanskrit prosody is called chandas and considered as one of the six Vedangas, or limbs of Vedic studies.[239][240]
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+ Sanskrit prosody includes linear and non-linear systems.[241] The system started off with seven major metres, according to Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, called the "seven birds" or "seven mouths of Brihaspati", and each had its own rhythm, movements and aesthetics wherein a non-linear structure (aperiodicity) was mapped into a four verse polymorphic linear sequence.[242] A syllable in Sanskrit is classified as either laghu (light) or guru (heavy). This classification is based on a matra (literally, "count, measure, duration"), and typically a syllable that ends in a short vowel is a light syllable, while those that end in consonant, anusvara or visarga are heavy. The classical Sanskrit found in Hindu scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita and many texts are so arranged that the light and heavy syllables in them follow a rhythm, though not necessarily a rhyme.[243][244][note 19]
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+ Sanskrit metres include those based on a fixed number of syllables per verse, and those based on fixed number of morae per verse.[246] The Vedic Sanskrit employs fifteen metres, of which seven are common, and the most frequent are three (8-, 11- and 12-syllable lines).[247] The Classical Sanskrit deploys both linear and non-linear metres, many of which are based on syllables and others based on diligently crafted verses based on repeating numbers of morae (matra per foot).[247]
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+ There is no word without meter,
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+ nor is there any meter without words.
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+ —Natya Shastra[248]
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+ Meter and rhythm is an important part of the Sanskrit language. It may have played a role in helping preserve the integrity of the message and Sanskrit texts. The verse perfection in the Vedic texts such as the verse Upanishads[note 20] and post-Vedic Smriti texts are rich in prosody. This feature of the Sanskrit language led some Indologists from the 19th century onwards to identify suspected portions of texts where a line or sections are off the expected metre.[249][250][note 21]
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+ The meter-feature of the Sanskrit language embeds another layer of communication to the listener or reader. A change in metres has been a tool of literary architecture and an embedded code to inform the reciter and audience that it marks the end of a section or chapter.[254] Each section or chapter of these texts uses identical metres, rhythmically presenting their ideas and making it easier to remember, recall and check for accuracy.[254] Authors coded a hymn's end by frequently using a verse of a metre different than that used in the hymn's body.[254] However, Hindu tradition does not use the Gayatri metre to end a hymn or composition, possibly because it has enjoyed a special level of reverence in Hinduism.[254]
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+ The early history of writing Sanskrit and other languages in ancient India is a problematic topic despite a century of scholarship, states Richard Salomon—an epigraphist and Indologist specializing in Sanskrit and Pali literature.[255] The earliest possible script from the Indian subcontinent is from the Indus Valley Civilization (3rd/2nd millennium BCE), but this script – if it is a script – remains undeciphered. If any scripts existed in the Vedic period, they have not survived. Scholars generally accept that Sanskrit was spoken in an oral society, and that an oral tradition preserved the extensive Vedic and Classical Sanskrit literature.[256] Other scholars such as Jack Goody state that the Vedic Sanskrit texts are not the product of an oral society, basing this view by comparing inconsistencies in the transmitted versions of literature from various oral societies such as the Greek, Serbian, and other cultures, then noting that the Vedic literature is too consistent and vast to have been composed and transmitted orally across generations, without being written down.[257][258]
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+ Lipi is the term in Sanskrit which means "writing, letters, alphabet". It contextually refers to scripts, the art or any manner of writing or drawing.[94] The term, in the sense of a writing system, appears in some of the earliest Buddhist, Hindu, and Jaina texts. Pāṇini's Astadhyayi, composed sometime around the 5th or 4th century BCE, for example, mentions lipi in the context of a writing script and education system in his times, but he does not name the script.[94][95][259] Several early Buddhist and Jaina texts, such as the Lalitavistara Sūtra and Pannavana Sutta include lists of numerous writing scripts in ancient India.[note 22] The Buddhist texts list the sixty four lipi that the Buddha knew as a child, with the Brahmi script topping the list. "The historical value of this list is however limited by several factors", states Salomon. The list may be a later interpolation.[261][note 23] The Jain canonical texts such as the Pannavana Sutta—probably older than the Buddhist texts—list eighteen writing systems, with the Brahmi topping the list and Kharotthi (Kharoshthi) listed as fourth. The Jaina text elsewhere states that the "Brahmi is written in 18 different forms", but the details are lacking.[263] However, the reliability of these lists has been questioned and the empirical evidence of writing systems in the form of Sanskrit or Prakrit inscriptions dated prior to the 3rd century BCE has not been found. If the ancient surface for writing Sanskrit was palm leaves, tree bark and cloth—the same as those in later times, these have not survived.[264][note 24] According to Salomon, many find it difficult to explain the "evidently high level of political organization and cultural complexity" of ancient India without a writing system for Sanskrit and other languages.[264][note 25]
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+ The oldest datable writing systems for Sanskrit are the Brāhmī script, the related Kharoṣṭhī script and the Brahmi derivatives.[267][268] The Kharosthi was used in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent and it became extinct, while the Brahmi was used in all over the subcontinent along with regional scripts such as Old Tamil.[269] Of these, the earliest records in the Sanskrit language are in Brahmi, a script that later evolved into numerous related Indic scripts for Sanskrit, along with Southeast Asian scripts (Burmese, Thai, Lao, Khmer, others) and many extinct Central Asian scripts such as those discovered along with the Kharosthi in the Tarim Basin of western China and in Uzbekistan.[270] The most extensive inscriptions that have survived into the modern era are the rock edicts and pillar inscriptions of the 3rd-century BCE Mauryan emperor Ashoka, but these are not in Sanskrit.[271][note 26]
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+
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+ Over the centuries, and across countries, a number of scripts have been used to write Sanskrit.
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+ The Brahmi script for writing Sanskrit is a "modified consonant-syllabic" script. The graphic syllable is its basic unit, and this consists of a consonant with or without diacritic modifications.[273] Since the vowel is an integral part of the consonants, and given the efficiently compacted, fused consonant cluster morphology for Sanskrit words and grammar, the Brahmi and its derivative writing systems deploy ligatures, diacritics and relative positioning of the vowel to inform the reader how the vowel is related to the consonant and how it is expected to be pronounced for clarity.[268][274][note 28] This feature of Brahmi and its modern Indic script derivatives makes it difficult to classify it under the main script types used for the writing systems for most of the world's languages, namely logographic, syllabic and alphabetic.[268]
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+ The Brahmi script evolved into "a vast number of forms and derivatives", states Richard Salomon, and in theory, Sanskrit "can be represented in virtually any of the main Brahmi-based scripts and in practice it often is".[275] Sanskrit does not have a native script. Being a phonetic language, it can be written in any precise script that efficiently maps unique human sounds to unique symbols.[clarification needed] From the ancient times, it has been written in numerous regional scripts in South and Southeast Asia. Most of these are descendants of the Brahmi script.[276] The earliest datable varnamala Brahmi alphabet system, found in later Sanskrit texts, is from the 2nd century BCE, in the form of a terracotta plaque found in Sughana, Haryana. It shows a "schoolboy's writing lessons", states Salomon.[277][278]
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+ Many modern era manuscripts are written and available in the Nagari script, whose form is attestable to the 1st millennium CE.[279] The Nagari script is the ancestor of Devanagari (north India), Nandinagari (south India) and other variants. The Nāgarī script was in regular use by 7th century CE, and had fully evolved into Devanagari and Nandinagari[280] scripts by about the end of the first millennium of the common era.[281][282] The Devanagari script, states Banerji, became more popular for Sanskrit in India since about the 18th century.[283] However, Sanskrit does have special historical connection to the Nagari script as attested by the epigraphical evidence.[284]
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+ The Nagari script has been thought as a north Indian script for Sanskrit as well as the regional languages such as Hindi, Marathi and Nepali. However, it has had a "supra-local" status as evidenced by 1st-millennium CE epigraphy and manuscripts discovered all over India and as far as Sri Lanka, Burma, Indonesia and in its parent form called the Siddhamatrka script found in manuscripts of East Asia.[285] The Sanskrit and Balinese languages Sanur inscription on Belanjong pillar of Bali (Indonesia), dated to about 914 CE, is in part in the Nagari script.[286]
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+
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+ The Nagari script used for Classical Sanskrit has the fullest repertoire of characters consisting of fourteen vowels and thirty three consonants. For the Vedic Sanskrit, it has two more allophonic consonantal characters (the intervocalic ळ ḷa, and ळ्ह ḷha).[285] To communicate phonetic accuracy, it also includes several modifiers such as the anusvara dot and the visarga double dot, punctuation symbols and others such as the halanta sign.[285]
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+ Other scripts such as Gujarati, Bangla, Odia and major south Indian scripts, states Salomon, "have been and often still are used in their proper territories for writing Sanskrit".[279] These and many Indian scripts look different to the untrained eye, but the differences between Indic scripts is "mostly superficial and they share the same phonetic repertoire and systemic features", states Salomon.[287] They all have essentially the same set of eleven to fourteen vowels and thirty-three consonants as established by the Sanskrit language and attestable in the Brahmi script. Further, a closer examination reveals that they all have the similar basic graphic principles, the same varnamala (literally, "garland of letters") alphabetic ordering following the same logical phonetic order, easing the work of historic skilled scribes writing or reproducing Sanskrit works across the Indian subcontinent.[288][note 29] The Sanskrit language written in some Indic scripts exaggerate angles or round shapes, but this serves only to mask the underlying similarities. Nagari script favours symmetry set with squared outlines and right angles. In contrast, Sanskrit written in the Bangla script emphasizes the acute angles while the neighbouring Odia script emphasizes rounded shapes and uses cosmetically appealing "umbrella-like curves" above the script symbols.[290]
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+
219
+ In the south, where Dravidian languages predominate, scripts used for Sanskrit include the Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Grantha alphabets.
220
+
221
+ Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has been transliterated using the Latin alphabet. The system most commonly used today is the IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1888. ASCII-based transliteration schemes have also evolved because of difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. These include Harvard-Kyoto and ITRANS, a transliteration scheme that is used widely on the Internet, especially in Usenet and in email, for considerations of speed of entry as well as rendering issues. With the wide availability of Unicode-aware web browsers, IAST has become common online. It is also possible to type using an alphanumeric keyboard and transliterate to Devanagari using software like Mac OS X's international support.
222
+
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+ European scholars in the 19th century generally preferred Devanagari for the transcription and reproduction of whole texts and lengthy excerpts. However, references to individual words and names in texts composed in European Languages were usually represented with Roman transliteration. From the 20th century onwards, because of production costs, textual editions edited by Western scholars have mostly been in Romanised transliteration.[291]
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+ The earliest known stone inscriptions in Sanskrit are in the Brahmi script from the first century BCE.[35][note 30][note 31] These include the Ayodhyā (Uttar Pradesh) and Hāthībādā-Ghosuṇḍī (near Chittorgarh, Rajasthan) inscriptions.[35][294] Both of these, states Salomon, are "essentially standard" and "correct Sanskrit", with a few exceptions reflecting an "informal Sanskrit usage".[35] Other important Hindu inscriptions dated to the 1st century BCE, in relatively accurate classical Sanskrit and Brahmi script are the Yavanarajya inscription on a red sandstone slab and the long Naneghat inscription on the wall of a cave rest stop in the Western Ghats.[295]
226
+
227
+ Besides these few examples from the 1st century BCE, the earliest Sanskrit and hybrid dialect inscriptions are found in Mathura (Uttar Pradesh).[296] These date to the 1st and 2nd century CE, states Salomon, from the time of the Indo-Scythian Northern Satraps and the subsequent Kushan Empire.[note 32] These are also in the Brahmi script.[298] The earliest of these, states Salomon, are attributed to Ksatrapa Sodasa from the early years of 1st century CE. Of the Mathura inscriptions, the most significant is the Mora Well Inscription.[298] In a manner similar to the Hathibada inscription, the Mora well inscription is a dedicatory inscription and is linked to the cult of the Vrishni heroes: it mentions a stone shrine (temple), pratima (murti, images) and calls the five Vrishnis as bhagavatam.[298][299] There are many other Mathura Sanskrit inscriptions in Brahmi script overlapping the era of Indo-Scythian Northern Satraps and early Kushanas.[300] Other significant 1st-century inscriptions in reasonably good classical Sanskrit in the Brahmi script include the Vasu Doorjamb Inscription and the Mountain Temple inscription.[301] The early ones are related to the Brahmanical, except for the inscription from Kankali Tila which may be Jaina, but none are Buddhist.[302][303] A few of the later inscriptions from the 2nd century CE include Buddhist Sanskrit, while others are in "more or less" standard Sanskrit and related to the Brahmanical tradition.[304]
228
+
229
+ In Maharashtra and Gujarat, Brahmi script Sanskrit inscriptions from the early centuries of the common era exist at the Nasik Caves site, near the Girnar mountain of Junagadh and elsewhere such as at Kanakhera, Kanheri, and Gunda.[305] The Nasik inscription dates to the mid-1st century CE, is a fair approximation of standard Sanskrit and has hybrid features.[305] The Junagadh rock inscription of Western Satraps ruler Rudradaman I (c. 150 CE, Gujarat) is the first long poetic-style inscription in "more or less" standard Sanskrit that has survived into the modern era. It represents a turning point in the history of Sanskrit epigraphy, states Salomon.[306][note 33] Though no similar inscriptions are found for about two hundred years after the Rudradaman reign, it is important because its style is the prototype of the eulogy-style Sanskrit inscriptions found in the Gupta Empire era.[306] These inscriptions are also in the Brahmi script.[307]
230
+
231
+ The Nagarjunakonda inscriptions are the earliest known substantial South Indian Sanskrit inscriptions, probably from the late 3rd century or early 4th century CE, or both.[308] These inscriptions are related to Buddhism and the Shaivism tradition of Hinduism.[309] A few of these inscriptions from both traditions are verse-style in the classical Sanskrit language, while some such as the pillar inscription is written in prose and a hybridized Sanskrit language.[308] An earlier hybrid Sanskrit inscription found on Amaravati slab is dated to the late 2nd century, while a few later ones include Sanskrit inscriptions along with Prakrit inscriptions related to Hinduism and Buddhism.[310] After the 3rd century CE, Sanskrit inscriptions dominate and many have survived.[311] Between the 4th and 7th centuries CE, south Indian inscriptions are exclusively in the Sanskrit language.[312] In the eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent, scholars report minor Sanskrit inscriptions from the 2nd century, these being fragments and scattered. The earliest substantial true Sanskrit language inscription of Susuniya (West Bengal) is dated to the 4th century.[313] Elsewhere, such as Dehradun (Uttarakhand), inscriptions in more or less correct classical Sanskrit inscriptions are dated to the 3rd century.[313]
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+
233
+ According to Salomon, the 4th-century reign of Samudragupta was the turning point when the classical Sanskrit language became established as the "epigraphic language par excellence" of the Indian world.[314] These Sanskrit language inscriptions are either "donative" or "panegyric" records. Generally in accurate classical Sanskrit, they deploy a wide range of regional Indic writing systems extant at the time.[315] They record the donation of a temple or stupa, images, land, monasteries, pilgrim's travel record, public infrastructure such as water reservoir and irrigation measures to prevent famine. Others praise the king or the donor in lofty poetic terms.[316] The Sanskrit language of these inscriptions is written on stone, various metals, terracotta, wood, crystal, ivory, shell and cloth.[317][note 34]
234
+
235
+ The evidence of the use of the Sanskrit language in Indic writing systems appears in southeast Asia in the first half of the 1st millennium CE.[320] A few of these in Vietnam are bilingual where both the Sanskrit and the local language is written in the Indian alphabet. Early Sanskrit language inscriptions in Indic writing systems are dated to the 4th century in Malaysia, 5th to 6th centuries in Thailand near Si Thep and the Sak River, early 5th century in Kutai (east Borneo) and mid-5th century in west Java (Indonesia).[320] Both major writing systems for Sanskrit, the North Indian and South Indian scripts, have been discovered in southeast Asia, but the Southern variety with its rounded shapes are far more common.[321] The Indic scripts, particularly the Pallava script prototype,[322] spread and ultimately evolved into Mon-Burmese, Khmer, Thai, Laos, Sumatran, Celebes, Javanese and Balinese scripts.[323][324] From about the 5th century, Sanskrit inscriptions become common in many parts of South Asia and Southeast Asia, with significant discoveries in Nepal, Vietnam and Cambodia.[314]
236
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237
+ Sanskrit has been written in various scripts on a variety of media such as palm leaves, cloth, paper, rock and metal sheets, from ancient times.[325]
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239
+ For nearly 2,000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia.[153] A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian.[358] Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa (आर्ष), meaning 'of the ṛṣis', the traditional title for the ancient authors. In some contexts, there are also more "prakritisms" (borrowings from common speech) than in Classical Sanskrit proper. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is a literary language heavily influenced by the Middle Indo-Aryan languages, based on early Buddhist Prakrit texts which subsequently assimilated to the Classical Sanskrit standard in varying degrees.[359]
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241
+ Sanskrit has greatly influenced the languages of India that grew from its vocabulary and grammatical base; for instance, Hindi is a "Sanskritised register" of Hindustani. All modern Indo-Aryan languages, as well as Munda and Dravidian languages have borrowed many words either directly from Sanskrit (tatsama words), or indirectly via middle Indo-Aryan languages (tadbhava words). Words originating in Sanskrit are estimated at roughly fifty percent of the vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages, as well as the literary forms of Malayalam and Kannada.[360] Literary texts in Telugu are lexically Sanskrit or Sanskritised to an enormous extent, perhaps seventy percent or more.[361] Marathi is another prominent language in Western India, that derives most of its words and Marathi grammar from Sanskrit.[362] Sanskrit words are often preferred in the literary texts in Marathi over corresponding colloquial Marathi word.[363]
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+ Buddhist Sanskrit has had a considerable influence on East Asian languages such as Chinese, state William Wang and Chaofen Sun.[364] Many words have been adopted from Sanskrit into the Chinese, both in its historic religious discourse and everyday use.[364][note 36] This process likely started about 200 CE and continued through about 1400 CE, with the efforts of monks such as Yuezhi, Anxi, Kangju, Tianzhu, Yan Fodiao, Faxian, Xuanzang and Yijing.[364] Further, as the Chinese language and culture influenced the rest of East Asia, the ideas in Sanskrit texts and some of its linguistic elements migrated further.[365][366]
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+ Sanskrit has also influenced Sino-Tibetan languages, mostly through translations of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. Many terms were transliterated directly and added to the Chinese vocabulary. Chinese words like 剎那 chànà (Devanagari: क्षण kṣaṇa 'instantaneous period') were borrowed from Sanskrit. Many Sanskrit texts survive only in Tibetan collections of commentaries to the Buddhist teachings, the Tengyur.[367]
246
+
247
+ Sanskrit was a language for religious purposes and for the political elite in parts of medieval era Southeast Asia, Central Asia and East Asia.[144] In Southeast Asia, languages such as Thai and Lao contain many loanwords from Sanskrit, as does Khmer. Many Sanskrit loanwords are also found in Austronesian languages, such as Javanese, particularly the older form in which nearly half the vocabulary is borrowed.[368] Other Austronesian languages, such as traditional Malay and modern Indonesian, also derive much of their vocabulary from Sanskrit. Similarly, Philippine languages such as Tagalog have some Sanskrit loanwords, although more are derived from Spanish. A Sanskrit loanword encountered in many Southeast Asian languages is the word bhāṣā, or spoken language, which is used to refer to the names of many languages.[369] English also has words of Sanskrit origin.
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249
+ Sanskrit has also influenced the religious register of Japanese mostly through transliterations. These were borrowed from Chinese transliterations.[370] In particular, the Shingon (lit. '"True Words"') sect of esoteric Buddhism has been relying on Sanskrit and original Sanskrit mantras and writings, as a means of realizing Buddhahood.[371]
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+ Sanskrit is the sacred language of various Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions. It is used during worship in Hindu temples. In Newar Buddhism, it is used in all monasteries, while Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhist religious texts and sutras are in Sanskrit as well as vernacular languages. Some of the revered texts of Jainism including the Tattvartha sutra, Ratnakaranda śrāvakācāra, the Bhaktamara Stotra and the Agamas are in Sanskrit. Further, states Paul Dundas, Sanskrit mantras and Sanskrit as a ritual language was commonplace among Jains throughout their medieval history.[372]
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+ Many Hindu rituals and rites-of-passage such as the "giving away the bride" and mutual vows at weddings, a baby's naming or first solid food ceremony and the goodbye during a cremation invoke and chant Sanskrit hymns.[373] Major festivals such as the Durga Puja ritually recite entire Sanskrit texts such as the Devi Mahatmya every year particularly amongst the numerous communities of eastern India.[374][375] In the south, Sanskrit texts are recited at many major Hindu temples such as the Meenakshi Temple.[376] According to Richard H. Davis, a scholar of Religion and South Asian studies, the breadth and variety of oral recitations of the Sanskrit text Bhagavad Gita is remarkable. In India and beyond, its recitations include "simple private household readings, to family and neighborhood recitation sessions, to holy men reciting in temples or at pilgrimage places for passersby, to public Gita discourses held almost nightly at halls and auditoriums in every Indian city".[377]
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+
255
+ More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since India's independence in 1947.[378] Much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages.[379][380]
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+ The Sahitya Akademi has given an award for the best creative work in Sanskrit every year since 1967. In 2009, Satya Vrat Shastri became the first Sanskrit author to win the Jnanpith Award, India's highest literary award.[381]
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+ Sanskrit is used extensively in the Carnatic and Hindustani branches of classical music. Kirtanas, bhajans, stotras, and shlokas of Sanskrit are popular throughout India. The samaveda uses musical notations in several of its recessions.[382]
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+
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+ In Mainland China, musicians such as Sa Dingding have written pop songs in Sanskrit.[383]
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+ Numerous loan Sanskrit words are found in other major Asian languages. For example, Filipino,[384] Cebuano,[385] Lao, Khmer[386] Thai and its alphabets, Malay, Indonesian (old Javanese-English dictionary by P.J. Zoetmulder contains over 25,500 entries), and even in English.
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+ Since 1974, there has been a short daily news broadcast on state-run All India Radio.[387] These broadcasts are also made available on the internet on AIR's website.[388][389] Sanskrit news is broadcast on TV and on the internet through the DD National channel at 6:55 AM IST.[390]
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+ Over 90 weeklies, fortnightlies and quarterlies are published in Sanskrit. Sudharma, a daily printed newspaper in Sanskrit, has been published out of Mysore, India, since 1970. It was started by K.N. Varadaraja Iyengar, a sanskrit scholar from Mysore. Sanskrit Vartman Patram and Vishwasya Vrittantam started in Gujarat during the last five years.[387]
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+ Sanskrit has been taught in schools from time immemorial in India. In modern times, the first Sanskrit University was Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, established in 1791 in the Indian city of Varanasi. Sanskrit is taught in 5,000 traditional schools (Pathashalas), and 14,000 schools[391] in India, where there are also 22 colleges and universities dedicated to the exclusive study of the language.[citation needed] Sanskrit is one the 22 scheduled languages of India.[266] Despite it being a studied school subject in contemporary India, Sanskrit is scarce as a first language. In the 2001 Census of India, 14,135 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue,[392] while in the 2011 census, 24,821 people out of about 1.21 billion reported this to be the case.[393][note 37][note 38]
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+ According to the 2011 national census of Nepal, 1,669 people use Sanskrit as their first language.[3]
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+ The Central Board of Secondary Education of India (CBSE), along with several other state education boards, has made Sanskrit an alternative option to the state's own official language as a second or third language choice in the schools it governs. In such schools, learning Sanskrit is an option for grades 5 to 8 (Classes V to VIII). This is true of most schools affiliated with the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) board, especially in states where the official language is Hindi. Sanskrit is also taught in traditional gurukulas throughout India.[398]
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+ A number of colleges and universities in India have dedicated departments for Sanskrit studies.
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+ St James Junior School in London, England, offers Sanskrit as part of the curriculum.[399] Since September 2009, US high school students have been able to receive credits as Independent Study or toward Foreign Language requirements by studying Sanskrit as part of the "SAFL: Samskritam as a Foreign Language" program coordinated by Samskrita Bharati.[400] In Australia, the private boys' high school Sydney Grammar School offers Sanskrit from years 7 through to 12, including for the Higher School Certificate.[401] Other schools that offer Sanskrit include the Ficino School in Auckland, New Zealand; St James Preparatory Schools in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, South Africa; John Colet School, Sydney, Australia; Erasmus School, Melbourne, Australia.[402][403][404]
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+ European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by Heinrich Roth (1620–1668) and Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681–1731), is considered responsible for the discovery of an Indo-European language family by Sir William Jones (1746–1794). This research played an important role in the development of Western philology, or historical linguistics.[405]
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+ The 18th- and 19th-century speculations about the possible links of Sanskrit to ancient Egyptian language were later proven to be wrong, but it fed an orientalist discourse both in the form Indophobia and Indophilia, states Trautmann.[406] Sanskrit writings, when first discovered, were imagined by Indophiles to potentially be "repositories of the primitive experiences and religion of the human race, and as such confirmatory of the truth of Christian scripture", as well as a key to "universal ethnological narrative".[407] The Indophobes imagined the opposite, making the counterclaim that there is little of any value in Sanskrit, portraying it as "a language fabricated by artful [Brahmin] priests", with little original thought, possibly copied from the Greeks who came with Alexander or perhaps the Persians.[408]
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+ Scholars such as William Jones and his colleagues felt the need for systematic studies of Sanskrit language and literature. This launched the Asiatic Society, an idea that was soon transplanted to Europe starting with the efforts of Henry Thomas Colebrooke in Britain, then Alexander Hamilton who helped expand its studies to Paris and thereafter his student Friedrich Schlegel who introduced Sanskrit to the universities of Germany. Schlegel nurtured his own students into influential European Sanskrit scholars, particularly through Franz Bopp and Friedrich Max Muller. As these scholars translated the Sanskrit manuscripts, the enthusiasm for Sanskrit grew rapidly among European scholars, states Trautmann, and chairs for Sanskrit "were established in the universities of nearly every German statelet" creating a competition for Sanskrit experts.[409]
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+ In India, Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia, Sanskrit phrases are widely used as mottoes for various national, educational and social organisations:
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+ The song My Sweet Lord by George Harrison includes The Hare Krishna mantra, also referred to reverentially as the Maha Mantra, is a 16-word Vaishnava mantra which is mentioned in the Kali-Santarana Upanishad.Satyagraha, an opera by Philip Glass, uses texts from the Bhagavad Gita, sung in Sanskrit.[415][416] The closing credits of The Matrix Revolutions has a prayer from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The song "Cyber-raga" from Madonna's album Music includes Sanskrit chants,[417] and Shanti/Ashtangi from her 1998 album Ray of Light, which won a Grammy, is the ashtanga vinyasa yoga chant.[418] The lyrics include the mantra Om shanti.[419] Composer John Williams featured choirs singing in Sanskrit for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.[420][421][better source needed] The theme song of Battlestar Galactica 2004 is the Gayatri Mantra, taken from the Rigveda.[422] The lyrics of "The Child in Us" by Enigma also contains Sanskrit verses.[423][better source needed] In 2006, Mexican singer Paulina Rubio was influenced in Sanskrit for her concept album Ananda.[424]
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+ Contrary to popular belief, there is an astonishing quality of creative upsurge of writing in Sanskrit today. Modern Sanskrit writing is qualitatively of such high order that it can easily be treated on par with the best of Classical Sanskrit literature, It can also easily compete with the writings in other Indian languages.
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+ The latter half of the nineteenth century marks the beginning of a new era in Sanskrit literature. Many of the modern Sanskrit writings are qualitatively of such high order that they can easily be treated at par with the best of classical Sanskrit works, and they can also be judged in contrast to the contemporary literature in other languages.
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+ Leonardo da Vinci (English: /ˌliːəˈnɑːrdoʊ də ˈvɪntʃi, ˌliːoʊˈ-, ˌleɪoʊˈ-/;[a] 14/15 April 1452[b] – 2 May 1519),[4] was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time (despite less than 25 of his paintings having survived).[c] The Mona Lisa is the most famous of Leonardo's works and the most famous portrait ever made.[5] The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time[6] and his Vitruvian Man drawing is also regarded as a cultural icon.[7] He is also known for his his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on science and invention; these involve a variety of subjects including anatomy, cartography, painting, and paleontology. Leonardo's collective works compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary Michelangelo.[8]
6
+
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+ Properly named Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci,[d] Leonardo was born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci, in the region of Florence, Italy. Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Italian painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan, and he later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice. He spent his last three years in France, where he died in 1519.
8
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+ Although he had no formal academic training,[9] many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the "Universal Genius" or "Renaissance Man", an individual of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination."[6] He is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived.[10] According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent in recorded history, and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote."[6] Scholars interpret his view of the world as being based in logic, though the empirical methods he used were unorthodox for his time.[11]
10
+
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+ Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine,[12] and the double hull. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. Some of his smaller inventions, however, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire. He is also sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter, and tank.[13][14] He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had little to no direct influence on subsequent science.[15]
12
+
13
+ Leonardo was born on 14/15 April 1452[b] in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno river in the territory of the Medici-ruled Republic of Florence.[18] He was the out-of-wedlock son of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a wealthy Florentine legal notary, and a peasant named Caterina,[e] identified as Caterina Buti del Vacca and more recently as Caterina di Meo Lippi by historian Martin Kemp. There have been many theories regarding Leonardo's mother's identity, including that she was a slave of foreign origin or an impoverished local youth.[17][20][21][22][f] Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense—da Vinci simply meaning "of Vinci"; his full birth name was Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci,[2][25] meaning "Leonardo, (son) of ser Piero (from) Vinci."[18][d]
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+
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+ Leonardo spent his first years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother, and from at least 1457 lived in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle in the small town of Vinci.[26] His father had married a 16-year-old girl named Albiera Amadori, who loved Leonardo but died young[27] in 1465 without children. In 1468, when Leonardo was 16, his father married again to 20-year-old Francesca Lanfredini, who also died without children. Piero's legitimate heirs were born from his third wife Margherita di Guglielmo, who gave birth to six children, and his fourth and final wife, Lucrezia Cortigiani, who bore him another six heirs.[28][29]
16
+ In all, Leonardo had 12 half-siblings, who were much younger than he was (the last was born when Leonardo was 40 years old) and with whom he had very little contact.[g]
17
+
18
+ Leonardo received an informal education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded few distinct childhood incidents. One was of a kite coming to his cradle and opening his mouth with its tail; he regarded this as an omen of his writing on the subject.[31][32] The second occurred while he was exploring in the mountains: he discovered a cave and was both terrified that some great monster might lurk there and driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.[27] He also seems to have remembered some of his childhood observations of water, writing and crossing out the name of his hometown in one of his notebooks on the formation of rivers.[26]
19
+
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+ Leonardo's early life has been the subject of historical conjecture.[33] Vasari, the 16th-century biographer of Renaissance painters, tells a story of Leonardo as a very young man: A local peasant made himself a round shield and requested that Ser Piero have it painted for him. Leonardo, inspired by the story of Medusa, responded with a painting of a monster spitting fire that was so terrifying that his father bought a different shield to give to the peasant and sold Leonardo's to a Florentine art dealer for 100 ducats, who in turn sold it to the Duke of Milan.[34]
21
+
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+ In the mid-1460s, Leonardo's family moved to Florence, and around the age of 14,[30] he became a garzone (studio boy) in the workshop of Verrocchio, who was the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his time.[35] Leonardo became an apprentice by the age of 17 and remained in training for seven years.[36][37] Other famous painters apprenticed in the workshop or associated with it include Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi.[27][38] Leonardo was exposed to both theoretical training and a wide range of technical skills,[39] including drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics, and wood-work, as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting, and modelling.[40][h]
23
+
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+ Much of the painting in Verrocchio's workshop was done by his employees. According to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated with Verrocchio on his The Baptism of Christ, painting the young angel holding Jesus' robe in a manner that was so far superior to his master's that Verrocchio put down his brush and never painted again, although this is believed to be an apocryphal story.[41] Close examination reveals areas of the work that have been painted or touched-up over the tempera, using the new technique of oil paint, including the landscape, the rocks seen through the brown mountain stream, and much of the figure of Jesus, bearing witness to the hand of Leonardo.[42] Leonardo may have been the model for two works by Verrocchio: the bronze statue of David in the Bargello, and the Archangel Raphael in Tobias and the Angel.[20]
25
+
26
+ By 1472, at the age of 20, Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of Saint Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine,[i] but even after his father set him up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to collaborate and live with him.[27][43] Leonardo's earliest known dated work is a 1473 pen-and-ink drawing of the Arno valley,[38] which has been cited as the first "pure" landscape in the Occident.[j][44] According to Vasari, the young Leonardo was the first to suggest making the Arno river a navigable channel between Florence and Pisa.[45]
27
+
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+ In January 1478, Leonardo received an independent commission to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of St. Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio,[46] an indication of his independence from Verrocchio's studio. One anonymous writer claims that in 1480, Leonardo was living with the Medici and often worked in the garden of the Piazza San Marco, Florence, where a Neoplatonic academy of artists, poets and philosophers organized by the Medici met.[20] In March 1481, he received a commission from the monks of San Donato in Scopeto for The Adoration of the Magi.[47]
29
+ Neither of these initial commissions were completed, being abandoned when Leonardo went to offer his services to Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza. In 1482, he casted a silver stringed instrument[k] from a horse's skull and ram horns to bring to Sforza,[48] whom he wrote a letter describing the diverse things that he could achieve in the fields of engineering and weapon design, and mentioning that he could paint.[38][48][49]
30
+
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+ Leonardo worked in Milan from 1482 until 1499. He was commissioned to paint the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception and The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.[51] In the spring of 1485, Leonardo travelled to Hungary on behalf of Sforza to meet king Matthias Corvinus, and was commissioned by him to paint a Madonna.[52]
32
+ Leonardo was employed on many other projects for Sforza, including the preparation of floats and pageants for special occasions, a drawing and wooden model for a competition to design the cupola for Milan Cathedral (which he withdrew),[53] and a model for a huge equestrian monument to Ludovico's predecessor Francesco Sforza. This would have surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello's Gattamelata in Padua and Verrocchio's Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, and became known as the Gran Cavallo.[38] Leonardo completed a model for the horse and made detailed plans for its casting,[38] but in November 1494, Ludovico gave the bronze to his brother-in-law to be used for a cannon to defend the city from Charles VIII.[38]
33
+
34
+ With Ludovico Sforza overthrown at the dawn of the Second Italian War, Leonardo, with his assistant Salaì and friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice.[54] There, he was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack.[27] On his return to Florence in 1500, he and his household were guests of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided with a workshop where, according to Vasari, Leonardo created the cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist, a work that won such admiration that "men and women, young and old" flocked to see it "as if they were attending a great festival."[55][l]
35
+
36
+ In Cesena in 1502, Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and travelling throughout Italy with his patron.[54] Leonardo created a map of Cesare Borgia's stronghold, a town plan of Imola in order to win his patronage. Maps were extremely rare at the time and it would have seemed like a new concept. Upon seeing it, Cesare hired Leonardo as his chief military engineer and architect. Later in the year, Leonardo produced another map for his patron, one of Chiana Valley, Tuscany, so as to give his patron a better overlay of the land and greater strategic position. He created this map in conjunction with his other project of constructing a dam from the sea to Florence, in order to allow a supply of water to sustain the canal during all seasons.
37
+
38
+ Leonardo had left Borgia's service and returned to Florence by early 1503,[57] where he rejoined the Guild of Saint Luke on 18 October of that year. By this same month, Leonardo had begun working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the model for the Mona Lisa,[58][59] which he would continue working on until his twilight years. In January 1504, he was part of a committee formed to recommend where Michelangelo's statue of David should be placed.[60] He then spent two years in Florence designing and painting a mural of The Battle of Anghiari for the Signoria,[54] with Michelangelo designing its companion piece, The Battle of Cascina.[m]
39
+
40
+ In 1506, Leonardo was summoned to Milan by Charles II d'Amboise, the acting French governor of the city. The Council of Florence wished Leonardo to return promptly to finish The Battle of Anghiari, but he was given leave at the behest of Louis XII, who considered commissioning the artist to make some portraits.[63] Leonardo may have commenced a project for an equestrian figure of d'Amboise;[64] a wax model survives and, if genuine, is the only extant example of Leonardo's sculpture. Leonardo was otherwise free to pursue his scientific interests.[63] Many of Leonardo's most prominent pupils either knew or worked with him in Milan,[27] including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, and Marco d'Oggiono.
41
+ In 1507, Leonardo was in Florence sorting out a dispute with his brothers over the estate of his father, who had died in 1504. By 1508, Leonardo was back in Milan, living in his own house in Porta Orientale in the parish of Santa Babila.[65]
42
+
43
+ In 1512, Leonardo was working on plans for an equestrian monument for Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, but this was prevented by an invasion of a confederation of Swiss, Spanish and Venetian forces, which drove the French from Milan. Leonardo stayed in the city, spending several months in 1513 at the Medici's Vaprio d'Adda villa.[67] In March of that year, Lorenzo de' Medici's son Giovanni assumed the papacy (as Leo X); Leonardo went to Rome that September, where he was received by the pope's brother Giuliano.[67] From September 1513 to 1516, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere Courtyard in the Apostolic Palace, where Michelangelo and Raphael were both active.[65] Leonardo was given an allowance of 33 ducats a month, and according to Vasari, decorated a lizard with scales dipped in quicksilver.[68] The pope gave him a painting commission of unknown subject matter, but cancelled it when the artist set about developing a new kind of varnish.[68][n] Leonardo became ill, in what may have been the first of multiple strokes leading to his death.[68] He practiced botany in the Gardens of Vatican City, and was commissioned to make plans for the pope's proposed draining of the Pontine Marshes.[69] He also dissected cadavers, making notes for a treatise on vocal cords;[70] these he gave to an official in hopes of regaining the pope's favor, but was unsuccessful.[68]
44
+
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+ In October 1515, King Francis I of France recaptured Milan.[47] Leonardo was present at the 19 December meeting of Francis I and Leo X, which took place in Bologna.[27][71][72] In 1516, Leonardo entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé, near the king's residence at the royal Château d'Amboise. Being frequently visited by Francis, he drew plans for an immense castle town the king intended to erect at Romorantin, and made a mechanical lion, which during a pageant walked toward the king and—upon being struck by a wand—opened its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies.[73][74][o] Leonardo was accompanied during this time by his friend and apprentice, Francesco Melzi, and supported by a pension totalling 10,000 scudi.[65] At some point, Melzi drew a portrait of Leonardo; the only others known from his lifetime were a sketch by an unknown assistant on the back of one of Leonardo's studies (c. 1517)[76] and a drawing by Giovanni Ambrogio Figino depicting an elderly Leonardo with his right arm assuaged by cloth.[77][p][q] The latter, in addition to the record of an October 1517 visit by Louis d'Aragon,[r] confirms an account of Leonardo's right hand being paralytic at the age of 65,[80] which may indicate why he left works such as the Mona Lisa unfinished.[78][81][82] He continued to work at some capacity until eventually becoming ill and bedridden for several months.[80]
46
+
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+ Leonardo died at Clos Lucé on 2 May 1519 at the age of 67, possibly of a stroke.[83][82] Francis I had become a close friend. Vasari describes Leonardo as lamenting on his deathbed, full of repentance, that "he had offended against God and men by failing to practice his art as he should have done."[84] Vasari states that in his last days, Leonardo sent for a priest to make his confession and to receive the Holy Sacrament.[85] Vasari also records that the king held Leonardo's head in his arms as he died, although this story may be legend rather than fact.[s][t] In accordance with his will, sixty beggars carrying tapers followed Leonardo's casket.[87][u] Melzi was the principal heir and executor, receiving, as well as money, Leonardo's paintings, tools, library and personal effects. Leonardo also remembered his other long-time pupil and companion, Salaì, and his servant Baptista de Vilanis, who each received half of Leonardo's vineyards.[88] His brothers received land, and his serving woman received a fur-lined cloak. On 12 August 1519, Leonardo's remains were interred in the Collegiate Church of Saint Florentin at the Château d'Amboise.[89]
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+
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+ Some 20 years after Leonardo's death, Francis was reported by the goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini as saying: "There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher."[90]
50
+
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+ Florence at the time of Leonardo's youth was the centre of Christian Humanist thought and culture.[35] Leonardo commenced his apprenticeship with Verrocchio in 1466, the year that Verrocchio's master, the great sculptor Donatello, died.[v] The painter Uccello, whose early experiments with perspective were to influence the development of landscape painting, was a very old man. The painters Piero della Francesca and Filippo Lippi, sculptor Luca della Robbia, and architect and writer Leon Battista Alberti were in their sixties. The successful artists of the next generation were Leonardo's teacher Verrocchio, Antonio del Pollaiuolo, and the portrait sculptor Mino da Fiesole.[91][92][93][94]
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+
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+ Leonardo's youth was spent in a Florence that was ornamented by the works of these artists and by Donatello's contemporaries, Masaccio, whose figurative frescoes were imbued with realism and emotion; and Ghiberti, whose Gates of Paradise, gleaming with gold leaf, displayed the art of combining complex figure compositions with detailed architectural backgrounds. Piero della Francesca had made a detailed study of perspective,[95] and was the first painter to make a scientific study of light. These studies and Alberti's treatise De pictura[96] were to have a profound effect on younger artists and in particular on Leonardo's own observations and artworks.[91][93][94]
54
+
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+ A prevalent tradition in Florence was the small altarpiece of the Virgin and Child. Many of these were created in tempera or glazed terracotta by the workshops of Filippo Lippi, Verrocchio and the prolific della Robbia family.[91] Leonardo's early Madonnas such as The Madonna with a carnation and the Benois Madonna followed this tradition while showing idiosyncratic departures, particularly in the latter in which the Virgin is set at an oblique angle to the picture space with the Christ Child at the opposite angle. This compositional theme was to emerge in Leonardo's later paintings such as The Virgin and Child with St. Anne.[27]
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+
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+ Leonardo was a contemporary of Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Perugino, who were all slightly older than he was.[92] He would have met them at the workshop of Verrocchio, with whom they had associations, and at the Academy of the Medici.[27] Botticelli was a particular favourite of the Medici family, and thus his success as a painter was assured. Ghirlandaio and Perugino were both prolific and ran large workshops. They competently delivered commissions to well-satisfied patrons who appreciated Ghirlandaio's ability to portray the wealthy citizens of Florence within large religious frescoes, and Perugino's ability to deliver a multitude of saints and angels of unfailing sweetness and innocence.[91]
58
+ These three were among those commissioned to paint the walls of the Sistine Chapel, the work commencing with Perugino's employment in 1479. Leonardo was not part of this prestigious commission. His first significant commission, The Adoration of the Magi for the Monks of Scopeto, was never completed.[27]
59
+
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+ In 1476, during the time of Leonardo's association with Verrocchio's workshop, the Portinari Altarpiece by Hugo van der Goes arrived in Florence, bringing from Northern Europe new painterly techniques that were to profoundly affect Leonardo, Ghirlandaio, Perugino and others.[92] In 1479, the Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina, who worked exclusively in oils, travelled north on his way to Venice, where the leading painter Giovanni Bellini adopted the technique of oil painting, quickly making it the preferred method in Venice. Leonardo was also later to visit Venice.[92][94]
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+
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+ Like the two contemporary architects Donato Bramante (who designed the Belvedere Courtyard) and Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, Leonardo experimented with designs for centrally planned churches, a number of which appear in his journals, as both plans and views, although none was ever realised.[92][97]
63
+
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+ Leonardo's political contemporaries were Lorenzo de' Medici (il Magnifico), who was three years older, and his younger brother Giuliano, who was slain in the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478. Leonardo was sent as an ambassador by the Medici court to Ludovico il Moro, who ruled Milan between 1479 and 1499.[92]
65
+
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+ With Alberti, Leonardo visited the home of the Medici and through them came to know the older Humanist philosophers of whom Marsiglio Ficino, proponent of Neo Platonism; Cristoforo Landino, writer of commentaries on Classical writings, and John Argyropoulos, teacher of Greek and translator of Aristotle were the foremost. Also associated with the Academy of the Medici was Leonardo's contemporary, the brilliant young poet and philosopher Pico della Mirandola.[92][94][87] Leonardo later wrote in the margin of a journal, "The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me." While it was through the action of Lorenzo that Leonardo received his employment at the court of Milan, it is not known exactly what Leonardo meant by this cryptic comment.[27]
67
+
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+ Although usually named together as the three giants of the High Renaissance, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael were not of the same generation. Leonardo was 23 when Michelangelo was born and 31 when Raphael was born.[92] Raphael died at the age of 37 in 1520, the year after Leonardo died, but Michelangelo went on creating for another 45 years.[93][94]
69
+
70
+ Within Leonardo's lifetime, his extraordinary powers of invention, his "outstanding physical beauty," "infinite grace," "great strength and generosity," "regal spirit and tremendous breadth of mind," as described by Vasari,[98] as well as all other aspects of his life, attracted the curiosity of others. One such aspect was his love for animals, likely including vegetarianism and according to Vasari, a habit of purchasing caged birds and releasing them.[99][100]
71
+
72
+ Leonardo had many friends who are now renowned either in their fields or for their historical significance. They included the mathematician Luca Pacioli,[101] with whom he collaborated on the book Divina proportione in the 1490s. Leonardo appears to have had no close relationships with women except for his friendship with Cecilia Gallerani and the two Este sisters, Beatrice and Isabella.[102] While on a journey that took him through Mantua, he drew a portrait of Isabella that appears to have been used to create a painted portrait, now lost.[27]
73
+
74
+ Beyond friendship, Leonardo kept his private life secret. His sexuality has been the subject of satire, analysis, and speculation. This trend began in the mid-16th century and was revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, most notably by Sigmund Freud.[103] Leonardo's most intimate relationships were perhaps with his pupils Salaì and Melzi. Melzi, writing to inform Leonardo's brothers of his death, described Leonardo's feelings for his pupils as both loving and passionate. It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships were of a sexual or erotic nature. Court records of 1476, when he was aged twenty-four, show that Leonardo and three other young men were charged with sodomy in an incident involving a well-known male prostitute. The charges were dismissed for lack of evidence, and there is speculation that since one of the accused, Lionardo de Tornabuoni, was related to Lorenzo de' Medici, the family exerted its influence to secure the dismissal.[104] Since that date much has been written about his presumed homosexuality and its role in his art, particularly in the androgyny and eroticism manifested in Saint John the Baptist and Bacchus and more explicitly in a number of erotic drawings.[105]
75
+
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+ Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, nicknamed Salaì or Il Salaino ("The Little Unclean One," i.e., the devil), entered Leonardo's household in 1490. After only a year, Leonardo made a list of his misdemeanours, calling him "a thief, a liar, stubborn, and a glutton," after he had made off with money and valuables on at least five occasions and spent a fortune on clothes.[106] Nevertheless, Leonardo treated him with great indulgence, and he remained in Leonardo's household for the next thirty years.[107] Salaì executed a number of paintings under the name of Andrea Salaì, but although Vasari claims that Leonardo "taught him a great deal about painting,"[74] his work is generally considered to be of less artistic merit than others among Leonardo's pupils, such as Marco d'Oggiono and Boltraffio. In 1515, he painted a nude version of the Mona Lisa, known as Monna Vanna.[108] Salaì owned the Mona Lisa at the time of his death in 1524, and in his will it was assessed at 505 lire, an exceptionally high valuation for a small panel portrait.[109]
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+ In 1506, Leonardo took on another pupil, Count Francesco Melzi, the son of a Lombard aristocrat, who is considered to have been his favourite student. He travelled to France with Leonardo and remained with him until Leonardo's death.[27] Melzi inherited the artistic and scientific works, manuscripts, and collections of Leonardo and administered the estate.
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+
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+ Despite the recent awareness and admiration of Leonardo as a scientist and inventor, for the better part of four hundred years his fame rested on his achievements as a painter. A handful of works that are either authenticated or attributed to him have been regarded as among the great masterpieces. These paintings are famous for a variety of qualities that have been much imitated by students and discussed at great length by connoisseurs and critics. By the 1490s Leonardo had already been described as a "Divine" painter.[110]
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+ Among the qualities that make Leonardo's work unique are his innovative techniques for laying on the paint; his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology; his interest in physiognomy and the way humans register emotion in expression and gesture; his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition; and his use of subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together in his most famous painted works, the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and the Virgin of the Rocks.[111]
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+
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+ Leonardo first gained attention for his work on the Baptism of Christ, painted in conjunction with Verrocchio. Two other paintings appear to date from his time at Verrocchio's workshop, both of which are Annunciations. One is small, 59 centimetres (23 in) long and 14 centimetres (5.5 in) high. It is a "predella" to go at the base of a larger composition, a painting by Lorenzo di Credi from which it has become separated. The other is a much larger work, 217 centimetres (85 in) long.[112] In both Annunciations, Leonardo used a formal arrangement, like two well-known pictures by Fra Angelico of the same subject, of the Virgin Mary sitting or kneeling to the right of the picture, approached from the left by an angel in profile, with a rich flowing garment, raised wings and bearing a lily. Although previously attributed to Ghirlandaio, the larger work is now generally attributed to Leonardo.[113]
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+ In the smaller painting, Mary averts her eyes and folds her hands in a gesture that symbolised submission to God's will. Mary is not submissive, however, in the larger piece. The girl, interrupted in her reading by this unexpected messenger, puts a finger in her bible to mark the place and raises her hand in a formal gesture of greeting or surprise.[91] This calm young woman appears to accept her role as the Mother of God, not with resignation but with confidence. In this painting, the young Leonardo presents the humanist face of the Virgin Mary, recognising humanity's role in God's incarnation.
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+ In the 1480s, Leonardo received two very important commissions and commenced another work that was of ground-breaking importance in terms of composition. Two of the three were never finished, and the third took so long that it was subject to lengthy negotiations over completion and payment.
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+ One of these paintings was Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, which Bortolon associates with a difficult period of Leonardo's life, as evidenced in his diary: "I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die."[27] Although the painting is barely begun, the composition can be seen and is very unusual.[w] Jerome, as a penitent, occupies the middle of the picture, set on a slight diagonal and viewed somewhat from above. His kneeling form takes on a trapezoid shape, with one arm stretched to the outer edge of the painting and his gaze looking in the opposite direction. J. Wasserman points out the link between this painting and Leonardo's anatomical studies.[114] Across the foreground sprawls his symbol, a great lion whose body and tail make a double spiral across the base of the picture space. The other remarkable feature is the sketchy landscape of craggy rocks against which the figure is silhouetted.
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+ The daring display of figure composition, the landscape elements and personal drama also appear in the great unfinished masterpiece, the Adoration of the Magi, a commission from the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto. It is a complex composition, of about 250 x 250 centimetres. Leonardo did numerous drawings and preparatory studies, including a detailed one in linear perspective of the ruined classical architecture that forms part of the background. In 1482 Leonardo went to Milan at the behest of Lorenzo de' Medici in order to win favour with Ludovico il Moro, and the painting was abandoned.[20][113]
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+ The third important work of this period is the Virgin of the Rocks, commissioned in Milan for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. The painting, to be done with the assistance of the de Predis brothers, was to fill a large complex altarpiece.[115] Leonardo chose to paint an apocryphal moment of the infancy of Christ when the infant John the Baptist, in protection of an angel, met the Holy Family on the road to Egypt. The painting demonstrates an eerie beauty as the graceful figures kneel in adoration around the infant Christ in a wild landscape of tumbling rock and whirling water.[116] While the painting is quite large, about 200×120 centimetres, it is not nearly as complex as the painting ordered by the monks of St Donato, having only four figures rather than about fifty and a rocky landscape rather than architectural details. The painting was eventually finished; in fact, two versions of the painting were finished: one remained at the chapel of the Confraternity, while Leonardo took the other to France. The Brothers did not get their painting, however, nor the de Predis their payment, until the next century.[38][54]
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+ Leonardo's most remarkable portrait of this period is the Lady with an Ermine, presumed to be Cecilia Gallerani (c. 1483–1490), lover of Ludovico Sforza.[117][118] The painting is charcterised by the pose of the figure with the head turned at a very different angle to the torso, unusual at a date when many portraits were still rigidly in profile. The ermine plainly carries symbolic meaning, relating either to the sitter, or to Ludovico who belonged to the prestigious Order of the Ermine.[117]
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+ Leonardo's most famous painting of the 1490s is The Last Supper, commissioned for the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. It represents the last meal shared by Jesus with his disciples before his capture and death, and shows the moment when Jesus has just said "one of you will betray me", and the consternation that this statement caused.[38]
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+ The novelist Matteo Bandello observed Leonardo at work and wrote that some days he would paint from dawn till dusk without stopping to eat and then not paint for three or four days at a time.[119] This was beyond the comprehension of the prior of the convent, who hounded him until Leonardo asked Ludovico to intervene. Vasari describes how Leonardo, troubled over his ability to adequately depict the faces of Christ and the traitor Judas, told the Duke that he might be obliged to use the prior as his model.[120]
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+ When finished, the painting was acclaimed as a masterpiece of design and characterization,[121] but it deteriorated rapidly, so that within a hundred years it was described by one viewer as "completely ruined."[122] Leonardo, instead of using the reliable technique of fresco, had used tempera over a ground that was mainly gesso, resulting in a surface subject to mould and to flaking.[123] Despite this, the painting remains one of the most reproduced works of art; countless copies have been made in various mediums.
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+ It is recorded that in 1492, Leonardo, with assistants painted the Sala delle Asse in the Sforza Castle in Milan, with a trompe-l'œil depicting trees, with an intricate labyrinth of leaves and knots on the ceiling.[124]
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+ In 1505 Leonardo was commissioned to paint The Battle of Anghiari in the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred) in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Leonardo devised a dynamic composition depicting four men riding raging war horses engaged in a battle for possession of a standard, at the Battle of Anghiari in 1440. Michelangelo was assigned the opposite wall to depict the Battle of Cascina. Leonardo's painting deteriorated rapidly and is now known from a copy by Rubens.[125]
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+ Among the works created by Leonardo in the 16th century is the small portrait known as the Mona Lisa or La Gioconda, the laughing one. In the present era, it is arguably the most famous painting in the world. Its fame rests, in particular, on the elusive smile on the woman's face, its mysterious quality perhaps due to the subtly shadowed corners of the mouth and eyes such that the exact nature of the smile cannot be determined. The shadowy quality for which the work is renowned came to be called "sfumato," or Leonardo's smoke. Vasari, who is generally thought to have known the painting only by repute, said that "the smile was so pleasing that it seemed divine rather than human; and those who saw it were amazed to find that it was as alive as the original."[126][x]
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+ Other characteristics of the painting are the unadorned dress, in which the eyes and hands have no competition from other details; the dramatic landscape background, in which the world seems to be in a state of flux; the subdued colouring; and the extremely smooth nature of the painterly technique, employing oils laid on much like tempera, and blended on the surface so that the brushstrokes are indistinguishable.[y] Vasari expressed the opinion that the manner of painting would make even "the most confident master...despair and lose heart."[129] The perfect state of preservation and the fact that there is no sign of repair or overpainting is rare in a panel painting of this date.[130]
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+ In the painting Virgin and Child with St. Anne, the composition again picks up the theme of figures in a landscape, which Wasserman describes as "breathtakingly beautiful"[131] and harkens back to the St Jerome picture with the figure set at an oblique angle. What makes this painting unusual is that there are two obliquely set figures superimposed. Mary is seated on the knee of her mother, St Anne. She leans forward to restrain the Christ Child as he plays roughly with a lamb, the sign of his own impending sacrifice.[38] This painting, which was copied many times, influenced Michelangelo, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto,[132] and through them Pontormo and Correggio. The trends in composition were adopted in particular by the Venetian painters Tintoretto and Veronese.
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+ Leonardo was not a prolific painter, but he was a most prolific draftsman, keeping journals full of small sketches and detailed drawings recording all manner of things that took his attention. As well as the journals there exist many studies for paintings, some of which can be identified as preparatory to particular works such as The Adoration of the Magi, The Virgin of the Rocks and The Last Supper.[133]
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+ His earliest dated drawing is a Landscape of the Arno Valley, 1473, which shows the river, the mountains, Montelupo Castle and the farmlands beyond it in great detail.[27][133][z] According to art historian Ludwig Heydenreich, this is "The first true landscape in art."[134] Massimo Polidoro says that it was the first landscape "not to be the background of some religious scene or a portrait. It is the first [documented] time where a landscape was drawn just for the sake of it."[44]
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+ Among his famous drawings are the Vitruvian Man, a study of the proportions of the human body; the Head of an Angel, for The Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre; a botanical study of Star of Bethlehem; and a large drawing (160×100 cm) in black chalk on coloured paper of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist in the National Gallery, London.[133] This drawing employs the subtle sfumato technique of shading, in the manner of the Mona Lisa. It is thought that Leonardo never made a painting from it, the closest similarity being to The Virgin and Child with St. Anne in the Louvre.[135]
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+ Other drawings of interest include numerous studies generally referred to as "caricatures" because, although exaggerated, they appear to be based upon observation of live models. Vasari relates that if Leonardo saw a person with an interesting face he would follow them around all day observing them.[136] There are numerous studies of beautiful young men, often associated with Salaì, with the rare and much admired facial feature, the so-called "Grecian profile."[aa] These faces are often contrasted with that of a warrior.[133] Salaì is often depicted in fancy-dress costume. Leonardo is known to have designed sets for pageants with which these may be associated. Other, often meticulous, drawings show studies of drapery. A marked development in Leonardo's ability to draw drapery occurred in his early works. Another often-reproduced drawing is a macabre sketch that was done by Leonardo in Florence in 1479 showing the body of Bernardo Baroncelli, hanged in connection with the murder of Giuliano, brother of Lorenzo de' Medici, in the Pazzi conspiracy.[133] In his notes, Leonardo recorded the colours of the robes that Baroncelli was wearing when he died.
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+ Renaissance humanism recognised no mutually exclusive polarities between the sciences and the arts, and Leonardo's studies in science and engineering are sometimes considered as impressive and innovative as his artistic work.[38] These studies were recorded in 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and natural philosophy (the forerunner of modern science). They were made and maintained daily throughout Leonardo's life and travels, as he made continual observations of the world around him.[38]
122
+ Leonardo's notes and drawings display an enormous range of interests and preoccupations, some as mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him money and some as intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on water. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery, studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies, rock formations, whirlpools, war machines, flying machines and architecture.[38]
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+ These notebooks—originally loose papers of different types and sizes, were largely entrusted to Leonardo's pupil and heir Francesco Melzi after the master's death.[137] These were to be published, a task of overwhelming difficulty because of its scope and Leonardo's idiosyncratic writing.[138] Some of Leonardo's drawings were copied by an anonymous Milanese artist for a planned treatise on art c. 1570.[139] After Melzi's death in 1570, the collection passed to his son, the lawyer Orazio, who initially took little interest in the journals.[137] In 1587, a Melzi household tutor named Lelio Gavardi took 13 of the manuscripts to Pisa; there, the architect Giovanni Magenta reproached Gavardi for having taken the manuscripts illicitly and returned them to Orazio. Having many more such works in his possession, Orazio gifted the volumes to Magenta. News spread of these lost works of Leonardo's, and Orazio retrieved seven of the 13 manuscripts, which he then gave to Pompeo Leoni for publication in two volumes; one of these was the Codex Atlanticus. The other six works had been distributed to a few others.[140] After Orazio's death, his heirs sold the rest of Leonardo's possessions, and thus began their dispersal.[141]
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+ Some works have found their way into major collections such as the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, which holds the 12-volume Codex Atlanticus, and the British Library in London, which has put a selection from the Codex Arundel (BL Arundel MS 263) online.[142] Works have also been at Holkham Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in the private hands of John Nicholas Brown I and Robert Lehman.[137] The Codex Leicester is the only privately owned major scientific work of Leonardo; it is owned by Bill Gates and displayed once a year in different cities around the world.
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+ Most of Leonardo's writings are in mirror-image cursive.[143][44] Since Leonardo wrote with his left hand, it was probably easier for him to write from right to left.[144][ab] Leonardo used a variety of shorthand and symbols, and states in his notes that he intended to prepare them for publication.[143] In many cases a single topic is covered in detail in both words and pictures on a single sheet, together conveying information that would not be lost if the pages were published out of order.[147] Why they were not published during Leonardo's lifetime is unknown.[38]
129
+
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+ Leonardo's approach to science was observational: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail and did not emphasise experiments or theoretical explanation. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, contemporary scholars mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist, although he did teach himself Latin. In the 1490s he studied mathematics under Luca Pacioli and prepared a series of drawings of regular solids in a skeletal form to be engraved as plates for Pacioli's book Divina proportione, published in 1509.[38] While living in Milan, he studied light from the summit of Monte Rosa.[63] Scientific writings in his notebook on fossils have been considered as influential on early palaeontology[148][149] and he has been called the father of ichnology.[150]
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+ The content of his journals suggest that he was planning a series of treatises on a variety of subjects. A coherent treatise on anatomy is said to have been observed during a visit by Cardinal Louis d'Aragon's secretary in 1517.[151] Aspects of his work on the studies of anatomy, light and the landscape were assembled for publication by Melzi and eventually published as A Treatise on Painting in France and Italy in 1651 and Germany in 1724,[152] with engravings based upon drawings by the Classical painter Nicolas Poussin.[153] According to Arasse, the treatise, which in France went into 62 editions in fifty years, caused Leonardo to be seen as "the precursor of French academic thought on art."[38]
133
+
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+ While Leonardo's experimentation followed scientific methods, a recent and exhaustive analysis of Leonardo as a scientist by Fritjof Capra argues that Leonardo was a fundamentally different kind of scientist from Galileo, Newton and other scientists who followed him in that, as a "Renaissance Man", his theorising and hypothesising integrated the arts and particularly painting.[154][page needed]
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+
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+ Leonardo started his study in the anatomy of the human body under the apprenticeship of Andrea del Verrocchio, who demanded that his students develop a deep knowledge of the subject.[155] As an artist, he quickly became master of topographic anatomy, drawing many studies of muscles, tendons and other visible anatomical features.
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+ As a successful artist, Leonardo was given permission to dissect human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and later at hospitals in Milan and Rome. From 1510 to 1511 he collaborated in his studies with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre. Leonardo made over 240 detailed drawings and wrote about 13,000 words towards a treatise on anatomy.[156] Only a small amount of the material on anatomy was published in Leonardo's Treatise on painting.[138] During the time that Melzi was ordering the material into chapters for publication, they were examined by a number of anatomists and artists, including Vasari, Cellini and Albrecht Dürer, who made a number of drawings from them.[138]
139
+
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+ Leonardo's anatomical drawings include many studies of the human skeleton and its parts, and of muscles and sinews. He studied the mechanical functions of the skeleton and the muscular forces that are applied to it in a manner that prefigured the modern science of biomechanics.[157] He drew the heart and vascular system, the sex organs and other internal organs, making one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus in utero.[133] The drawings and notation are far ahead of their time, and if published would undoubtedly have made a major contribution to medical science.[156]
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+
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+ Leonardo also closely observed and recorded the effects of age and of human emotion on the physiology, studying in particular the effects of rage. He drew many figures who had significant facial deformities or signs of illness.[38][133] Leonardo also studied and drew the anatomy of many animals, dissecting cows, birds, monkeys, bears, and frogs, and comparing in his drawings their anatomical structure with that of humans. He also made a number of studies of horses.[133]
143
+
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+ Leonardo's dissections and documentation of muscles, nerves, and vessels helped to describe the physiology and mechanics of movement. He attempted to identify the source of 'emotions' and their expression. He found it difficult to incorporate the prevailing system and theories of bodily humours, but eventually he abandoned these physiological explanations of bodily functions. He made the observations that humours were not located in cerebral spaces or ventricles. He documented that the humours were not contained in the heart or the liver, and that it was the heart that defined the circulatory system. He was the first to define atherosclerosis and liver cirrhosis. He created models of the cerebral ventricles with the use of melted wax and constructed a glass aorta to observe the circulation of blood through the aortic valve by using water and grass seed to watch flow patterns. Vesalius published his work on anatomy and physiology in De humani corporis fabrica in 1543.[158]
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+ During his lifetime, Leonardo was also valued as an engineer. With the same rational and analytical approach that moved him to represent the human body and to investigate anatomy, Leonardo studied and designed a bewildering number of machines and devices. He drew their “anatomy” with unparalleled mastery, producing the first form of the modern technical drawing, including a perfected "exploded view" technique, to represent internal components. Those studies and projects collected in his codices fill more than 5,000 pages.[159] In a letter of 1482 to the lord of Milan Ludovico il Moro, he wrote that he could create all sorts of machines both for the protection of a city and for siege. When he fled from Milan to Venice in 1499, he found employment as an engineer and devised a system of moveable barricades to protect the city from attack. In 1502, he created a scheme for diverting the flow of the Arno river, a project on which Niccolò Machiavelli also worked.[160][161] He continued to contemplate the canalization of Lombardy's plains while in Louis XII's company[63] and of the Loire and its tributaries in the company of Francis I.[162] Leonardo's journals include a vast number of inventions, both practical and impractical. They include musical instruments, a mechanical knight, hydraulic pumps, reversible crank mechanisms, finned mortar shells, and a steam cannon.[27][38]
147
+
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+ Leonardo was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight for much of his life, producing many studies, including Codex on the Flight of Birds (c. 1505), as well as plans for several flying machines, such as a flapping ornithopter and a machine with a helical rotor.[38] A 2003 documentary by British television station Channel Four, titled Leonardo's Dream Machines, various designs by Leonardo, such as a parachute and a giant crossbow, were interpreted and constructed.[163][164] Some of those designs proved successful, whilst others fared less well when tested.
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+
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+ Research performed by Marc van den Broek revealed older prototypes for more than 100 inventions that are ascribed to Leonardo. Similarities between Leonardo´s illustrations and drawings from the Middle Ages and from Ancient Greece and Rome, the Chinese and Persian Empires, and Egypt suggest that a large portion of Leonardo's inventions had been conceived before his lifetime. Leonardo´s innovation was to combine different functions from existing drafts and set them into scenes that illustrated their utility. By reconstituting technical inventions he created something new.[165]
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+ Leonardo's fame within his own lifetime was such that the King of France carried him away like a trophy, and was claimed to have supported him in his old age and held him in his arms as he died. Interest in Leonardo and his work has never diminished. Crowds still queue to see his best-known artworks, T-shirts still bear his most famous drawing, and writers continue to hail him as a genius while speculating about his private life, as well as about what one so intelligent actually believed in.[38]
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+
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+ The continued admiration that Leonardo commanded from painters, critics and historians is reflected in many other written tributes. Baldassare Castiglione, author of Il Cortegiano (The Courtier), wrote in 1528: "...Another of the greatest painters in this world looks down on this art in which he is unequalled..."[166] while the biographer known as "Anonimo Gaddiano" wrote, c. 1540: "His genius was so rare and universal that it can be said that nature worked a miracle on his behalf..."[167]
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+ Giorgio Vasari, in the enlarged edition of Lives of the Artists (1568)[168] introduced his chapter on Leonardo with the following words:
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+ In the normal course of events many men and women are born with remarkable talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actions seem inspired and indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather than from human skill. Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty, who displayed infinite grace in everything that he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied he solved with ease.
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+ The 19th century brought a particular admiration for Leonardo's genius, causing Henry Fuseli to write in 1801: "Such was the dawn of modern art, when Leonardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendour that distanced former excellence: made up of all the elements that constitute the essence of genius..."[169] This is echoed by A.E. Rio who wrote in 1861: "He towered above all other artists through the strength and the nobility of his talents."[170]
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+
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+ By the 19th century, the scope of Leonardo's notebooks was known, as well as his paintings. Hippolyte Taine wrote in 1866: "There may not be in the world an example of another genius so universal, so incapable of fulfilment, so full of yearning for the infinite, so naturally refined, so far ahead of his own century and the following centuries."[171]
163
+ Art historian Bernard Berenson wrote in 1896: "Leonardo is the one artist of whom it may be said with perfect literalness: Nothing that he touched but turned into a thing of eternal beauty. Whether it be the cross section of a skull, the structure of a weed, or a study of muscles, he, with his feeling for line and for light and shade, forever transmuted it into life-communicating values."[172]
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+
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+ The interest in Leonardo's genius has continued unabated; experts study and translate his writings, analyse his paintings using scientific techniques, argue over attributions and search for works which have been recorded but never found.[173] Liana Bortolon, writing in 1967, said: "Because of the multiplicity of interests that spurred him to pursue every field of knowledge...Leonardo can be considered, quite rightly, to have been the universal genius par excellence, and with all the disquieting overtones inherent in that term. Man is as uncomfortable today, faced with a genius, as he was in the 16th century. Five centuries have passed, yet we still view Leonardo with awe."[27]
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+
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+ Twenty-first-century author Walter Isaacson based much of his biography of Leonardo[104] on thousands of notebook entries, studying the personal notes, sketches, budget notations, and musings of the man whom he considers the greatest of innovators. Isaacson was surprised to discover a "fun, joyous" side of Leonardo in addition to his limitless curiosity and creative genius.[174]
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+ On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death, the Louvre in Paris arranged for the largest ever single exhibit of his work, called Leonardo, between November 2019 and February 2020. The exhibit includes over 100 paintings, drawings and notebooks. Eleven of the paintings that Leonardo completed in his lifetime were included. Five of these are owned by the Louvre, but the Mona Lisa was not included because it is in such great demand among general visitors to the Louvre; it remains on display in its gallery. Vitruvian Man, however, is on display following a legal battle with its owner, the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice. Salvator Mundi was also not included because its Saudi owner did not agree to lease the work.[175][176]
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+ Much of the Collegiate Church of Saint Florentin at the Château d'Amboise, where Leonardo was buried, was damaged during the French Revolution, leading to the church's demolition in 1802.[177] Some of the graves were destroyed in the process, scattering the bones interred there and thereby leaving the whereabouts of Leonardo's remains subject to dispute. While excavating the site in 1863, fine-arts inspector general Arsène Houssaye found a partially complete skeleton with a bronze ring on one finger, some white hair, and stone fragments bearing the inscriptions "EO," "AR," "DUS," and "VINC"—interpreted as forming "Leonardus Vinci".[177][89][178][179] A silver shield found near the bones depicts a beardless Francis I, corresponding to the king's appearance during Leonardo's lifetime, and the skull's inclusion of eight teeth corresponds to someone of approximately the appropriate age.[178] The unusually large skull led Houssaye to believe that he had located Leonardo's remains,[179] but he thought the skeleton seemed too short.[178] Other art historians say that the 1.73 metres (5.7 ft) tall skeleton may well be Leonardo's.[180]
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+
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+ The remains, except for the ring and a lock of hair which Houssaye kept,[89] were brought to Paris in a lead box, where the skull was allegedly presented to Napoleon III,[178] before being returned to the Château d'Amboise and re-interred in the Chapel of Saint Hubert in 1874.[177] A new memorial tombstone was added by sculptor Francesco La Monaca in the 1930s.[181] Reflecting doubts about the attribution, a plaque above the tomb states that the remains are only presumed to be those of Leonardo.[177] It has since been theorized that the folding of the skeleton's right arm over the head may correspond to the paralysis of Leonardo's right hand.[178][77][83]
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+ In 2016, it was announced that DNA tests would be conducted to determine whether the attribution is correct.[177] The DNA of the remains will be compared to that of samples collected from Leonardo's work and his half-brother Domenico's descendants;[177] it may also be sequenced.[182] The lock of hair and ring, now in a private US collection,[ac] were displayed in Vinci beginning on 2 May 2019, the 500th anniversary of the artist's death.[183][89]
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+
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+ Salvator Mundi, a painting by Leonardo depicting Jesus holding an orb, sold for a world record US$450.3 million at a Christie's auction in New York, 15 November 2017.[184] The highest known sale price for any artwork was previously US$300 million, for Willem de Kooning's Interchange, which was sold privately in September 2015.[185] The highest price previously paid for a work of art at auction was for Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger, which sold for US$179.4 million in May 2015 at Christie's New York.[185]
177
+
178
+ Early sources
179
+
180
+ Modern sources
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+ German (Deutsch, pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] (listen)) is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol in Italy, the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The German language is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although they belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
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+ One of the major languages of the world, German is a native language to almost 100 million people worldwide and the most widely spoken native language in the European Union.[6] German is the third most commonly spoken foreign language in the EU after English and French, making it the second biggest language in the EU in terms of overall speakers. German is also the second most widely taught foreign language in the EU after English at primary school level (but third after English and French at lower secondary level), the fourth most widely taught non-English language in the US (after Spanish, French and American Sign Language), the second most commonly used scientific language and the third most widely used language on websites after English and Russian. The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one tenth of all books (including e-books) in the world being published in German. In the United Kingdom, German and French are the most sought-after foreign languages for businesses (with 49% and 50% of businesses identifying these two languages as the most useful, respectively).[7]
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+ German is an inflected language with four cases for nouns, pronouns and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), two numbers (singular, plural), and strong and weak verbs. It derives the majority of its vocabulary from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Some of its vocabulary is derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and Modern English. German is a pluricentric language, with its standardized variants being (German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard German). It is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Italy recognizes all the German-speaking minorities in its territory as national historic minorities and protects the varieties of German spoken in several regions of Northern Italy besides South Tyrol.[8][9] Due to the limited intelligibility between certain varieties and Standard German, as well as the lack of an undisputed, scientific difference between a "dialect" and a "language", some German varieties or dialect groups (e.g. Low German or Plautdietsch[3]) can be described as either "languages" or "dialects".
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+ Modern Standard German is a West Germanic language in the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic, East Germanic, and West Germanic. The first of these branches survives in modern Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic, all of which are descended from Old Norse. The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch, Yiddish, Afrikaans, and others.[10]
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+ Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf-Benrath and Krefeld-Uerdingen, respectively) serve to distinguish the Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects (nos. 29–34 on the map), while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German/Low Saxon (nos. 19–24) and Low Franconian (no. 25) dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian can be further distinguished historically as Irminonic, Ingvaeonic, and Istvaeonic, respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by the Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser-Rhine group).[10]
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+ Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian-Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian and Bavarian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects, belonging to the Irminonic High German dialect group (nos. 29–34). German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects – no. 29), and Yiddish. Also closely related to Standard German are the Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries, such as Swiss German (Alemannic dialects – no. 34), and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est, such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central- and Upper Franconian (no. 32) dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian – no. 29).
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+ After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g. Dutch and Afrikaans) or Low German/Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic: the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are the Frisian languages—North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland – no. 28), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland – no. 27), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland – no. 26)—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects are all members of the Ingvaeonic family of West Germanic languages, which did not take part in the High German consonant shift.
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+ The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, which separated Old High German (OHG) dialects from Old Saxon. This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants (b, d, g, and p, t, k, respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following:
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+ While there is written evidence of the Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the 6th century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.765–775), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 OHG words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans, the first coherent works written in OHG appear in the 9th century, chief among them being the Muspilli, the Merseburg Charms, and the Hildebrandslied, as well as a number of other religious texts (the Georgslied, the Ludwigslied, the Evangelienbuch, and translated hymns and prayers).[11][12] The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment, and the Merseburg Charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from the pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied, a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from the Alamanni, Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group (Irminones), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the 2nd and 6th centuries during the great migration.[11]
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+ In general, the surviving texts of OHG show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as a result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary.[11] At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing.
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+ The German language through the OHG period was still predominantly a spoken language, with a wide range of dialects and a much more extensive oral tradition than a written one. Having just emerged from the High German consonant shift, OHG was also a relatively new and volatile language still undergoing a number of phonetic, phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes. The scarcity of written work, instability of the language, and widespread illiteracy of the time explain the lack of standardization up to the end of the OHG period in 1050.
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+ While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350.[13][14] This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as the Ostsiedlung). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature.[14][15] A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to a greater need for regularity in written conventions.
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+ While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG "house")→haus (MHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→tage (MHG)).[16]
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+ A great wealth of texts survives from the MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied, an epic poem telling the story of the dragon-slayer Siegfried (c. 13th century), and the Iwein, an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue (c. 1203), as well as several lyric poems and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan. Also noteworthy is the Sachsenspiegel, the first book of laws written in Middle Low German (c. 1220). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms.
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+ The Middle High German period is generally seen as ending when the 1346-53 Black Death decimated Europe's population.[13]
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+ Modern German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which the influential German philologist Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War.[13] This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in the German states. While these states were still under the control of the Holy Roman Empire and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout the German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language.
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+ The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch, used in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and the other being Meißner Deutsch, used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.[17] Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages (Druckersprachen) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible.[18] The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardization in the written form of German.
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+ One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony, spending much time among the population of Saxony researching the dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method:
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+ One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in the home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says 'ex abundantia cordis os loquitur,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund. But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No, the mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über.[19]
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+ With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. Furthermore, his Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy.[20] Nevertheless, even with the influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the 18th century.[21]
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+ German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality.
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+ Some cities, such as Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest (Buda, German: Ofen), were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as Pozsony (German: Pressburg, now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava, as well as cities like Zagreb (German: Agram) and Ljubljana (German: Laibach), contained significant German minorities.
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+ In the eastern provinces of Banat, Bukovina, and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns – such as Temeschburg (Timișoara), Hermannstadt (Sibiu) and Kronstadt (Brașov) – but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas.[22]
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+ The most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860.[23] In 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook.[24]
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+ In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a complete standardization of the German language in its written form and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition.[25] The Deutsche Bühnensprache (literally, German stage language) had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres (Bühnendeutsch[26]) three years earlier; however, this was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of Standard German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterize the dialect of the area today – especially the pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, Standard German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of Standard German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century.
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+ Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries.[27] Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German (often called Hochdeutsch, "High German") which is understood in all areas where German is spoken.
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+ Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide
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+ Due to the German diaspora as well as German being the second most widely spoken language in Europe and the third most widely taught foreign language in the US[28] and the EU (in upper secondary education)[29] amongst others, the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. As for the number of speakers of any language worldwide, an assessment is always compromised by the lack of sufficient, reliable data. For an exact, global number of native German speakers, this is further complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and/or linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic (e.g., Alsatian) and Low German/Plautdietsch.[3] Depending on the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language,[30][31] 10–25 million as a second language,[30] and 75–100 million as a foreign language.[1] This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide.[32] It is estimated that including every person studying German, regardless of their actual proficiency, would amount to about 280 million people worldwide with at least some knowledge of German.
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+ In Europe, German is the second most widely spoken mother tongue (after Russian) and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English). The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language is called the "German Sprachraum". It comprises an estimated 88 million native speakers and 10 million who speak German as a second language (e.g. immigrants).[30] Excluding regional minority languages, German is the only official language of the following countries:
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+ German is a co-official language of the following countries:
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+ Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World Wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum.
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+ Within Europe and Asia, German is a recognized minority language in the following countries:
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+ In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as "regional languages", but the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government.[39] In the Netherlands, the Limburgish, Frisian, and Low German languages are protected regional languages according to the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages;[33] however, they are widely considered separate languages and neither German nor Dutch dialects.
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+ Namibia was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1919. Mostly descending from German settlers who immigrated during this time, 25–30,000 people still speak German as a native tongue today.[40] The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called "Namibian Black German", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it.[41]
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+ German, along with English and Afrikaans, was a co-official language of Namibia from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. At this point, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language, stating that it was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time.[40] German, Afrikaans and several indigenous languages became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, German is used in a wide variety of spheres, especially business and tourism, as well as the churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK)), schools (e.g. the Deutsche Höhere Privatschule Windhoek), literature (German-Namibian authors include Giselher W. Hoffmann), radio (the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation produces radio programs in German), and music (e.g. artist EES). The Allgemeine Zeitung is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa.[40]
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+ Mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries, an estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa.[42] One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch",[43] a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg. The small town of Kroondal in the North-West Province also has a mostly German-speaking population. The South African constitution identifies German as a "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it.[44] The community is strong enough that several German International schools are supported, such as the Deutsche Schule Pretoria.
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+ In the United States, the states of North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states where German is the most common language spoken at home after English.[45] German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region of the country, such as New Ulm and many other towns in Minnesota; Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), Munich, Karlsruhe, and Strasburg (named after a town near Odessa in Ukraine)[46] in North Dakota; New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Weimar, and Muenster in Texas; Corn (formerly Korn), Kiefer and Berlin in Oklahoma; and Kiel, Berlin, and Germantown in Wisconsin.
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+ In Brazil, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo and Espírito Santo.[47]
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+ There are important concentrations of German-speaking descendants in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia.[42]
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+ The impact of nineteenth century German immigration to southern Chile was such that Valdivia was for a while a Spanish-German bilingual city with "German signboards and placards alongside the Spanish".[54] The prestige[note 4] the German language caused it to acquire qualities of a superstratum in southern Chile.[56] The word for blackberry, a ubiquitous plant in southern Chile, is murra, instead of the ordinary Spanish words mora and zarzamora, from Valdivia to the Chiloé Archipelago and in some towns in the Aysén Region.[56] The use of rr is an adaptation of guttural sounds found in German but difficult to pronounce in Spanish.[56] Similarly the name for marbles, a traditional children's game, is different in Southern Chile compared to areas further north. From Valdivia to the Aysén Region this game is called bochas, in contrast to the word bolitas used further north.[56] The word bocha is likely a derivative of the German Bocciaspiel.[56]
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+ In Australia, the state of South Australia experienced a pronounced wave of immigration in the 1840s from Prussia (particularly the Silesia region). With the prolonged isolation from other German speakers and contact with Australian English, a unique dialect known as Barossa German developed, spoken predominantly in the Barossa Valley near Adelaide. Usage of German sharply declined with the advent of World War I, due to the prevailing anti-German sentiment in the population and related government action. It continued to be used as a first language into the 20th century, but its use is now limited to a few older speakers.[57]
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+ German migration to New Zealand in the 19th century was less pronounced than migration from Britain, Ireland, and perhaps even Scandinavia. Despite this there were significant pockets of German-speaking communities which lasted until the first decades of the 20th century. German speakers settled principally in Puhoi, Nelson, and Gore. At the last census (2013), 36,642 people in New Zealand spoke German, making it the third most spoken European language after English and French and overall the ninth most spoken language.[58]
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+ There is also an important German creole being studied and recovered, named Unserdeutsch, spoken in the former German colony of German New Guinea, across Micronesia and in northern Australia (i.e. coastal parts of Queensland and Western Australia) by a few elderly people. The risk of its extinction is serious and efforts to revive interest in the language are being implemented by scholars.[59]
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+ Like French and Spanish, German has become a standard second foreign language in the western world.[1][60] German ranks second (after English) among the best known foreign languages in the EU (on a par with French)[1] as well as in Russia.[61] In terms of student numbers across all levels of education, German ranks third in the EU (after English and French)[29] as well as in the United States (after Spanish and French).[28][62] In 2015, approximately 15.4 million people were in the process of learning German across all levels of education worldwide.[60] As this number remained relatively stable since 2005 (± 1 million), roughly 75–100 million people able to communicate in German as a foreign language can be inferred, assuming an average course duration of three years and other estimated parameters. According to a 2012 survey, 47 million people within the EU (i.e., up to two-thirds of the 75–100 million worldwide) claimed to have sufficient German skills to have a conversation. Within the EU, not counting countries where it is an official language, German as a foreign language is most popular in Eastern and northern Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden and Poland.[1][63] German was once, and to some extent still is, a lingua franca in those parts of Europe.[64]
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+ The basis of Standard German is the Luther Bible, which was translated by Martin Luther and which had originated from the Saxon court language (it being a convenient norm).[65] However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by new vernaculars based on standard German; that is the case in large stretches of Northern Germany but also in major cities in other parts of the country. It is important to note, however, that the colloquial standard German differs greatly from the formal written language, especially in grammar and syntax, in which it has been influenced by dialectal speech.
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+ Standard German differs regionally among German-speaking countries in vocabulary and some instances of pronunciation and even grammar and orthography. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the regional varieties of standard German are only somewhat influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language.
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+ In most regions, the speakers use a continuum from more dialectal varieties to more standard varieties depending on the circumstances.
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+ In German linguistics, German dialects are distinguished from varieties of standard German.
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+ The varieties of standard German refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric standard German. They differ only slightly in lexicon and phonology. In certain regions, they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany.
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+ In the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, mixtures of dialect and standard are very seldom used, and the use of Standard German is largely restricted to the written language. About 11% of the Swiss residents speak High German (Standard German) at home, but this is mainly due to German immigrants.[67] This situation has been called a medial diglossia. Swiss Standard German is used in the Swiss education system, while Austrian Standard German is officially used in the Austrian education system.
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+ A mixture of dialect and standard does not normally occur in Northern Germany either. The traditional varieties there are Low German, whereas Standard German is a High German "variety". Because their linguistic distance is greater, they do not mesh with Standard German the way that High German dialects (such as Bavarian, Swabian, and Hessian) can.
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+ The German dialects are the traditional local varieties of the language; many of them are not mutually intelligibile with standard German, and they have great differences in lexicon, phonology, and syntax. If a narrow definition of language based on mutual intelligibility is used, many German dialects are considered to be separate languages (for instance in the Ethnologue). However, such a point of view is unusual in German linguistics.
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+ The German dialect continuum is traditionally divided most broadly into High German and Low German, also called Low Saxon. However, historically, High German dialects and Low Saxon/Low German dialects do not belong to the same language. Nevertheless, in today's Germany, Low Saxon/Low German is often perceived as a dialectal variation of Standard German on a functional level even by many native speakers. The same phenomenon is found in the eastern Netherlands, as the traditional dialects are not always identified with their Low Saxon/Low German origins, but with Dutch.[68][better source needed]
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+ The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with often only neighbouring dialects being mutually intelligible. Some dialects are not intelligible to people who know only Standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German and Low Saxon.
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+ Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany until the 16th century. In 1534, the Luther Bible was published. The translation is considered to be an important step towards the evolution of the Early New High German. It aimed to be understandable to a broad audience and was based mainly on Central and Upper German varieties. The Early New High German language gained more prestige than Low German and became the language of science and literature. Around the same time, the Hanseatic League, based around northern ports, lost its importance as new trade routes to Asia and the Americas were established, and the most powerful German states of that period were located in Middle and Southern Germany.
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+ The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass education in Standard German in schools. Gradually, Low German came to be politically viewed as a mere dialect spoken by the uneducated. Today, Low Saxon can be divided in two groups: Low Saxon varieties with a reasonable level of Standard German influence and varieties of Standard German with a Low Saxon influence known as Missingsch. Sometimes, Low Saxon and Low Franconian varieties are grouped together because both are unaffected by the High German consonant shift. However, the proportion of the population who can understand and speak it has decreased continuously since World War II. The largest cities in the Low German area are Hamburg and Dortmund.
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+ The Low Franconian dialects are the dialects that are more closely related to Dutch than to Low German. Most of the Low Franconian dialects are spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium, where they are considered as dialects of Dutch, which is itself a Low Franconian language. In Germany, Low Franconian dialects are spoken in the northwest of North Rhine-Westphalia, along the Lower Rhine. The Low Franconian dialects spoken in Germany are referred to as Meuse-Rhenish or Low Rhenish. In the north of the German Low Franconian language area, North Low Franconian dialects (also referred to as Cleverlands or as dialects of South Guelderish) are spoken. These dialects are more closely related to Dutch (also North Low Franconian) than the South Low Franconian dialects (also referred to as East Limburgish and, east of the Rhine, Bergish), which are spoken in the south of the German Low Franconian language area. The South Low Franconian dialects are more closely related to Limburgish than to Dutch, and are transitional dialects between Low Franconian and Ripuarian (Central Franconian). The East Bergish dialects are the easternmost Low Franconian dialects, and are transitional dialects between North- and South Low Franconian, and Westphalian (Low German), with most of their features being North Low Franconian. The largest cities in the German Low Franconian area are Düsseldorf and Duisburg.
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+
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+ The High German dialects consist of the Central German, High Franconian, and Upper German dialects. The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. The High German varieties spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews have several unique features and are considered as a separate language, Yiddish, written with the Hebrew alphabet.
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+
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+ The Central German dialects are spoken in Central Germany, from Aachen in the west to Görlitz in the east. They consist of Franconian dialects in the west (West Central German) and non-Franconian dialects in the east (East Central German). Modern Standard German is mostly based on Central German dialects.
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+
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+ The Franconian, West Central German dialects are the Central Franconian dialects (Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian) and the Rhine Franconian dialects (Hessian and Palatine). These dialects are considered as
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+ Luxembourgish as well as the Transylvanian Saxon dialect spoken in Transylvania are based on Moselle Franconian dialects. The largest cities in the Franconian Central German area are Cologne and Frankfurt.
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+
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+ Further east, the non-Franconian, East Central German dialects are spoken (Thuringian, Upper Saxon, Ore Mountainian, and Lusatian-New Markish, and earlier, in the then German-speaking parts of Silesia also Silesian, and in then German southern East Prussia also High Prussian). The largest cities in the East Central German area are Berlin and Leipzig.
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+
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+ The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. They consist of the East and South Franconian dialects.
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+
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+ The East Franconian dialect branch is one of the most spoken dialect branches in Germany. These dialects are spoken in the region of Franconia and in the central parts of Saxon Vogtland. Franconia consists of the Bavarian districts of Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia, the region of South Thuringia (Thuringia), and the eastern parts of the region of Heilbronn-Franken (Tauber Franconia and Hohenlohe) in Baden-Württemberg. The largest cities in the East Franconian area are Nuremberg and Würzburg.
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+
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+ South Franconian is mainly spoken in northern Baden-Württemberg in Germany, but also in the northeasternmost part of the region of Alsace in France. While these dialects are considered as dialects of German in Baden-Württemberg, they are considered as dialects of Alsatian in Alsace (most Alsatian dialects are Low Alemannic, however). The largest cities in the South Franconian area are Karlsruhe and Heilbronn.
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+ The Upper German dialects are the Alemannic dialects in the west and the Bavarian dialects in the east.
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+ Alemannic dialects are spoken in Switzerland (High Alemannic in the densely populated Swiss Plateau, in the south also Highest Alemannic, and Low Alemannic in Basel), Baden-Württemberg (Swabian and Low Alemannic, in the southwest also High Alemannic), Bavarian Swabia (Swabian, in the southwesternmost part also Low Alemannic), Vorarlberg (Low, High, and Highest Alemannic), Alsace (Low Alemannic, in the southernmost part also High Alemannic), Liechtenstein (High and Highest Alemannic), and in the Tyrolean district of Reutte (Swabian). The Alemannic dialects are considered as Alsatian in Alsace. The largest cities in the Alemannic area are Stuttgart and Zürich.
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+
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+ Bavarian dialects are spoken in Austria (Vienna, Lower and Upper Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Burgenland, and in most parts of Tyrol), Bavaria (Upper and Lower Bavaria as well as Upper Palatinate), South Tyrol, southwesternmost Saxony (Southern Vogtlandian), and in the Swiss village of Samnaun. The largest cities in the Bavarian area are Vienna and Munich.
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+ German is a fusional language with a moderate degree of inflection, with three grammatical genders; as such, there can be a large number of words derived from the same root.
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+ German nouns inflect by case, gender, and number:
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+
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+ This degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old High German and other old Indo-European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit, and it is also somewhat less than, for instance, Old English, modern Icelandic, or Russian. The three genders have collapsed in the plural. With four cases and three genders plus plural, there are 16 permutations of case and gender/number of the article (not the nouns), but there are only six forms of the definite article, which together cover all 16 permutations. In nouns, inflection for case is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns only in the genitive and in the dative (only in fixed or archaic expressions), and even this is losing ground to substitutes in informal speech.[69] The singular dative noun ending is considered archaic or at least old-fashioned in almost all contexts and is almost always dropped in writing, except in poetry, songs, proverbs, and other petrified forms. Weak masculine nouns share a common case ending for genitive, dative, and accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns are not declined in the singular. The plural has an inflection for the dative. In total, seven inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: -s, -es, -n, -ns, -en, -ens, -e.
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+
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+ In German orthography, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalised to make it easier for readers to determine the function of a word within a sentence (Am Freitag ging ich einkaufen. – "On Friday I went shopping."; Eines Tages kreuzte er endlich auf. – "One day he finally showed up.") This convention is almost unique to German today (shared perhaps only by the closely related Luxembourgish language and several insular dialects of the North Frisian language), but it was historically common in other languages such as Danish (which abolished the capitalization of nouns in 1948) and English.
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+ Like the other Germanic languages, German forms noun compounds in which the first noun modifies the category given by the second: Hundehütte ("dog hut"; specifically: "dog kennel"). Unlike English, whose newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written "open" with separating spaces, German (like some other Germanic languages) nearly always uses the "closed" form without spaces, for example: Baumhaus ("tree house"). Like English, German allows arbitrarily long compounds in theory (see also English compounds). The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, which, literally translated, is "beef labelling supervision duties assignment law" [from Rind (cattle), Fleisch (meat), Etikettierung(s) (labelling), Überwachung(s) (supervision), Aufgaben (duties), Übertragung(s) (assignment), Gesetz (law)]. However, examples like this are perceived by native speakers as excessively bureaucratic, stylistically awkward, or even satirical.
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+ The inflection of standard German verbs includes:
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+ The meaning of basic verbs can be expanded and sometimes radically changed through the use of a number of prefixes. Some prefixes have a specific meaning; the prefix zer- refers to destruction, as in zerreißen (to tear apart), zerbrechen (to break apart), zerschneiden (to cut apart). Other prefixes have only the vaguest meaning in themselves; ver- is found in a number of verbs with a large variety of meanings, as in versuchen (to try) from suchen (to seek), vernehmen (to interrogate) from nehmen (to take), verteilen (to distribute) from teilen (to share), verstehen (to understand) from stehen (to stand).
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+
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+ Other examples include the following:
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+ haften (to stick), verhaften (to detain); kaufen (to buy), verkaufen (to sell); hören (to hear), aufhören (to cease); fahren (to drive), erfahren (to experience).
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+
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+ Many German verbs have a separable prefix, often with an adverbial function. In finite verb forms, it is split off and moved to the end of the clause and is hence considered by some to be a "resultative particle". For example, mitgehen, meaning "to go along", would be split, giving Gehen Sie mit? (Literal: "Go you with?"; Idiomatic: "Are you going along?").
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+ Indeed, several parenthetical clauses may occur between the prefix of a finite verb and its complement (ankommen = to arrive, er kam an = he arrived, er ist angekommen = he has arrived):
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+
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+ A selectively literal translation of this example to illustrate the point might look like this:
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+ German word order is generally with the V2 word order restriction and also with the SOV word order restriction for main clauses. For polar questions, exclamations, and wishes, the finite verb always has the first position. In subordinate clauses, the verb occurs at the very end.
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+
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+ German requires a verbal element (main verb or auxiliary verb) to appear second in the sentence. The verb is preceded by the topic of the sentence. The element in focus appears at the end of the sentence. For a sentence without an auxiliary, these are several possibilities:
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+ The position of a noun in a German sentence has no bearing on its being a subject, an object or another argument. In a declarative sentence in English, if the subject does not occur before the predicate, the sentence could well be misunderstood.
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+ However, German's flexible word order allows one to emphasise specific words:
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+
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+ Normal word order:
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+
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+ Object in front:
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+
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+ Adverb of time in front:
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+ Both time expressions in front:
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+ Another possibility:
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+
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+ Swapped adverbs:
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+
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+ Swapped object:
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+
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+ The flexible word order also allows one to use language "tools" (such as poetic meter and figures of speech) more freely.
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+
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+ When an auxiliary verb is present, it appears in second position, and the main verb appears at the end. This occurs notably in the creation of the perfect tense. Many word orders are still possible:
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+
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+ The main verb may appear in first position to put stress on the action itself. The auxiliary verb is still in second position.
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+
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+ Sentences using modal verbs place the infinitive at the end. For example, the English sentence "Should he go home?" would be rearranged in German to say "Should he (to) home go?" (Soll er nach Hause gehen?). Thus, in sentences with several subordinate or relative clauses, the infinitives are clustered at the end. Compare the similar clustering of prepositions in the following (highly contrived) English sentence: "What did you bring that book that I do not like to be read to out of up for?"
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+
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+ German subordinate clauses have all verbs clustered at the end. Given that auxiliaries encode future, passive, modality, and the perfect, very long chains of verbs at the end of the sentence can occur. In these constructions, the past participle formed with ge- is often replaced by the infinitive.
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+
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+ The order at the end of such strings is subject to variation, but the second one in the last example is unusual.
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+
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+ Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.[70] However, there is a significant amount of loanwords from other languages, in particular Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and most recently English.[71] In the early 19th century, Joachim Heinrich Campe estimated that one fifth of the total German vocabulary was of French or Latin origin.[72]
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+
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+ Latin words were already imported into the predecessor of the German language during the Roman Empire and underwent all the characteristic phonetic changes in German. Their origin is thus no longer recognizable for most speakers (e.g. Pforte, Tafel, Mauer, Käse, Köln from Latin porta, tabula, murus, caseus, Colonia). Borrowing from Latin continued after the fall of the Roman Empire during Christianization, mediated by the church and monasteries. Another important influx of Latin words can be observed during Renaissance humanism. In a scholarly context, the borrowings from Latin have continued until today, in the last few decades often indirectly through borrowings from English. During the 15th to 17th centuries, the influence of Italian was great, leading to many Italian loanwords in the fields of architecture, finance, and music. The influence of the French language in the 17th to 19th centuries resulted in an even greater import of French words. The English influence was already present in the 19th century, but it did not become dominant until the second half of the 20th century.
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+
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+ Thus, Notker Labeo was able to translate Aristotelian treatises into pure (Old High) German in the decades after the year 1000.[73] The tradition of loan translation was revitalized in the 18th century with linguists like Joachim Heinrich Campe, who introduced close to 300 words that are still used in modern German. Even today, there are movements that try to promote the Ersatz (substitution) of foreign words that are deemed unnecessary with German alternatives.[74] It is claimed that this would also help in spreading modern or scientific notions among the less educated and as well democratise public life.
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+
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+ As in English, there are many pairs of synonyms due to the enrichment of the Germanic vocabulary with loanwords from Latin and Latinized Greek. These words often have different connotations from their Germanic counterparts and are usually perceived as more scholarly.
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+
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+ The size of the vocabulary of German is difficult to estimate. The Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary) initiated by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm already contained over 330,000 headwords in its first edition. The modern German scientific vocabulary is estimated at nine million words and word groups (based on the analysis of 35 million sentences of a corpus in Leipzig, which as of July 2003 included 500 million words in total).[75]
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+
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+ The Duden is the de facto official dictionary of the German language, first published by Konrad Duden in 1880. The Duden is updated regularly, with new editions appearing every four or five years. As of August 2017[update], it was in its 27th edition and in 12 volumes, each covering different aspects such as loanwords, etymology, pronunciation, synonyms, and so forth.The first of these volumes, Die deutsche Rechtschreibung (German Orthography), has long been the prescriptive source for the spelling of German. The Duden has become the bible of the German language, being the definitive set of rules regarding grammar, spelling and usage of German.[76]
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+
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+ The Österreichisches Wörterbuch ("Austrian Dictionary"), abbreviated ÖWB, is the official dictionary of the German language in the Republic of Austria. It is edited by a group of linguists under the authority of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (German: Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur). It is the Austrian counterpart to the German Duden and contains a number of terms unique to Austrian German or more frequently used or differently pronounced there.[77] A considerable amount of this "Austrian" vocabulary is also common in Southern Germany, especially Bavaria, and some of it is used in Switzerland as well. Since the 39th edition in 2001 the orthography of the ÖWB has been adjusted to the German spelling reform of 1996. The dictionary is also officially used in the Italian province of South Tyrol.
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+
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+ This is a selection of cognates in both English and German. Instead of the usual infinitive ending -en, German verbs are indicated by a hyphen after their stems. Words that are written with capital letters in German are nouns.
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+
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+ German is written in the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with an umlaut mark, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as the eszett or scharfes s (sharp s): ß. In Switzerland and Liechtenstein, ss is used instead of ß. Since ß can never occur at the beginning of a word, it has no traditional uppercase form.
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+
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+ Written texts in German are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such as umlauts and certain orthographical features – German is the only major language that capitalizes all nouns, a relic of a widespread practice in Northern Europe in the early modern era (including English for a while, in the 1700s) – and the frequent occurrence of long compounds. Because legibility and convenience set certain boundaries, compounds consisting of more than three or four nouns are almost exclusively found in humorous contexts. (In contrast, although English can also string nouns together, it usually separates the nouns with spaces. For example, "toilet bowl cleaner".)
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+
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+ Before the German orthography reform of 1996, ß replaced ss after long vowels and diphthongs and before consonants, word-, or partial-word endings. In reformed spelling, ß replaces ss only after long vowels and diphthongs.
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+
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+ Since there is no traditional capital form of ß, it was replaced by SS when capitalization was required. For example, Maßband (tape measure) became MASSBAND in capitals. An exception was the use of ß in legal documents and forms when capitalizing names. To avoid confusion with similar names, lower case ß was maintained (thus "KREßLEIN" instead of "KRESSLEIN"). Capital ß (ẞ) was ultimately adopted into German orthography in 2017, ending a long orthographic debate (thus "KREẞLEIN and KRESSLEIN").[78]
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+
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+ Umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) are commonly transcribed with ae, oe, and ue if the umlauts are not available on the keyboard or other medium used. In the same manner ß can be transcribed as ss. Some operating systems use key sequences to extend the set of possible characters to include, amongst other things, umlauts; in Microsoft Windows this is done using Alt codes. German readers understand these transcriptions (although they appear unusual), but they are avoided if the regular umlauts are available, because they are a makeshift and not proper spelling. (In Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, city and family names exist where the extra e has a vowel lengthening effect, e.g. Raesfeld [ˈraːsfɛlt], Coesfeld [ˈkoːsfɛlt] and Itzehoe [ɪtsəˈhoː], but this use of the letter e after a/o/u does not occur in the present-day spelling of words other than proper nouns.)
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+
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+ There is no general agreement on where letters with umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e. Some dictionaries sort each umlauted vowel as a separate letter after the base vowel, but more commonly words with umlauts are ordered immediately after the same word without umlauts. As an example in a telephone book Ärzte occurs after Adressenverlage but before Anlagenbauer (because Ä is replaced by Ae). In a dictionary Ärzte comes after Arzt, but in some dictionaries Ärzte and all other words starting with Ä may occur after all words starting with A. In some older dictionaries or indexes, initial Sch and St are treated as separate letters and are listed as separate entries after S, but they are usually treated as S+C+H and S+T.
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+
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+ Written German also typically uses an alternative opening inverted comma (quotation mark) as in "Guten Morgen!".
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+
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+ Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in blackletter typefaces (mostly in Fraktur, but also in Schwabacher) and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans-serif Antiqua typefaces used today, and the handwritten forms in particular are difficult for the untrained to read. The printed forms, however, were claimed by some to be more readable when used for Germanic languages.[79] (Often, foreign names in a text were printed in an Antiqua typeface even though the rest of the text was in Fraktur.) The Nazis initially promoted Fraktur and Schwabacher because they were considered Aryan, but they abolished them in 1941, claiming that these letters were Jewish.[80] It is also believed that the Nazi régime had banned this script as they realized that Fraktur would inhibit communication in the territories occupied during World War II.[81]
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+
227
+ The Fraktur script however remains present in everyday life in pub signs, beer brands and other forms of advertisement, where it is used to convey a certain rusticality and antiquity.
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+
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+ A proper use of the long s (langes s), ſ, is essential for writing German text in Fraktur typefaces. Many Antiqua typefaces also include the long s. A specific set of rules applies for the use of long s in German text, but nowadays it is rarely used in Antiqua typesetting. Any lower case "s" at the beginning of a syllable would be a long s, as opposed to a terminal s or short s (the more common variation of the letter s), which marks the end of a syllable; for example, in differentiating between the words Wachſtube (guard-house) and Wachstube (tube of polish/wax). One can easily decide which "s" to use by appropriate hyphenation, (Wach-ſtube vs. Wachs-tube). The long s only appears in lower case.
230
+
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+ The orthography reform of 1996 led to public controversy and considerable dispute. The states (Bundesländer) of North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria refused to accept it. At one point, the dispute reached the highest court, which quickly dismissed it, claiming that the states had to decide for themselves and that only in schools could the reform be made the official rule – everybody else could continue writing as they had learned it. After 10 years, without any intervention by the federal parliament, a major revision was installed in 2006, just in time for the coming school year. In 2007, some traditional spellings were finally invalidated; however, in 2008, many of the old comma rules were again put in force.
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+
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+ The most noticeable change was probably in the use of the letter ß, called scharfes s (Sharp S) or ess-zett (pronounced ess-tsett). Traditionally, this letter was used in three situations:
234
+
235
+ Examples are Füße, paßt, and daß. Currently, only the first rule is in effect, making the correct spellings Füße, passt, and dass. The word Fuß 'foot' has the letter ß because it contains a long vowel, even though that letter occurs at the end of a syllable. The logic of this change is that an 'ß' is a single letter whereas 'ss' are two letters, so the same distinction applies as (for example) between the words den and denn.
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+
237
+ In German, vowels (excluding diphthongs; see below) are either short or long, as follows:
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+
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+ Short /ɛ/ is realized as [ɛ] in stressed syllables (including secondary stress), but as [ə] in unstressed syllables. Note that stressed short /ɛ/ can be spelled either with e or with ä (for instance, hätte 'would have' and Kette 'chain' rhyme). In general, the short vowels are open and the long vowels are close. The one exception is the open /ɛː/ sound of long Ä; in some varieties of standard German, /ɛː/ and /eː/ have merged into [eː], removing this anomaly. In that case, pairs like Bären/Beeren 'bears/berries' or Ähre/Ehre 'spike (of wheat)/honour' become homophonous (see: Captain Bluebear).
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+
241
+ In many varieties of standard German, an unstressed /ɛr/ is not pronounced [ər] but vocalised to [ɐ].
242
+
243
+ Whether any particular vowel letter represents the long or short phoneme is not completely predictable, although the following regularities exist:
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+
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+ Both of these rules have exceptions (e.g. hat [hat] "has" is short despite the first rule; Mond [moːnt] "moon" is long despite the second rule). For an i that is neither in the combination ie (making it long) nor followed by a double consonant or cluster (making it short), there is no general rule. In some cases, there are regional differences. In central Germany (Hesse), the o in the proper name "Hoffmann" is pronounced long, whereas most other Germans would pronounce it short. The same applies to the e in the geographical name "Mecklenburg" for people in that region. The word Städte "cities" is pronounced with a short vowel [ˈʃtɛtə] by some (Jan Hofer, ARD Television) and with a long vowel [ˈʃtɛːtə] by others (Marietta Slomka, ZDF Television). Finally, a vowel followed by ch can be short (Fach [fax] "compartment", Küche [ˈkʏçə] "kitchen") or long (Suche [ˈzuːxə] "search", Bücher [ˈbyːçɐ] "books") almost at random. Thus, Lache is homographous between [laːxə] Lache "puddle" and [laxə] Lache "manner of laughing" (colloquial) or lache! "laugh!" (imperative).
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+
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+ German vowels can form the following digraphs (in writing) and diphthongs (in pronunciation); note that the pronunciation of some of them (ei, äu, eu) is very different from what one would expect when considering the component letters:
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+
249
+ Additionally, the digraph ie generally represents the phoneme /iː/, which is not a diphthong. In many varieties, an /r/ at the end of a syllable is vocalised. However, a sequence of a vowel followed by such a vocalised /r/ is not a phonemic diphthong: Bär [bɛːɐ̯] "bear", er [eːɐ̯] "he", wir [viːɐ̯] "we", Tor [toːɐ̯] "gate", kurz [kʊɐ̯ts] "short", Wörter [vœɐ̯tɐ] "words".
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+
251
+ In most varieties of standard German, syllables that begin with a vowel are preceded by a glottal stop [ʔ].
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+
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+ With approximately 26 phonemes, the German consonant system exhibits an average number of consonants in comparison with other languages. One of the more noteworthy ones is the unusual affricate /p͡f/. The consonant inventory of the standard language is shown below.
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+
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+ German does not have any dental fricatives (as English th). The th sound, which the English language still has, disappeared on the continent in German with the consonant shifts between the 8th and 10th centuries.[83] It is sometimes possible to find parallels between English and German by replacing the English th with d in German: "Thank" → in German Dank, "this" and "that" → dies and das, "thou" (old 2nd person singular pronoun) → du, "think" → denken, "thirsty" → durstig and many other examples.
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+
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+ Likewise, the gh in Germanic English words, pronounced in several different ways in modern English (as an f or not at all), can often be linked to German ch: "to laugh" → lachen, "through" → durch, "high" → hoch, "naught" → nichts, "light" → leicht or Licht, "sight" → Sicht, "daughter" → Tochter, "neighbour" → Nachbar.
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+
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+ The German language is used in German literature and can be traced back to the Middle Ages, with the most notable authors of the period being Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach.
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+ The Nibelungenlied, whose author remains unknown, is also an important work of the epoch. The fairy tales collected and published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century became famous throughout the world.
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+
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+ Reformer and theologian Martin Luther, who was the first to translate the Bible into German, is widely credited for having set the basis for the modern "High German" language. Among the best-known poets and authors in German are Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Hoffmann, Brecht, Heine, and Kafka. Fourteen German-speaking people have won the Nobel Prize in literature: Theodor Mommsen, Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Paul von Heyse, Gerhart Hauptmann, Carl Spitteler, Thomas Mann, Nelly Sachs, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll, Elias Canetti, Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller and Peter Handke, making it the second most awarded linguistic region (together with French) after English.
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+
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+ English has taken many loanwords from German, often without any change of spelling (aside from frequently eliminating umlauts and not capitalizing nouns):
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+
266
+ Several organisations promote the use and learning of the German language:
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+
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+ The government-backed Goethe-Institut[85] (named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) aims to enhance the knowledge of German culture and language within Europe and the rest of the world. This is done by holding exhibitions and conferences with German-related themes, and providing training and guidance in the learning and use of the German language. For example, the Goethe-Institut teaches the Goethe-Zertifikat German language qualification.
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+
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+ The Dortmund-based Verein Deutsche Sprache (VDS), founded in 1997, supports the German language and is the largest language association of citizens in the world. The VDS has more than thirty-five thousand members in over seventy countries. Its founder, statistics professor Dr. Walter Krämer, has remained chairperson of the association from its formation.[86]
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+
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+ The German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle provides radio and television broadcasts in German and 30 other languages across the globe.[87] Its German language services are spoken slowly and thus tailored for learners. Deutsche Welle also provides an e-learning website for teaching German.
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+ Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. At room temperature and pressure, another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form, but diamond almost never converts to it. Diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any natural material, properties that are utilized in major industrial applications such as cutting and polishing tools. They are also the reason that diamond anvil cells can subject materials to pressures found deep in the Earth.
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+ Because the arrangement of atoms in diamond is extremely rigid, few types of impurity can contaminate it (two exceptions being boron and nitrogen). Small numbers of defects or impurities (about one per million of lattice atoms) color diamond blue (boron), yellow (nitrogen), brown (defects), green (radiation exposure), purple, pink, orange or red. Diamond also has relatively high optical dispersion (ability to disperse light of different colors).
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+ Most natural diamonds have ages between 1 billion and 3.5 billion years. Most were formed at depths between 150 and 250 kilometres (93 and 155 mi) in the Earth's mantle, although a few have come from as deep as 800 kilometres (500 mi). Under high pressure and temperature, carbon-containing fluids dissolved various minerals and replaced them with diamonds. Much more recently (tens to hundreds of million years ago), they were carried to the surface in volcanic eruptions and deposited in igneous rocks known as kimberlites and lamproites.
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+ Synthetic diamonds can be grown from high-purity carbon under high pressures and temperatures or from hydrocarbon gas by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Imitation diamonds can also be made out of materials such as cubic zirconia and silicon carbide. Natural, synthetic and imitation diamonds are most commonly distinguished using optical techniques or thermal conductivity measurements.
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+ Diamond is a solid form of pure carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal. Solid carbon comes in different forms known as allotropes depending on the type of chemical bond. The two most common allotropes of pure carbon are diamond and graphite. In graphite the bonds are sp2 orbital hybrids and the atoms form in planes with each bound to three nearest neighbors 120 degrees apart. In diamond they are sp3 and the atoms form tetrahedra with each bound to four nearest neighbors.[3][4] Tetrahedra are rigid, the bonds are strong, and of all known substances diamond has the greatest number of atoms per unit volume, which is why it is both the hardest and the least compressible.[5][6] It also has a high density, ranging from 3150 to 3530 kilograms per cubic metre (over three times the density of water) in natural diamonds and 3520 kg/m3 in pure diamond.[1] In graphite, the bonds between nearest neighbors are even stronger but the bonds between planes are weak, so the planes can easily slip past each other. Thus, graphite is much softer than diamond. However, the stronger bonds make graphite less flammable.[7]
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+ Diamonds have been adapted for many uses because of the material's exceptional physical characteristics. Of all known substances, it is the hardest and least compressible. It has the highest thermal conductivity and the highest sound velocity. It has low adhesion and friction, and its coefficient of thermal expansion is extremely low. Its optical transparency extends from the far infrared to the deep ultraviolet and it has high optical dispersion. It also has high electrical resistance. It is chemically inert, not reacting with most corrosive substances, and has excellent biological compatibility.[8]
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+ The equilibrium pressure and temperature conditions for a transition between graphite and diamond are well established theoretically and experimentally. The pressure changes linearly between 1.7 GPa at 0 K and 12 GPa at 5000 K (the diamond/graphite/liquid triple point).[9][10]
18
+ However, the phases have a wide region about this line where they can coexist. At normal temperature and pressure, 20 °C (293 K) and 1 standard atmosphere (0.10 MPa), the stable phase of carbon is graphite, but diamond is metastable and its rate of conversion to graphite is negligible.[6] However, at temperatures above about 4500 K, diamond rapidly converts to graphite. Rapid conversion of graphite to diamond requires pressures well above the equilibrium line: at 2000 K, a pressure of 35 GPa is needed.[9]
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+ Above the triple point, the melting point of diamond increases slowly with increasing pressure; but at pressures of hundreds of GPa, it decreases.[11] At high pressures, silicon and germanium have a BC8 body-centered cubic crystal structure, and a similar structure is predicted for carbon at high pressures. At 0 K, the transition is predicted to occur at 1100 GPa.[12]
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+ The most common crystal structure of diamond is called diamond cubic. It is formed of unit cells (see the figure) stacked together. Although there are 18 atoms in the figure, each corner atom is shared by eight unit cells and each atom in the center of a face is shared by two, so there are a total of eight atoms per unit cell.[13] Each side of the unit cell is 3.57 angstroms in length.[14]
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+ A diamond cubic lattice can be thought of as two interpenetrating face-centered cubic lattices with one displaced by 1/4 of the diagonal along a cubic cell, or as one lattice with two atoms associated with each lattice point.[14] Looked at from a <1 1 1> crystallographic direction, it is formed of layers stacked in a repeating ABCABC ... pattern. Diamonds can also form an ABAB ... structure, which is known as hexagonal diamond or lonsdaleite, but this is far less common and is formed under different conditions from cubic carbon.[15]
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+ Diamonds occur most often as euhedral or rounded octahedra and twinned octahedra known as macles. As diamond's crystal structure has a cubic arrangement of the atoms, they have many facets that belong to a cube, octahedron, rhombicosidodecahedron, tetrakis hexahedron or disdyakis dodecahedron. The crystals can have rounded off and unexpressive edges and can be elongated. Diamonds (especially those with rounded crystal faces) are commonly found coated in nyf, an opaque gum-like skin.[16]
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+ Some diamonds have opaque fibers. They are referred to as opaque if the fibers grow from a clear substrate or fibrous if they occupy the entire crystal. Their colors range from yellow to green or gray, sometimes with cloud-like white to gray impurities. Their most common shape is cuboidal, but they can also form octahedra, dodecahedra, macles or combined shapes. The structure is the result of numerous impurities with sizes between 1 and 5 microns. These diamonds probably formed in kimberlite magma and sampled the volatiles.[17]
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+ Diamonds can also form polycrystalline aggregates. There have been attempts to classify them into groups with names such as boart, ballas, stewartite and framesite, but there is no widely accepted set of criteria.[17] Carbonado, a type in which the diamond grains were sintered (fused without melting by the application of heat and pressure), is black in color and tougher than single crystal diamond.[18] It has never been observed in a volcanic rock. There are many theories for its origin, including formation in a star, but no consensus.[17][19][20]
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+ Diamond is the hardest known natural material on both the Vickers scale and the Mohs scale. Diamond's great hardness relative to other materials has been known since antiquity, and is the source of its name.
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+ Diamond hardness depends on its purity, crystalline perfection and orientation: hardness is higher for flawless, pure crystals oriented to the <111> direction (along the longest diagonal of the cubic diamond lattice).[21] Therefore, whereas it might be possible to scratch some diamonds with other materials, such as boron nitride, the hardest diamonds can only be scratched by other diamonds and nanocrystalline diamond aggregates.
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+ The hardness of diamond contributes to its suitability as a gemstone. Because it can only be scratched by other diamonds, it maintains its polish extremely well. Unlike many other gems, it is well-suited to daily wear because of its resistance to scratching—perhaps contributing to its popularity as the preferred gem in engagement or wedding rings, which are often worn every day.
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+ The hardest natural diamonds mostly originate from the Copeton and Bingara fields located in the New England area in New South Wales, Australia. These diamonds are generally small, perfect to semiperfect octahedra, and are used to polish other diamonds. Their hardness is associated with the crystal growth form, which is single-stage crystal growth. Most other diamonds show more evidence of multiple growth stages, which produce inclusions, flaws, and defect planes in the crystal lattice, all of which affect their hardness. It is possible to treat regular diamonds under a combination of high pressure and high temperature to produce diamonds that are harder than the diamonds used in hardness gauges.[22]
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+ Somewhat related to hardness is another mechanical property toughness, which is a material's ability to resist breakage from forceful impact. The toughness of natural diamond has been measured as 7.5–10 MPa·m1/2.[23][24] This value is good compared to other ceramic materials, but poor compared to most engineering materials such as engineering alloys, which typically exhibit toughnesses over 100 MPa·m1/2. As with any material, the macroscopic geometry of a diamond contributes to its resistance to breakage. Diamond has a cleavage plane and is therefore more fragile in some orientations than others. Diamond cutters use this attribute to cleave some stones, prior to faceting.[25] "Impact toughness" is one of the main indexes to measure the quality of synthetic industrial diamonds.
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+ Diamond has compressive yield strength of 130–140 GPa.[26] This exceptionally high value, along with the hardness and transparency of diamond, are the reasons that diamond anvil cells are the main tool for high pressure experiments.[27] These anvils have reached pressures of 600 GPa.[28] Much higher pressures may be possible with nanocrystalline diamonds.[27][29]
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+ Usually, attempting to deform bulk diamond crystal by tension or bending results in brittle fracture. However, when single crystalline diamond is in the form of nanometer-sized wires or needles (~100–300 nanometers in diameter), they can be elastically stretched by as much as 9 percent tensile strain without failure,[30] with a maximum local tensile stress of ∼89 to 98 GPa, very close to the theoretical limit for this material.[31]
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+ Other specialized applications also exist or are being developed, including use as semiconductors: some blue diamonds are natural semiconductors, in contrast to most diamonds, which are excellent electrical insulators.[32] The conductivity and blue color originate from boron impurity. Boron substitutes for carbon atoms in the diamond lattice, donating a hole into the valence band.[32]
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+ Substantial conductivity is commonly observed in nominally undoped diamond grown by chemical vapor deposition. This conductivity is associated with hydrogen-related species adsorbed at the surface, and it can be removed by annealing or other surface treatments.[33][34]
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+ Diamonds are naturally lipophilic and hydrophobic, which means the diamonds' surface cannot be wet by water, but can be easily wet and stuck by oil. This property can be utilized to extract diamonds using oil when making synthetic diamonds. However, when diamond surfaces are chemically modified with certain ions, they are expected to become so hydrophilic that they can stabilize multiple layers of water ice at human body temperature.[35]
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+ The surface of diamonds is partially oxidized. The oxidized surface can be reduced by heat treatment under hydrogen flow. That is to say, this heat treatment partially removes oxygen-containing functional groups. But diamonds (sp3C) are unstable against high temperature (above about 400 °C (752 °F)) under atmospheric pressure. The structure gradually changes into sp2C above this temperature. Thus, diamonds should be reduced under this temperature.[36]
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+ At room temperature, diamonds do not react with any chemical reagents including strong acids and bases.
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+ In an atmosphere of pure oxygen, diamond has an ignition point that ranges from 690 °C (1,274 °F) to 840 °C (1,540 °F); smaller crystals tend to burn more easily. It increases in temperature from red to white heat and burns with a pale blue flame, and continues to burn after the source of heat is removed. By contrast, in air the combustion will cease as soon as the heat is removed because the oxygen is diluted with nitrogen. A clear, flawless, transparent diamond is completely converted to carbon dioxide; any impurities will be left as ash.[37] Heat generated from cutting a diamond will not start a fire,[38] and neither will a cigarette lighter,[39] but house fires and blow torches are hot enough. Jewelers must be careful when molding the metal in a diamond ring.[40]
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+ Diamond powder of an appropriate grain size (around 50 microns) burns with a shower of sparks after ignition from a flame. Consequently, pyrotechnic compositions based on synthetic diamond powder can be prepared. The resulting sparks are of the usual red-orange color, comparable to charcoal, but show a very linear trajectory which is explained by their high density.[41] Diamond also reacts with fluorine gas above about 700 °C (1,292 °F).
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+ Diamond has a wide bandgap of 5.5 eV corresponding to the deep ultraviolet wavelength of 225 nanometers. This means that pure diamond should transmit visible light and appear as a clear colorless crystal. Colors in diamond originate from lattice defects and impurities. The diamond crystal lattice is exceptionally strong, and only atoms of nitrogen, boron and hydrogen can be introduced into diamond during the growth at significant concentrations (up to atomic percents). Transition metals nickel and cobalt, which are commonly used for growth of synthetic diamond by high-pressure high-temperature techniques, have been detected in diamond as individual atoms; the maximum concentration is 0.01% for nickel[42] and even less for cobalt. Virtually any element can be introduced to diamond by ion implantation.[43]
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+ Nitrogen is by far the most common impurity found in gem diamonds and is responsible for the yellow and brown color in diamonds. Boron is responsible for the blue color.[44] Color in diamond has two additional sources: irradiation (usually by alpha particles), that causes the color in green diamonds, and plastic deformation of the diamond crystal lattice. Plastic deformation is the cause of color in some brown[45] and perhaps pink and red diamonds.[46] In order of increasing rarity, yellow diamond is followed by brown, colorless, then by blue, green, black, pink, orange, purple, and red.[25] "Black", or Carbonado, diamonds are not truly black, but rather contain numerous dark inclusions that give the gems their dark appearance. Colored diamonds contain impurities or structural defects that cause the coloration, while pure or nearly pure diamonds are transparent and colorless. Most diamond impurities replace a carbon atom in the crystal lattice, known as a carbon flaw. The most common impurity, nitrogen, causes a slight to intense yellow coloration depending upon the type and concentration of nitrogen present.[25] The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) classifies low saturation yellow and brown diamonds as diamonds in the normal color range, and applies a grading scale from "D" (colorless) to "Z" (light yellow). Diamonds of a different color, such as blue, are called fancy colored diamonds and fall under a different grading scale.[25]
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+ In 2008, the Wittelsbach Diamond, a 35.56-carat (7.112 g) blue diamond once belonging to the King of Spain, fetched over US$24 million at a Christie's auction.[47] In May 2009, a 7.03-carat (1.406 g) blue diamond fetched the highest price per carat ever paid for a diamond when it was sold at auction for 10.5 million Swiss francs (6.97 million euros, or US$9.5 million at the time).[48] That record was, however, beaten the same year: a 5-carat (1.0 g) vivid pink diamond was sold for $10.8 million in Hong Kong on December 1, 2009.[49]
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+ Diamonds can be identified by their high thermal conductivity (900–2320 W·m−1·K−1).[50] Their high refractive index is also indicative, but other materials have similar refractivity. Diamonds cut glass, but this does not positively identify a diamond because other materials, such as quartz, also lie above glass on the Mohs scale and can also cut it. Diamonds can scratch other diamonds, but this can result in damage to one or both stones. Hardness tests are infrequently used in practical gemology because of their potentially destructive nature.[51] The extreme hardness and high value of diamond means that gems are typically polished slowly, using painstaking traditional techniques and greater attention to detail than is the case with most other gemstones;[52] these tend to result in extremely flat, highly polished facets with exceptionally sharp facet edges. Diamonds also possess an extremely high refractive index and fairly high dispersion. Taken together, these factors affect the overall appearance of a polished diamond and most diamantaires still rely upon skilled use of a loupe (magnifying glass) to identify diamonds "by eye".[53]
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+ Diamonds are extremely rare, with concentrations of at most parts per billion in source rock.[17] Before the 20th century, most diamonds were found in alluvial deposits. Loose diamonds are also found along existing and ancient shorelines, where they tend to accumulate because of their size and density.[54]:149 Rarely, they have been found in glacial till (notably in Wisconsin and Indiana), but these deposits are not of commercial quality.[54]:19 These types of deposit were derived from localized igneous intrusions through weathering and transport by wind or water.[55]
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+ Most diamonds come from the Earth's mantle, and most of this section discusses those diamonds. However, there are other sources. Some blocks of the crust, or terranes, have been buried deep enough as the crust thickened so they experienced ultra-high-pressure metamorphism. These have evenly distributed microdiamonds that show no sign of transport by magma. In addition, when meteorites strike the ground, the shock wave can produce high enough temperatures and pressures for microdiamonds and nanodiamonds to form.[55] Impact-type microdiamonds can be used as an indicator of ancient impact craters.[56] Popigai crater in Russia may have the world's largest diamond deposit, estimated at trillions of carats, and formed by an asteroid impact.[57]
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+ A common misconception is that diamonds are formed from highly compressed coal. Coal is formed from buried prehistoric plants, and most diamonds that have been dated are far older than the first land plants. It is possible that diamonds can form from coal in subduction zones, but diamonds formed in this way are rare, and the carbon source is more likely carbonate rocks and organic carbon in sediments, rather than coal.[58][59]
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+ Diamonds are far from evenly distributed over the Earth. A rule of thumb known as Clifford's rule states that they are almost always found in kimberlites on the oldest part of cratons, the stable cores of continents with typical ages of 2.5 billion years or more.[55][60]:314 However, there are exceptions. The Argyle diamond mine in Australia, the largest producer of diamonds by weight in the world, is located in a mobile belt, also known as an orogenic belt,[61] a weaker zone surrounding the central craton that has undergone compressional tectonics. Instead of kimberlite, the host rock is lamproite. Lamproites with diamonds that are not economically viable are also found in the United States, India and Australia.[55] In addition, diamonds in the Wawa belt of the Superior province in Canada and microdiamonds in the island arc of Japan are found in a type of rock called lamprophyre.[55]
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+ Kimberlites can be found in narrow (1 to 4 meters) dikes and sills, and in pipes with diameters that range from about 75 m to 1.5 km. Fresh rock is dark bluish green to greenish gray, but after exposure rapidly turns brown and crumbles.[62] It is hybrid rock with a chaotic mixture of small minerals and rock fragments (clasts) up to the size of watermelons. They are a mixture of xenocrysts and xenoliths (minerals and rocks carried up from the lower crust and mantle), pieces of surface rock, altered minerals such as serpentine, and new minerals that crystallized during the eruption. The texture varies with depth. The composition forms a continuum with carbonatites, but the latter have too much oxygen for carbon to exist in a pure form. Instead, it is locked up in the mineral calcite (CaCO3).[55]
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+ All three of the diamond-bearing rocks (kimberlite, lamproite and lamprophyre) lack certain minerals (melilite and kalsilite) that are incompatible with diamond formation. In kimberlite, olivine is large and conspicuous, while lamproite has Ti-phlogopite and lamprophyre has biotite and amphibole. They are all derived from magma types that erupt rapidly from small amounts of melt, are rich in volatiles and magnesium oxide, and are less oxidizing than more common mantle melts such as basalt. These characteristics allow the melts to carry diamonds to the surface before they dissolve.[55]
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+ Kimberlite pipes can be difficult to find. They weather quickly (within a few years after exposure) and tend to have lower topographic relief than surrounding rock. If they are visible in outcrops, the diamonds are never visible because they are so rare. In any case, kimberlites are often covered with vegetation, sediments, soils or lakes. In modern searches, geophysical methods such as aeromagnetic surveys, electrical resistivity and gravimetry, help identify promising regions to explore. This is aided by isotopic dating and modeling of the geological history. Then surveyors must go to the area and collect samples, looking for kimberlite fragments or indicator minerals. The latter have compositions that reflect the conditions where diamonds form, such as extreme melt depletion or high pressures in eclogites. However, indicator minerals can be misleading; a better approach is geothermobarometry, where the compositions of minerals are analyzed as if they were in equilibrium with mantle minerals.[55]
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+ Finding kimberlites requires persistence, and only a small fraction contain diamonds that are commercially viable. The only major discoveries since about 1980 have been in Canada. Since existing mines have lifetimes of as little as 25 years, there could be a shortage of new diamonds in the future.[55]
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+ Diamonds are dated by analyzing inclusions using the decay of radioactive isotopes. Depending on the elemental abundances, one can look at the decay of rubidium to strontium, samarium to neodymium, uranium to lead, argon-40 to argon-39, or rhenium to osmium. Those found in kimberlites have ages ranging from 1 to 3.5 billion years, and there can be multiple ages in the same kimberlite, indicating multiple episodes of diamond formation. The kimberlites themselves are much younger. Most of them have ages between tens of millions and 300 million years old, although there are some older exceptions (Argyle, Premier and Wawa). Thus, the kimberlites formed independently of the diamonds and served only to transport them to the surface.[17][55] Kimberlites are also much younger than the cratons they have erupted through. The reason for the lack of older kimberlites is unknown, but it suggests there was some change in mantle chemistry or tectonics. No kimberlite has erupted in human history.[55]
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+ Most gem-quality diamonds come from depths of 150–250 km in the lithosphere. Such depths occur below cratons in mantle keels, the thickest part of the lithosphere. These regions have high enough pressure and temperature to allow diamonds to form and they are not convecting, so diamonds can be stored for billions of years until a kimberlite eruption samples them.[55]
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+ Host rocks in a mantle keel include harzburgite and lherzolite, two type of peridotite. The most dominant rock type in the upper mantle, peridotite is an igneous rock consisting mostly of the minerals olivine and pyroxene; it is low in silica and high in magnesium. However, diamonds in peridotite rarely survive the trip to the surface.[55] Another common source that does keep diamonds intact is eclogite, a metamorphic rock that typically forms from basalt as an oceanic plate plunges into the mantle at a subduction zone.[17]
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+ A smaller fraction of diamonds (about 150 have been studied) come from depths of 330–660 km, a region that includes the transition zone. They formed in eclogite but are distinguished from diamonds of shallower origin by inclusions of majorite (a form of garnet with excess silicon). A similar proportion of diamonds comes from the lower mantle at depths between 660 and 800 km.[17]
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+ Diamond is thermodynamically stable at high pressures and temperatures, with the phase transition from graphite occurring at greater temperatures as the pressure increases. Thus, underneath continents it becomes stable at temperatures of 950 degrees Celsius and pressures of 4.5 gigapascals, corresponding to depths of 150 kilometers or greater. In subduction zones, which are colder, it becomes stable at temperatures of 800 °C and pressures of 3.5 gigapascals. At depths greater than 240 km, iron-nickel metal phases are present and carbon is likely to be either dissolved in them or in the form of carbides. Thus, the deeper origin of some diamonds may reflect unusual growth environments.[17][55]
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+ In 2018 the first known natural samples of a phase of ice called Ice VII were found as inclusions in diamond samples. The inclusions formed at depths between 400 and 800 km, straddling the upper and lower mantle, and provide evidence for water-rich fluid at these depths.[64][65]
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+ The mantle has roughly one billion gigatonnes of carbon (for comparison, the atmosphere-ocean system has about 44,000 gigatonnes).[66] The carbon has two stable isotopes, 12C and 13C, in a ratio of approximately 99:1 by mass.[55] This ratio has a wide range in meteorites, which implies that it also varied a lot in the early Earth. It can also be altered by surface processes like photosynthesis. The fraction is generally compared to a standard sample using a ratio δ13C expressed in parts per thousand. Common rocks from the mantle such as basalts, carbonatites and kimberlites have ratios between −8 and −2. On the surface, organic sediments have an average of −25 while carbonates have an average of 0.[17]
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+ Populations of diamonds from different sources have distributions of δ13C that vary markedly. Peridotitic diamonds are mostly within the typical mantle range; eclogitic diamonds have values from −40 to +3, although the peak of the distribution is in the mantle range. This variability implies that they are not formed from carbon that is primordial (having resided in the mantle since the Earth formed). Instead, they are the result of tectonic processes, although (given the ages of diamonds) not necessarily the same tectonic processes that act in the present.[55]
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+ Diamonds in the mantle form through a metasomatic process where a C-O-H-N-S fluid or melt dissolves minerals in a rock and replaces them with new minerals. (The vague term C-O-H-N-S is commonly used because the exact composition is not known.) Diamonds form from this fluid either by reduction of oxidized carbon (e.g., CO2 or CO3) or oxidation of a reduced phase such as methane.[17]
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+ Using probes such as polarized light, photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence, a series of growth zones can be identified in diamonds. The characteristic pattern in diamonds from the lithosphere involves a nearly concentric series of zones with very thin oscillations in luminescence and alternating episodes where the carbon is resorbed by the fluid and then grown again. Diamonds from below the lithosphere have a more irregular, almost polycrystalline texture, reflecting the higher temperatures and pressures as well as the transport of the diamonds by convection.[55]
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+ Geological evidence supports a model in which kimberlite magma rose at 4–20 meters per second, creating an upward path by hydraulic fracturing of the rock. As the pressure decreases, a vapor phase exsolves from the magma, and this helps to keep the magma fluid. At the surface, the initial eruption explodes out through fissures at high speeds (over 200 m/s (450 mph)). Then, at lower pressures, the rock is eroded, forming a pipe and producing fragmented rock (breccia). As the eruption wanes, there is pyroclastic phase and then metamorphism and hydration produces serpentinites.[55]
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+ Although diamonds on Earth are rare, they are very common in space. In meteorites, about three percent of the carbon is in the form of nanodiamonds, having diameters of a few nanometers. Sufficiently small diamonds can form in the cold of space because their lower surface energy makes them more stable than graphite. The isotopic signatures of some nanodiamonds indicate they were formed outside the Solar System in stars.[67]
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+ High pressure experiments predict that large quantities of diamonds condense from methane into a "diamond rain" on the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune.[68][69][70] Some extrasolar planets may be almost entirely composed of diamond.[71]
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+ Diamonds may exist in carbon-rich stars, particularly white dwarfs. One theory for the origin of carbonado, the toughest form of diamond, is that it originated in a white dwarf or supernova.[72][73] Diamonds formed in stars may have been the first minerals.[74]
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+ The most familiar uses of diamonds today are as gemstones used for adornment, and as industrial abrasives for cutting hard materials. The markets for gem-grade and industrial-grade diamonds value diamonds differently.
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+ The dispersion of white light into spectral colors is the primary gemological characteristic of gem diamonds. In the 20th century, experts in gemology developed methods of grading diamonds and other gemstones based on the characteristics most important to their value as a gem. Four characteristics, known informally as the four Cs, are now commonly used as the basic descriptors of diamonds: these are its mass in carats (a carat being equal to 0.2 grams), cut (quality of the cut is graded according to proportions, symmetry and polish), color (how close to white or colorless; for fancy diamonds how intense is its hue), and clarity (how free is it from inclusions). A large, flawless diamond is known as a paragon.[75]
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+ A large trade in gem-grade diamonds exists. Although most gem-grade diamonds are sold newly polished, there is a well-established market for resale of polished diamonds (e.g. pawnbroking, auctions, second-hand jewelry stores, diamantaires, bourses, etc.). One hallmark of the trade in gem-quality diamonds is its remarkable concentration: wholesale trade and diamond cutting is limited to just a few locations; in 2003, 92% of the world's diamonds were cut and polished in Surat, India.[76] Other important centers of diamond cutting and trading are the Antwerp diamond district in Belgium, where the International Gemological Institute is based, London, the Diamond District in New York City, the Diamond Exchange District in Tel Aviv, and Amsterdam. One contributory factor is the geological nature of diamond deposits: several large primary kimberlite-pipe mines each account for significant portions of market share (such as the Jwaneng mine in Botswana, which is a single large-pit mine that can produce between 12,500,000 and 15,000,000 carats (2,500 and 3,000 kg) of diamonds per year[77]). Secondary alluvial diamond deposits, on the other hand, tend to be fragmented amongst many different operators because they can be dispersed over many hundreds of square kilometers (e.g., alluvial deposits in Brazil).
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+ The production and distribution of diamonds is largely consolidated in the hands of a few key players, and concentrated in traditional diamond trading centers, the most important being Antwerp, where 80% of all rough diamonds, 50% of all cut diamonds and more than 50% of all rough, cut and industrial diamonds combined are handled.[78] This makes Antwerp a de facto "world diamond capital".[79] The city of Antwerp also hosts the Antwerpsche Diamantkring, created in 1929 to become the first and biggest diamond bourse dedicated to rough diamonds.[80] Another important diamond center is New York City, where almost 80% of the world's diamonds are sold, including auction sales.[78]
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+ The De Beers company, as the world's largest diamond mining company, holds a dominant position in the industry, and has done so since soon after its founding in 1888 by the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes. De Beers is currently the world's largest operator of diamond production facilities (mines) and distribution channels for gem-quality diamonds. The Diamond Trading Company (DTC) is a subsidiary of De Beers and markets rough diamonds from De Beers-operated mines. De Beers and its subsidiaries own mines that produce some 40% of annual world diamond production. For most of the 20th century over 80% of the world's rough diamonds passed through De Beers,[81] but by 2001–2009 the figure had decreased to around 45%,[82] and by 2013 the company's market share had further decreased to around 38% in value terms and even less by volume.[83] De Beers sold off the vast majority of its diamond stockpile in the late 1990s – early 2000s[84] and the remainder largely represents working stock (diamonds that are being sorted before sale).[85] This was well documented in the press[86] but remains little known to the general public.
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+
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+ As a part of reducing its influence, De Beers withdrew from purchasing diamonds on the open market in 1999 and ceased, at the end of 2008, purchasing Russian diamonds mined by the largest Russian diamond company Alrosa.[87] As of January 2011, De Beers states that it only sells diamonds from the following four countries: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Canada.[88] Alrosa had to suspend their sales in October 2008 due to the global energy crisis,[89] but the company reported that it had resumed selling rough diamonds on the open market by October 2009.[90] Apart from Alrosa, other important diamond mining companies include BHP Billiton, which is the world's largest mining company;[91] Rio Tinto Group, the owner of the Argyle (100%), Diavik (60%), and Murowa (78%) diamond mines;[92] and Petra Diamonds, the owner of several major diamond mines in Africa.
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+
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+ Further down the supply chain, members of The World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) act as a medium for wholesale diamond exchange, trading both polished and rough diamonds. The WFDB consists of independent diamond bourses in major cutting centers such as Tel Aviv, Antwerp, Johannesburg and other cities across the US, Europe and Asia.[25] In 2000, the WFDB and The International Diamond Manufacturers Association established the World Diamond Council to prevent the trading of diamonds used to fund war and inhumane acts. WFDB's additional activities include sponsoring the World Diamond Congress every two years, as well as the establishment of the International Diamond Council (IDC) to oversee diamond grading.
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+
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+ Once purchased by Sightholders (which is a trademark term referring to the companies that have a three-year supply contract with DTC), diamonds are cut and polished in preparation for sale as gemstones ('industrial' stones are regarded as a by-product of the gemstone market; they are used for abrasives).[93] The cutting and polishing of rough diamonds is a specialized skill that is concentrated in a limited number of locations worldwide.[93] Traditional diamond cutting centers are Antwerp, Amsterdam, Johannesburg, New York City, and Tel Aviv. Recently, diamond cutting centers have been established in China, India, Thailand, Namibia and Botswana.[93] Cutting centers with lower cost of labor, notably Surat in Gujarat, India, handle a larger number of smaller carat diamonds, while smaller quantities of larger or more valuable diamonds are more likely to be handled in Europe or North America. The recent expansion of this industry in India, employing low cost labor, has allowed smaller diamonds to be prepared as gems in greater quantities than was previously economically feasible.[78]
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+ Diamonds prepared as gemstones are sold on diamond exchanges called bourses. There are 28 registered diamond bourses in the world.[94] Bourses are the final tightly controlled step in the diamond supply chain; wholesalers and even retailers are able to buy relatively small lots of diamonds at the bourses, after which they are prepared for final sale to the consumer. Diamonds can be sold already set in jewelry, or sold unset ("loose"). According to the Rio Tinto Group, in 2002 the diamonds produced and released to the market were valued at US$9 billion as rough diamonds, US$14 billion after being cut and polished, US$28 billion in wholesale diamond jewelry, and US$57 billion in retail sales.[95]
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+
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+ Mined rough diamonds are converted into gems through a multi-step process called "cutting".
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+ Diamonds are extremely hard, but also brittle and can be split up by a single blow. Therefore, diamond cutting is traditionally considered as a delicate procedure requiring skills, scientific knowledge, tools and experience. Its final goal is to produce a faceted jewel where the specific angles between the facets would optimize the diamond luster, that is dispersion of white light, whereas the number and area of facets would determine the weight of the final product. The weight reduction upon cutting is significant and can be of the order of 50%.[96] Several possible shapes are considered, but the final decision is often determined not only by scientific, but also practical considerations. For example, the diamond might be intended for display or for wear, in a ring or a necklace, singled or surrounded by other gems of certain color and shape.[97] Some of them may be considered as classical, such as round, pear, marquise, oval, hearts and arrows diamonds, etc. Some of them are special, produced by certain companies, for example, Phoenix, Cushion, Sole Mio diamonds, etc.[98]
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+
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+ The most time-consuming part of the cutting is the preliminary analysis of the rough stone. It needs to address a large number of issues, bears much responsibility, and therefore can last years in case of unique diamonds. The following issues are considered:
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+
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+ After initial cutting, the diamond is shaped in numerous stages of polishing. Unlike cutting, which is a responsible but quick operation, polishing removes material by gradual erosion and is extremely time consuming. The associated technique is well developed; it is considered as a routine and can be performed by technicians.[100] After polishing, the diamond is reexamined for possible flaws, either remaining or induced by the process. Those flaws are concealed through various diamond enhancement techniques, such as repolishing, crack filling, or clever arrangement of the stone in the jewelry. Remaining non-diamond inclusions are removed through laser drilling and filling of the voids produced.[51]
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+
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+ Marketing has significantly affected the image of diamond as a valuable commodity.
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+
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+ N. W. Ayer & Son, the advertising firm retained by De Beers in the mid-20th century, succeeded in reviving the American diamond market. And the firm created new markets in countries where no diamond tradition had existed before. N. W. Ayer's marketing included product placement, advertising focused on the diamond product itself rather than the De Beers brand, and associations with celebrities and royalty. Without advertising the De Beers brand, De Beers was advertising its competitors' diamond products as well,[101] but this was not a concern as De Beers dominated the diamond market throughout the 20th century. De Beers' market share dipped temporarily to 2nd place in the global market below Alrosa in the aftermath of the global economic crisis of 2008, down to less than 29% in terms of carats mined, rather than sold.[102] The campaign lasted for decades but was effectively discontinued by early 2011. De Beers still advertises diamonds, but the advertising now mostly promotes its own brands, or licensed product lines, rather than completely "generic" diamond products.[102] The campaign was perhaps best captured by the slogan "a diamond is forever".[103] This slogan is now being used by De Beers Diamond Jewelers,[104] a jewelry firm which is a 50%/50% joint venture between the De Beers mining company and LVMH, the luxury goods conglomerate.
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+
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+ Brown-colored diamonds constituted a significant part of the diamond production, and were predominantly used for industrial purposes. They were seen as worthless for jewelry (not even being assessed on the diamond color scale). After the development of Argyle diamond mine in Australia in 1986, and marketing, brown diamonds have become acceptable gems.[105][106] The change was mostly due to the numbers: the Argyle mine, with its 35,000,000 carats (7,000 kg) of diamonds per year, makes about one-third of global production of natural diamonds;[107] 80% of Argyle diamonds are brown.[108]
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+
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+ Industrial diamonds are valued mostly for their hardness and thermal conductivity, making many of the gemological characteristics of diamonds, such as the 4 Cs, irrelevant for most applications. 80% of mined diamonds (equal to about 135,000,000 carats (27,000 kg) annually) are unsuitable for use as gemstones and are used industrially.[109] In addition to mined diamonds, synthetic diamonds found industrial applications almost immediately after their invention in the 1950s; another 570,000,000 carats (114,000 kg) of synthetic diamond is produced annually for industrial use (in 2004; in 2014 it is 4,500,000,000 carats (900,000 kg), 90% of which is produced in China). Approximately 90% of diamond grinding grit is currently of synthetic origin.[110]
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+
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+ The boundary between gem-quality diamonds and industrial diamonds is poorly defined and partly depends on market conditions (for example, if demand for polished diamonds is high, some lower-grade stones will be polished into low-quality or small gemstones rather than being sold for industrial use). Within the category of industrial diamonds, there is a sub-category comprising the lowest-quality, mostly opaque stones, which are known as bort.[111]
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+
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+ Industrial use of diamonds has historically been associated with their hardness, which makes diamond the ideal material for cutting and grinding tools. As the hardest known naturally occurring material, diamond can be used to polish, cut, or wear away any material, including other diamonds. Common industrial applications of this property include diamond-tipped drill bits and saws, and the use of diamond powder as an abrasive. Less expensive industrial-grade diamonds, known as bort, with more flaws and poorer color than gems, are used for such purposes.[112] Diamond is not suitable for machining ferrous alloys at high speeds, as carbon is soluble in iron at the high temperatures created by high-speed machining, leading to greatly increased wear on diamond tools compared to alternatives.[113]
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+ Specialized applications include use in laboratories as containment for high-pressure experiments (see diamond anvil cell), high-performance bearings, and limited use in specialized windows.[111] With the continuing advances being made in the production of synthetic diamonds, future applications are becoming feasible. The high thermal conductivity of diamond makes it suitable as a heat sink for integrated circuits in electronics.[114]
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+
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+ Approximately 130,000,000 carats (26,000 kg) of diamonds are mined annually, with a total value of nearly US$9 billion, and about 100,000 kg (220,000 lb) are synthesized annually.[115]
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+
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+ Roughly 49% of diamonds originate from Central and Southern Africa, although significant sources of the mineral have been discovered in Canada, India, Russia, Brazil, and Australia.[110] They are mined from kimberlite and lamproite volcanic pipes, which can bring diamond crystals, originating from deep within the Earth where high pressures and temperatures enable them to form, to the surface. The mining and distribution of natural diamonds are subjects of frequent controversy such as concerns over the sale of blood diamonds or conflict diamonds by African paramilitary groups.[116] The diamond supply chain is controlled by a limited number of powerful businesses, and is also highly concentrated in a small number of locations around the world.
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+ Only a very small fraction of the diamond ore consists of actual diamonds. The ore is crushed, during which care is required not to destroy larger diamonds, and then sorted by density. Today, diamonds are located in the diamond-rich density fraction with the help of X-ray fluorescence, after which the final sorting steps are done by hand. Before the use of X-rays became commonplace,[96] the separation was done with grease belts; diamonds have a stronger tendency to stick to grease than the other minerals in the ore.[25]
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+
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+ Historically, diamonds were found only in alluvial deposits in Guntur and Krishna district of the Krishna River delta in Southern India.[117] India led the world in diamond production from the time of their discovery in approximately the 9th century BC[118][119] to the mid-18th century AD, but the commercial potential of these sources had been exhausted by the late 18th century and at that time India was eclipsed by Brazil where the first non-Indian diamonds were found in 1725.[118] Currently, one of the most prominent Indian mines is located at Panna.[120]
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+
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+ Diamond extraction from primary deposits (kimberlites and lamproites) started in the 1870s after the discovery of the Diamond Fields in South Africa.[121]
160
+ Production has increased over time and now an accumulated total of 4,500,000,000 carats (900,000 kg) have been mined since that date.[122] Twenty percent of that amount has been mined in the last five years, and during the last 10 years, nine new mines have started production; four more are waiting to be opened soon. Most of these mines are located in Canada, Zimbabwe, Angola, and one in Russia.[122]
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+ In the U.S., diamonds have been found in Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana.[123][124] In 2004, the discovery of a microscopic diamond in the U.S. led to the January 2008 bulk-sampling of kimberlite pipes in a remote part of Montana. The Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas is open to the public, and is the only mine in the world where members of the public can dig for diamonds.[124]
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+
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+ Today, most commercially viable diamond deposits are in Russia (mostly in Sakha Republic, for example Mir pipe and Udachnaya pipe), Botswana, Australia (Northern and Western Australia) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[125]
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+ In 2005, Russia produced almost one-fifth of the global diamond output, according to the British Geological Survey. Australia boasts the richest diamantiferous pipe, with production from the Argyle diamond mine reaching peak levels of 42 metric tons per year in the 1990s.[123][126]
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+ There are also commercial deposits being actively mined in the Northwest Territories of Canada and Brazil.[110]
167
+ Diamond prospectors continue to search the globe for diamond-bearing kimberlite and lamproite pipes.
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+
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+ In some of the more politically unstable central African and west African countries, revolutionary groups have taken control of diamond mines, using proceeds from diamond sales to finance their operations. Diamonds sold through this process are known as conflict diamonds or blood diamonds.[116]
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+ In response to public concerns that their diamond purchases were contributing to war and human rights abuses in central and western Africa, the United Nations, the diamond industry and diamond-trading nations introduced the Kimberley Process in 2002.[127] The Kimberley Process aims to ensure that conflict diamonds do not become intermixed with the diamonds not controlled by such rebel groups. This is done by requiring diamond-producing countries to provide proof that the money they make from selling the diamonds is not used to fund criminal or revolutionary activities. Although the Kimberley Process has been moderately successful in limiting the number of conflict diamonds entering the market, some still find their way in. According to the International Diamond Manufacturers Association, conflict diamonds constitute 2–3% of all diamonds traded.[128] Two major flaws still hinder the effectiveness of the Kimberley Process: (1) the relative ease of smuggling diamonds across African borders, and (2) the violent nature of diamond mining in nations that are not in a technical state of war and whose diamonds are therefore considered "clean".[127]
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+ The Canadian Government has set up a body known as the Canadian Diamond Code of Conduct[129] to help authenticate Canadian diamonds. This is a stringent tracking system of diamonds and helps protect the "conflict free" label of Canadian diamonds.[130]
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+ Synthetic diamonds are diamonds manufactured in a laboratory, as opposed to diamonds mined from the Earth. The gemological and industrial uses of diamond have created a large demand for rough stones. This demand has been satisfied in large part by synthetic diamonds, which have been manufactured by various processes for more than half a century. However, in recent years it has become possible to produce gem-quality synthetic diamonds of significant size.[54] It is possible to make colorless synthetic gemstones that, on a molecular level, are identical to natural stones and so visually similar that only a gemologist with special equipment can tell the difference.[131]
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+ The majority of commercially available synthetic diamonds are yellow and are produced by so-called high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) processes.[132] The yellow color is caused by nitrogen impurities. Other colors may also be reproduced such as blue, green or pink, which are a result of the addition of boron or from irradiation after synthesis.[133]
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+
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+ Another popular method of growing synthetic diamond is chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The growth occurs under low pressure (below atmospheric pressure). It involves feeding a mixture of gases (typically 1 to 99 methane to hydrogen) into a chamber and splitting them to chemically active radicals in a plasma ignited by microwaves, hot filament, arc discharge, welding torch or laser.[134] This method is mostly used for coatings, but can also produce single crystals several millimeters in size (see picture).[115]
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+
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+ As of 2010, nearly all 5,000 million carats (1,000 tonnes) of synthetic diamonds produced per year are for industrial use. Around 50% of the 133 million carats of natural diamonds mined per year end up in industrial use.[131][135] Mining companies' expenses average 40 to 60 US dollars per carat for natural colorless diamonds, while synthetic manufacturers' expenses average $2,500 per carat for synthetic, gem-quality colorless diamonds.[131]:79 However, a purchaser is more likely to encounter a synthetic when looking for a fancy-colored diamond because nearly all synthetic diamonds are fancy-colored, while only 0.01% of natural diamonds are.[136]
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+
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+ A diamond simulant is a non-diamond material that is used to simulate the appearance of a diamond, and may be referred to as diamante. Cubic zirconia is the most common. The gemstone moissanite (silicon carbide) can be treated as a diamond simulant, though more costly to produce than cubic zirconia. Both are produced synthetically.[137]
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+ Diamond enhancements are specific treatments performed on natural or synthetic diamonds (usually those already cut and polished into a gem), which are designed to better the gemological characteristics of the stone in one or more ways. These include laser drilling to remove inclusions, application of sealants to fill cracks, treatments to improve a white diamond's color grade, and treatments to give fancy color to a white diamond.[138]
186
+
187
+ Coatings are increasingly used to give a diamond simulant such as cubic zirconia a more "diamond-like" appearance. One such substance is diamond-like carbon—an amorphous carbonaceous material that has some physical properties similar to those of the diamond. Advertising suggests that such a coating would transfer some of these diamond-like properties to the coated stone, hence enhancing the diamond simulant. Techniques such as Raman spectroscopy should easily identify such a treatment.[139]
188
+
189
+ Early diamond identification tests included a scratch test relying on the superior hardness of diamond. This test is destructive, as a diamond can scratch another diamond, and is rarely used nowadays. Instead, diamond identification relies on its superior thermal conductivity. Electronic thermal probes are widely used in the gemological centers to separate diamonds from their imitations. These probes consist of a pair of battery-powered thermistors mounted in a fine copper tip. One thermistor functions as a heating device while the other measures the temperature of the copper tip: if the stone being tested is a diamond, it will conduct the tip's thermal energy rapidly enough to produce a measurable temperature drop. This test takes about two to three seconds.[140]
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+
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+ Whereas the thermal probe can separate diamonds from most of their simulants, distinguishing between various types of diamond, for example synthetic or natural, irradiated or non-irradiated, etc., requires more advanced, optical techniques. Those techniques are also used for some diamonds simulants, such as silicon carbide, which pass the thermal conductivity test. Optical techniques can distinguish between natural diamonds and synthetic diamonds. They can also identify the vast majority of treated natural diamonds.[141] "Perfect" crystals (at the atomic lattice level) have never been found, so both natural and synthetic diamonds always possess characteristic imperfections, arising from the circumstances of their crystal growth, that allow them to be distinguished from each other.[142]
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+
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+ Laboratories use techniques such as spectroscopy, microscopy and luminescence under shortwave ultraviolet light to determine a diamond's origin.[141] They also use specially made instruments to aid them in the identification process. Two screening instruments are the DiamondSure and the DiamondView, both produced by the DTC and marketed by the GIA.[143]
194
+
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+ Several methods for identifying synthetic diamonds can be performed, depending on the method of production and the color of the diamond. CVD diamonds can usually be identified by an orange fluorescence. D-J colored diamonds can be screened through the Swiss Gemmological Institute's[144] Diamond Spotter. Stones in the D-Z color range can be examined through the DiamondSure UV/visible spectrometer, a tool developed by De Beers.[142] Similarly, natural diamonds usually have minor imperfections and flaws, such as inclusions of foreign material, that are not seen in synthetic diamonds.
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+
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+ Screening devices based on diamond type detection can be used to make a distinction between diamonds that are certainly natural and diamonds that are potentially synthetic. Those potentially synthetic diamonds require more investigation in a specialized lab. Examples of commercial screening devices are D-Screen (WTOCD / HRD Antwerp), Alpha Diamond Analyzer (Bruker / HRD Antwerp) and D-Secure (DRC Techno).
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+
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+ Occasionally, large thefts of diamonds take place. In February 2013 armed robbers carried out a raid at Brussels Airport and escaped with gems estimated to be worth US$50M (£32M; €37M). The gang broke through a perimeter fence and raided the cargo hold of a Swiss-bound plane. The gang have since been arrested and large amounts of cash and diamonds recovered.[145]
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+
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+ The identification of stolen diamonds presents a set of difficult problems. Rough diamonds will have a distinctive shape depending on whether their source is a mine or from an alluvial environment such as a beach or river—alluvial diamonds have smoother surfaces than those that have been mined. Determining the provenance of cut and polished stones is much more complex.
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+
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+ The Kimberley Process was developed to monitor the trade in rough diamonds and prevent their being used to fund violence. Before exporting, rough diamonds are certificated by the government of the country of origin. Some countries, such as Venezuela, are not party to the agreement. The Kimberley Process does not apply to local sales of rough diamonds within a country.
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+ Diamonds may be etched by laser with marks invisible to the naked eye. Lazare Kaplan, a US-based company, developed this method. However, whatever is marked on a diamond can readily be removed.[146][147]
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+
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+ The name diamond is derived from the ancient Greek ἀδάμας (adámas), "proper", "unalterable", "unbreakable", "untamed", from ἀ- (a-), "un-" + δαμάω (damáō), "I overpower", "I tame".[148] Diamonds are thought to have been first recognized and mined in India, where significant alluvial deposits of the stone could be found many centuries ago along the rivers Penner, Krishna and Godavari. Diamonds have been known in India for at least 3,000 years but most likely 6,000 years.[118]
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+ Diamonds have been treasured as gemstones since their use as religious icons in ancient India. Their usage in engraving tools also dates to early human history.[149][150] The popularity of diamonds has risen since the 19th century because of increased supply, improved cutting and polishing techniques, growth in the world economy, and innovative and successful advertising campaigns.[103]
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+
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+ In 1772, the French scientist Antoine Lavoisier used a lens to concentrate the rays of the sun on a diamond in an atmosphere of oxygen, and showed that the only product of the combustion was carbon dioxide, proving that diamond is composed of carbon.[151] Later in 1797, the English chemist Smithson Tennant repeated and expanded that experiment.[152] By demonstrating that burning diamond and graphite releases the same amount of gas, he established the chemical equivalence of these substances.[52]
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+
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1
+ In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest chord of the circle. Both definitions are also valid for the diameter of a sphere.
2
+
3
+ In more modern usage, the length of a diameter is also called the diameter. In this sense one speaks of the diameter rather than a diameter (which refers to the line segment itself), because all diameters of a circle or sphere have the same length, this being twice the radius r.
4
+
5
+ For a convex shape in the plane, the diameter is defined to be the largest distance that can be formed between two opposite parallel lines tangent to its boundary, and the width is often defined to be the smallest such distance. Both quantities can be calculated efficiently using rotating calipers.[1] For a curve of constant width such as the Reuleaux triangle, the width and diameter are the same because all such pairs of parallel tangent lines have the same distance.
6
+
7
+
8
+
9
+ For an ellipse, the standard terminology is different. A diameter of an ellipse is any chord passing through the center of the ellipse.[2] For example, conjugate diameters have the property that a tangent line to the ellipse at the endpoint of one of them is parallel to the other one. The longest diameter is called the major axis.
10
+
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+ The word "diameter" is derived from Greek διάμετρος (diametros), "diameter of a circle", from διά (dia), "across, through" and μέτρον (metron), "measure".[3] It is often abbreviated DIA, dia, d, or ⌀.
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+
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+ The definitions given above are only valid for circles, spheres and convex shapes. However, they are special cases of a more general definition that is valid for any kind of n-dimensional convex or non-convex object, such as a hypercube or a set of scattered points. The diameter of a subset of a metric space is the least upper bound of the set of all distances between pairs of points in the subset. So, if A is the subset, the diameter is
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+
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+ If the distance function d is viewed here as having codomain R (the set of all real numbers), this implies that the diameter of the empty set (the case A = ∅) equals −∞ (negative infinity). Some authors prefer to treat the empty set as a special case, assigning it a diameter equal to 0,[4] which corresponds to taking the codomain of d to be the set of nonnegative reals.
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+
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+ For any solid object or set of scattered points in n-dimensional Euclidean space, the diameter of the object or set is the same as the diameter of its convex hull. In medical parlance concerning a lesion or in geology concerning a rock, the diameter of an object is the supremum of the set of all distances between pairs of points in the object.
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+
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+ In differential geometry, the diameter is an important global Riemannian invariant.
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+
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+ In plane geometry, a diameter of a conic section is typically defined as any chord which passes through the conic's centre; such diameters are not necessarily of uniform length, except in the case of the circle, which has eccentricity e = 0.
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+
23
+ .
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+
25
+ The symbol or variable for diameter, ⌀, is sometimes used in technical drawings or specifications as a prefix or suffix for a number (e.g. "⌀ 55 mm", indicating that it represents diameter. For example, photographic filter thread sizes are often denoted in this way.
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+
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+ In German, the diameter symbol (German Durchmesserzeichen) is also used as an average symbol (Durchschnittszeichen).
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+
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+ It is similar in size and design to ø, the Latin small letter o with stroke. The diameter symbol ⌀ is distinct from the empty set symbol ∅, from an (italic) uppercase phi Φ, and from the Nordic vowel Ø (Latin capital letter O with stroke).[5] See also slashed zero.
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+
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+ The symbol has a Unicode code point at U+2300 ⌀ DIAMETER SIGN (HTML &#8960;), in the Miscellaneous Technical set. On an Apple Macintosh, the diameter symbol can be entered via the character palette (this is opened by pressing ⌥ Opt⌘ CmdT in most applications), where it can be found in the Technical Symbols category. In Unix/Linux/ChromeOS systems, it is generated using ctrl+⇧ Shift+u 2300space It can be obtained in UNIX-like operating systems using a Compose key by pressing, in sequence, Composedi[6]
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+
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+ The character will sometimes not display correctly, however, since many fonts do not include it. In many situations the letter ø (the Latin small letter o with stroke) is an acceptable substitute, which in Unicode is U+00F8 ø (HTML &#248; · &oslash;). and on a Macintosh by pressing ⌥ Opt O (the letter o, not the number 0). In Unix/Linux/ChromeOS systems, it is generated using ctrl+⇧ Shift+u F8space or Composeo/. AutoCAD uses U+2205 ∅ EMPTY SET available as a shortcut string %%c.
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+
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+ In Microsoft Word the diameter symbol can be acquired by typing 2300 and then pressing Alt+X.
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+ In LaTeX the diameter symbol can be obtained with the command \diameter from the wasysym package.
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1
+ Deified emperors:
2
+
3
+ Diana[a] is a goddess in Roman and Hellenistic religion, primarily considered a patroness of the countryside, hunters, crossroads, and the Moon. She is equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, and absorbed much of Artemis' mythology early in Roman history, including a birth on the island of Delos to parents Jupiter and Latona, and a twin brother, Apollo,[2] though she had an independent origin in Italy.
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+
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+ Diana is considered a virgin goddess and protector of childbirth. Historically, Diana made up a triad with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.[3]
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+
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+ Diana is revered in modern neopagan religions including Roman neopaganism, Stregheria, and Wicca. From the medieval to the modern period, as folklore attached to her developed and was eventually adapted into neopagan religions, the mythology surrounding Diana grew to include a consort (Lucifer) and daughter (Aradia), figures sometimes recognized by modern traditions.[4] In the ancient, medieval, and modern periods, Diana has been considered a triple deity, merged with a goddess of the moon (Luna/Selene) and the underworld (usually Hecate).[5][6]
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+
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+ The name Dīāna probably derives from Latin dīus ('godly'), ultimately from Proto-Italic *divios (diwios), meaning 'divine, heavenly'.[7][8] It stems from Proto-Indo-European *diwyós ('divine, heavenly'), formed with the root *dyew- ('daylight sky') attached the thematic suffix -yós.[9][10] Cognates appear in Myceanean Greek di-wi-ja, in Ancient Greek dîos (δῖος; 'belonging to heaven, godlike'), or in Sanskrit divyá ('heavenly').[11]
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+
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+ The ancient Latin writers Varro and Cicero considered the etymology of Dīāna as allied to that of dies and connected to the shine of the Moon, noting that one of her titles is Diana Lucifera ("light-bearer").
12
+
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+ ... people regard Diana and the moon as one and the same. ... the moon (luna) is so called from the verb to shine (lucere). Lucina is identified with it, which is why in our country they invoke Juno Lucina in childbirth, just as the Greeks call on Diana the Light-bearer. Diana also has the name Omnivaga ("wandering everywhere"), not because of her hunting but because she is numbered as one of the seven planets; her name Diana derives from the fact that she turns darkness into daylight (dies). She is invoked at childbirth because children are born occasionally after seven, or usually after nine, lunar revolutions ...
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+
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+ The persona of Diana is complex, and contains a number of archaic features. Diana was originally considered to be a goddess of the wilderness and of the hunt, a central sport in both Roman and Greek culture.[13] Early Roman inscriptions to Diana celebrated her primarily as a huntress and patron of hunters. Later, in the Hellenistic period, Diana came to be equally or more revered as a goddess not of the wild woodland but of the "tame" countryside, or villa rustica, the idealization of which was common in Greek thought and poetry. This dual role as goddess of both civilization and the wild, and therefore the civilized countryside, first applied to the Greek goddess Artemis (for example, in the 3rd century BCE poetry of Anacreon).[14] By the 3rd century CE, after Greek influence had a profound impact on Roman religion, Diana had been almost fully combined with Artemis and took on many of her attributes, both in her spiritual domains and in the description of her appearance. The Roman poet Nemesianus wrote a typical description of Diana: She carried a bow and a quiver full of golden arrows, wore a golden cloak, purple half-boots, and a belt with a jeweled buckle to hold her tunic together, and wore her hair gathered in a ribbon.[13] By the 5th century CE, almost a millennia after her cult's entry into Rome, the philosopher Proclus could still characterize Diana as "the inspective guardian of every thing rural, [who] represses every thing rustic and uncultivated."[15]
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+ Diana was often considered an aspect of a triple goddess, known as Diana triformis: Diana, Luna, and Hecate. According to historian C.M. Green, "these were neither different goddesses nor an amalgamation of different goddesses. They were Diana...Diana as huntress, Diana as the moon, Diana of the underworld."[6] At her sacred grove on the shores of Lake Nemi, Diana was venerated as a triple goddess beginning in the late 6th century BCE.
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+ Andreas Alföldi interpreted an image on a late Republican coin as the Latin Diana "conceived as a threefold unity of the divine huntress, the Moon goddess and the goddess of the nether world, Hekate".[17] This coin, minted by P. Accoleius Lariscolus in 43 BCE, has been acknowledged as representing an archaic statue of Diana Nemorensis.[18] It represents Artemis with the bow at one extremity, Luna-Selene with flowers at the other and a central deity not immediately identifiable, all united by a horizontal bar. The iconographical analysis allows the dating of this image to the 6th century at which time there are Etruscan models. The coin shows that the triple goddess cult image still stood in the lucus of Nemi in 43 BCE. Lake Nemi was called Triviae lacus by Virgil (Aeneid 7.516), while Horace called Diana montium custos nemoremque virgo ("keeper of the mountains and virgin of Nemi") and diva triformis ("three-form goddess").[19]
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+ Two heads found in the sanctuary[20] and the Roman theatre at Nemi, which have a hollow on their back, lend support to this interpretation of an archaic triple Diana.[21]
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+ The earliest epithet of Diana was Trivia, and she was addressed with that title by Virgil,[22] Catullus,[23] and many others. "Trivia" comes from the Latin trivium, "triple way", and refers to Diana's guardianship over roadways, particularly Y-junctions or three-way crossroads. This role carried a somewhat dark and dangerous connotation, as it metaphorically pointed the way to the underworld.[6] In the 1st-century CE play Medea, Seneca's titular sorceress calls on Trivia to cast a magic spell. She evokes the triple goddess of Diana, Selene, and Hecate, and specifies that she requires the powers of the latter.[6] The 1st century poet Horace similarly wrote of a magic incantation invoking the power of both Diana and Proserpina.[24] The symbol of the crossroads is relevant to several aspects of Diana's domain. It can symbolize the paths hunters may encounter in the forest, lit only by the full moon; this symbolizes making choices "in the dark" without the light of guidance.[6]
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+ Diana's role as a goddess of the underworld, or at least of ushering people between life and death, caused her early on to be conflated with Hecate (and occasionally also with Proserpina). However, her role as an underworld goddess appears to pre-date strong Greek influence (though the early Greek colony of Cumae had a cult of Hekate and certainly had contacts with the Latins[25]). A theater in her sanctuary at Lake Nemi included a pit and tunnel that would have allowed actors to easily descend on one side of the stage and ascend on the other, indicating a connection between the phases of the moon and a descent by the moon goddess into the underworld.[6] It is likely that her underworld aspect in her original Latin worship did not have a distinct name, like Luna was for her moon aspect. This is due to a seeming reluctance or taboo by the early Latins to name underworld deities, and the fact that they believed the underworld to be silent, precluding naming. Hekate, a Greek goddess also associated with the boundary between the earth and the underworld, became attached to Diana as a name for her underworld aspect following Greek influence.[6]
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+ Diana was often considered to be a goddess associated with fertility and childbirth, and the protection of women during labor. This probably arose as an extension of her association with the moon, whose cycles were believed to parallel the menstrual cycle, and which was used to track the months during pregnancy.[6] At her shrine in Aricia, worshipers left votive terracotta offerings for the goddess in the shapes of babies and wombs, and the temple there also offered care of pups and pregnant dogs. This care of infants also extended to the training of both young people and dogs, especially for hunting.[6] In her role as a protector of childbirth, Diana was called Diana Lucina or even Juno Lucina, because her domain overlapped with that of the goddess Juno. The title of Juno may also have had an independent origin as it applied to Diana, with the literal meaning of "helper" - Diana as Juno Lucina would be the "helper of childbirth".[6]
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+ According to a theory proposed by Georges Dumézil, Diana falls into a particular subset of celestial gods, referred to in histories of religion as frame gods. Such gods, while keeping the original features of celestial divinities (i.e. transcendent heavenly power and abstention from direct rule in worldly matters), did not share the fate of other celestial gods in Indoeuropean religions - that of becoming dei otiosi, or gods without practical purpose,[26] since they did retain a particular sort of influence over the world and mankind.[27] The celestial character of Diana is reflected in her connection with inaccessibility, virginity, light, and her preference for dwelling on high mountains and in sacred woods. Diana, therefore, reflects the heavenly world in its sovereignty, supremacy, impassibility, and indifference towards such secular matters as the fates of mortals and states. At the same time, however, she is seen as active in ensuring the succession of kings and in the preservation of humankind through the protection of childbirth.[28] These functions are apparent in the traditional institutions and cults related to the goddess:
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+ According to Dumezil, the forerunner of all frame gods is an Indian epic hero who was the image (avatar) of the Vedic god Dyaus. Having renounced the world, in his roles of father and king, he attained the status of an immortal being while retaining the duty of ensuring that his dynasty is preserved and that there is always a new king for each generation. The Scandinavian god Heimdallr performs an analogous function: he is born first and will die last. He too gives origin to kingship and the first king, bestowing on him regal prerogatives.
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+ Diana, although a female deity, has exactly the same functions, preserving mankind through childbirth and royal succession.
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+ F. H. Pairault, in her essay on Diana, qualified Dumézil's theory as "impossible to verify".
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+ Unlike the Greek gods, Roman gods were originally considered to be numina: divine powers of presence and will that did not necessarily have physical form. At the time Rome was founded, Diana and the other major Roman gods probably did not have much mythology per se, or any depictions in human form. The idea of gods as having anthropomorphic qualities and human-like personalities and actions developed later, under the influence of Greek and Etruscan religion.[31]
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+ By the 3rd century BCE, Diana is found listed among the twelve major gods of the Roman pantheon by the poet Ennius. Though the Capitoline Triad were the primary state gods of Rome, early Roman myth did not assign a strict hierarchy to the gods the way Greek mythology did, though the Greek hierarchy would eventually be adopted by Roman religion as well.[31]
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+ Once Greek influence had caused Diana to be considered identical to the Greek goddess Artemis, Diana acquired Artemis's physical description, attributes, and variants of her myths as well. Like Artemis, Diana is usually depicted in art wearing a short skirt, with a hunting bow and quiver, and often accompanied by hunting dogs. A 1st-century BCE Roman coin (see above) depicted her with a unique, short hairstyle, and in triple form, with one form holding a bow and another holding a poppy.[6]
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+ When worship of Apollo was first introduced to Rome, Diana became conflated with Apollo's sister Artemis as in the earlier Greek myths, and as such she became identified as the daughter of Apollo's parents Latona and Jupiter. Though Diana was usually considered to be a virgin goddess like Artemis, later authors sometimes attributed consorts and children to her. According to Cicero and Ennius, Trivia (an epithet of Diana) and Caelus were the parents of Janus, as well as of Saturn and Ops.[32]
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+ According to Macrobius (who cited Nigidius Figulus and Cicero), Janus and Jana (Diana) are a pair of divinities, worshiped as the sun and moon. Janus was said to receive sacrifices before all the others because, through him, the way of access to the desired deity is made apparent.[33]
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+ Diana's mythology incorporated stories which were variants of earlier stories about Artemis. Possibly the most well-known of these is the myth of Actaeon. In Ovid's version of this myth, part of his poem Metamorphoses, he tells of a pool or grotto hidden in the wooded valley of Gargaphie. There, Diana, the goddess of the woods, would bathe and rest after a hunt. Actaeon, a young hunter, stumbled across the grotto and accidentally witnessed the goddess bathing without invitation. In retaliation, Diana splashed him with water from the pool, cursing him, and he transformed into a deer. His own hunting dogs caught his scent, and tore him apart.[6]
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+ Ovid's version of the myth of Actaeon differs from most earlier sources. Unlike earlier myths about Artemis, Actaeon is killed for an innocent mistake, glimpsing Diana bathing. An earlier variant of this myth, known as the Bath of Pallas, had the hunter intentionally spy on the bathing goddess Pallas (Athena), and earlier versions of the myth involving Artemis did not involve the bath at all.[34]
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+ Diana was an ancient goddess common to all Latin tribes. Therefore, many sanctuaries were dedicated to her in the lands inhabited by Latins. Her primary sanctuary was a woodland grove overlooking Lake Nemi, a body of water also known as "Diana's Mirror", where she was worshiped as Diana Nemorensis, or "Diana of the Wood". In Rome, the cult of Diana may have been almost as old as the city itself. Varro mentions her in the list of deities to whom king Titus Tatius promised to build a shrine. His list included Luna and Diana Lucina as separate entities. Another testimony to the antiquity of her cult is to be found in the lex regia of King Tullus Hostilius that condemns those guilty of incest to the sacratio to Diana. She had a temple in Rome on the Aventine Hill, according to tradition dedicated by king Servius Tullius. Its location is remarkable as the Aventine is situated outside the pomerium, i.e. original territory of the city, in order to comply with the tradition that Diana was a goddess common to all Latins and not exclusively of the Romans. Being placed on the Aventine, and thus outside the pomerium, meant that Diana's cult essentially remained a foreign one, like that of Bacchus; she was never officially transferred to Rome as Juno was after the sack of Veii.
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+ Other known sanctuaries and temples to Diana include Colle di Corne near Tusculum,[35] where she is referred to with the archaic Latin name of deva Cornisca and where existed a collegium of worshippers;[36] at Évora, Portugal;[37] Mount Algidus, also near Tusculum;[38] at Lavinium;[39] and at Tibur (Tivoli), where she is referred to as Diana Opifera Nemorensis.[40] Diana was also worshiped at a sacred wood mentioned by Livy[41] - ad compitum Anagninum (near Anagni), and on Mount Tifata in Campania.[42]
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+ According to Plutarch, men and women alike were worshipers of Diana and were welcomed into all of her temples. The one exception seems to have been a temple on the Vicus Patricius, which men either did not enter due to tradition, or were not allowed to enter. Plutarch related a legend that a man had attempted to assault a woman worshiping in this temple and was killed by a pack of dogs (echoing the myth of Diana and Actaeon), which resulted in a superstition against men entering the temple.[43]
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+ A feature common to nearly all of Diana's temples and shrines by the second century AD was the hanging up of stag antlers. Plutarch noted that the only exception to this was the temple on the Aventine Hill, in which bull horns had been hung up instead. Plutarch explains this by way of reference to a legend surrounding the sacrifice of an impressive Sabine bull by King Servius at the founding of the Aventine temple.[43]
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+ Diana's worship may have originated at an open-air sanctuary overlooking Lake Nemi in the Alban Hills near Aricia, where she was worshiped as Diana Nemorensis, or ("Diana of the Sylvan Glade").[44] According to legendary accounts, the sanctuary was founded by Orestes and Iphigenia after they fled from the Tauri. In this tradition, the Nemi sanctuary was supposedly built on the pattern of an earlier Temple of Artemis Tauropolos,[45] and the first cult statue at Nemi was said to have been stolen from the Tauri and brought to Nemi by Orestes.[13][46] Historical evidence suggests that worship of Diana at Nemi flourished from at least the 6th century BCE[46] until the 2nd century CE. Her cult there was first attested in Latin literature by Cato the Elder, in a surviving quote by the late grammarian Priscian.[47] By the 4th century BCE, the simple shrine at Nemi had been joined by a temple complex.[46] The sanctuary served an important political role as it was held in common by the Latin League.[48][49]
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+ A festival to Diana, the Nemoralia, was held yearly at Nemi on the Ides of August (August 13–15[50]). Worshipers traveled to Nemi carrying torches and garlands, and once at the lake, they left pieces of thread tied to fences and tablets inscribed with prayers.[51][52] Diana's festival eventually became widely celebrated throughout Italy, which was unusual given the provincial nature of Diana's cult. The poet Statius wrote of the festival:[6]
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+ Statius describes the triple nature of the goddess by invoking heavenly (the stars), earthly (the grove itself) and underworld (Hecate) imagery. He also suggests by the garlanding of the dogs and polishing of the spears that no hunting was allowed during the festival.[6]
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+ Legend has it that Diana's high priest at Nemi, known as the Rex Nemorensis, was always an escaped slave who could only obtain the position by defeating his predecessor in a fight to the death.[44] Sir James George Frazer wrote of this sacred grove in The Golden Bough, basing his interpretation on brief remarks in Strabo (5.3.12), Pausanias (2,27.24) and Servius' commentary on the Aeneid (6.136). The legend tells of a tree that stood in the center of the grove and was heavily guarded. No one was allowed to break off its limbs, with the exception of a runaway slave, who was allowed, if he could, to break off one of the boughs. He was then in turn granted the privilege to engage the Rex Nemorensis, the current king and priest of Diana, in a fight to the death. If the slave prevailed, he became the next king for as long as he could defeat his challengers. However, Joseph Fontenrose criticised Frazer's assumption that a rite of this sort actually occurred at the sanctuary,[53] and no contemporary records exist that support the historical existence of the Rex Nemorensis.[54]
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+ Rome hoped to unify into and control the Latin tribes around Nemi,[48] so Diana's worship was imported to Rome as a show of political solidarity. Diana soon afterwards became Hellenized, and combined with the Greek goddess Artemis, "a process which culminated with the appearance of Diana beside Apollo [the brother of Artemis] in the first lectisternium at Rome" in 399 BCE.[55] The process of identification between the two goddesses probably began when artists who were commissioned to create new cult statues for Diana's temples outside Nemi were struck by the similar attributes between Diana and the more familiar Artemis, and sculpted Diana in a manner inspired by previous depictions of Artemis. Sibyllene influence and trade with Massilia, where similar cult statues of Artemis existed, would have completed the process.[46]
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+ According to Françoise Hélène Pairault's study,[56] historical and archaeological evidence point to the fact that the characteristics given to both Diana of the Aventine Hill and Diana Nemorensis were the product of the direct or indirect influence of the cult of Artemis, which was spread by the Phoceans among the Greek towns of Campania Cuma and Capua, who in turn had passed it over to the Etruscans and the Latins by the 6th and 5th centuries BCE.
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+ Evidence suggests that a confrontation occurred between two groups of Etruscans who fought for supremacy, those from Tarquinia, Vulci and Caere (allied with the Greeks of Capua) and those of Clusium. This is reflected in the legend of the coming of Orestes to Nemi and of the inhumation of his bones in the Roman Forum near the temple of Saturn.[57] The cult introduced by Orestes at Nemi is apparently that of the Artemis Tauropolos. The literary amplification[58] reveals a confused religious background: different versions of Artemis were conflated under the epithet.[59] As far as Nemi's Diana is concerned there are two different versions, by Strabo[60] and Servius Honoratus. Strabo's version looks to be the most authoritative as he had access to first-hand primary sources on the sanctuaries of Artemis, i.e. the priest of Artemis Artemidoros of Ephesus. The meaning of Tauropolos denotes an Asiatic goddess with lunar attributes, lady of the herds.[61] The only possible interpretatio graeca of high antiquity concerning Diana Nemorensis could have been the one based on this ancient aspect of a deity of light, master of wildlife. Tauropolos is an ancient epithet attached to Artemis, Hecate, and even Athena.[62] According to the legend Orestes founded Nemi together with Iphigenia.[63] At Cuma the Sybil is the priestess of both Phoibos and Trivia.[64] Hesiod[65] and Stesichorus[66] tell the story according to which after her death Iphigenia was divinised under the name of Hecate, a fact which would support the assumption that Artemis Tauropolos had a real ancient alliance with the heroine, who was her priestess in Taurid and her human paragon. This religious complex is in turn supported by the triple statue of Artemis-Hecate.[18]
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+ In Rome, Diana was regarded with great reverence and was a patroness of lower-class citizens, called plebeians, as well as slaves, who could receive asylum in her temples. Georg Wissowa proposed that this might be because the first slaves of the Romans were Latins of the neighboring tribes.[67] However, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus had the same custom of the asylum.
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+ Worship of Diana probably spread into the city of Rome beginning around 550 BCE,[46] during her Hellenization and combination with the Greek goddess Artemis. Diana was first worshiped along with her brother and mother, Apollo and Latona, in their temple in the Campus Martius, and later in the Temple of Apollo Palatinus.[13]
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+ The first major temple dedicated primarily to Diana in the vicinity of Rome was the Temple of Diana Aventina (Diana of the Aventine Hill). According to the Roman historian Livy, the construction of this temple began in the 6th century BCE and was inspired by stories of the massive Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which was said to have been built through the combined efforts of all the cities of Asia Minor. Legend has it that Servius Tullius was impressed with this act of massive political and economic cooperation, and convinced the cities of the Latin League to work with the Romans to build their own temple to the goddess.[68] However, there is no compelling evidence for such an early construction of the temple, and it is more likely that it was built in the 3rd century BCE, following the influence of the temple at Nemi, and probably about the same time the first temples to Vertumnus (who was associated with Diana) were built in Rome (264 BCE).[46] The misconception that the Aventine Temple was inspired by the Ephesian Temple might originate in the fact that the cult images and statues used at the former were based heavily on those found in the latter.[46] Whatever its initial construction date, records show that the Avantine Temple was rebuilt by Lucius Cornificius in 32 BCE.[45] If it was still in use by the 4th century CE, the Aventine temple would have been permanently closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. Today, a short street named the Via del Tempio di Diana and an associated plaza, Piazza del Tempio di Diana, commemorates the site of the temple. Part of its wall is located within one of the halls of the Apuleius restaurant.[69]
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+ Later temple dedications often were based on the model for ritual formulas and regulations of the Temple of Diana.[70] Roman politicians built several minor temples to Diana elsewhere in Rome to secure public support. One of these was built in the Campus Martius in 187 BCE; no Imperial period records of this temple have been found, and it is possible it was one of the temples demolished around 55 BCE in order to build a theater.[45] Diana also had a public temple on the Quirinal Hill, the sanctuary of Diana Planciana. It was dedicated by Plancius in 55 BCE, though it is unclear which Plancius.[45]
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+ In their worship of Artemis, Greeks filled their temples with sculptures of the goddess created by well-known sculptors, and many were adapted for use in the worship of Diana by the Romans, beginning around the 2nd century BCE (the beginning of a period of strong Hellenistic influence on Roman religion). The earliest depictions of the Artemis of Ephesus are found on Ephesian coins from this period. By the Imperial period, small marble statues of the Ephesian Artemis were being produced in the Western region of the Mediterranean and were often bought by Roman patrons.[71] The Romans obtained a large copy of an Ephesian Artemis statue for their temple on the Aventine Hill.[13] Diana was usually depicted for educated Romans in her Greek guise. If she was shown accompanied by a deer, as in the Diana of Versailles, this is because Diana was the patroness of hunting. The deer may also offer a covert reference to the myth of Acteon (or Actaeon), who saw her bathing naked. Diana transformed Acteon into a stag and set his own hunting dogs to kill him.
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+ In Campania, Diana had a major temple at Mount Tifata, near Capua. She was worshiped there as Diana Tifatina. This was one of the oldest sanctuaries in Campania. As a rural sanctuary, it included lands and estates that would have been worked by slaves following the Roman conquest of Campania, and records show that expansion and renovation projects at her temple were funded in part by other conquests by Roman military campaigns. The modern Christian church of Sant'Angelo in Formis was built on the ruins of the Tifata temple.[45]
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+ In the Roman provinces, Diana was widely worshiped alongside local deities. Over 100 inscriptions to Diana have been cataloged in the provinces, mainly from Gaul, Upper Germania, and Britannia. Diana was commonly invoked alongside another forest god, Silvanus, as well as other "mountain gods". In the provinces, she was occasionally conflated with local goddesses such as Abnoba, and was given high status, with Augusta and regina ("queen") being common epithets.[72]
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+ Diana was not only regarded as a goddess of the wilderness and the hunt, but was often worshiped as a patroness of families. She served a similar function to the hearth goddess Vesta, and was sometimes considered to be a member of the Penates, the deities most often invoked in household rituals. In this role, she was often given a name reflecting the tribe of family who worshiped her and asked for her protection. For example, in what is now Wiesbaden, Diana was worshiped as Diana Mattiaca by the Mattiaci tribe. Other family-derived named attested in the ancient literature include Diana Cariciana, Diana Valeriana, and Diana Plancia. As a house goddess, Diana often became reduced in stature compared to her official worship by the Roman state religion. In personal or family worship, Diana was brought to the level of other household spirits, and was believed to have a vested interest in the prosperity of the household and the continuation of the family. The Roman poet Horace regarded Diana as a household goddess in his Odes, and had an altar dedicated to her in his villa where household worship could be conducted. In his poetry, Horace deliberately contrasted the kinds of grand, elevated hymns to Diana on behalf of the entire Roman state, the kind of worship that would have been typical at her Aventine temple, with a more personal form of devotion.[14]
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+ Images of Diana and her associated myths have been found on sarcophagi of wealthy Romans. They often included scenes depicting sacrifices to the goddess, and on at least one example, the deceased man is shown joining Diana's hunt.[13]
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+ Since ancient times, philosophers and theologians have examined the nature of Diana in light of her worship traditions, attributes, mythology, and identification with other gods.
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+ Diana was initially a hunting goddess and goddess of the local woodland at Nemi,[73] but as her worship spread, she acquired attributes of other similar goddesses. As she became conflated with Artemis, she became a moon goddess, identified with the other lunar goddesses goddess Luna and Hekate.[73] She also became the goddess of childbirth and ruled over the countryside. Catullus wrote a poem to Diana in which she has more than one alias: Latonia, Lucina, Juno, Trivia, Luna.[74]
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+ Along with Mars, Diana was often venerated at games held in Roman amphitheaters, and some inscriptions from the Danubian provinces show that she was conflated with Nemesis in this role, as Diana Nemesis.[13]
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+ Outside of Italy, Diana had important centers of worship where she was syncretised with similar local deities in Gaul, Upper Germania, and Britannia. Diana was particularly important in the region in and around the Black Forest, where she was conflated with the local goddess Abnoba and worshiped as Diana Abnoba.[75]
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+ Some late antique sources went even further, syncretizing many local "great goddesses" into a single "Queen of Heaven". The Platonist philosopher Apuleius, writing in the late 2nd century, depicted the goddess declaring:
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+ "I come, Lucius, moved by your entreaties: I, mother of the universe, mistress of all the elements, first-born of the ages, highest of the gods, queen of the shades, first of those who dwell in heaven, representing in one shape all gods and goddesses. My will controls the shining heights of heaven, the health-giving sea-winds, and the mournful silences of hell; the entire world worships my single godhead in a thousand shapes, with divers rites, and under many a different name. The Phrygians, first-born of mankind, call me the Pessinuntian Mother of the gods; the native Athenians the Cecropian Minerva; the island-dwelling Cypriots Paphian Venus; the archer Cretans Dictynnan Diana; the triple-tongued Sicilians Stygian Proserpine; the ancient Eleusinians Actaean Ceres; some call me Juno, some Bellona, others Hecate, others Rhamnusia; but both races of Ethiopians, those on whom the rising and those on whom the setting sun shines, and the Egyptians who excel in ancient learning, honour me with the worship which is truly mine and call me by my true name: Queen Isis."
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+ Later poets and historians looked to Diana's identity as a triple goddess to merge her with triads heavenly, earthly, and underworld (cthonic) goddesses. Maurus Servius Honoratus said that the same goddess was called Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpina in hell.[5]
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+ Michael Drayton praises the Triple Diana in poem The Man in the Moone (1606): "So these great three most powerful of the rest, Phoebe, Diana, Hecate, do tell. Her sovereignty in Heaven, in Earth and Hell".[77][78][79]
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+ Based on the earlier writings of Plato, the Neoplatonist philosophers of late antiquity united the various major gods of Hellenic tradition into a series of monads containing within them triads, with some creating the world, some animating it or bringing it to life, and others harmonizing it. Within this system, Proclus considered Diana to be one of the primary animating, or life-giving, deities. Proclus, citing Orphic tradition, concludes that Diana "presides over all the generation in nature, and is the midwife of physical productive principles" and that she "extends these genitals, distributing as far as to subterranean natures the prolific power of [Bacchus]."[15] Specifically, Proclus considered the life-generating principle of the highest order, within the Intellectual realm, to be Rhea, who he identified with Ceres. Within her divinity was produced the cause of the basic principle of life. Projecting this principle into the lower, Hypercosmic realm of reality generated a lower monad, Kore, who could therefore be understood as Ceres' "daughter". Kore embodied the "maidenly" principle of generation that, more importantly, included a principle of division - where Demeter generates life indiscriminately, Kore distributes it individually. This division results in another triad or trinity, known as the Maidenly trinity, within the monad of Kore: namely, Diana, Proserpine, and Minerva, through whom individual living beings are given life and perfected. Specifically, according to a commentary by scholar Spyridon Rangos, Diana (equated with Hecate) gives existence, Proserpine (equated with "Soul") gives form, and Minerva (equated with "Virtue") gives intellect.[80]
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+ In his commentary on Proclus, the 19th century Platonist scholar Thomas Taylor expanded upon the theology of the classical philosophers, further interpreting the nature and roles of the gods in light of the whole body of Neoplatonist philosophy. He cites Plato in giving a three-form aspect to her central characteristic of virginity: the undefiled, the mundane, and the anagogic. Through the first form, Diana is regarded as a "lover of virginity". Through the second, she is the guardian of virtue. Through the third, she is considered to "hate the impulses arising from generation." Through the principle of the undefiled, Taylor suggests that she is given supremacy in Proclus' triad of life-giving or animating deities, and in this role the theurgists called her Hekate. In this role, Diana is granted undefiled power (Amilieti) from the other gods. This generative power does not proceed forth from the goddess (according to a statement by the Oracle of Delphi) but rather resides with her, giving her unparalleled virtue, and in this way she can be said to embody virginity.[81] Later commentators on Proclus have clarified that the virginity of Diana is not an absence of sexual drive, but a renunciation of sexuality. Diana embodies virginity because she generates but precedes active fertility (within Neoplatonism, an important maxim is that "every productive cause is superior to the nature of the produced effect").[80]
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+ Using the ancient Neoplatonists as a basis, Taylor also commented on the triadic nature of Diana and related goddesses, and the ways in which they subsist within one another, partaking unevenly in each other's powers and attributes. For example, Kore is said to embody both Diana/Hecate and Minerva, who create the virtuous or virgin power within her, but also Proserpine (her sole traditional identification), through whom the generative power of the Kore as a whole is able to proceed forth into the world, where it joins with the demiurge to produce further deities, including Bacchus and "nine azure-eyed, flower-producing daughters".[81]
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+ Proclus also included Artemis/Diana in a second triad of deities, along with Ceres and Juno. According to Proclus:
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+ Proclus pointed to the conflict between Hera and Artmeis in the Illiad as a representation of the two kinds of human souls. Where Hera creates the higher, more cultured, or "worthy" souls, Artemis brings light to and perfects the "less worthy" or less rational. As explained by Ragnos (2000), "The aspect of reality which Artemis and Hera share, and because of which they engage in a symbolic conflict, is the engendering of life." Hera elevates rational living beings up to intellectual rational existence, whereas Artemis's power pertains to human life as far as its physical existence as a living thing. "Artemis deals with the most elementary forms of life or the most elementary part of all life, whereas Hera operates in the most elevated forms of life or the most elevated part of all life.[80]
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+ Sermons and other religious documents have provided evidence for the worship of Diana during the Middle Ages. Though few details have been recorded, enough references to Diana worship during the early Christian period exist to give some indication that it may have been relatively widespread among remote and rural communities throughout Europe, and that such beliefs persisted into the Merovingian period.[82] References to contemporary Diana worship exist from the 6th century on the Iberian peninsula and what is now southern France,[82] though more detailed accounts of Dianic cults were given for the Low Countries, and southern Belgium in particular. Many of these were probably local goddesses, and wood nymphs or dryads, which had been conflated with Diana by Christian writers Latinizing local names and traditions.[82]
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+ The 6th century bishop Gregory of Tours reported meeting with a deacon named Vulfilaic (also known as Saint Wulflaicus or Walfroy the Stylite), who founded a hermitage on a hill in what is now Margut, France. On the same hill, he found "an image of Diana which the unbelieving people worshiped as a god." According to Gregory's report, worshipers would also sing chants in Diana's honor as they drank and feasted. Vulfilaic destroyed a number of smaller pagan statues in the area, but the statue of Diana was too large. After converting some of the local population to Christianity, Vulfilaic and a group of local residents attempted to pull the large statue down the mountain in order to destroy it, but failed, as it was too large to be moved. In Vulfilaic's account, after praying for a miracle, he was then able to single-handedly pull down the statue, at which point he and his group smashed it to dust with their hammers. According to Vulfilaic, this incident was quickly followed by an outbreak of pimples or sores that covered his entire body, which he attributed to demonic activity and similarly cured via what he described as a miracle. Vulfilaic would later found a church on the site, which is today known as Mont Saint-Walfroy.[83]
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+ Additional evidence for surviving pagan practices in the Low Countries region comes from the Vita Eligii, or "Life of Saint Eligius", written by Audoin in the 7th century. Audoin drew together the familiar admonitions of Eligius to the people of Flanders. In his sermons, he denounced "pagan customs" that the people continued to follow. In particular, he denounced several Roman gods and goddesses alongside Druidic mythological beliefs and objects:
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+ "I denounce and contest, that you shall observe no sacrilegious pagan customs. For no cause or infirmity should you consult magicians, diviners, sorcerers or incantators. ..Do not observe auguries ... No influence attaches to the first work of the day or the [phase of the] moon. ... [Do not] make vetulas, little deer or iotticos or set tables at night or exchange New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks... No Christian... performs solestitia or dancing or leaping or diabolical chants. No Christian should presume to invoke the name of a demon, not Neptune or Orcus or Diana or Minerva or Geniscus... No one should observe Jove's day in idleness. ... No Christian should make or render any devotion to the gods of the trivium, where three roads meet, to the fanes or the rocks, or springs or groves or corners. None should presume to hang any phylacteries from the neck of man nor beast. ..None should presume to make lustrations or incantations with herbs, or to pass cattle through a hollow tree or ditch ... No woman should presume to hang amber from her neck or call upon Minerva or other ill-starred beings in their weaving or dyeing. .. None should call the sun or moon lord or swear by them. .. No one should tell fate or fortune or horoscopes by them as those do who believe that a person must be what he was born to be."[84]
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+ Legends from medieval Belgium concern a natural spring which came to be known as the "Fons Remacli", a location which may have been home to late-surviving worship of Diana. Remacle was a monk appointed by Eligius to head a monastery at Solignac, and he is reported to have encountered Diana worship in the area around the river Warche. The population in this region was said to have been involved in the worship of "Diana of the Ardennes" (a syncretism of Diana and the Celtic goddess Arduinna), with effigies and "stones of Diana" used as evidence of pagan practices. Remacle believed that demonic entities were present in the spring, and had caused it to run dry. He performed and exorcism of the water source, and installed a lead pipe, which allowed the water to flow again.[85]
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+ Diana is the only pagan goddess mentioned by name in the New Testament (Acts 19). As a result, she became associated with many folk beliefs involving goddess-like supernatural figures that Catholic clergy wished to demonize. In the Middle Ages, legends of night-time processions of spirits led by a female figure are recorded in the church records of Northern Italy, western Germany, and southern France. The spirits were said to enter houses and consume food which then miraculously re-appeared. They would sing and dance, and dispense advise regarding healing herbs and the whereabouts of lost objects. If the house was in good order, they would bring fertility and plenty. If not, they would bring curses to the family. Some women reported participating in these processions while their bodies still lay in bed. Historian Carlo Ginzburg has referred to these legendary spirit gatherings as "The Society of Diana".[86]
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+ Local clergy complained that women believed they were following Diana or Herodias, riding out on appointed nights to join the processions or carry out instructions from the goddess.[4] The earliest reports of these legends appear in the writings of Regino of Prüm in the year 899, followed by many additional reports and variants of the legend in documents by Ratherius and others. By 1310, the names of the goddess figures attached to the legend were sometimes combined as Herodiana.[4] It is likely that the clergy of this time used the identification of the procession's leader as Diana or Herodias in order to fit an older folk belief into a Biblical framework, as both are featured and demonized in the New Testament. Herodias was often conflated with her daughter Salome in legend, which also holds that, upon being presented with the severed head of John the Baptist, she was blown into the air by wind from the saint's mouth, through which she continued to wander for eternity. Diana was often conflated with Hecate, a goddess associated with the spirits of the dead and with witchcraft. These associations, and the fact that both figures are attested to in the Bible, made them a natural fit for the leader of the ghostly procession. Clergy used this identification to assert that the spirits were evil, and that the women who followed them were inspired by demons. As was typical of this time period, though pagan beliefs and practices were near totally eliminated from Europe, the clergy and other authorities still treated paganism as a real threat, in part thanks to biblical influence; much of the Bible had been written when various forms of paganism were still active if not dominant, so medieval clergy applied the same kinds of warnings and admonitions for any non-standard folk beliefs and practices they encountered.[4] Based on analysis of church documents and parishioner confessions, it is likely that the spirit identified by the Church as Diana or Herodias was called by names of pre-Christian figures like Holda (a Germanic goddess of the winter solstice), or with names referencing her bringing of prosperity, like the Latin Abundia (meaning "plenty"), Satia (meaning "full" or "plentiful") and the Italian Richella (meaning "rich").[4] Some of the local titles for her, such as bonae res (meaning "good things"), are similar to late classical titles for Hecate, like bona dea. This might indicate a cultural mixture of medieval folk ideas with holdovers from earlier pagan belief systems. Whatever her true origin, by the 13th century, the leader of the legendary spirit procession had come to be firmly identified with Diana and Herodias through the influence of the Church.[4]
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+ In his wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, The Golden Bough, anthropologist James George Frazer drew on various lines of evidence to re-interpret the legendary rituals associated with Diana at Nemi, particularly that of the rex Nemorensis. Frazer developed his ideas in relation to J. M. W. Turner's painting, also titled The Golden Bough, depicting a dream-like vision of the woodland lake of Nemi. According to Frazer, the rex Nemorensis or king at Nemi was the incarnation of a dying and reviving god, a solar deity who participated in a mystical marriage to a goddess. He died at the harvest and was reincarnated in the spring. Frazer claimed that this motif of death and rebirth is central to nearly all of the world's religions and mythologies. In Frazer's theory, Diana functioned as a goddess of fertility and childbirth, who, assisted by the sacred king, ritually returned life to the land in spring. The king in this scheme served not only as a high priest but as a god of the grove. Frazer identifies this figure with Virbius, of which little is known, but also with Jupiter via an association with sacred oak trees. Frazer argued furthermore that Jupiter and Juno were simply duplicate names of Jana and Janus; that is, Diana and Dianus, all of whom had identical functions and origins.[87]
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+ Frazer's speculatively reconstructed folklore of Diana's origins and the nature of her cult at Nemi were not well received even by his contemporaries. Godfrey Lienhardt noted that even during Frazer's lifetime, other anthropologists had "for the most part distanced themselves from his theories and opinions", and that the lasting influence of The Golden Bough and Frazer's wider body of work "has been in the literary rather than the academic world."[88] Robert Ackerman wrote that, for anthropologists, Frazer is "an embarrassment" for being "the most famous of them all" and that most distance themselves from his work. While The Golden Bough achieved wide "popular appeal" and exerted a "disproportionate" influence "on so many [20th century] creative writers", Frazer's ideas played "a much smaller part" in the history of academic social anthropology.[88]
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+ Folk legends like the Society of Diana, which linked the goddess to forbidden gatherings of women with spirits, may have influenced later works of folklore. One of these is Charles Godfrey Leland's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, which prominently featured Diana at the center of an Italian witch-cult.[4] In Leland's interpretation of supposed Italian folk witchcraft, Diana is considered Queen of the Witches. In this belief system, Diana is said to have created the world of her own being having in herself the seeds of all creation yet to come. It was said that out of herself she divided the darkness and the light, keeping for herself the darkness of creation and creating her brother Lucifer. Diana was believed to have loved and ruled with her brother, and with him bore a daughter, Aradia (a name likely derived from Herodias), who leads and teaches the witches on earth.[89][4]
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+ Leland's claim that Aradia represented an authentic tradition from an underground witch-cult, which had secretly worshiped Diana since ancient times has been dismissed by most scholars of folklore, religion, and medieval history. After the 1921 publication of Margaret Murray's The Witch-cult in Western Europe, which hypothesized that the European witch trials were actually a persecution of a pagan religious survival, American sensationalist author Theda Kenyon's 1929 book Witches Still Live connected Murray's thesis with the witchcraft religion in Aradia.[90][91] Arguments against Murray's thesis would eventually include arguments against Leland. Witchcraft scholar Jeffrey Russell devoted some of his 1980 book A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics and Pagans to arguing against the claims Leland presented in Aradia.[92] Historian Elliot Rose's A Razor for a Goat dismissed Aradia as a collection of incantations unsuccessfully attempting to portray a religion.[93] In his book Triumph of the Moon, historian Ronald Hutton doubted not only of the existence of the religion that Aradia claimed to represent, and that the traditions Leland presented were unlike anything found in actual medieval literature,[94] but also of the existence of Leland's sources, arguing that it is more likely that Leland created the entire story than that Leland could be so easily "duped".[95] Religious scholar Chas S. Clifton took exception to Hutton's position, writing that it amounted to an accusation of "serious literary fraud" made by an "argument from absence".[96]
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+ Building on the work of Frazer, Murray, and others, some 20th and 21st century authors have attempted to identify links between Diana and more localized deities. R. Lowe Thompson, for example, in his 2013 book The History of the Devil, speculated that Diana may have been linked as an occasional "spouse" to the Gaulish horned god Cernunnos. Thompson suggested that Diana in her role as wild goddess of the hunt would have made a fitting consort for Cernunnos in Western Europe, and further noted the link between Diana as Proserpina with Pluto, the Greek god associated with the riches of the earth who served a similar role to the Gaulish Cernunnos.
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+ Because Leland's claims about an Italian witch-cult are questionable, the first verifiable worship of Diana in the modern age was probably begun by Wicca. The earliest known practitioners of Neopagan witchcraft were members of a tradition begun by Gerald Gardner. Published versions of the devotional materials used by Gardner's group, dated to 1949, are heavily focused on the worship of Aradia, the daughter of Diana in Leland's folklore. Diana herself was recognized as an aspect of a single "great goddess" in the tradition of Apuleius, as described in the Wiccan Charge of the Goddess (itself adapted from Leland's text).[97] Some later Wiccans, such as Scott Cunningham, would replace Aradia with Diana as the central focus of worship.[98]
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+ In the early 1960s, Victor Henry Anderson founded the Feri Tradition, a form of Wicca that draws from both Charles Leland's folklore and the Gardnerian tradition. Anderson claimed that he had first been initiated into a witchcraft tradition as a child in 1926,[99] and that he had been told the name of the goddess worshiped by witches was Tana.[100] The name Tana originated in Leland's Aradia, where he claimed it was an old Etruscan name for Diana. The Feri Tradition founded by Anderson continues to recognize Tana/Diana as an aspect of the Star Goddess related to the element of fire, and representing "the fiery womb that gives birth to and transforms all matter."[100] (In Aradia, Diana is also credited as the creatrix of the material world and Queen of Faeries[101]).
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+ A few Wiccan traditions would elevate Diana to a more prominent position of worship, and there are two distinct modern branches of Wicca focused primarily on Diana. The first, founded during the early 1970s in the United States by Morgan McFarland and Mark Roberts, has a feminist theology and only occasionally accepts male participants, and leadership is limited to female priestesses.[102][103] McFarland Dianic Wiccans base their tradition primarily on the work of Robert Graves and his book The White Goddess, and were inspired by references to the existence of medieval European "Dianic cults" in Margaret Murray's book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe.[103] The second Dianic tradition, founded by Zsuzsanna Budapest in the mid 1970s, is characterized by an exclusive focus on the feminine aspect of the divine, and as a result is exclusively female. This tradition combines elements from British Traditional Wicca, Italian folk-magic based on the work of Charles Leland, feminist values, and healing practices drawn from a variety of different cultures.[104][102]
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+ A third Neopagan tradition heavily inspired by the worship of Diana through the lens of Italian folklore is Stregheria, founded in the 1980s. It centers around a pair of deities regarded as divine lovers, who are known by several variant names including Diana and Dianus, alternately given as Tana and Tanus or Jana and Janus (the later two deity names were mentioned by James Frazer in The Golden Bough as later corruptions of Diana and Dianus, which themselves were alternate and possibly older names for Juno and Jupiter).[105] The tradition was founded by author Raven Grimassi, and influenced by Italian folktales he was told by his mother. One such folktale describes the moon being impregnated by her lover the morning star, a parallel to Leland's mythology of Diana and her lover Lucifer.[86]
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+ Diana was also a subject of worship in certain Feraferian rites, particularly those surrounding the autumnal equinox, beginning in 1967.[106]
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+ Both the Romanian words for "fairy" Zână[107] and Sânziană, the Leonese and Portuguese word for "water nymph" xana, and the Spanish word for "shooting target" and "morning call" (diana) seem to come from the name of Diana.
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+ Since the Renaissance, Diana's myths have often been represented in the visual and dramatic arts, including the opera L'arbore di Diana. In the 16th century, Diana's image figured prominently at the châteaus of Fontainebleau, Chenonceau, & at Anet, in deference to Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henri of France. At Versailles she was incorporated into the Olympian iconography with which Louis XIV, the Apollo-like "Sun King" liked to surround himself. Diana is also a character in the 1876 Léo Delibes ballet Sylvia. The plot deals with Sylvia, one of Diana's nymphs and sworn to chastity, and Diana's assault on Sylvia's affections for the shepherd Amyntas.
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+ Diana has been one of the most popular themes in art. Painters like Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, François Boucher, Nicholas Poussin and made use of her myth as a major theme. Most depictions of Diana in art featured the stories of Diana and Actaeon, or Callisto, or depicted her resting after hunting. Some famous work of arts with a Diana theme are:
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+ A dictatorship is a form of government characterized by a single leader or group of leaders and little or no toleration for political pluralism or independent programs or media.[2] According to other definitions, democracies are regimes in which "those who govern are selected through contested elections"; therefore dictatorships are "not democracies".[2] With the advent of the 19th and 20th centuries, dictatorships and constitutional democracies emerged as the world's two major forms of government, gradually eliminating monarchies, one of the traditional widespread forms of government of the time. Typically, in a dictatorial regime, the leader of the country is identified with the title of dictator, although their formal title may more closely resemble something similar to "leader". A common aspect that characterized dictatorship is taking advantage of their strong personality, usually by suppressing freedom of thought and speech of the masses, in order to maintain complete political and social supremacy and stability. Dictatorships and totalitarian societies generally employ political propaganda to decrease the influence of proponents of alternative governing systems.[3][4]
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+ The word "dictator" comes from the classical Latin language word dictātor, agent noun from dictare (dictāt-, past participial stem of dictāre dictate v. + -or -or suffix.)[5] In Latin use, a dictator was a judge in the Roman Republic temporarily invested with absolute power.
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+ A dictatorship has been largely defined as a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in the hands of a leader (commonly identified as a dictator), a "small clique", or a "government organization", and it aims to abolish political pluralism and civilian mobilization.[6] On the other hand, democracy, which is generally compared to the concept of dictatorship, is defined as a form of government where the supremacy belongs to the population and rulers are elected through contested elections.[7][8]
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+ A new form of government commonly linked to the concept of dictatorship is known as totalitarianism. The advent of totalitarianism marked the beginning of a new political era in the 20th century. This form of government is characterized by the presence of a single political party and more specifically, by a powerful leader (a real role model) who imposes his personal and political prominence. The two fundamental aspects that contribute to the maintenance of the power are: a steadfast collaboration between the government and the police force, and a highly developed ideology. Here, the government has "total control of mass communications and social and economic organizations".[9] According to Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is a new and extreme form of dictatorship composed of "atomized, isolated individuals".[10] In addition, she affirmed that ideology plays a leading role in defining how the entire society should be organized. According to the political scientist Juan Linz, the distinction between an authoritarian regime and a totalitarian one is that while an authoritarian regime seeks to suffocate politics and political mobilization, totalitarianism seeks to control politics and political mobilization.[11]
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+ However, one of the most recent classification of dictatorships does not identify Totalitarianism as a form of dictatorship. In Barbara Geddes's study, she focused in how elite-leader and elite-mass relations influence authoritarian politics. Geddes typology identifies the key institutions that structure elite politics in dictatorships (i.e. parties and militaries). The study is based on, and directly related to some factors like: the simplicity of the categorizations, cross-national applicability, the emphasis on elites and leaders, and the incorporation of institutions (parties and militaries) as central to shaping politics. According to Barbara Geddes, a dictatorial government may be classified in five typologies: Military Dictatorships, Single-party Dictatorships, Personalist Dictatorships, Monarchies, Hybrid Dictatorships.[10]
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+ Military dictatorships are regimes in which a group of officers holds power, determines who will lead the country, and exercises influence over policy. High-level elites and a leader are the members of the military dictatorship. Military dictatorships are characterized by rule by a professionalized military as an institution. In military regimes, elites are referred to as junta members; they are typically senior officers (and often other high-level officers) in the military.[10][12]
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+ Single-party dictatorships are regimes in which one party dominates politics. In single-party dictatorships, a single party has access to political posts and control over policy. In single-party dictatorships, party elites are typically members of the ruling body of the party, sometimes called the central committee, politburo, or secretariat. These groups of individuals controls the selection of party officials and "organizes the distribution of benefits to supporters and mobilizes citizens to vote and show support for party leaders".[10]
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+ Personalist dictatorships are regimes in which all power lies in the hands of a single individual. Personalist dictatorships differ from other forms of dictatorships in their access to key political positions, other fruits of office, and depend much more on the discretion of the personalist dictator. Personalist dictators may be members of the military or leaders of a political party. Yet, neither the military nor the party exercises power independent from the dictator. In personalist dictatorships, the elite corps is usually made up of close friends or family members of the dictator. These individuals are all typically handpicked to serve their posts by the dictator.[10][13]
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+ According to a 2019 study, personalist dictatorships are more repressive than other forms of dictatorship.[14]
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+ Monarchic dictatorships are in regimes in which "a person of royal descent has inherited the position of head of state in accordance with accepted practice or constitution". Regimes are not considered dictatorships if the monarch's role is largely ceremonial, but absolute monarchies, such as Saudi Arabia, can be considered hereditary dictatorships. Real political power must be exercised by the monarch for regimes to be classified as such. Elites in monarchies are typically members of the royal family.[10]
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+ Hybrid dictatorships are regimes that blend qualities of personalist, single-party, and military dictatorships. When regimes share characteristics of all three forms of dictatorships, they are referred to as triple threats. The most common forms of hybrid dictatorships are personalist/single-party hybrids and personalist/military hybrids.[10]
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+ One of the tasks in political science is to measure and classify regimes as either dictatorships or democracies. US based Freedom House, Polity IV and Democracy-Dictatorship Index are three of the most used data series by political scientists.[17]
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+ Generally, two research approaches exist: the minimalist approach, which focuses on whether a country has continued elections that are competitive, and the substantive approach, which expands the concept of democracy to include human rights, freedom of the press, and the rule of law. The Democracy-Dictatorship Index is seen as an example of the minimalist approach, whereas the Polity data series, is more substantive.[18][19][20][21]
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+ Between the two world wars, four types of dictatorships have been described: Constitutional, Communist (nominally championing the "dictatorship of the proletariat"), Counterrevolutionary and Fascist. Since World War II, a broader range of dictatorships has been recognized, including Third World dictatorships, theocratic or religious dictatorships and dynastic or family-based dictatorships.[22]
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+ During the Republican phase of Ancient Rome, a Roman dictator was the special magistrate who held well defined powers, normally for six months at a time, usually in combination with a consulship. Roman dictators were allocated absolute power during times of emergency. In execution, their power was originally neither arbitrary nor unaccountable, being subject to law and requiring retrospective justification. There were no such dictatorships after the beginning of the 2nd century BC and later dictators such as Sulla and the Roman Emperors exercised power much more personally and arbitrarily. As the Roman Emperor was a king in all but name,[original research?] a concept that remained anathema to traditional Roman society, the institution was not carried forward into the Roman Empire.
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+ After the collapse of Spanish colonial rule, various dictators came to power in many liberated countries. Often leading a private army, these caudillos or self-appointed political-military leaders, attacked weak national governments once they controlled a region's political and economic powers, with examples such as Antonio López de Santa Anna in Mexico and Juan Manuel de Rosas in Argentina. Such dictators have been also referred to as "personalismos".
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+ The wave of military dictatorships in South America in the second half of the twentieth century left a particular mark on Latin American culture. In Latin American literature, the dictator novel challenging dictatorship and caudillismo is a significant genre. There are also many films depicting Latin American military dictatorships.
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+ In the first half of the 20th century, Communist and Fascist dictatorships appeared in a variety of scientifically and technologically advanced countries, which are distinct from dictatorships in Latin America and post-colonial dictatorships in Africa and Asia. Leading examples of modern totalitarian dictatorship include:
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+ After World War II, dictators established themselves in the several new states of Africa and Asia, often at the expense or failure of the constitutions inherited from the colonial powers. These constitutions often failed to work without a strong middle class or work against the preexisting autocratic rule. Some elected presidents and prime ministers captured power by suppressing the opposition and installing one-party rule and others established military dictatorships through their armies. Whatever their form, these dictatorships had an adverse impact on economic growth and the quality of political institutions.[23] Dictators who stayed in office for a long period of time found it increasingly difficult to carry out sound economic policies.
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+ The often-cited exploitative dictatorship is the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled Zaire from 1965 to 1997, embezzling over $5 billion from his country.[24] Pakistan is another country to have been governed by 3 military dictators for almost 32 years in 7 decades of its existence. Starting with General Muhammad Ayub Khan who ruled from 1958–1969. Next was General Zia-ul-Haq who usurped power in 1977 and held on to power the longest until he died in an air crash in 1988. Ten years after Zia, General Pervez Musharraf got control after defeat against India in the Kargil war. He remained in power for 9 years until 2008.[25]
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+ The global dynamics of democratization has been a central question for political scientists.[26][27] The Third Wave Democracy was said to turn some dictatorships into democracies[26] (see also the contrast between the two figures of the Democracy-Dictatorship Index in 1988 and 2008).
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+ One of the rationales that the Bush Administration employed periodically during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq is that deposing Saddam Hussein and installing a democratic government in Iraq would promote democracy in other Middle Eastern countries.[28] However, according to The Huffington Post, "The 45 nations and territories with little or no democratic rule represent more than half of the roughly 80 countries now hosting U.S. bases. ... Research by political scientist Kent Calder confirms what's come to be known as the "dictatorship hypothesis": The United States tends to support dictators [and other undemocratic regimes] in nations where it enjoys basing facilities."[29]
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+ Mancur Olson suggests that the emergence of dictatorships can be linked to the concept of "roving bandits", individuals in an atomic system who move from place to place extracting wealth from individuals. These bandits provide a disincentive for investment and production. Olson states that a community of individuals would be better served if that bandit were to establish himself as a stationary bandit to monopolize theft in the form of taxes. Except from the community, the bandits themselves will be better served, according to Olson, by transforming themselves into "stationary bandits". By settling down and making themselves the rulers of a territory, they will be able to make more profits through taxes than they used to obtain through plunder. By maintaining order and providing protection to the community, the bandits will create a peaceful environment in which their people can maximize their surplus which means a greater taxable base. Thus a potential dictator will have a greater incentive to provide security to a given community from which he is extracting taxes and conversely, the people from whom he extracts the taxes are more likely to produce because they will be unconcerned with potential theft by other bandits. This is the rationality that bandits use in order to justify their transformation from "roving bandits" into "stationary bandits".[30]
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+ A dictionary is a listing of words in one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc.[1] or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, sometimes known as a lexicon.[1] It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.[2]
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+ A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed[citation needed] to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types.[3] There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary.[4]
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+ There is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive.[5]
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+ Although the first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times (these were bilingual dictionaries), the systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest themselves is a 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta.[4] The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.[6]
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+ The oldest known dictionaries were Akkadian Empire cuneiform tablets with bilingual Sumerian–Akkadian wordlists, discovered in Ebla (modern Syria) and dated roughly 2300 BCE.[7] The early 2nd millennium BCE Urra=hubullu glossary is the canonical Babylonian version of such bilingual Sumerian wordlists. A Chinese dictionary, the c. 3rd century BCE Erya, was the earliest surviving monolingual dictionary; although some sources cite the c. 800 BCE Shizhoupian as a "dictionary", modern scholarship considers it a calligraphic compendium of Chinese characters from Zhou dynasty bronzes. Philitas of Cos (fl. 4th century BCE) wrote a pioneering vocabulary Disorderly Words (Ἄτακτοι γλῶσσαι, Átaktoi glôssai) which explained the meanings of rare Homeric and other literary words, words from local dialects, and technical terms.[8] Apollonius the Sophist (fl. 1st century CE) wrote the oldest surviving Homeric lexicon.[7] The first Sanskrit dictionary, the Amarakośa, was written by Amara Sinha c. 4th century CE. Written in verse, it listed around 10,000 words. According to the Nihon Shoki, the first Japanese dictionary was the long-lost 682 CE Niina glossary of Chinese characters. The oldest existing Japanese dictionary, the c. 835 CE Tenrei Banshō Meigi, was also a glossary of written Chinese. In Frahang-i Pahlavig, Aramaic heterograms are listed together with their translation in Middle Persian language and phonetic transcription in Pazand alphabet. A 9th-century CE Irish dictionary, Sanas Cormaic, contained etymologies and explanations of over 1,400 Irish words. In India around 1320, Amir Khusro compiled the Khaliq-e-bari which mainly dealt with Hindustani and Persian words.[9]
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+ Arabic dictionaries were compiled between the 8th and 14th centuries CE, organizing words in rhyme order (by the last syllable), by alphabetical order of the radicals, or according to the alphabetical order of the first letter (the system used in modern European language dictionaries). The modern system was mainly used in specialist dictionaries, such as those of terms from the Qur'an and hadith, while most general use dictionaries, such as the Lisan al-`Arab (13th century, still the best-known large-scale dictionary of Arabic) and al-Qamus al-Muhit (14th century) listed words in the alphabetical order of the radicals. The Qamus al-Muhit is the first handy dictionary in Arabic, which includes only words and their definitions, eliminating the supporting examples used in such dictionaries as the Lisan and the Oxford English Dictionary.[10]
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+ In medieval Europe, glossaries with equivalents for Latin words in vernacular or simpler Latin were in use (e.g. the Leiden Glossary). The Catholicon (1287) by Johannes Balbus, a large grammatical work with an alphabetical lexicon, was widely adopted. It served as the basis for several bilingual dictionaries and was one of the earliest books (in 1460) to be printed. In 1502 Ambrogio Calepino's Dictionarium was published, originally a monolingual Latin dictionary, which over the course of the 16th century was enlarged to become a multilingual glossary. In 1532 Robert Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae latinae and in 1572 his son Henri Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae graecae, which served up to the 19th century as the basis of Greek lexicography. The first monolingual dictionary written in Europe was the Spanish, written by Sebastián Covarrubias' Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, published in 1611 in Madrid, Spain.[11] In 1612 the first edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, for Italian, was published. It served as the model for similar works in French and English. In 1690 in Rotterdam was published, posthumously, the Dictionnaire Universel by Antoine Furetière for French. In 1694 appeared the first edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Between 1712 and 1721 was published the Vocabulario portughez e latino written by Raphael Bluteau. The Real Academia Española published the first edition of the Diccionario de la lengua española in 1780, but their Diccionario de Autoridades, which included quotes taken from literary works, was published in 1726. The Totius Latinitatis lexicon by Egidio Forcellini was firstly published in 1777; it has formed the basis of all similar works that have since been published.
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+ The first edition of A Greek-English Lexicon by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott appeared in 1843; this work remained the basic dictionary of Greek until the end of the 20th century. And in 1858 was published the first volume of the Deutsches Wörterbuch by the Brothers Grimm; the work was completed in 1961. Between 1861 and 1874 was published the Dizionario della lingua italiana by Niccolò Tommaseo. Between 1862 and 1874 was published the six volumes of A magyar nyelv szótára (Dictionary of Hungarian Language) by Gergely Czuczor and János Fogarasi. Émile Littré published the Dictionnaire de la langue française between 1863 and 1872. In the same year 1863 appeared the first volume of the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal which was completed in 1998. Also in 1863 Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl published the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. The Duden dictionary dates back to 1880, and is currently the prescriptive source for the spelling of German. The decision to start work on the Svenska Akademiens ordbok was taken in 1787.[12]
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+ The earliest dictionaries in the English language were glossaries of French, Spanish or Latin words along with their definitions in English. The word "dictionary" was invented by an Englishman called John of Garland in 1220 — he had written a book Dictionarius to help with Latin "diction".[13] An early non-alphabetical list of 8000 English words was the Elementarie, created by Richard Mulcaster in 1582.[14][15]
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+ The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written by English schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604. The only surviving copy is found at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. This dictionary, and the many imitators which followed it, was seen as unreliable and nowhere near definitive. Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield was still lamenting in 1754, 150 years after Cawdrey's publication, that it is "a sort of disgrace to our nation, that hitherto we have had no… standard of our language; our dictionaries at present being more properly what our neighbors the Dutch and the Germans call theirs, word-books, than dictionaries in the superior sense of that title." [16]
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+ In 1616, John Bullokar described the history of the dictionary with his "English Expositor". Glossographia by Thomas Blount, published in 1656, contains more than 10,000 words along with their etymologies or histories. Edward Phillips wrote another dictionary in 1658, entitled "The New World of English Words: Or a General Dictionary" which boldly plagiarized Blount's work, and the two denounced[clarification needed] each other. This created more interest in the dictionaries. John Wilkins' 1668 essay on philosophical language contains a list of 11,500 words with careful distinctions, compiled by William Lloyd.[17] Elisha Coles published his "English Dictionary" in 1676.
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+ It was not until Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) that a more reliable English dictionary was produced. Many people today mistakenly believe that Johnson wrote the first English dictionary: a testimony to this legacy.[18] By this stage, dictionaries had evolved to contain textual references for most words, and were arranged alphabetically, rather than by topic (a previously popular form of arrangement, which meant all animals would be grouped together, etc.). Johnson's masterwork could be judged as the first to bring all these elements together, creating the first "modern" dictionary.[18]
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+ Johnson's dictionary remained the English-language standard for over 150 years, until the Oxford University Press began writing and releasing the Oxford English Dictionary in short fascicles from 1884 onwards. It took nearly 50 years to complete this huge work, and they finally released the complete OED in twelve volumes in 1928. It remains the most comprehensive and trusted English language dictionary to this day, with revisions and updates added by a dedicated team every three months. One of the main contributors to this modern dictionary was an ex-army surgeon, William Chester Minor, a convicted murderer who was confined to an asylum for the criminally insane.[19]
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+ In 1806, American Noah Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. In 1807 Webster began compiling an expanded and fully comprehensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language; it took twenty-seven years to complete. To evaluate the etymology of words, Webster learned twenty-six languages, including Old English (Anglo-Saxon), German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit.
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+ Webster completed his dictionary during his year abroad in 1825 in Paris, France, and at the University of Cambridge. His book contained seventy thousand words, of which twelve thousand had never appeared in a published dictionary before. As a spelling reformer, Webster believed that English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex, so his dictionary introduced American English spellings, replacing "colour" with "color", substituting "wagon" for "waggon", and printing "center" instead of "centre". He also added American words, like "skunk" and "squash," which did not appear in British dictionaries. At the age of seventy, Webster published his dictionary in 1828; it sold 2500 copies. In 1840, the second edition was published in two volumes. Webster's dictionary was acquired by G & C Merriam Co. in 1843, after his death, and has since been published in many revised editions. Merriam-Webster was acquired by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1964.
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+ Controversy over the lack of usage advice in the 1961 Webster's Third New International Dictionary spurred publication of the 1969 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the first dictionary to use corpus linguistics.
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+ In a general dictionary, each word may have multiple meanings. Some dictionaries include each separate meaning in the order of most common usage while others list definitions in historical order, with the oldest usage first.[20]
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+ In many languages, words can appear in many different forms, but only the undeclined or unconjugated form appears as the headword in most dictionaries. Dictionaries are most commonly found in the form of a book, but some newer dictionaries, like StarDict and the New Oxford American Dictionary are dictionary software running on PDAs or computers. There are also many online dictionaries accessible via the Internet.
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+ According to the Manual of Specialized Lexicographies, a specialized dictionary, also referred to as a technical dictionary, is a dictionary that focuses upon a specific subject field. Following the description in The Bilingual LSP Dictionary, lexicographers categorize specialized dictionaries into three types: A multi-field dictionary broadly covers several subject fields (e.g. a business dictionary), a single-field dictionary narrowly covers one particular subject field (e.g. law), and a sub-field dictionary covers a more specialized field (e.g. constitutional law). For example, the 23-language Inter-Active Terminology for Europe is a multi-field dictionary, the American National Biography is a single-field, and the African American National Biography Project is a sub-field dictionary. In terms of the coverage distinction between "minimizing dictionaries" and "maximizing dictionaries", multi-field dictionaries tend to minimize coverage across subject fields (for instance, Oxford Dictionary of World Religions and Yadgar Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms)[21] whereas single-field and sub-field dictionaries tend to maximize coverage within a limited subject field (The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology).
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+ Another variant is the glossary, an alphabetical list of defined terms in a specialized field, such as medicine (medical dictionary).
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+ The simplest dictionary, a defining dictionary, provides a core glossary of the simplest meanings of the simplest concepts. From these, other concepts can be explained and defined, in particular for those who are first learning a language. In English, the commercial defining dictionaries typically include only one or two meanings of under 2000 words. With these, the rest of English, and even the 4000 most common English idioms and metaphors, can be defined.
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+ Lexicographers apply two basic philosophies to the defining of words: prescriptive or descriptive. Noah Webster, intent on forging a distinct identity for the American language, altered spellings and accentuated differences in meaning and pronunciation of some words. This is why American English now uses the spelling color while the rest of the English-speaking world prefers colour. (Similarly, British English subsequently underwent a few spelling changes that did not affect American English; see further at American and British English spelling differences.)[22]
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+ Large 20th-century dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Webster's Third are descriptive, and attempt to describe the actual use of words. Most dictionaries of English now apply the descriptive method to a word's definition, and then, outside of the definition itself, provide information alerting readers to attitudes which may influence their choices on words often considered vulgar, offensive, erroneous, or easily confused.[23] Merriam-Webster is subtle, only adding italicized notations such as, sometimes offensive or stand (nonstandard). American Heritage goes further, discussing issues separately in numerous "usage notes." Encarta provides similar notes, but is more prescriptive, offering warnings and admonitions against the use of certain words considered by many to be offensive or illiterate, such as, "an offensive term for..." or "a taboo term meaning...".
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+ Because of the widespread use of dictionaries in schools, and their acceptance by many as language authorities, their treatment of the language does affect usage to some degree, with even the most descriptive dictionaries providing conservative continuity. In the long run, however, the meanings of words in English are primarily determined by usage, and the language is being changed and created every day.[24] As Jorge Luis Borges says in the prologue to "El otro, el mismo": "It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature."
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+ Sometimes the same dictionary can be descriptive in some domains and prescriptive in others. For example, according to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary is "at war with itself": whereas its coverage (lexical items) and glosses (definitions) are descriptive and colloquial, its vocalization is prescriptive. This internal conflict results in absurd sentences such as hi taharóg otí kshetiré me asíti lamkhonít (she'll tear me apart when she sees what I've done to the car). Whereas hi taharóg otí, literally 'she will kill me', is colloquial, me (a variant of ma 'what') is archaic, resulting in a combination that is unutterable in real life.[25]
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+ A historical dictionary is a specific kind of descriptive dictionary which describes the development of words and senses over time, usually using citations to original source material to support its conclusions.
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+ In contrast to traditional dictionaries, which are designed to be used by human beings, dictionaries for natural language processing (NLP) are built to be used by computer programs. The final user is a human being but the direct user is a program. Such a dictionary does not need to be able to be printed on paper. The structure of the content is not linear, ordered entry by entry but has the form of a complex network (see Diathesis alternation). Because most of these dictionaries are used to control machine translations or cross-lingual information retrieval (CLIR) the content is usually multilingual and usually of huge size. In order to allow formalized exchange and merging of dictionaries, an ISO standard called Lexical Markup Framework (LMF) has been defined and used among the industrial and academic community.
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+ In many languages, such as the English language, the pronunciation of some words is not consistently apparent from their spelling. In these languages, dictionaries usually provide the pronunciation. For example, the definition for the word dictionary might be followed by the International Phonetic Alphabet spelling /ˈdɪkʃənəri/ (in British English) or /ˈdɪkʃənɛri/ (in American English). American English dictionaries often use their own pronunciation respelling systems with diacritics, for example dictionary is respelled as "dĭk′shə-nĕr′ē" in the American Heritage Dictionary.[26] The IPA is more commonly used within the British Commonwealth countries. Yet others use their own pronunciation respelling systems without diacritics: for example, dictionary may be respelled as DIK-shə-nerr-ee. Some online or electronic dictionaries provide audio recordings of words being spoken.
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+ Histories and descriptions of the dictionaries of other languages on Wikipedia include:
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+ The age of the Internet brought online dictionaries to the desktop and, more recently, to the smart phone. David Skinner in 2013 noted that "Among the top ten lookups on Merriam-Webster Online at this moment are 'holistic, pragmatic, caveat, esoteric' and 'bourgeois.' Teaching users about words they don’t already know has been, historically, an aim of lexicography, and modern dictionaries do this well."[27]
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+ There exist a number of websites which operate as online dictionaries, usually with a specialized focus. Some of them have exclusively user driven content, often consisting of neologisms. Some of the more notable examples include:
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+ Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and the nature of the world, the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths in an attempt to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece and its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself.[1]
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+ The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan and Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC;[2] eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Homer's epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Homeric Hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedians and comedians of the fifth century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age, and in texts from the time of the Roman Empire by writers such as Plutarch and Pausanias.
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+ Aside from this narrative deposit in ancient Greek literature, pictorial representations of gods, heroes, and mythic episodes featured prominently in ancient vase paintings and the decoration of votive gifts and many other artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles. In the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence.[3]
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+ Greek mythology has had an extensive influence on the culture, arts, and literature of Western civilization and remains part of Western heritage and language. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes.[4]:43
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+ Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. 900 BC to c. 800 BC onward.[5]:200 In fact, literary and archaeological sources integrate, sometimes mutually supportive and sometimes in conflict; however, in many cases, the existence of this corpus of data is a strong indication that many elements of Greek mythology have strong factual and historical roots.[6]
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+ Mythical narration plays an important role in nearly every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus. This work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends.[7]:1 Apollodorus of Athens lived from c. 180 BC to c. 125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection; however the "Library" discusses events that occurred long after his death, hence the name Pseudo-Apollodorus.
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+ Among the earliest literary sources are Homer's two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the "epic cycle", but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the "Homeric Hymns" have no direct connection with Homer. The oldest are choral hymns from the earlier part of the so-called Lyric age.[8]:7 Hesiod, a possible contemporary with Homer, offers in his Theogony (Origin of the Gods) the fullest account of the earliest Greek myths, dealing with the creation of the world; the origin of the gods, Titans, and Giants; as well as elaborate genealogies, folktales, and etiological myths. Hesiod's Works and Days, a didactic poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora, and the Five Ages. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, rendered yet more dangerous by its gods.[3]
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+ Lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, relate individual mythological incidents.[9]:xii Additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama. The tragic playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides took most of their plots from myths of the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many of the great tragic stories (e.g. Agamemnon and his children, Oedipus, Jason, Medea, etc.) took on their classic form in these tragedies. The comic playwright Aristophanes also used myths, in The Birds and The Frogs.[8]:8
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+ Historians Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, and geographers Pausanias and Strabo, who traveled throughout the Greek world and noted the stories they heard, supplied numerous local myths and legends, often giving little-known alternative versions.[9]:xii Herodotus in particular, searched the various traditions presented him and found the historical or mythological roots in the confrontation between Greece and the East.[10]:60[11]:22 Herodotus attempted to reconcile origins and the blending of differing cultural concepts.
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+ The poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman ages was primarily composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise. Nevertheless, it contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes the works of:
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+ Prose writers from the same periods who make reference to myths include Apuleius, Petronius, Lollianus, and Heliodorus. Two other important non-poetical sources are the Fabulae and Astronomica of the Roman writer styled as Pseudo-Hyginus, the Imagines of Philostratus the Elder and Philostratus the Younger, and the Descriptions of Callistratus.
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+ Finally, a number of Byzantine Greek writers provide important details of myth, much derived from earlier now lost Greek works. These preservers of myth include Arnobius, Hesychius, the author of the Suda, John Tzetzes, and Eustathius. They often treat mythology from a Christian moralizing perspective.[12]
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+ The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by the German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the nineteenth century, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in the twentieth century, helped to explain many existing questions about Homer's epics and provided archaeological evidence for many of the mythological details about gods and heroes. Unfortunately, the evidence about myths and rituals at Mycenaean and Minoan sites is entirely monumental, as the Linear B script (an ancient form of Greek found in both Crete and mainland Greece) was used mainly to record inventories, although certain names of gods and heroes have been tentatively identified.[3]
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+ Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles.[3] These visual representations of myths are important for two reasons. Firstly, many Greek myths are attested on vases earlier than in literary sources: of the twelve labors of Heracles, for example, only the Cerberus adventure occurs in a contemporary literary text.[13] Secondly, visual sources sometimes represent myths or mythical scenes that are not attested in any extant literary source. In some cases, the first known representation of a myth in geometric art predates its first known representation in late archaic poetry, by several centuries.[5] In the Archaic (c. 750 – c. 500 BC), Classical (c. 480–323 BC), and Hellenistic (323–146 BC) periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence.[3]
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+ Greek mythology has changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their culture, of which mythology, both overtly and in its unspoken assumptions, is an index of the changes. In Greek mythology's surviving literary forms, as found mostly at the end of the progressive changes, it is inherently political, as Gilbert Cuthbertson (1975) has argued.[i][14]
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+ The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who, using Animism, assigned a spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed human forms and entered the local mythology as gods.[15]:17 When tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula invaded, they brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism. Other older gods of the agricultural world fused with those of the more powerful invaders or else faded into insignificance.[15]:18
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+ After the middle of the Archaic period, myths about relationships between male gods and male heroes became more and more frequent, indicating the parallel development of pedagogic pederasty (παιδικὸς ἔρως, eros paidikos), thought to have been introduced around 630 BC. By the end of the fifth century BC, poets had assigned at least one eromenos, an adolescent boy who was their sexual companion, to every important god except Ares and to many legendary figures.[16] Previously existing myths, such as those of Achilles and Patroclus, also then were cast in a pederastic light.[17]:54 Alexandrian poets at first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often re-adapted stories of Greek mythological characters in this fashion.
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+ The achievement of epic poetry was to create story-cycles and, as a result, to develop a new sense of mythological chronology. Thus Greek mythology unfolds as a phase in the development of the world and of humans.[18]:11 While self-contradictions in these stories make an absolute timeline impossible, an approximate chronology may be discerned. The resulting mythological "history of the world" may be divided into three or four broader periods:
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+ While the age of gods often has been of more interest to contemporary students of myth, the Greek authors of the archaic and classical eras had a clear preference for the age of heroes, establishing a chronology and record of human accomplishments after the questions of how the world came into being were explained. For example, the heroic Iliad and Odyssey dwarfed the divine-focused Theogony and Homeric Hymns in both size and popularity. Under the influence of Homer the "hero cult" leads to a restructuring in spiritual life, expressed in the separation of the realm of the gods from the realm of the dead (heroes), of the Chthonic from the Olympian.[19]:205 In the Works and Days, Hesiod makes use of a scheme of Four Ages of Man (or Races): Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. These races or ages are separate creations of the gods, the Golden Age belonging to the reign of Cronos, the subsequent races to the creation of Zeus. The presence of evil was explained by the myth of Pandora, when all of the best of human capabilities, save hope, had been spilled out of her overturned jar.[20] In Metamorphoses, Ovid follows Hesiod's concept of the four ages.[21]
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+ "Myths of origin" or "creation myths" represent an attempt to explain the beginnings of the universe in human language.[9]:10 The most widely accepted version at the time, although a philosophical account of the beginning of things, is reported by Hesiod, in his Theogony. He begins with Chaos, a yawning nothingness. Out of the void emerged Gaia (the Earth) and some other primary divine beings: Eros (Love), the Abyss (the Tartarus), and the Erebus.[22] Without male assistance, Gaia gave birth to Uranus (the Sky) who then fertilized her. From that union were born first the Titans—six males: Coeus, Crius, Cronus, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Oceanus; and six females: Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Rhea, Theia, Themis, and Tethys. After Cronus was born, Gaia and Uranus decreed no more Titans were to be born. They were followed by the one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires or Hundred-Handed Ones, who were both thrown into Tartarus by Uranus. This made Gaia furious. Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of Gaia's children"),[22] was convinced by Gaia to castrate his father. He did this, and became the ruler of the Titans with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort, and the other Titans became his court.
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+ A motif of father-against-son conflict was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus. Because Cronus had betrayed his father, he feared that his offspring would do the same, and so each time Rhea gave birth, he snatched up the child and ate it. Rhea hated this and tricked him by hiding Zeus and wrapping a stone in a baby's blanket, which Cronus ate. When Zeus was full grown, he fed Cronus a drugged drink which caused him to vomit, throwing up Rhea's other children, including Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera, and the stone, which had been sitting in Cronus's stomach all this time. Zeus then challenged Cronus to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes (whom Zeus freed from Tartarus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.[23]
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+ Zeus was plagued by the same concern, and after a prophecy that the offspring of his first wife, Metis, would give birth to a god "greater than he", Zeus swallowed her.[24]:98 She was already pregnant with Athena, however, and she burst forth from his head—fully-grown and dressed for war.[24]:108
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+ The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogonies to be the prototypical poetic genre—the prototypical mythos—and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus, the archetypal poet, also was the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius' Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades. When Hermes invents the lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing he does is sing about the birth of the gods.[25] Hesiod's Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods, but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the Muses. Theogony also was the subject of many lost poems, including those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus, Epimenides, Abaris, and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites. There are indications that Plato was familiar with some version of the Orphic theogony.[26]:147 A silence would have been expected about religious rites and beliefs, however, and that nature of the culture would not have been reported by members of the society while the beliefs were held. After they ceased to become religious beliefs, few would have known the rites and rituals. Allusions often existed, however, to aspects that were quite public.
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+ Images existed on pottery and religious artwork that were interpreted and more likely, misinterpreted in many diverse myths and tales. A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed papyrus scraps. One of these scraps, the Derveni Papyrus now proves that at least in the fifth century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic poem of Orpheus was in existence.[19]:236[26]:147
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+
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+ The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes built upon, popular mythical conceptions that had existed in the Greek world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be gleaned from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as a flat disk afloat on the river of Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical sky with sun, moon, and stars. The Sun (Helios) traversed the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades and his predecessors, home of the dead.[3][27]:45 Influences from other cultures always afforded new themes.
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+ According to Classical-era mythology, after the overthrow of the Titans, the new pantheon of gods and goddesses was confirmed. Among the principal Greek gods were the Olympians, residing on Mount Olympus under the eye of Zeus. (The limitation of their number to twelve seems to have been a comparatively modern idea.)[28]:8 Besides the Olympians, the Greeks worshipped various gods of the countryside, the satyr-god Pan, Nymphs (spirits of rivers), Naiads (who dwelled in springs), Dryads (who were spirits of the trees), Nereids (who inhabited the sea), river gods, Satyrs, and others. In addition, there were the dark powers of the underworld, such as the Erinyes (or Furies), said to pursue those guilty of crimes against blood-relatives.[29] In order to honor the Ancient Greek pantheon, poets composed the Homeric Hymns (a group of thirty-three songs).[30] Gregory Nagy (1992) regards "the larger Homeric Hymns as simple preludes (compared with Theogony), each of which invokes one god."[31]:54
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+
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+ The gods of Greek mythology are described as having essentially corporeal but ideal bodies. According to Walter Burkert, the defining characteristic of Greek anthropomorphism is that "the Greek gods are persons, not abstractions, ideas or concepts."[19]:182 Regardless of their underlying forms, the Ancient Greek gods have many fantastic abilities; most significantly, the gods are not affected by disease, and can be wounded only under highly unusual circumstances. The Greeks considered immortality as the distinctive characteristic of their gods; this immortality, as well as unfading youth, was insured by the constant use of nectar and ambrosia, by which the divine blood was renewed in their veins.[28]:4
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+
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+ Each god descends from his or her own genealogy, pursues differing interests, has a certain area of expertise, and is governed by a unique personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity of archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another. When these gods are called upon in poetry, prayer or cult, they are referred to by a combination of their name and epithets, that identify them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves (e.g., Apollo Musagetes is "Apollo, [as] leader of the Muses"). Alternatively the epithet may identify a particular and localized aspect of the god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the classical epoch of Greece.
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+ Most gods were associated with specific aspects of life. For example, Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, Ares was the god of war, Hades the ruler of the underworld, and Athena the goddess of wisdom and courage.[28]:20ff Some gods, such as Apollo and Dionysus, revealed complex personalities and mixtures of functions, while others, such as Hestia (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were little more than personifications. The most impressive temples tended to be dedicated to a limited number of gods, who were the focus of large pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common for individual regions and villages to devote their own cults to minor gods. Many cities also honored the more well-known gods with unusual local rites and associated strange myths with them that were unknown elsewhere. During the heroic age, the cult of heroes (or demigods) supplemented that of the gods.
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+
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+ Bridging the age when gods lived alone and the age when divine interference in human affairs was limited was a transitional age in which gods and mortals moved together. These were the early days of the world when the groups mingled more freely than they did later. Most of these tales were later told by Ovid's Metamorphoses and they are often divided into two thematic groups: tales of love, and tales of punishment.[8]:38
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+ Tales of love often involve incest, or the seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male god, resulting in heroic offspring. The stories generally suggest that relationships between gods and mortals are something to avoid; even consenting relationships rarely have happy endings.[8]:39 In a few cases, a female divinity mates with a mortal man, as in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where the goddess lies with Anchises to produce Aeneas.[32]
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+ The second type (tales of punishment) involves the appropriation or invention of some important cultural artifact, as when Prometheus steals fire from the gods, when Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia from Zeus' table and gives it to his own subjects—revealing to them the secrets of the gods, when Prometheus or Lycaon invents sacrifice, when Demeter teaches agriculture and the Mysteries to Triptolemus, or when Marsyas invents the aulos and enters into a musical contest with Apollo. Ian Morris considers Prometheus' adventures as "a place between the history of the gods and that of man."[33]:291 An anonymous papyrus fragment, dated to the third century, vividly portrays Dionysus' punishment of the king of Thrace, Lycurgus, whose recognition of the new god came too late, resulting in horrific penalties that extended into the afterlife.[34]:50 The story of the arrival of Dionysus to establish his cult in Thrace was also the subject of an Aeschylean trilogy.[35]:28 In another tragedy, Euripides' The Bacchae, the king of Thebes, Pentheus, is punished by Dionysus, because he disrespected the god and spied on his Maenads, the female worshippers of the god.[36]:195
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+ In another story, based on an old folktale-motif,[37] and echoing a similar theme, Demeter was searching for her daughter, Persephone, having taken the form of an old woman called Doso, and received a hospitable welcome from Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica. As a gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make his son Demophon a god, but she was unable to complete the ritual because his mother Metanira walked in and saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright, which angered Demeter, who lamented that foolish mortals do not understand the concept and ritual.[38]
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+ The age in which the heroes lived is known as the heroic age.[39] The epic and genealogical poetry created cycles of stories clustered around particular heroes or events and established the family relationships between the heroes of different stories; they thus arranged the stories in sequence. According to Ken Dowden (1992), "there is even a saga effect: We can follow the fates of some families in successive generations."[18]:11
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+ After the rise of the hero cult, gods and heroes constitute the sacral sphere and are invoked together in oaths and prayers which are addressed to them.[19]:205 Burkert (2002) notes that "the roster of heroes, again in contrast to the gods, is never given fixed and final form. Great gods are no longer born, but new heroes can always be raised up from the army of the dead." Another important difference between the hero cult and the cult of gods is that the hero becomes the centre of local group identity.[19]:206
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+ The monumental events of Heracles are regarded as the dawn of the age of heroes. To the Heroic Age are also ascribed three great events: the Argonautic expedition, the Theban Cycle, and the Trojan War.[39][40]:340
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+ Some scholars believe[40]:10 that behind Heracles' complicated mythology there was probably a real man, perhaps a chieftain-vassal of the kingdom of Argos. Some scholars suggest the story of Heracles is an allegory for the sun's yearly passage through the twelve constellations of the zodiac.[41] Others point to earlier myths from other cultures, showing the story of Heracles as a local adaptation of hero myths already well established. Traditionally, Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alcmene, granddaughter of Perseus.[42] His fantastic solitary exploits, with their many folk-tale themes, provided much material for popular legend. According to Burkert (2002), "He is portrayed as a sacrificer, mentioned as a founder of altars, and imagined as a voracious eater himself; it is in this role that he appears in comedy.[19]
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+ While his tragic end provided much material for tragedy—Heracles is regarded by Thalia Papadopoulou as "a play of great significance in examination of other Euripidean dramas."[43][19]:211 In art and literature Heracles was represented as an enormously strong man of moderate height; his characteristic weapon was the bow but frequently also the club. Vase paintings demonstrate the unparalleled popularity of Heracles, his fight with the lion being depicted many hundreds of times.[19]:211
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+ Heracles also entered Etruscan and Roman mythology and cult, and the exclamation "mehercule" became as familiar to the Romans as "Herakleis" was to the Greeks.[19]:211 In Italy he was worshipped as a god of merchants and traders, although others also prayed to him for his characteristic gifts of good luck or rescue from danger.[42]
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+ Heracles attained the highest social prestige through his appointment as official ancestor of the Dorian kings. This probably served as a legitimation for the Dorian migrations into the Peloponnese. Hyllus, the eponymous hero of one Dorian phyle, became the son of Heracles and one of the Heracleidae or Heraclids (the numerous descendants of Heracles, especially the descendants of Hyllus—other Heracleidae included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus, and Telephus). These Heraclids conquered the Peloponnesian kingdoms of Mycenae, Sparta and Argos, claiming, according to legend, a right to rule them through their ancestor. Their rise to dominance is frequently called the "Dorian invasion". The Lydian and later the Macedonian kings, as rulers of the same rank, also became Heracleidae.[44][19]:211
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+ Other members of this earliest generation of heroes such as Perseus, Deucalion, Theseus and Bellerophon, have many traits in common with Heracles. Like him, their exploits are solitary, fantastic and border on fairy tale, as they slay monsters such as the Chimera and Medusa. Bellerophon's adventures are commonplace types, similar to the adventures of Heracles and Theseus. Sending a hero to his presumed death is also a recurrent theme of this early heroic tradition, used in the cases of Perseus and Bellerophon.[45]
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+ The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes (epic poet, scholar, and director of the Library of Alexandria) tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece from the mythical land of Colchis. In the Argonautica, Jason is impelled on his quest by king Pelias, who receives a prophecy that a man with one sandal would be his nemesis. Jason loses a sandal in a river, arrives at the court of Pelias, and the epic is set in motion. Nearly every member of the next generation of heroes, as well as Heracles, went with Jason in the ship Argo to fetch the Golden Fleece. This generation also included Theseus, who went to Crete to slay the Minotaur; Atalanta, the female heroine, and Meleager, who once had an epic cycle of his own to rival the Iliad and Odyssey. Pindar, Apollonius and the Bibliotheca endeavor to give full lists of the Argonauts.[46][47][48]
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+ Although Apollonius wrote his poem in the 3rd century BC, the composition of the story of the Argonauts is earlier than Odyssey, which shows familiarity with the exploits of Jason (the wandering of Odysseus may have been partly founded on it).[49][50] In ancient times the expedition was regarded as a historical fact, an incident in the opening up of the Black Sea to Greek commerce and colonization.[49] It was also extremely popular, forming a cycle to which a number of local legends became attached. The story of Medea, in particular, caught the imagination of the tragic poets.[50]
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+ In between the Argo and the Trojan War, there was a generation known chiefly for its horrific crimes. This includes the doings of Atreus and Thyestes at Argos. Behind the myth of the house of Atreus (one of the two principal heroic dynasties with the house of Labdacus) lies the problem of the devolution of power and of the mode of accession to sovereignty. The twins Atreus and Thyestes with their descendants played the leading role in the tragedy of the devolution of power in Mycenae.[51]
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+ The Theban Cycle deals with events associated especially with Cadmus, the city's founder, and later with the doings of Laius and Oedipus at Thebes; a series of stories that lead to the eventual pillage of that city at the hands of the Seven Against Thebes and Epigoni.[7]:317 (It is not known whether the Seven Against Thebes figured in early epic.) As far as Oedipus is concerned, early epic accounts seem to have him continuing to rule at Thebes after the revelation that Iokaste was his mother, and subsequently marrying a second wife who becomes the mother of his children—markedly different from the tale known to us through tragedy (e.g. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex) and later mythological accounts.[7]:311
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+ Greek mythology culminates in the Trojan War, fought between Greece and Troy, and its aftermath. In Homer's works, such as the Iliad, the chief stories have already taken shape and substance, and individual themes were elaborated later, especially in Greek drama. The Trojan War also elicited great interest in the Roman culture because of the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero whose journey from Troy led to the founding of the city that would one day become Rome, as recounted in Virgil's Aeneid (Book II of Virgil's Aeneid contains the best-known account of the sack of Troy).[52][53] Finally there are two pseudo-chronicles written in Latin that passed under the names of Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius.[54]
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+ The Trojan War cycle, a collection of epic poems, starts with the events leading up to the war: Eris and the golden apple of Kallisti, the Judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helen, the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis. To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition under the overall command of Menelaus's brother, Agamemnon, king of Argos or Mycenae, but the Trojans refused to return Helen. The Iliad, which is set in the tenth year of the war, tells of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior, and the consequent deaths in battle of Achilles' beloved comrade Patroclus and Priam's eldest son, Hector. After Hector's death the Trojans were joined by two exotic allies, Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, and Memnon, king of the Ethiopians and son of the dawn-goddess Eos.[53] Achilles killed both of these, but Paris then managed to kill Achilles with an arrow in the heel. Achilles' heel was the only part of his body which was not invulnerable to damage by human weaponry. Before they could take Troy, the Greeks had to steal from the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena (the Palladium). Finally, with Athena's help, they built the Trojan Horse. Despite the warnings of Priam's daughter Cassandra, the Trojans were persuaded by Sinon, a Greek who feigned desertion, to take the horse inside the walls of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest Laocoon, who tried to have the horse destroyed, was killed by sea-serpents. At night the Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse opened the gates of Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining sons were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various cities of Greece. The adventurous homeward voyages of the Greek leaders (including the wanderings of Odysseus and Aeneas (the Aeneid), and the murder of Agamemnon) were told in two epics, the Returns (the lost Nostoi) and Homer's Odyssey.[52] The Trojan cycle also includes the adventures of the children of the Trojan generation (e.g., Orestes and Telemachus).[53]
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+ The Trojan War provided a variety of themes and became a main source of inspiration for Ancient Greek artists (e.g. metopes on the Parthenon depicting the sack of Troy); this artistic preference for themes deriving from the Trojan Cycle indicates its importance to the Ancient Greek civilization.[52] The same mythological cycle also inspired a series of posterior European literary writings. For instance, Trojan Medieval European writers, unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found in the Troy legend a rich source of heroic and romantic storytelling and a convenient framework into which to fit their own courtly and chivalric ideals. Twelfth-century authors, such as Benoît de Sainte-Maure (Roman de Troie [Romance of Troy, 1154–60]) and Joseph of Exeter (De Bello Troiano [On the Trojan War, 1183]) describe the war while rewriting the standard version they found in Dictys and Dares. They thus follow Horace's advice and Virgil's example: they rewrite a poem of Troy instead of telling something completely new.[55]
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+ Some of the more famous heroes noted for their inclusion in the Trojan War were:
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+ On the Trojan side:
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+ On the Greek side:
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+ Mythology was at the heart of everyday life in Ancient Greece.[15]:15 Greeks regarded mythology as a part of their history. They used myth to explain natural phenomena, cultural variations, traditional enmities and friendships. It was a source of pride to be able to trace the descent of one's leaders from a mythological hero or a god. Few ever doubted that there was truth behind the account of the Trojan War in the Iliad and Odyssey. According to Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics professor, and John Heath, a classics professor, the profound knowledge of the Homeric epos was deemed by the Greeks the basis of their acculturation. Homer was the "education of Greece" (Ἑλλάδος παίδευσις), and his poetry "the Book".[56]
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+ After the rise of philosophy, history, prose and rationalism in the late 5th century BC, the fate of myth became uncertain, and mythological genealogies gave place to a conception of history which tried to exclude the supernatural (such as the Thucydidean history).[57] While poets and dramatists were reworking the myths, Greek historians and philosophers were beginning to criticize them.[8]
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+ A few radical philosophers like Xenophanes of Colophon were already beginning to label the poets' tales as blasphemous lies in the 6th century BC; Xenophanes had complained that Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods "all that is shameful and disgraceful among men; they steal, commit adultery, and deceive one another."[5]:169–70 This line of thought found its most sweeping expression in Plato's Republic and Laws. Plato created his own allegorical myths (such as the vision of Er in the Republic), attacked the traditional tales of the gods' tricks, thefts and adulteries as immoral, and objected to their central role in literature.[8] Plato's criticism was the first serious challenge to the Homeric mythological tradition,[56] referring to the myths as "old wives' chatter."[58] For his part Aristotle criticized the Pre-socratic quasi-mythical philosophical approach and underscored that "Hesiod and the theological writers were concerned only with what seemed plausible to themselves, and had no respect for us ... But it is not worth taking seriously writers who show off in the mythical style; as for those who do proceed by proving their assertions, we must cross-examine them."[57]
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+ Nevertheless, even Plato did not manage to wean himself and his society from the influence of myth; his own characterization for Socrates is based on the traditional Homeric and tragic patterns, used by the philosopher to praise the righteous life of his teacher:[59]
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+ But perhaps someone might say: "Are you then not ashamed, Socrates, of having followed such a pursuit, that you are now in danger of being put to death as a result?" But I should make to him a just reply: "You do not speak well, Sir, if you think a man in whom there is even a little merit ought to consider danger of life or death, and not rather regard this only, when he does things, whether the things he does are right or wrong and the acts of a good or a bad man. For according to your argument all the demigods would be bad who died at Troy, including the son of Thetis, who so despised danger, in comparison with enduring any disgrace, that when his mother (and she was a goddess) said to him, as he was eager to slay Hector, something like this, I believe,
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+ he, when he heard this, made light of death and danger, and feared much more to live as a coward and not to avenge his friends, and said,
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+ Hanson and Heath estimate that Plato's rejection of the Homeric tradition was not favorably received by the grassroots Greek civilization.[56] The old myths were kept alive in local cults; they continued to influence poetry and to form the main subject of painting and sculpture.[57]
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+ More sportingly, the 5th century BC tragedian Euripides often played with the old traditions, mocking them, and through the voice of his characters injecting notes of doubt. Yet the subjects of his plays were taken, without exception, from myth. Many of these plays were written in answer to a predecessor's version of the same or similar myth. Euripides mainly impugns the myths about the gods and begins his critique with an objection similar to the one previously expressed by Xenocrates: the gods, as traditionally represented, are far too crassly anthropomorphic.[5]:169–70
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+ During the Hellenistic period, mythology took on the prestige of elite knowledge that marks its possessors as belonging to a certain class. At the same time, the skeptical turn of the Classical age became even more pronounced.[60]:89 Greek mythographer Euhemerus established the tradition of seeking an actual historical basis for mythical beings and events.[61] Although his original work (Sacred Scriptures) is lost, much is known about it from what is recorded by Diodorus and Lactantius.[7]:7
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+ Rationalizing hermeneutics of myth became even more popular under the Roman Empire, thanks to the physicalist theories of Stoic and Epicurean philosophy. Stoics presented explanations of the gods and heroes as physical phenomena, while the Euhemerists rationalized them as historical figures. At the same time, the Stoics and the Neoplatonists promoted the moral significations of the mythological tradition, often based on Greek etymologies.[62] Through his Epicurean message, Lucretius had sought to expel superstitious fears from the minds of his fellow-citizens.[63]:xxvi Livy, too, is skeptical about the mythological tradition and claims that he does not intend to pass judgement on such legends (fabulae).[60]:88 The challenge for Romans with a strong and apologetic sense of religious tradition was to defend that tradition while conceding that it was often a breeding-ground for superstition. The antiquarian Varro, who regarded religion as a human institution with great importance for the preservation of good in society, devoted rigorous study to the origins of religious cults. In his Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum (which has not survived, but Augustine's City of God indicates its general approach) Varro argues that whereas the superstitious man fears the gods, the truly religious person venerates them as parents.[63]:xxvi According to Varro, there have been three accounts of deities in the Roman society: the mythical account created by poets for theatre and entertainment, the civil account used by people for veneration as well as by the city, and the natural account created by the philosophers.[64] The best state is, adds Varro, where the civil theology combines the poetic mythical account with the philosopher's.[64]
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+ Roman Academic Cotta ridicules both literal and allegorical acceptance of myth, declaring roundly that myths have no place in philosophy.[60]:87 Cicero is also generally disdainful of myth, but, like Varro, he is emphatic in his support for the state religion and its institutions. It is difficult to know how far down the social scale this rationalism extended.[60]:88 Cicero asserts that no one (not even old women and boys) is so foolish as to believe in the terrors of Hades or the existence of Scyllas, centaurs or other composite creatures,[65] but, on the other hand, the orator elsewhere complains of the superstitious and credulous character of the people.[66] De Natura Deorum is the most comprehensive summary of Cicero's line of thought.[63]:xxvii
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+ In Ancient Roman times, a new Roman mythology was born through syncretization of numerous Greek and other foreign gods. This occurred because the Romans had little mythology of their own, and inheritance of the Greek mythological tradition caused the major Roman gods to adopt characteristics of their Greek equivalents.[60]:88 The gods Zeus and Jupiter are an example of this mythological overlap. In addition to the combination of the two mythological traditions, the association of the Romans with eastern religions led to further syncretizations.[67] For instance, the cult of Sun was introduced in Rome after Aurelian's successful campaigns in Syria. The Asiatic divinities Mithras (that is to say, the Sun) and Ba'al were combined with Apollo and Helios into one Sol Invictus, with conglomerated rites and compound attributes.[68] Apollo might be increasingly identified in religion with Helios or even Dionysus, but texts retelling his myths seldom reflected such developments. The traditional literary mythology was increasingly dissociated from actual religious practice. The worship of Sol as special protector of the emperors and of the empire remained the chief imperial religion until it was replaced by Christianity.
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+ The surviving 2nd-century collection of Orphic Hymns (second century AD) and the Saturnalia of Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius (fifth century) are influenced by the theories of rationalism and the syncretizing trends as well. The Orphic Hymns are a set of pre-classical poetic compositions, attributed to Orpheus, himself the subject of a renowned myth. In reality, these poems were probably composed by several different poets, and contain a rich set of clues about prehistoric European mythology.[69] The stated purpose of the Saturnalia is to transmit the Hellenic culture Macrobius has derived from his reading, even though much of his treatment of gods is colored by Egyptian and North African mythology and theology (which also affect the interpretation of Virgil). In Saturnalia reappear mythographical comments influenced by the Euhemerists, the Stoics and the Neoplatonists.[62]
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+ The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology is regarded by some scholars as a double reaction at the end of the eighteenth century against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity", in which the Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been retained.[70] In Germany, by about 1795, there was a growing interest in Homer and Greek mythology. In Göttingen, Johann Matthias Gesner began to revive Greek studies, while his successor, Christian Gottlob Heyne, worked with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and laid the foundations for mythological research both in Germany and elsewhere.[5]:9
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+ The development of comparative philology in the 19th century, together with ethnological discoveries in the 20th century, established the science of myth. Since the Romantics, all study of myth has been comparative. Wilhelm Mannhardt, James Frazer, and Stith Thompson employed the comparative approach to collect and classify the themes of folklore and mythology.[71] In 1871 Edward Burnett Tylor published his Primitive Culture, in which he applied the comparative method and tried to explain the origin and evolution of religion.[72][73]:9 Tylor's procedure of drawing together material culture, ritual and myth of widely separated cultures influenced both Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. Max Müller applied the new science of comparative mythology to the study of myth, in which he detected the distorted remains of Aryan nature worship. Bronisław Malinowski emphasized the ways myth fulfills common social functions. Claude Lévi-Strauss and other structuralists have compared the formal relations and patterns in myths throughout the world.[71]
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+ Sigmund Freud introduced a transhistorical and biological conception of man and a view of myth as an expression of repressed ideas. Dream interpretation is the basis of Freudian myth interpretation and Freud's concept of dreamwork recognizes the importance of contextual relationships for the interpretation of any individual element in a dream. This suggestion would find an important point of rapprochement between the structuralist and psychoanalytic approaches to myth in Freud's thought.[74] Carl Jung extended the transhistorical, psychological approach with his theory of the "collective unconscious" and the archetypes (inherited "archaic" patterns), often encoded in myth, that arise out of it.[3] According to Jung, "myth-forming structural elements must be present in the unconscious psyche."[75] Comparing Jung's methodology with Joseph Campbell's theory, Robert A. Segal (1990) concludes that "to interpret a myth Campbell simply identifies the archetypes in it. An interpretation of the Odyssey, for example, would show how Odysseus's life conforms to a heroic pattern. Jung, by contrast, considers the identification of archetypes merely the first step in the interpretation of a myth."[76] Karl Kerényi, one of the founders of modern studies in Greek mythology, gave up his early views of myth, in order to apply Jung's theories of archetypes to Greek myth.[5]:38
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+
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+ Max Müller attempted to understand an Indo-European religious form by tracing it back to its Indo-European (or, in Müller's time, "Aryan") "original" manifestation. In 1891, he claimed that "the most important discovery which has been made during the nineteenth century with respect to the ancient history of mankind ... was this sample equation: Sanskrit Dyaus-pitar = Greek Zeus = Latin Jupiter = Old Norse Tyr".[73]:12 The question of Greek mythology's place in Indo-European studies has generated much scholarship since Müller's time. For example, philologist Georges Dumézil draws a comparison between the Greek Uranus and the Sanskrit Varuna, although there is no hint that he believes them to be originally connected.[77] In other cases, close parallels in character and function suggest a common heritage, yet lack of linguistic evidence makes it difficult to prove, as in the case of the Greek Moirai and the Norns of Norse mythology.[78]
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+ It appears that the Mycenaean religion was the mother of the Greek religion[79] and its pantheon already included many divinities that can be found in classical Greece.[80] However, Greek mythology is generally seen as having heavy influence of Pre-Greek and Near Eastern cultures, and as such contains few important elements for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European religion.[81] Consequently, Greek mythology received minimal scholarly attention in the context of Indo-European comparative mythology until the mid 2000s.[82]
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+ Archaeology and mythography have revealed influence from Asia Minor and the Near East. Adonis seems to be the Greek counterpart—more clearly in cult than in myth—of a Near Eastern "dying god". Cybele is rooted in Anatolian culture while much of Aphrodite's iconography may spring from Semitic goddesses. There are also possible parallels between the earliest divine generations (Chaos and its children) and Tiamat in the Enuma Elish.[83][84] According to Meyer Reinhold, "near Eastern theogonic concepts, involving divine succession through violence and generational conflicts for power, found their way…into Greek mythology."[85]
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+ In addition to Indo-European and Near Eastern origins, some scholars have speculated on the debts of Greek mythology to the indigenous pre-Greek societies: Crete, Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes and Orchomenus.[19]:23 Historians of religion were fascinated by a number of apparently ancient configurations of myth connected with Crete (the god as bull, Zeus and Europa, Pasiphaë who yields to the bull and gives birth to the Minotaur, etc.). Martin P. Nilsson asserts, based on the representations and general function of the gods, that a lot of Minoan gods and religious conceptions were fused in the Mycenaean religion.[86] and concluded that all great classical Greek myths were tied to Mycenaean centres and anchored in prehistoric times.[87] Nevertheless, according to Burkert, the iconography of the Cretan Palace Period has provided almost no confirmation for these theories.[19]:24
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+ The widespread adoption of Christianity did not curb the popularity of the myths. With the rediscovery of classical antiquity in the Renaissance, the poetry of Ovid became a major influence on the imagination of poets, dramatists, musicians and artists.[3][88] From the early years of Renaissance, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael, portrayed the Pagan subjects of Greek mythology alongside more conventional Christian themes.[3][88] Through the medium of Latin and the works of Ovid, Greek myth influenced medieval and Renaissance poets such as Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante in Italy.[3]
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+ In Northern Europe, Greek mythology never took the same hold of the visual arts, but its effect was very obvious on literature.[89] The English imagination was fired by Greek mythology starting with Chaucer and John Milton and continuing through Shakespeare to Robert Bridges in the 20th century. Racine in France and Goethe in Germany revived Greek drama, reworking the ancient myths.[3][88] Although during the Enlightenment of the 18th century reaction against Greek myth spread throughout Europe, the myths continued to provide an important source of raw material for dramatists, including those who wrote the libretti for many of Handel's and Mozart's operas.[90]
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+ By the end of the 18th century, Romanticism initiated a surge of enthusiasm for all things Greek, including Greek mythology. In Britain, new translations of Greek tragedies and Homer inspired contemporary poets (such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Keats, Byron and Shelley) and painters (such as Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema).[91] Christoph Gluck, Richard Strauss, Jacques Offenbach and many others set Greek mythological themes to music.[3] American authors of the 19th century, such as Thomas Bulfinch and Nathaniel Hawthorne, held that the study of the classical myths was essential to the understanding of English and American literature.[9]:4 In more recent times, classical themes have been reinterpreted by dramatists Jean Anouilh, Jean Cocteau, and Jean Giraudoux in France, Eugene O'Neill in America, and T. S. Eliot in Britain and by novelists such as James Joyce and André Gide.[3]
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+ In monotheistic thought, God is conceived of as the supreme being, creator deity, and principal object of faith.[1] God is usually conceived as being omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (all-present) and as having an eternal and necessary existence. These attributes are used either in way of analogy or are taken literally. God is most often held to be incorporeal (immaterial).[1][2][3] Incorporeality and corporeality of God are related to conceptions of transcendence (being outside nature) and immanence (being in nature) of God, with positions of synthesis such as the "immanent transcendence".
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+ Some religions describe God without reference to gender, while others or their translations use terminology that is gender-specific and gender-biased.
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+ God has been conceived as either personal or impersonal. In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, while in deism, God is the creator, but not the sustainer, of the universe. In pantheism, God is the universe itself. In atheism, there is an absence of belief in God. In agnosticism, the existence of God is deemed unknown or unknowable. God has also been conceived as the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent".[1] Many notable philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God.[4]
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+ Monotheists refer to their gods using names prescribed by their respective religions, with some of these names referring to certain cultural ideas about their god's identity and attributes. In the ancient Egyptian era of Atenism, possibly the earliest recorded monotheistic religion, this deity was called Aten,[5] premised on being the one "true" Supreme Being and creator of the universe.[6] In the Hebrew Bible and Judaism, Elohim, Adonai, YHWH (Hebrew: יהוה‎) and other names are used as the names of God. Yahweh and Jehovah, possible vocalizations of YHWH, are used in Christianity. In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, God, coexisting in three "persons", is called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Islam, the name Allah is used, while Muslims also have a multitude of titular names for God. In Hinduism, Brahman is often considered a monistic concept of God.[7] In Chinese religion, Shangdi is conceived as the progenitor (first ancestor) of the universe, intrinsic to it and constantly bringing order to it. Other religions have names for the concept of God, including Baha in the Bahá'í Faith,[8] Waheguru in Sikhism,[9] Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa in Balinese Hinduism,[10] and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism.[11]
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+ The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic * ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form * ǵhu-tó-m was likely based on the root * ǵhau(ə)-, which meant either "to call" or "to invoke".[12] The Germanic words for God were originally neuter—applying to both genders—but during the process of the Christianization of the Germanic peoples from their indigenous Germanic paganism, the words became a masculine syntactic form.[13]
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+ In the English language, capitalization is used for names by which a god is known, including 'God'.[14] Consequently, the capitalized form of god is not used for multiple gods (polytheism) or when used to refer to the generic idea of a deity.[15][16]
16
+ The English word God and its counterparts in other languages are normally used for any and all conceptions and, in spite of significant differences between religions, the term remains an English translation common to all. The same holds for Hebrew El, but in Judaism, God is also given a proper name, the tetragrammaton YHWH, in origin possibly the name of an Edomite or Midianite deity, Yahweh.
17
+ In many translations of the Bible, when the word LORD is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton.[17]
18
+
19
+ Allāh (Arabic: الله‎) is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews meaning "The God" (with the first letter capitalized), while "ʾilāh" (Arabic: إِلَٰه‎, plural “`āliha” آلِهَة) is the term used for a deity or a god in general.[18][19][20]
20
+
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+ God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the personal nature of God, with early references to his name as Krishna-Vasudeva in Bhagavata or later Vishnu and Hari.[21]
22
+
23
+ Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism. "Mazda", or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå, reflects Proto-Iranian *Mazdāh (female). It is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhā, means "intelligence" or "wisdom". Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian *mazdhā-, from Proto-Indo-European mn̩sdʰeh1, literally meaning "placing (dʰeh1) one's mind (*mn̩-s)", hence "wise".[22]
24
+
25
+ Waheguru (Punjabi: vāhigurū) is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God. It means "Wonderful Teacher" in the Punjabi language. Vāhi (a Middle Persian borrowing) means "wonderful" and guru (Sanskrit: guru) is a term denoting "teacher". Waheguru is also described by some as an experience of ecstasy which is beyond all descriptions. The most common usage of the word "Waheguru" is in the greeting Sikhs use with each other:
26
+
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+ Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh
28
+ Wonderful Lord's Khalsa, Victory is to the Wonderful Lord.
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+
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+ Baha, the "greatest" name for God in the Baha'i faith, is Arabic for "All-Glorious".
31
+
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+ There is no clear consensus on the nature or the existence of God.[23] The Abrahamic conceptions of God include the monotheistic definition of God in Judaism, the trinitarian view of Christians, and the Islamic concept of God.
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+
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+ There were also various conceptions of God in the ancient Greco-Roman world, such as Aristotle's view of an unmoved mover, the Neoplatonic concept of the One and the pantheistic God of Stoic Physics.
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+
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+ The dharmic religions differ in their view of the divine: views of God in Hinduism vary by region, sect, and caste, ranging from monotheistic to polytheistic. Many polytheistic religions share the idea of a creator deity, although having a name other than "God" and without all of the other roles attributed to a singular God by monotheistic religions. Sikhism is sometimes seen as being pantheistic about God, see: God in Sikhism.
37
+
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+ Śramaṇa religions are generally non-creationist, while also holding that there divine beings (called Devas in Buddhism and Jainism) of limited power and lifespan. Jainism has generally rejected creationism, holding that soul substances (Jīva) are uncreated and that time is beginningless.[24] Depending on one's interpretation and tradition, Buddhism can be conceived as being either non-theistic, trans-theistic, pantheistic, or polytheistic. However, Buddhism has generally rejected the specific monotheistic view of a Creator God. The Buddha criticizes the theory of creationism in the early buddhist texts.[25][26] Also, the major Indian Buddhist philosophers, such as such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dharmakirti and Buddhaghosa, consistently critiqued Creator God views put forth by Hindu thinkers.[27][28][29]
39
+
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+ Monotheists believe that there is only one god, and may also believe this god is worshipped in different religions under different names. The view that all theists actually worship the same god, whether they know it or not, is especially emphasized in the Bahá'í Faith, Hinduism[30] and Sikhism.[31]
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+
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+ In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity describes God as one God in three divine Persons (each of the three Persons is God himself). The Most Holy Trinity comprises[32] God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. In the past centuries, this fundamental mystery of the Christian faith was also summarized by the Latin formula Sancta Trinitas, Unus Deus (Holy Trinity, Unique God), reported in the Litanias Lauretanas.
43
+
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+ Islam's most fundamental concept is tawhid meaning "oneness" or "uniqueness". God is described in the Quran as: "He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him."[33][34] Muslims repudiate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, comparing it to polytheism. In Islam, God is transcendent and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Thus, Muslims are not iconodules, and are not expected to visualize God.[35]
45
+
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+ Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities.[36]
47
+
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+ Theism generally holds that God exists realistically, objectively, and independently of human thought; that God created and sustains everything; that God is omnipotent and eternal; and that God is personal and interacting with the universe through, for example, religious experience and the prayers of humans.[37] Theism holds that God is both transcendent and immanent; thus, God is simultaneously infinite and, in some way, present in the affairs of the world.[38] Not all theists subscribe to all of these propositions, but each usually subscribes to some of them (see, by way of comparison, family resemblance).[37] Catholic theology holds that God is infinitely simple and is not involuntarily subject to time. Most theists hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, although this belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Some theists ascribe to God a self-conscious or purposeful limiting of omnipotence, omniscience, or benevolence. Open Theism, by contrast, contends that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future. Theism is sometimes used to refer in general to any belief in a god or gods, i.e., monotheism or polytheism.[39][40]
49
+
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+ Deism holds that God is wholly transcendent: God exists, but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it.[38] In this view, God is not anthropomorphic, and neither answers prayers nor produces miracles. Common in Deism is a belief that God has no interest in humanity and may not even be aware of humanity. Pandeism combines Deism with Pantheistic beliefs.[41][42][43] Pandeism is proposed to explain as to Deism why God would create a universe and then abandon it,[44] and as to Pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe.[44][45]
51
+
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+ Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God, whereas Panentheism holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe.[46] It is also the view of the Liberal Catholic Church; Theosophy; some views of Hinduism except Vaishnavism, which believes in panentheism; Sikhism; some divisions of Neopaganism and Taoism, along with many varying denominations and individuals within denominations. Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, paints a pantheistic/panentheistic view of God—which has wide acceptance in Hasidic Judaism, particularly from their founder The Baal Shem Tov—but only as an addition to the Jewish view of a personal god, not in the original pantheistic sense that denies or limits persona to God.[citation needed]
53
+
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+ Dystheism, which is related to theodicy, is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the problem of evil. One such example comes from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, in which Ivan Karamazov rejects God on the grounds that he allows children to suffer.[47]
55
+
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+ In modern times, some more abstract concepts have been developed, such as process theology and open theism. The contemporaneous French philosopher Michel Henry has however proposed a phenomenological approach and definition of God as phenomenological essence of Life.[48]
57
+
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+ God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent".[1] These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides,[49] Augustine of Hippo,[49] and Al-Ghazali,[4] respectively.
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+
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+ Non-theist views about God also vary. Some non-theists avoid the concept of God, whilst accepting that it is significant to many; other non-theists understand God as a symbol of human values and aspirations. The nineteenth-century English atheist Charles Bradlaugh declared that he refused to say "There is no God", because "the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation";[50] he said more specifically that he disbelieved in the Christian god. Stephen Jay Gould proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural, such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non-empirical and are the proper domain of theology. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world.[51]
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+
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+ Another view, advanced by Richard Dawkins, is that the existence of God is an empirical question, on the grounds that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference."[52] Carl Sagan argued that the doctrine of a Creator of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could disprove the existence of a Creator (not necessarily a God) would be the discovery that the universe is infinitely old.[53]
63
+
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+ Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their book, The Grand Design, that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Both authors claim however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.[54]
65
+
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+ Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine or the supernatural exist—are unknown and perhaps unknowable.[55][56][57]
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+
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+ Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[58][59] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities, although it can be defined as a lack of belief in the existence of any deities, rather than a positive belief in the nonexistence of any deities.[60]
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+
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+ Pascal Boyer argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much like people. The construction of gods and spirits like persons is one of the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from Greek mythology, which is, in his opinion, more like a modern soap opera than other religious systems.[61]
71
+ Bertrand du Castel and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' epistemology in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries.[62]
72
+ Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human features onto non-human aspects of the world because it makes those aspects more familiar. Sigmund Freud also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father.[63]
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+
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+ Likewise, Émile Durkheim was one of the earliest to suggest that gods represent an extension of human social life to include supernatural beings. In line with this reasoning, psychologist Matt Rossano contends that when humans began living in larger groups, they may have created gods as a means of enforcing morality. In small groups, morality can be enforced by social forces such as gossip or reputation. However, it is much harder to enforce morality using social forces in much larger groups. Rossano indicates that by including ever-watchful gods and spirits, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups.[64]
75
+
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+ Arguments about the existence of God typically include empirical, deductive, and inductive types. Different views include that: "God does not exist" (strong atheism); "God almost certainly does not exist" (de facto atheism); "no one knows whether God exists" (agnosticism[65]); "God exists, but this cannot be proven or disproven" (de facto theism); and that "God exists and this can be proven" (strong theism).[51]
77
+
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+ Countless arguments have been proposed to prove the existence of God.[66] Some of the most notable arguments are the Five Ways of Aquinas, the Argument from desire proposed by C.S. Lewis, and the Ontological Argument formulated both by St. Anselm and René Descartes.[67]
79
+
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+ St. Anselm's approach was to define God as, "that than which nothing greater can be conceived". Famed pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza would later carry this idea to its extreme: "By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence." For Spinoza, the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or its equivalent, Nature.[68] His proof for the existence of God was a variation of the Ontological argument.[69]
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+
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+ Scientist Isaac Newton saw the nontrinitarian God[70] as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation.[71] Nevertheless, he rejected polymath Leibniz' thesis that God would necessarily make a perfect world which requires no intervention from the creator. In Query 31 of the Opticks, Newton simultaneously made an argument from design and for the necessity of intervention:
83
+
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+ For while comets move in very eccentric orbs in all manner of positions, blind fate could never make all the planets move one and the same way in orbs concentric, some inconsiderable irregularities excepted which may have arisen from the mutual actions of comets and planets on one another, and which will be apt to increase, till this system wants a reformation.[72]
85
+
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+ St. Thomas believed that the existence of God is self-evident in itself, but not to us. "Therefore I say that this proposition, "God exists", of itself is self-evident, for the predicate is the same as the subject.... Now because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us; but needs to be demonstrated by things that are more known to us, though less known in their nature—namely, by effects."[73]
87
+ St. Thomas believed that the existence of God can be demonstrated. Briefly in the Summa theologiae and more extensively in the Summa contra Gentiles, he considered in great detail five arguments for the existence of God, widely known as the quinque viae (Five Ways).
88
+
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+ Some theologians, such as the scientist and theologian A.E. McGrath, argue that the existence of God is not a question that can be answered using the scientific method.[75][76] Agnostic Stephen Jay Gould argues that science and religion are not in conflict and do not overlap.[77]
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+
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+ Some findings in the fields of cosmology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience are interpreted by some atheists (including Lawrence M. Krauss and Sam Harris) as evidence that God is an imaginary entity only, with no basis in reality.[78][79] These atheists claim that a single, omniscient God who is imagined to have created the universe and is particularly attentive to the lives of humans has been imagined, embellished and promulgated in a trans-generational manner.[80] Richard Dawkins interprets such findings not only as a lack of evidence for the material existence of such a God, but as extensive evidence to the contrary.[51] However, his views are opposed by some theologians and scientists including Alister McGrath, who argues that existence of God is compatible with science.[81]
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+
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+ Different religious traditions assign differing (though often similar) attributes and characteristics to God, including expansive powers and abilities, psychological characteristics, gender characteristics, and preferred nomenclature. The assignment of these attributes often differs according to the conceptions of God in the culture from which they arise. For example, attributes of God in Christianity, attributes of God in Islam, and the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy in Judaism share certain similarities arising from their common roots.
94
+
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+ The word God is "one of the most complex and difficult in the English language." In the Judeo-Christian tradition, "the Bible has been the principal source of the conceptions of God". That the Bible "includes many different images, concepts, and ways of thinking about" God has resulted in perpetual "disagreements about how God is to be conceived and understood".[82]
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+
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+ Many traditions see God as incorporeal and eternal, and regard him as a point of living light like human souls, but without a physical body, as he does not enter the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. God is seen as the perfect and constant embodiment of all virtues, powers and values and that he is the unconditionally loving Father of all souls, irrespective of their religion, gender, or culture.[83]
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+
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+ Throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bibles there are many names for God. One of them is Elohim. Another one is El Shaddai, translated "God Almighty".[84] A third notable name is El Elyon, which means "The High God".[85] Also noted in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles is the name "I Am that I Am".[86]
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+
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+ God is described and referred in the Quran and hadith by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahman, meaning "Most Compassionate" and Al-Rahim, meaning "Most Merciful" (See Names of God in Islam).[87] Many of these names are also used in the scriptures of the Bahá'í Faith.
102
+
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+ Vaishnavism, a tradition in Hinduism, has a list of titles and names of Krishna.
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+ The gender of God may be viewed as either a literal or an allegorical aspect of a deity who, in classical western philosophy, transcends bodily form.[88][89] Polytheistic religions commonly attribute to each of the gods a gender, allowing each to interact with any of the others, and perhaps with humans, sexually. In most monotheistic religions, God has no counterpart with which to relate sexually. Thus, in classical western philosophy the gender of this one-and-only deity is most likely to be an analogical statement of how humans and God address, and relate to, each other. Namely, God is seen as begetter of the world and revelation which corresponds to the active (as opposed to the receptive) role in sexual intercourse.[90]
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+
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+ Biblical sources usually refer to God using male words, except Genesis 1:26–27,[91][92] Psalm 123:2–3, and Luke 15:8–10 (female); Hosea 11:3–4, Deuteronomy 32:18, Isaiah 66:13, Isaiah 49:15, Isaiah 42:14, Psalm 131:2 (a mother); Deuteronomy 32:11–12 (a mother eagle); and Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 (a mother hen).
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+ Prayer plays a significant role among many believers. Muslims believe that the purpose of existence is to worship God.[93][94] He is viewed as a personal God and there are no intermediaries, such as clergy, to contact God. Prayer often also includes supplication and asking forgiveness. God is often believed to be forgiving. For example, a hadith states God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance.[95] Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that there are good reasons to suggest that a "personal god" is integral to the Christian outlook, but that one has to understand it is an analogy. "To say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe."[96]
110
+
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+ Adherents of different religions generally disagree as to how to best worship God and what is God's plan for mankind, if there is one. There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view is taken by exclusivists, who believe they are the chosen people or have exclusive access to absolute truth, generally through revelation or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is religious pluralism. A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but does not deny the partial truth of other religions. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is supersessionism, i.e., the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is relativistic inclusivism, where everybody is seen as equally right; an example being universalism: the doctrine that salvation is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is syncretism, mixing different elements from different religions. An example of syncretism is the New Age movement.
112
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+ Jews and Christians believe that humans are created in the image of God, and are the center, crown and key to God's creation, stewards for God, supreme over everything else God had made (Gen 1:26); for this reason, humans are in Christianity called the "Children of God".[97]
114
+
115
+ During the early Parthian Empire, Ahura Mazda was visually represented for worship. This practice ended during the beginning of the Sassanid empire. Zoroastrian iconoclasm, which can be traced to the end of the Parthian period and the beginning of the Sassanid, eventually put an end to the use of all images of Ahura Mazda in worship. However, Ahura Mazda continued to be symbolized by a dignified male figure, standing or on horseback which is found in Sassanian investiture.[98]
116
+
117
+ At least some Jews do not use any image for God, since God is the unimaginable Being who cannot be represented in material forms.[99]
118
+
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+ The burning bush that was not consumed by the flames is described in Book of Exodus as a symbolic representation of God when he appeared to Moses.[100]
120
+
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+ Early Christians believed that the words of the Gospel of John 1:18: "No man has seen God at any time" and numerous other statements were meant to apply not only to God, but to all attempts at the depiction of God.[101]
122
+
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+ However, later depictions of God are found. Some, like the Hand of God, are depiction borrowed from Jewish art.
124
+
125
+ The beginning of the 8th century witnessed the suppression and destruction of religious icons as the period of Byzantine iconoclasm (literally image-breaking) started. The Second Council of Nicaea in 787 effectively ended the first period of Byzantine iconoclasm and restored the honouring of icons and holy images in general.[102] However, this did not immediately translate into large scale depictions of God the Father. Even supporters of the use of icons in the 8th century, such as Saint John of Damascus, drew a distinction between images of God the Father and those of Christ.
126
+
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+ Prior to the 10th century no attempt was made to use a human to symbolize God the Father in Western art.[101] Yet, Western art eventually required some way to illustrate the presence of the Father, so through successive representations a set of artistic styles for symbolizing the Father using a man gradually emerged around the 10th century AD. A rationale for the use of a human is the belief that God created the soul of Man in the image of his own (thus allowing Human to transcend the other animals).
128
+
129
+ It appears that when early artists designed to represent God the Father, fear and awe restrained them from a usage of the whole human figure. Typically only a small part would be used as the image, usually the hand, or sometimes the face, but rarely a whole human. In many images, the figure of the Son supplants the Father, so a smaller portion of the person of the Father is depicted.[103]
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+
131
+ By the 12th century depictions of God the Father had started to appear in French illuminated manuscripts, which as a less public form could often be more adventurous in their iconography, and in stained glass church windows in England. Initially the head or bust was usually shown in some form of frame of clouds in the top of the picture space, where the Hand of God had formerly appeared; the Baptism of Christ on the famous baptismal font in Liège of Rainer of Huy is an example from 1118 (a Hand of God is used in another scene). Gradually the amount of the human symbol shown can increase to a half-length figure, then a full-length, usually enthroned, as in Giotto's fresco of c. 1305 in Padua.[104] In the 14th century the Naples Bible carried a depiction of God the Father in the Burning bush. By the early 15th century, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry has a considerable number of symbols, including an elderly but tall and elegant full-length figure walking in the Garden of Eden, which show a considerable diversity of apparent ages and dress. The "Gates of Paradise" of the Florence Baptistry by Lorenzo Ghiberti, begun in 1425 use a similar tall full-length symbol for the Father. The Rohan Book of Hours of about 1430 also included depictions of God the Father in half-length human form, which were now becoming standard, and the Hand of God becoming rarer. At the same period other works, like the large Genesis altarpiece by the Hamburg painter Meister Bertram, continued to use the old depiction of Christ as Logos in Genesis scenes. In the 15th century there was a brief fashion for depicting all three persons of the Trinity as similar or identical figures with the usual appearance of Christ.
132
+
133
+ In an early Venetian school Coronation of the Virgin by Giovanni d'Alemagna and Antonio Vivarini (c. 1443), The Father is depicted using the symbol consistently used by other artists later, namely a patriarch, with benign, yet powerful countenance and with long white hair and a beard, a depiction largely derived from, and justified by, the near-physical, but still figurative, description of the Ancient of Days.[105]
134
+
135
+ . ...the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. (Daniel 7:9)
136
+
137
+ In the Annunciation by Benvenuto di Giovanni in 1470, God the Father is portrayed in the red robe and a hat that resembles that of a Cardinal. However, even in the later part of the 15th century, the symbolic representation of the Father and the Holy Spirit as "hands and dove" continued, e.g. in Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ in 1472.[106]
138
+
139
+ In Renaissance paintings of the adoration of the Trinity, God may be depicted in two ways, either with emphasis on The Father, or the three elements of the Trinity. The most usual depiction of the Trinity in Renaissance art depicts God the Father using an old man, usually with a long beard and patriarchal in appearance, sometimes with a triangular halo (as a reference to the Trinity), or with a papal crown, specially in Northern Renaissance painting. In these depictions The Father may hold a globe or book (to symbolize God's knowledge and as a reference to how knowledge is deemed divine). He is behind and above Christ on the Cross in the Throne of Mercy iconography. A dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit may hover above. Various people from different classes of society, e.g. kings, popes or martyrs may be present in the picture. In a Trinitarian Pietà, God the Father is often symbolized using a man wearing a papal dress and a papal crown, supporting the dead Christ in his arms. They are depicted as floating in heaven with angels who carry the instruments of the Passion.[107]
140
+
141
+ Representations of God the Father and the Trinity were attacked both by Protestants and within Catholicism, by the Jansenist and Baianist movements as well as more orthodox theologians. As with other attacks on Catholic imagery, this had the effect both of reducing Church support for the less central depictions, and strengthening it for the core ones. In the Western Church, the pressure to restrain religious imagery resulted in the highly influential decrees of the final session of the Council of Trent in 1563. The Council of Trent decrees confirmed the traditional Catholic doctrine that images only represented the person depicted, and that veneration to them was paid to the person, not the image.[108]
142
+
143
+ Artistic depictions of God the Father were uncontroversial in Catholic art thereafter, but less common depictions of the Trinity were condemned. In 1745 Pope Benedict XIV explicitly supported the Throne of Mercy depiction, referring to the "Ancient of Days", but in 1786 it was still necessary for Pope Pius VI to issue a papal bull condemning the decision of an Italian church council to remove all images of the Trinity from churches.[109]
144
+
145
+ God the Father is symbolized in several Genesis scenes in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, most famously The Creation of Adam (whose image of near touching hands of God and Adam is iconic of humanity, being a reminder that Man is created in the Image and Likeness of God (Gen 1:26)).God the Father is depicted as a powerful figure, floating in the clouds in Titian's Assumption of the Virgin in the Frari of Venice, long admired as a masterpiece of High Renaissance art.[110] The Church of the Gesù in Rome includes a number of 16th-century depictions of God the Father. In some of these paintings the Trinity is still alluded to in terms of three angels, but Giovanni Battista Fiammeri also depicted God the Father as a man riding on a cloud, above the scenes.[111]
146
+
147
+ In both the Last Judgment and the Coronation of the Virgin paintings by Rubens he depicted God the Father using the image that by then had become widely accepted, a bearded patriarchal figure above the fray. In the 17th century, the two Spanish artists Diego Velázquez (whose father-in-law Francisco Pacheco was in charge of the approval of new images for the Inquisition) and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo both depicted God the Father using a patriarchal figure with a white beard in a purple robe.
148
+
149
+ While representations of God the Father were growing in Italy, Spain, Germany and the Low Countries, there was resistance elsewhere in Europe, even during the 17th century. In 1632 most members of the Star Chamber court in England (except the Archbishop of York) condemned the use of the images of the Trinity in church windows, and some considered them illegal.[112] Later in the 17th century Sir Thomas Browne wrote that he considered the representation of God the Father using an old man "a dangerous act" that might lead to Egyptian symbolism.[113] In 1847, Charles Winston was still critical of such images as a "Romish trend" (a term used to refer to Roman Catholics) that he considered best avoided in England.[114]
150
+
151
+ In 1667 the 43rd chapter of the Great Moscow Council specifically included a ban on a number of symbolic depictions of God the Father and the Holy Spirit, which then also resulted in a whole range of other icons being placed on the forbidden list,[115][116] mostly affecting Western-style depictions which had been gaining ground in Orthodox icons. The Council also declared that the person of the Trinity who was the "Ancient of Days" was Christ, as Logos, not God the Father. However some icons continued to be produced in Russia, as well as Greece, Romania, and other Orthodox countries.
152
+
153
+ Muslims believe that God (Allah) is beyond all comprehension and equal, and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Thus, Muslims are not iconodules, are not expected to visualize God, and instead of having pictures of Allah in their mosques, typically have religious calligraphy written on the wall.[35]
154
+
155
+ In the Kitáb-i-Íqán, the primary theological work of the Bahá’í Faith, God is described as “Him Who is the central Orb of the universe, its Essence and ultimate Purpose.” Bahá'u'lláh taught that God is directly unknowable to common mortals, but that his attributes and qualities can be indirectly known by learning from and imitating his divine Manifestations, which in Bahá'í theology are somewhat comparable to Hindu avatars or Abrahamic prophets. These Manifestations are the great prophets and teachers of many of the major religious traditions. These include Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, Muhammad, Bahá'ú'lláh, and others. Although the faith is strictly monotheistic, it also preaches the unity of all religions and focuses on these multiple epiphanies as necessary for meeting the needs of humanity at different points in history and for different cultures, and as part of a scheme of progressive revelation and education of humanity.
156
+
157
+ Classical theists (such as ancient Greco-Medieval philosophers, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, many Jews and Muslims, and some Protestants)[a] speak of God as a divinely simple 'nothing' that is completely transcendent (totally independent of all else), and having attributes such as immutability, impassibility, and timelessness.[118] Theologians of theistic personalism (the view held by Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, and most modern evangelicals) argue that God is most generally the ground of all being, immanent in and transcendent over the whole world of reality, with immanence and transcendence being the contrapletes of personality.[119] Carl Jung equated religious ideas of God with transcendental metaphors of higher consciousness, in which God can be just as easily be imagined "as an eternally flowing current of vital energy that endlessly changes shape ... as an eternally unmoved, unchangeable essence."[120]
158
+
159
+ Many philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God,[4] while attempting to comprehend the precise implications of God's attributes. Reconciling some of those attributes—particularly the attributes of the God of theistic personalism—generated important philosophical problems and debates. For example, God's omniscience may seem to imply that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does know this, their ostensible free will might be illusory, or foreknowledge does not imply predestination, and if God does not know it, God may not be omniscient.[121]
160
+
161
+ The last centuries of philosophy have seen vigorous questions regarding the arguments for God's existence raised by such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, David Hume and Antony Flew, although Kant held that the argument from morality was valid. The theist response has been either to contend, as does Alvin Plantinga, that faith is "properly basic", or to take, as does Richard Swinburne, the evidentialist position.[122] Some theists agree that only some of the arguments for God's existence are compelling, but argue that faith is not a product of reason, but requires risk. There would be no risk, they say, if the arguments for God's existence were as solid as the laws of logic, a position summed up by Pascal as "the heart has reasons of which reason does not know."[123]
162
+
163
+ Many religious believers allow for the existence of other, less powerful spiritual beings such as angels, saints, jinn, demons, and devas.[124][125][126][127][128]
164
+
165
+ Footnotes
166
+
167
+ Citations
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1
+ Deified emperors:
2
+
3
+ Jupiter (from Latin: Iūpiter [ˈjuːpɪtɛr] or Iuppiter [ˈjʊpːɪtɛr],[9] from Proto-Italic *djous "day, sky" + *patēr "father", thus "sky father"),[10] also known as Jove (gen. Iovis [ˈjɔwɪs]), is the god of the sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering, or sacrifice.
4
+
5
+ Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as an aerial god. His identifying implement is the thunderbolt and his primary sacred animal is the eagle,[11] which held precedence over other birds in the taking of auspices[12] and became one of the most common symbols of the Roman army (see Aquila). The two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins.[13] As the sky-god, he was a divine witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depend. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located. In the Capitoline Triad, he was the central guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva. His sacred tree was the oak.
6
+
7
+ The Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus,[14] and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto, the Roman equivalents of Poseidon and Hades respectively. Each presided over one of the three realms of the universe: sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually identified with Jupiter.[15] Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart.[16]
8
+
9
+ The Romans believed that Jupiter granted them supremacy because they had honoured him more than any other people had. Jupiter was "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested."[17] He personified the divine authority of Rome's highest offices, internal organization, and external relations. His image in the Republican and Imperial Capitol bore regalia associated with Rome's ancient kings and the highest consular and Imperial honours.[18]
10
+
11
+ The consuls swore their oath of office in Jupiter's name, and honoured him on the annual feriae of the Capitol in September. To thank him for his help (and to secure his continued support), they offered him a white ox (bos mas) with gilded horns.[19] A similar offering was made by triumphal generals, who surrendered the tokens of their victory at the feet of Jupiter's statue in the Capitol. Some scholars have viewed the triumphator as embodying (or impersonating) Jupiter in the triumphal procession.[20]
12
+
13
+ Jupiter's association with kingship and sovereignty was reinterpreted as Rome's form of government changed. Originally, Rome was ruled by kings; after the monarchy was abolished and the Republic established, religious prerogatives were transferred to the patres, the patrician ruling class. Nostalgia for the kingship (affectatio regni) was considered treasonous. Those suspected of harbouring monarchical ambitions were punished, regardless of their service to the state. In the 5th century BC, the triumphator Camillus was sent into exile after he drove a chariot with a team of four white horses (quadriga)—an honour reserved for Jupiter himself. When Marcus Manlius, whose defense of the Capitol against the invading Gauls had earned him the name Capitolinus, was accused of regal pretensions, he was executed as a traitor by being cast from the Tarpeian Rock. His house on the Capitoline Hill was razed, and it was decreed that no patrician should ever be allowed to live there.[21] Capitoline Jupiter found himself in a delicate position: he represented a continuity of royal power from the Regal period, and conferred power on the magistrates who paid their respects to him; at the same time he embodied that which was now forbidden, abhorred, and scorned.[22]
14
+
15
+ During the Conflict of the Orders, Rome's plebeians demanded the right to hold political and religious office. During their first secessio (similar to a general strike), they withdrew from the city and threatened to found their own. When they agreed to come back to Rome they vowed the hill where they had retreated to Jupiter as symbol and guarantor of the unity of the Roman res publica.[23] Plebeians eventually became eligible for all the magistracies and most priesthoods, but the high priest of Jupiter (Flamen Dialis) remained the preserve of patricians.[24]
16
+
17
+ Jupiter was served by the patrician Flamen Dialis, the highest-ranking member of the flamines, a college of fifteen priests in the official public cult of Rome, each of whom was devoted to a particular deity. His wife, the Flaminica Dialis, had her own duties, and presided over the sacrifice of a ram to Jupiter on each of the nundinae, the "market" days of a calendar cycle, comparable to a week.[25] The couple were required to marry by the exclusive patrician ritual confarreatio, which included a sacrifice of spelt bread to Jupiter Farreus (from far, "wheat, grain").[26]
18
+
19
+ The office of Flamen Dialis was circumscribed by several unique ritual prohibitions, some of which shed light on the sovereign nature of the god himself.[27] For instance, the flamen may remove his clothes or apex (his pointed hat) only when under a roof, in order to avoid showing himself naked to the sky—that is, "as if under the eyes of Jupiter" as god of the heavens. Every time the Flaminica saw a lightning bolt or heard a clap of thunder (Jupiter's distinctive instrument), she was prohibited from carrying on with her normal routine until she placated the god.[28]
20
+
21
+ Some privileges of the flamen of Jupiter may reflect the regal nature of Jupiter: he had the use of the curule chair,[29] and was the only priest (sacerdos) who was preceded by a lictor[30] and had a seat in the senate.[31] Other regulations concern his ritual purity and his separation from the military function; he was forbidden to ride a horse or see the army outside the sacred boundary of Rome (pomerium). Although he served the god who embodied the sanctity of the oath, it was not religiously permissible (fas) for the Dialis to swear an oath.[32] He could not have contacts with anything dead or connected with death: corpses, funerals, funeral fires, raw meat. This set of restrictions reflects the fulness of life and absolute freedom that are features of Jupiter.[33]
22
+
23
+ The augures publici, augurs were a college of sacerdotes who were in charge of all inaugurations and of the performing of ceremonies known as auguria. Their creation was traditionally ascribed to Romulus. They were considered the only official interpreters of Jupiter's will, thence they were essential to the very existence of the Roman State as Romans saw in Jupiter the only source of state authority.
24
+
25
+ The fetials were a college of 20 men devoted to the religious administration of international affairs of state.[34] Their task was to preserve and apply the fetial law (ius fetiale), a complex set of procedures aimed at ensuring the protection of the gods in Rome's relations with foreign states. Iuppiter Lapis is the god under whose protection they act, and whom the chief fetial (pater patratus) invokes in the rite concluding a treaty.[35] If a declaration of war ensues, the fetial calls upon Jupiter and Quirinus, the heavenly, earthly and chthonic gods as witnesses of any potential violation of the ius. He can then declare war within 33 days.[36]
26
+
27
+ The action of the fetials falls under Jupiter's jurisdiction as the divine defender of good faith. Several emblems of the fetial office pertain to Jupiter. The silex was the stone used for the fetial sacrifice, housed in the Temple of Iuppiter Feretrius, as was their sceptre. Sacred herbs (sagmina), sometimes identified as vervain, had to be taken from the nearby citadel (arx) for their ritual use.[37]
28
+
29
+ The role of Jupiter in the conflict of the orders is a reflection of the religiosity of the Romans. On one side, the patricians were able to naturally claim the support of the supreme god as they held the auspices of the State. On the other side, the plebs (plebeians) argued that, as Jupiter was the source of justice, they had his favor because their cause was just.
30
+
31
+ The first secession was caused by the excessive debt burden on the plebs. The legal institute of the nexum permitted a debtor to become a slave of his creditor. The plebs argued the debts had become unsustainable because of the expenses of the wars wanted by the patricians. As the senate did not accede to the proposal of a total debt remission advanced by dictator and augur Manius Valerius Maximus the plebs retired on the Mount Sacer, a hill located three Roman miles to the North-northeast of Rome, past the Nomentan bridge on river Anio.[38] The place is windy and was usually the site of rites of divination performed by haruspices. The senate in the end sent a delegation composed of ten members with full powers of making a deal with the plebs, of which were part Menenius Agrippa and Manius Valerius. It was Valerius, according to the inscription found at Arezzo in 1688 and written on the order of Augustus as well as other literary sources, that brought the plebs down from the Mount, after the secessionists had consecrated it to Jupiter Territor and built an altar (ara) on its summit. The fear of the wrath of Jupiter was an important element in the solution of the crisis. The consecration of the Mount probably referred to its summit only. The ritual requested the participation of both an augur (presumably Manius Valerius himself) and a pontifex.[39]
32
+
33
+ The second secession was caused by the autocratic and arrogant behaviour of the decemviri, who had been charged by the Roman people with writing down the laws in use till then kept secret by the patrician magistrates and the sacerdotes. All magistracies and the tribunes of the plebs had resigned in advance. The task resulted in the XII Tables, which though concerned only private law. The plebs once again retreated to the Sacer Mons: this act besides recalling the first secession was meant to seek the protection of the supreme god. The secession ended with the resignation of the decemviri and an amnesty for the rebellious soldiers who had deserted from their camp near Mount Algidus while warring against the Volscians, abandoning the commanders. The amnesty was granted by the senate and guaranteed by the pontifex maximus Quintus Furius (in Livy's version) (or Marcus Papirius) who also supervised the nomination of the new tribunes of the plebs, then gathered on the Aventine Hill. The role played by the pontifex maximus in a situation of vacation of powers is a significant element underlining the religious basis and character of the tribunicia potestas.[40]
34
+
35
+ After the influence of Greek culture on Roman culture, Latin literature and iconography reinterpreted the myths of Zeus in depictions and narratives of Jupiter. In the legendary history of Rome, Jupiter is often connected to kings and kingship.
36
+
37
+ Jupiter is depicted as the twin of Juno in a statue at Praeneste that showed them nursed by Fortuna Primigenia.[41] An inscription that is also from Praeneste, however, says that Fortuna Primigenia was Jupiter's first-born child.[42] Jacqueline Champeaux sees this contradiction as the result of successive different cultural and religious phases, in which a wave of influence coming from the Hellenic world made Fortuna the daughter of Jupiter.[43] The childhood of Zeus is an important theme in Greek religion, art and literature, but there are only rare (or dubious) depictions of Jupiter as a child.[44]
38
+
39
+ Faced by a period of bad weather endangering the harvest during one early spring, King Numa resorted to the scheme of asking the advice of the god by evoking his presence.[45] He succeeded through the help of Picus and Faunus, whom he had imprisoned by making them drunk. The two gods (with a charm) evoked Jupiter, who was forced to come down to earth at the Aventine (hence named Iuppiter Elicius, according to Ovid). After Numa skilfully avoided the requests of the god for human sacrifices, Jupiter agreed to his request to know how lightning bolts are averted, asking only for the substitutions Numa had mentioned: an onion bulb, hairs and a fish. Moreover, Jupiter promised that at the sunrise of the following day he would give to Numa and the Roman people pawns of the imperium. The following day, after throwing three lightning bolts across a clear sky, Jupiter sent down from heaven a shield. Since this shield had no angles, Numa named it ancile; because in it resided the fate of the imperium, he had many copies made of it to disguise the real one. He asked the smith Mamurius Veturius to make the copies, and gave them to the Salii. As his only reward, Mamurius expressed the wish that his name be sung in the last of their carmina.[46] Plutarch gives a slightly different version of the story, writing that the cause of the miraculous drop of the shield was a plague and not linking it with the Roman imperium.[47]
40
+
41
+ Throughout his reign, King Tullus had a scornful attitude towards religion. His temperament was warlike, and he disregarded religious rites and piety. After conquering the Albans with the duel between the Horatii and Curiatii, Tullus destroyed Alba Longa and deported its inhabitants to Rome. As Livy tells the story, omens (prodigia) in the form of a rain of stones occurred on the Alban Mount because the deported Albans had disregarded their ancestral rites linked to the sanctuary of Jupiter. In addition to the omens, a voice was heard requesting that the Albans perform the rites. A plague followed and at last the king himself fell ill. As a consequence, the warlike character of Tullus broke down; he resorted to religion and petty, superstitious practices. At last, he found a book by Numa recording a secret rite on how to evoke Iuppiter Elicius. The king attempted to perform it, but since he executed the rite improperly the god threw a lightning bolt which burned down the king's house and killed Tullus.[48]
42
+
43
+ When approaching Rome (where Tarquin was heading to try his luck in politics after unsuccessful attempts in his native Tarquinii), an eagle swooped down, removed his hat, flew screaming in circles, replaced the hat on his head and flew away. Tarquin's wife Tanaquil interpreted this as a sign that he would become king based on the bird, the quadrant of the sky from which it came, the god who had sent it and the fact it touched his hat (an item of clothing placed on a man's most noble part, the head).[49]
44
+
45
+ The Elder Tarquin is credited with introducing the Capitoline Triad to Rome, by building the so-called Capitolium Vetus. Macrobius writes this issued from his Samothracian mystery beliefs.[50]
46
+
47
+ Sacrificial victims (hostiae) offered to Jupiter were the ox (castrated bull), the lamb (on the Ides, the ovis idulis) and the wether (castrated male goat or ram) (on the Ides of January).[51] The animals were required to be white. The question of the lamb's gender is unresolved; while a lamb is generally male, for the vintage-opening festival the flamen Dialis sacrificed a ewe.[52] This rule seems to have had many exceptions, as the sacrifice of a ram on the Nundinae by the flaminica Dialis demonstrates.
48
+ During one of the crises of the Punic Wars, Jupiter was offered every animal born that year.[53]
49
+
50
+ The temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus stood on the Capitoline Hill in Rome.[54] Jupiter was worshiped there as an individual deity, and with Juno and Minerva as part of the Capitoline Triad. The building was supposedly begun by king Tarquinius Priscus, completed by the last king (Tarquinius Superbus) and inaugurated in the early days of the Roman Republic (September 13, 509 BC). It was topped with the statues of four horses drawing a quadriga, with Jupiter as charioteer. A large statue of Jupiter stood within; on festival days, its face was painted red. [55] In (or near) this temple was the Iuppiter Lapis: the Jupiter Stone, on which oaths could be sworn.
51
+
52
+ Jupiter's Capitoline Temple probably served as the architectural model for his provincial temples.
53
+ When Hadrian built Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem, a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus was erected in the place of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem.
54
+
55
+ There were two temples in Rome dedicated to Iuppiter Stator; the first one was built and dedicated in 294 BC by Marcus Atilius Regulus after the third Samnite War. It was located on the Via Nova, below the Porta Mugonia, ancient entrance to the Palatine.[56] Legend has attributed its founding to Romulus.[57] There may have been an earlier shrine (fanum), since the Jupiter cult is attested epigraphically.[58] Ovid places the temple's dedication on June 27, but it is unclear whether this was the original date,[59] or the rededication after the restoration by Augustus.[60]
56
+
57
+ A second temple of Iuppiter Stator was built and dedicated by Quintus Caecilus Metellus Macedonicus after his triumph in 146 BC near the Circus Flaminius. It was connected to the restored temple of Iuno Regina with a portico (porticus Metelli).[61]
58
+
59
+ Iuppiter Victor had a temple dedicated by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges during the third Samnite War in 295 BC. Its location is unknown, but it may be on the Quirinal, on which an inscription reading Diovei Victore[62] has been found, or on the Palatine according to the Notitia in the Liber Regionum (regio X), which reads: aedes Iovis Victoris. Either might have been dedicated on April 13 or June 13 (days of Iuppiter Victor and of Iuppiter Invictus, respectively, in Ovid's Fasti).[63]
60
+ Inscriptions from the imperial age have revealed the existence of an otherwise-unknown temple of Iuppiter Propugnator on the Palatine.[64]
61
+
62
+ The cult of Iuppiter Latiaris was the most ancient known cult of the god: it was practised since very remote times near the top of the Mons Albanus on which the god was venerated as the high protector of the Latin League under the hegemony of Alba Longa.
63
+
64
+ After the destruction of Alba by king Tullus Hostilius the cult was forsaken. The god manifested his discontent through the prodigy of a rain of stones: the commission sent by the Roman senate to inquire was also greeted by a rain of stones and heard a loud voice from the grove on the summit of the mount requesting the Albans perform the religious service to the god according to the rites of their country. In consequence of this event the Romans instituted a festival of nine days (nundinae). Nonetheless a plague ensued: in the end Tullus Hostilius himself was affected and lastly killed by the god with a lightning bolt.[65] The festival was reestablished on its primitive site by the last Roman king Tarquin the Proud under the leadership of Rome.
65
+
66
+ The feriae Latinae, or Latiar as they were known originally,[66] were the common festival (panegyris) of the so-called Priscan Latins[67] and of the Albans.[68] Their restoration aimed at grounding Roman hegemony in this ancestral religious tradition of the Latins. The original cult was reinstated unchanged as is testified by some archaic features of the ritual: the exclusion of wine from the sacrifice[69] the offers of milk and cheese and the ritual use of rocking among the games. Rocking is one of the most ancient rites mimicking ascent to Heaven and is very widespread. At the Latiar the rocking took place on a tree and the winner was of course the one who had swung the highest. This rite was said to have been instituted by the Albans to commemorate the disappearance of king Latinus, in the battle against Mezentius king of Caere: the rite symbolised a search for him both on earth and in heaven. The rocking as well as the customary drinking of milk was also considered to commemorate and ritually reinstate infancy.[70] The Romans in the last form of the rite brought the sacrificial ox from Rome and every participant was bestowed a portion of the meat, rite known as carnem petere.[71] Other games were held in every participant borough. In Rome a race of chariots (quadrigae) was held starting from the Capitol: the winner drank a liquor made with absynth.[72] This competition has been compared to the Vedic rite of the vajapeya: in it seventeen chariots run a phoney race which must be won by the king in order to allow him to drink a cup of madhu, i. e. soma.[73] The feasting lasted for at least four days, possibly six according to Niebuhr, one day for each of the six Latin and Alban decuriae.[74] According to different records 47 or 53 boroughs took part in the festival (the listed names too differ in Pliny NH III 69 and Dionysius of Halicarnassus AR V 61). The Latiar became an important feature of Roman political life as they were feriae conceptivae, i. e. their date varied each year: the consuls and the highest magistrates were required to attend shortly after the beginning of the administration, originally on the Ides of March: the Feriae usually took place in early April. They could not start campaigning before its end and if any part of the games had been neglected or performed unritually the Latiar had to be wholly repeated. The inscriptions from the imperial age record the festival back to the time of the decemvirs.[75]
67
+ Wissowa remarks the inner linkage of the temple of the Mons Albanus with that of the Capitol apparent in the common association with the rite of the triumph:[76] since 231 BC some triumphing commanders had triumphed there first with the same legal features as in Rome.[77]
68
+
69
+ The Ides (the midpoint of the month, with a full moon) was sacred to Jupiter, because on that day heavenly light shone day and night.[78] Some (or all) Ides were Feriae Iovis, sacred to Jupiter.[79] On the Ides, a white lamb (ovis idulis) was led along Rome's Sacred Way to the Capitoline Citadel and sacrificed to him.[80] Jupiter's two epula Iovis festivals fell on the Ides, as did his temple foundation rites as Optimus Maximus, Victor, Invictus and (possibly) Stator.[81]
70
+
71
+ The nundinae recurred every ninth day, dividing the calendar into a market cycle analogous to a week. Market days gave rural people (pagi) the opportunity to sell in town and to be informed of religious and political edicts, which were posted publicly for three days. According to tradition, these festival days were instituted by the king Servius Tullius.[82] The high priestess of Jupiter (Flaminica Dialis) sanctified the days by sacrificing a ram to Jupiter.[83]
72
+
73
+ During the Republican era, more fixed holidays on the Roman calendar were devoted to Jupiter than to any other deity.[84]
74
+
75
+ Festivals of viniculture and wine were devoted to Jupiter, since grapes were particularly susceptible to adverse weather.[85] Dumézil describes wine as a "kingly" drink with the power to inebriate and exhilarate, analogous to the Vedic Soma.[86]
76
+
77
+ Three Roman festivals were connected with viniculture and wine.
78
+
79
+ The rustic Vinalia altera on August 19 asked for good weather for ripening the grapes before harvest.[87] When the grapes were ripe,[88] a sheep was sacrificed to Jupiter and the flamen Dialis cut the first of the grape harvest.[89]
80
+
81
+ The Meditrinalia on October 11 marked the end of the grape harvest; the new wine was pressed, tasted and mixed with old wine[90] to control fermentation. In the Fasti Amiternini, this festival is assigned to Jupiter. Later Roman sources invented a goddess Meditrina, probably to explain the name of the festival.[91]
82
+
83
+ At the Vinalia urbana on April 23, new wine was offered to Jupiter.[92] Large quantities of it were poured into a ditch near the temple of Venus Erycina, which was located on the Capitol.[93]
84
+
85
+ The Regifugium ("King's Flight")[94] on February 24 has often been discussed in connection with the Poplifugia on July 5, a day holy to Jupiter.[95] The Regifugium followed the festival of Iuppiter Terminus (Jupiter of Boundaries) on February 23. Later Roman antiquarians misinterpreted the Regifugium as marking the expulsion of the monarchy, but the "king" of this festival may have been the priest known as the rex sacrorum who ritually enacted the waning and renewal of power associated with the New Year (March 1 in the old Roman calendar).[96] A temporary vacancy of power (construed as a yearly "interregnum") occurred between the Regifugium on February 24 and the New Year on March 1 (when the lunar cycle was thought to coincide again with the solar cycle), and the uncertainty and change during the two winter months were over.[97] Some scholars emphasize the traditional political significance of the day.[98]
86
+
87
+ The Poplifugia ("Routing of Armies"[99]), a day sacred to Jupiter, may similarly mark the second half of the year; before the Julian calendar reform, the months were named numerically, Quintilis (the fifth month) to December (the tenth month).[100] The Poplifugia was a "primitive military ritual" for which the adult male population assembled for purification rites, after which they ritually dispelled foreign invaders from Rome.[101]
88
+
89
+ There were two festivals called epulum Iovis ("Feast of Jove"). One was held on September 13, the anniversary of the foundation of Jupiter's Capitoline temple. The other (and probably older) festival was part of the Plebeian Games (Ludi Plebei), and was held on November 13.[102] In the 3rd century BC, the epulum Iovis became similar to a lectisternium.[103]
90
+
91
+ The most ancient Roman games followed after one day (considered a dies ater, or "black day", i. e. a day which was traditionally considered unfortunate even though it was not nefas, see also article Glossary of ancient Roman religion) the two Epula Iovis of September and November.
92
+
93
+ The games of September were named Ludi Magni; originally they were not held every year, but later became the annual Ludi Romani[104] and were held in the Circus Maximus after a procession from the Capitol. The games were attributed to Tarquinius Priscus,[105] and linked to the cult of Jupiter on the Capitol. Romans themselves acknowledged analogies with the triumph, which Dumézil thinks can be explained by their common Etruscan origin; the magistrate in charge of the games dressed as the triumphator and the pompa circensis resembled a triumphal procession. Wissowa and Mommsen argue that they were a detached part of the triumph on the above grounds[106] (a conclusion which Dumézil rejects).[107]
94
+
95
+ The Ludi Plebei took place in November in the Circus Flaminius.[108]
96
+ Mommsen argued that the epulum of the Ludi Plebei was the model of the Ludi Romani, but Wissowa finds the evidence for this assumption insufficient.[109] The Ludi Plebei were probably established in 534 BC. Their association with the cult of Jupiter is attested by Cicero.[110]
97
+
98
+ The feriae of December 23 were devoted to a major ceremony in honour of Acca Larentia (or Larentina), in which some of the highest religious authorities participated (probably including the Flamen Quirinalis and the pontiffs). The Fasti Praenestini marks the day as feriae Iovis, as does Macrobius.[111] It is unclear whether the rite of parentatio was itself the reason for the festival of Jupiter, or if this was another festival which happened to fall on the same day. Wissowa denies their association, since Jupiter and his flamen would not be involved with the underworld or the deities of death (or be present at a funeral rite held at a gravesite).[112]
99
+
100
+ The Latin name Iuppiter originated as a vocative compound of the Old Latin vocative *Iou and pater ("father") and came to replace the Old Latin nominative case *Ious. Jove[113] is a less common English formation based on Iov-, the stem of oblique cases of the Latin name. Linguistic studies identify the form *Iou-pater as deriving from the Proto-Italic vocable *Djous Patēr,[10] and ultimately the Indo-European vocative compound *Dyēu-pəter (meaning "O Father Sky-god"; nominative: *Dyēus-pətēr).[114]
101
+
102
+ Older forms of the deity's name in Rome were Dieus-pater ("day/sky-father"), then Diéspiter.[115] The 19th-century philologist Georg Wissowa asserted these names are conceptually- and linguistically-connected to Diovis and Diovis Pater; he compares the analogous formations Vedius-Veiove and fulgur Dium, as opposed to fulgur Summanum (nocturnal lightning bolt) and flamen Dialis (based on Dius, dies).[116] The Ancient later viewed them as entities separate from Jupiter. The terms are similar in etymology and semantics (dies, "daylight" and Dius, "daytime sky"), but differ linguistically. Wissowa considers the epithet Dianus noteworthy.[117][118] Dieus is the etymological equivalent of ancient Greece's Zeus and of the Teutonics' Ziu (genitive Ziewes). The Indo-European deity is the god from which the names and partially the theology of Jupiter, Zeus and the Indo-Aryan Vedic Dyaus Pita derive or have developed.[119]
103
+
104
+ The Roman practice of swearing by Jove to witness an oath in law courts[120] is the origin of the expression "by Jove!"—archaic, but still in use. The name of the god was also adopted as the name of the planet Jupiter; the adjective "jovial" originally described those born under the planet of Jupiter[121] (reputed to be jolly, optimistic, and buoyant in temperament).
105
+
106
+ Jove was the original namesake of Latin forms of the weekday now known in English as Thursday[122] (originally called Iovis Dies in Latin). These became jeudi in French, jueves in Spanish, joi in Romanian, giovedì in Italian, dijous in Catalan, Xoves in Galician, Joibe in Friulian, Dijóu in Provençal.
107
+
108
+ The epithets of a Roman god indicate his theological qualities. The study of these epithets must consider their origins (the historical context of an epithet's source).
109
+
110
+ Jupiter's most ancient attested forms of cult belong to the State cult: these include the mount cult (see section above note n. 22). In Rome this cult entailed the existence of particular sanctuaries the most important of which were located on Mons Capitolinus (earlier Tarpeius). The mount had two tops that were both destined to the discharge of acts of cult related to Jupiter. The northern and higher top was the arx and on it was located the observation place of the augurs (auguraculum) and to it headed the monthly procession of the sacra Idulia.[123] On the southern top was to be found the most ancient sanctuary of the god: the shrine of Iuppiter Feretrius allegedly built by Romulus, restored by Augustus. The god here had no image and was represented by the sacred flintstone (silex).[124] The most ancient known rites, those of the spolia opima and of the fetials which connect Jupiter with Mars and Quirinus are dedicated to Iuppiter Feretrius or Iuppiter Lapis.[125] The concept of the sky god was already overlapped with the ethical and political domain since this early time. According to Wissowa and Dumézil[126] Iuppiter Lapis seems to be inseparable from Iuppiter Feretrius in whose tiny templet on the Capitol the stone was lodged.
111
+
112
+ Another most ancient epithet is Lucetius: although the Ancients, followed by some modern scholars such as Wissowa,[116] interpreted it as referring to sunlight, the carmen Saliare shows that it refers to lightning.[127] A further confirmation of this interpretation is provided by the sacred meaning of lightning which is reflected in the sensitivity of the flaminica Dialis to the phenomenon.[128] To the same atmospheric complex belongs the epithet Elicius: while the ancient erudites thought it was connected to lightning, it is in fact related to the opening of the rervoirs of rain, as is testified by the ceremony of the Nudipedalia, meant to propitiate rainfall and devoted to Jupiter.[129] and the ritual of the lapis manalis, the stone which was brought into the city through the Porta Capena and carried around in times of drought, which was named Aquaelicium.[130] Other early epithets connected with the atmospheric quality of Jupiter are Pluvius, Imbricius, Tempestas, Tonitrualis, tempestatium divinarum potens, Serenator, Serenus[131][132] and, referred to lightning, Fulgur,[133] Fulgur Fulmen,[134] later as nomen agentis Fulgurator, Fulminator:[135] the high antiquity of the cult is testified by the neutre form Fulgur and the use of the term for the bidental, the lightning well dug on the spot hit by a lightning bolt.[136]
113
+
114
+ A group of epithets has been interpreted by Wissowa (and his followers) as a reflection of the agricultural or warring nature of the god, some of which are also in the list of eleven preserved by Augustine.[137][138] The agricultural ones include Opitulus, Almus, Ruminus, Frugifer, Farreus, Pecunia, Dapalis,[139] Epulo.[140] Augustine gives an explanation of the ones he lists which should reflect Varro's: Opitulus because he brings opem (means, relief) to the needy, Almus because he nourishes everything, Ruminus because he nourishes the living beings by breastfeeding them, Pecunia because everything belongs to him.[141]
115
+ Dumézil maintains the cult usage of these epithets is not documented and that the epithet Ruminus, as Wissowa and Latte remarked, may not have the meaning given by Augustine but it should be understood as part of a series including Rumina, Ruminalis ficus, Iuppiter Ruminus, which bears the name of Rome itself with an Etruscan vocalism preserved in inscriptions, series that would be preserved in the sacred language (cf. Rumach Etruscan for Roman). However many scholars have argued that the name of Rome, Ruma, meant in fact woman's breast.[142] Diva Rumina, as Augustine testifies in the cited passage, was the goddess of suckling babies: she was venerated near the ficus ruminalis and was offered only libations of milk.[143] Here moreover Augustine cites the verses devoted to Jupiter by Quintus Valerius Soranus, while hypothesising Iuno (more adept in his view as a breastfeeder), i.e. Rumina instead of Ruminus, might be nothing else than Iuppiter: "Iuppiter omnipotens regum rerumque deumque Progenitor genetrixque deum...".
116
+
117
+ In Dumézil's opinion Farreus should be understood as related to the rite of the confarreatio the most sacred form of marriage, the name of which is due to the spelt cake eaten by the spouses, rather than surmising an agricultural quality of the god: the epithet means the god was the guarantor of the effects of the ceremony, to which the presence of his flamen is necessary and that he can interrupt with a clap of thunder.[144]
118
+
119
+ The epithet Dapalis is on the other hand connected to a rite described by Cato and mentioned by Festus.[145] Before the sowing of autumn or spring the peasant offered a banquet of roast beef and a cup of wine to Jupiter : it is natural that on such occasions he would entreat the god who has power over the weather, however Cato' s prayer of s one of sheer offer and no request. The language suggests another attitude: Jupiter is invited to a banquet which is supposedly abundant and magnificent. The god is honoured as summus. The peasant may hope he shall receive a benefit, but he does not say it. This interpretation finds support in the analogous urban ceremony of the epulum Iovis, from which the god derives the epithet of Epulo and which was a magnificent feast accompanied by flutes.[146]
120
+
121
+ Epithets related to warring are in Wissowa's view Iuppiter Feretrius, Iuppiter Stator, Iuppiter Victor and Iuppiter Invictus.[147] Feretrius would be connected with war by the rite of the first type of spolia opima which is in fact a dedication to the god of the arms of the defeated king of the enemy that happens whenever he has been killed by the king of Rome or his equivalent authority. Here too Dumézil notes the dedication has to do with regality and not with war, since the rite is in fact the offer of the arms of a king by a king: a proof of such an assumption is provided by the fact that the arms of an enemy king captured by an officer or a common soldier were dedicated to Mars and Quirinus respectively.
122
+
123
+ Iuppiter Stator was first attributed by tradition to Romulus, who had prayed the god for his almighty help at a difficult time the battle with the Sabines of king Titus Tatius.[148] Dumézil opines the action of Jupiter is not that of a god of war who wins through fighting: Jupiter acts by causing an inexplicable change in the morale of the fighters of the two sides. The same feature can be detected also in the certainly historical record of the battle of the third Samnite War in 294 BC, in which consul Marcus Atilius Regulus vowed a temple to Iuppiter Stator if "Jupiter will stop the rout of the Roman army and if afterwards the Samnite legions shall be victouriously massacred...It looked as if the gods themselves had taken side with Romans, so much easily did the Roman arms succeed in prevailing...".[149][150] In a similar manner one can explain the epithet Victor, whose cult was founded in 295 BC on the battlefield of Sentinum by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges and who received another vow again in 293 by consul Lucius Papirius Cursor before a battle against the Samnite legio linteata. The religious meaning of the vow is in both cases an appeal to the supreme god by a Roman chief at a time of need for divine help from the supreme god, albeit for different reasons: Fabius had remained the only political and military responsible of the Roman State after the devotio of P. Decius Mus, Papirius had to face an enemy who had acted with impious rites and vows, i.e. was religiously reprehensible.[151]
124
+
125
+ More recently Dario Sabbatucci has given a different interpretation of the meaning of Stator within the frame of his structuralistic and dialectic vision of Roman calendar, identifying oppositions, tensions and equilibria: January is the month of Janus, at the beginning of the year, in the uncertain time of winter (the most ancient calendar had only ten months, from March to December). In this month Janus deifies kingship and defies Jupiter. Moreover, January sees also the presence of Veiovis who appears as an anti-Jupiter, of Carmenta who is the goddess of birth and like Janus has two opposed faces, Prorsa and Postvorta (also named Antevorta and Porrima), of Iuturna, who as a gushing spring evokes the process of coming into being from non-being as the god of passage and change does. In this period the preeminence of Janus needs compensating on the Ides through the action of Jupiter Stator, who plays the role of anti-Janus, i.e. of moderator of the action of Janus.[152]
126
+
127
+ Some epithets describe a particular aspect of the god, or one of his functions:
128
+
129
+ Some epithets of Jupiter indicate his association with a particular place. Epithets found in the provinces of the Roman Empire may identify Jupiter with a local deity or site (see syncretism).
130
+
131
+ In addition, many of the epithets of Zeus can be found applied to Jupiter, by interpretatio romana. Thus, since the hero Trophonius (from Lebadea in Boeotia) is called Zeus Trophonius, this can be represented in English (as it would be in Latin) as Jupiter Trophonius. Similarly, the Greek cult of Zeus Meilichios appears in Pompeii as Jupiter Meilichius. Except in representing actual cults in Italy, this is largely 19th-century usage; modern works distinguish Jupiter from Zeus.
132
+
133
+ Marcus Terentius Varro and Verrius Flaccus[165] were the main sources on the theology of Jupiter and archaic Roman religion in general. Varro was acquainted with the libri pontificum ("books of the Pontiffs") and their archaic classifications.[166] On these two sources depend other ancient authorities, such as Ovid, Servius, Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, patristic texts, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch.
134
+
135
+ One of the most important sources which preserve the theology of Jupiter and other Roman deities is The City of God against the Pagans by Augustine of Hippo. Augustine's criticism of traditional Roman religion is based on Varro's lost work, Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum. Although a work of Christian apologetics, The City of God provides glimpses into Varro's theological system and authentic Roman theological lore in general. According to Augustine,[167] Varro drew on the pontiff Mucius Scaevola's tripartite theology:
136
+
137
+ Georg Wissowa stressed Jupiter's uniqueness as the only case among Indo-European religions in which the original god preserved his name, his identity and his prerogatives.[116] In this view, Jupiter is the god of heaven and retains his identification with the sky among the Latin poets (his name is used as a synonym for "sky".[169]) In this respect, he differs from his Greek equivalent Zeus (who is considered a personal god, warden and dispenser of skylight). His name reflects this idea; it is a derivative of the Indo-European word for "bright, shining sky". His residence is found atop the hills of Rome and of mountains in general; as a result, his cult is present in Rome and throughout Italy at upper elevations.[170] Jupiter assumed atmospheric qualities; he is the wielder of lightning and the master of weather. However, Wissowa acknowledges that Jupiter is not merely a naturalistic, heavenly, supreme deity; he is in continual communication with man by means of thunder, lightning and the flight of birds (his auspices). Through his vigilant watch he is also the guardian of public oaths and compacts and the guarantor of good faith in the State cult.[171] The Jovian cult was common to the Italic people under the names Iove, Diove (Latin) and Iuve, Diuve (Oscan, in Umbrian only Iuve, Iupater in the Iguvine Tables).
138
+
139
+ Wissowa considered Jupiter also a god of war and agriculture, in addition to his political role as guarantor of good faith (public and private) as Iuppiter Lapis and Dius Fidius, respectively. His view is grounded in the sphere of action of the god (who intervenes in battle and influences the harvest through weather).Wissowa (1912), pp. 103–108
140
+
141
+ In Georges Dumézil's view, Jovian theology (and that of the equivalent gods in other Indo-European religions) is an evolution from a naturalistic, supreme, celestial god identified with heaven to a sovereign god, a wielder of lightning bolts, master and protector of the community (in other words, of a change from a naturalistic approach to the world of the divine to a socio-political approach).[172]
142
+
143
+ In Vedic religion, Dyaus Pitar remained confined to his distant, removed, passive role and the place of sovereign god was occupied by Varuna and Mitra. In Greek and Roman religion, instead, the homonymous gods *Diou- and Διϝ- evolved into atmospheric deities; by their mastery of thunder and lightning, they expressed themselves and made their will known to the community. In Rome, Jupiter also sent signs to the leaders of the state in the form of auspices in addition to thunder. The art of augury was considered prestigious by ancient Romans; by sending his signs, Jupiter (the sovereign of heaven) communicates his advice to his terrestrial colleague: the king (rex) or his successor magistrates. The encounter between the heavenly and political, legal aspects of the deity are well represented by the prerogatives, privileges, functions and taboos proper to his flamen (the flamen Dialis and his wife, the flaminica Dialis).
144
+
145
+ Dumézil maintains that Jupiter is not himself a god of war and agriculture, although his actions and interest may extend to these spheres of human endeavour. His view is based on the methodological assumption that the chief criterion for studying a god's nature is not to consider his field of action, but the quality, method and features of his action. Consequently, the analysis of the type of action performed by Jupiter in the domains in which he operates indicates that Jupiter is a sovereign god who may act in the field of politics (as well as agriculture and war) in his capacity as such, i.e. in a way and with the features proper to a king. Sovereignty is expressed through the two aspects of absolute, magic power (epitomised and represented by the Vedic god Varuna) and lawful right (by the Vedic god Mitra).[174] However, sovereignty permits action in every field; otherwise, it would lose its essential quality. As a further proof, Dumézil cites the story of Tullus Hostilius (the most belligerent of the Roman kings), who was killed by Jupiter with a lightning bolt (indicating that he did not enjoy the god's favour).
146
+ Varro's definition of Jupiter as the god who has under his jurisdiction the full expression of every being (penes Iovem sunt summa) reflects the sovereign nature of the god, as opposed to the jurisdiction of Janus (god of passages and change) on their beginning (penes Ianum sunt prima).[175]
147
+
148
+ The Capitoline Triad was introduced to Rome by the Tarquins. Dumézil[176] thinks it might have been an Etruscan (or local) creation based on Vitruvius' treatise on architecture, in which the three deities are associated as the most important. It is possible that the Etruscans paid particular attention to Menrva (Minerva) as a goddess of destiny, in addition to the royal couple Uni (Juno) and Tinia (Jupiter).[177] In Rome, Minerva later assumed a military aspect under the influence of Athena Pallas (Polias). Dumézil argues that with the advent of the Republic, Jupiter became the only king of Rome, no longer merely the first of the great gods.
149
+
150
+ The Archaic Triad is a hypothetical theological structure (or system) consisting of the gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus. It was first described by Wissowa,[178] and the concept was developed further by Dumézil. The three-function hypothesis of Indo-European society advanced by Dumézil holds that in prehistory, society was divided into three classes (priests, warriors and craftsmen) which had as their religious counterparts the divine figures of the sovereign god, the warrior god and the civil god. The sovereign function (embodied by Jupiter) entailed omnipotence; thence, a domain extended over every aspect of nature and life. The colour relating to the sovereign function is white.
151
+
152
+ The three functions are interrelated with one another, overlapping to some extent; the sovereign function, although essentially religious in nature, is involved in many ways in areas pertaining to the other two. Therefore, Jupiter is the "magic player" in the founding of the Roman state and the fields of war, agricultural plenty, human fertility and wealth.[179]
153
+
154
+ This hypothesis has not found widespread support among scholars.
155
+
156
+ Apart from being protectress of the arts and craft as Minerva Capta, who was brought from Falerii, Minerva's association to Jupiter and relevance to Roman state religion is mainly linked to the Palladium, a wooden statue of Athena that could move the eyes and wave the spear. It was stored in the penus interior, inner penus of the aedes Vestae, temple of Vesta and considered the most important among the pignora imperii, pawns of dominion, empire.[180] In Roman traditional lore it was brought from Troy by Aeneas. Scholars though think it was last taken to Rome in the third or second century BC.[181]
157
+
158
+ The divine couple received from Greece its matrimonial implications, thence bestowing on Juno the role of tutelary goddess of marriage (Iuno Pronuba).
159
+
160
+ The couple itself though cannot be reduced to a Greek apport. The association of Juno and Jupiter is of the most ancient Latin theology.[182] Praeneste offers a glimpse into original Latin mythology: the local goddess Fortuna is represented as milking two infants, one male and one female, namely Jove (Jupiter) and Juno.[183] It seems fairly safe to assume that from the earliest times they were identified by their own proper names and since they got them they were never changed through the course of history: they were called Jupiter and Juno. These gods were the most ancient deities of every Latin town. Praeneste preserved divine filiation and infancy as the sovereign god and his paredra Juno have a mother who is the primordial goddess Fortuna Primigenia.[184] Many terracotta statuettes have been discovered which represent a woman with a child: one of them represents exactly the scene described by Cicero of a woman with two children of different sex who touch her breast. Two of the votive inscriptions to Fortuna associate her and Jupiter: " Fortunae Iovi puero..." and "Fortunae Iovis puero..."[185]
161
+
162
+ In 1882 though R. Mowat published an inscription in which Fortuna is called daughter of Jupiter, raising new questions and opening new perspectives in the theology of Latin gods.[186] Dumezil has elaborated an interpretative theory according to which this aporia would be an intrinsic, fundamental feature of Indoeuropean deities of the primordial and sovereign level, as it finds a parallel in Vedic religion.[187] The contradiction would put Fortuna both at the origin of time and into its ensuing diachronic process: it is the comparison offered by Vedic deity Aditi, the Not-Bound or Enemy of Bondage, that shows that there is no question of choosing one of the two apparent options: as the mother of the Aditya she has the same type of relationship with one of his sons, Dakṣa, the minor sovereign. who represents the Creative Energy, being at the same time his mother and daughter, as is true for the whole group of sovereign gods to which she belongs.[188] Moreover, Aditi is thus one of the heirs (along with Savitr) of the opening god of the Indoiranians, as she is represented with her head on her two sides, with the two faces looking opposite directions.[189] The mother of the sovereign gods has thence two solidal but distinct modalities of duplicity, i.e. of having two foreheads and a double position in the genealogy. Angelo Brelich has interpreted this theology as the basic opposition between the primordial absence of order (chaos) and the organisation of the cosmos.[190]
163
+
164
+ The relation of Jupiter to Janus is problematic. Varro defines Jupiter as the god who has potestas (power) over the forces by which anything happens in the world. Janus, however, has the privilege of being invoked first in rites, since in his power are the beginnings of things (prima), the appearance of Jupiter included.[191]
165
+
166
+ The Latins considered Saturn the predecessor of Jupiter. Saturn reigned in Latium during a mythical Golden Age reenacted every year at the festival of Saturnalia. Saturn also retained primacy in matters of agriculture and money. Unlike the Greek tradition of Cronus and Zeus, the usurpation of Saturn as king of the gods by Jupiter was not viewed by the Latins as violent or hostile; Saturn continued to be revered in his temple at the foot of the Capitol Hill, which maintained the alternative name Saturnius into the time of Varro.[192]
167
+ A. Pasqualini has argued that Saturn was related to Iuppiter Latiaris, the old Jupiter of the Latins, as the original figure of this Jupiter was superseded on the Alban Mount, whereas it preserved its gruesome character in the ceremony held at the sanctuary of the Latiar Hill in Rome which involved a human sacrifice and the aspersion of the statue of the god with the blood of the victim.[193]
168
+
169
+ The abstract personification Fides ("Faith, Trust") was one of the oldest gods associated with Jupiter. As guarantor of public faith, Fides had her temple on the Capitol (near that of Capitoline Jupiter).[194]
170
+
171
+ Dius Fidius is considered a theonym for Jupiter,[195] and sometimes a separate entity also known in Rome as Semo Sancus Dius Fidius. Wissowa argued that while Jupiter is the god of the Fides Publica Populi Romani as Iuppiter Lapis (by whom important oaths are sworn), Dius Fidius is a deity established for everyday use and was charged with the protection of good faith in private affairs. Dius Fidius would thus correspond to Zeus Pistios.[196] The association with Jupiter may be a matter of divine relation; some scholars see him as a form of Hercules.[197] Both Jupiter and Dius Fidius were wardens of oaths and wielders of lightning bolts; both required an opening in the roof of their temples.[126]
172
+
173
+ The functionality of Sancus occurs consistently within the sphere of fides, oaths and respect for contracts and of the divine-sanction guarantee against their breach. Wissowa suggested that Semo Sancus is the genius of Jupiter,[198] but the concept of a deity's genius is a development of the Imperial period.[199]
174
+
175
+ Some aspects of the oath-ritual for Dius Fidius (such as proceedings under the open sky or in the compluvium of private residences), and the fact the temple of Sancus had no roof, suggest that the oath sworn by Dius Fidius predated that for Iuppiter Lapis or Iuppiter Feretrius.[200]
176
+
177
+ Augustine quotes Varro who explains the genius as "the god who is in charge and has the power to generate everything" and "the rational spirit of all (therefore, everyone has their own)". Augustine concludes that Jupiter should be considered the genius of the universe.[201]
178
+
179
+ G. Wissowa advanced the hypothesis that Semo Sancus is the genius of Jupiter.[198] W. W. Fowler has cautioned that this interpretation looks to be an anachronism and it would only be acceptable to say that Sancus is a Genius Iovius, as it appears from the Iguvine Tables.[202]
180
+
181
+ Censorinus cites Granius Flaccus as saying that "the Genius was the same entity as the Lar" in his lost work De Indigitamentis.[203][204] probably referring to the Lar Familiaris. Mutunus Tutunus had his shrine at the foot of the Velian Hill near those of the Di Penates and of Vica Pota, who were among the most ancient gods of the Roman community of according to Wissowa.[205]
182
+
183
+ Dumézil opines that the attribution of a Genius to the gods should be earlier than its first attestation of 58 BC, in an inscription which mentions the Iovis Genius.[206]
184
+
185
+ A connection between Genius and Jupiter seems apparent in Plautus' comedy Amphitryon, in which Jupiter takes up the looks of Alcmena's husband in order to seduce her: J. Hubeaux sees there a reflection of the story that Scipio Africanus' mother conceived him with a snake that was in fact Jupiter transformed.[207] Scipio himself claimed that only he would rise to the mansion of the gods through the widest gate.[208]
186
+
187
+ Among the Etruscan Penates there is a Genius Iovialis who comes after Fortuna and Ceres and before Pales.[209] Genius Iovialis is one of the Penates of the humans and not of Jupiter though, as these were located in region I of Martianus Capella' s division of Heaven, while Genius appears in regions V and VI along with Ceres, Favor (possibly a Roman approximation to an Etruscan male manifestation of Fortuna) and Pales.[210] This is in accord with the definition of the Penates of man being Fortuna, Ceres, Pales and Genius Iovialis and the statement in Macrobius that the Larentalia were dedicated to Jupiter as the god whence the souls of men come from and to whom they return after death.[211]
188
+
189
+ The god of nighttime lightning has been interpreted as an aspect of Jupiter, either a chthonic manifestation of the god or a separate god of the underworld. A statue of Summanus stood on the roof of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, and Iuppiter Summanus is one of the epithets of Jupiter.[212] Dumézil sees the opposition Dius Fidius versus Summanus as complementary, interpreting it as typical to the inherent ambiguity of the sovereign god exemplified by that of Mitra and Varuna in Vedic religion.[213] The complementarity of the epithets is shown in inscriptions found on puteals or bidentals reciting either fulgur Dium conditum[214] or fulgur Summanum conditum in places struck by daytime versus nighttime lightning bolts respectively.[215] This is also consistent with the etymology of Summanus, deriving from sub and mane (the time before morning).[216]
190
+
191
+ Iuppiter was associated with Liber through his epithet of Liber (association not yet been fully explained by scholars, due to the scarcity of early documentation).
192
+ In the past, it was maintained that Liber was only a progressively-detached hypostasis of Jupiter; consequently, the vintage festivals were to be attributed only to Iuppiter Liber.[217] Such a hypothesis was rejected as groundless by Wissowa, although he was a supporter of Liber's Jovian origin.[218] Olivier de Cazanove[219] contends that it is difficult to admit that Liber (who is present in the oldest calendars—those of Numa—in the Liberalia and in the month of Liber at Lavinium)[220] was derived from another deity. Such a derivation would find support only in epigraphic documents, primarily from the Osco-Sabellic area.[221] Wissowa sets the position of Iuppiter Liber within the framework of an agrarian Jupiter. The god also had a temple in this name on the Aventine in Rome, which was restored by Augustus and dedicated on September 1. Here, the god was sometimes named Liber[222] and sometimes Libertas.[223] Wissowa opines that the relationship existed in the concept of creative abundance through which the supposedly-separate Liber might have been connected[224] to the Greek god Dionysos, although both deities might not have been originally related to viticulture.
193
+
194
+ Other scholars assert that there was no Liber (other than a god of wine) within historical memory.[225] O. de Cazanove[226] argues that the domain of the sovereign god Jupiter was that of sacred, sacrificial wine (vinum inferium),[227] while that of Liber and Libera was confined to secular wine (vinum spurcum);[228] these two types were obtained through differing fermentation processes. The offer of wine to Liber was made possible by naming the mustum (grape juice) stored in amphoras sacrima.[229]
195
+ Sacred wine was obtained by the natural fermentation of juice of grapes free from flaws of any type, religious (e. g. those struck by lightning, brought into contact with corpses or wounded people or coming from an unfertilised grapeyard) or secular (by "cutting" it with old wine). Secular (or "profane") wine was obtained through several types of manipulation (e.g. by adding honey, or mulsum; using raisins, or passum; by boiling, or defrutum). However, the sacrima used for the offering to the two gods for the preservation of grapeyards, vessels and wine[230] was obtained only by pouring the juice into amphors after pressing.[231] The mustum was considered spurcum (dirty), and thus unusable in sacrifices.[232] The amphor (itself not an item of sacrifice) permitted presentation of its content on a table or could be added to a sacrifice; this happened at the auspicatio vindamiae for the first grape[233] and for ears of corn of the praemetium on a dish (lanx) at the
196
+ temple of Ceres.[234]
197
+
198
+ Dumézil, on the other hand, sees the relationship between Jupiter and Liber as grounded in the social and political relevance of the two gods (who were both considered patrons of freedom).[235] The Liberalia of March were, since earliest times, the occasion for the ceremony of the donning of the toga virilis or libera (which marked the passage into adult citizenship by young people). Augustine relates that these festivals had a particularly obscene character: a phallus was taken to the fields on a cart, and then back in triumph to town. In Lavinium they lasted a month, during which the population enjoyed bawdy jokes. The most honest matronae were supposed to publicly crown the phallus with flowers, to ensure a good harvest and repeal the fascinatio (evil eye).[220] In Rome representations of the sex organs were placed in the temple of the couple Liber Libera, who presided over the male and female components of generation and the "liberation" of the semen.[236] This complex of rites and beliefs shows that the divine couple's jurisdiction extended over fertility in general, not only that of grapes. The etymology of Liber (archaic form Loifer, Loifir) was explained by Émile Benveniste as formed on the IE theme *leudh- plus the suffix -es-; its original meaning is "the one of germination, he who ensures the sprouting of crops".[237]
199
+
200
+ The relationship of Jupiter with freedom was a common belief among the Roman people, as demonstrated by the dedication of the Mons Sacer to the god after the first secession of the plebs. Later inscriptions also show the unabated popular belief in Jupiter as bestower of freedom in the imperial era.[238]
201
+
202
+ Scholars have been often puzzled by Ve(d)iove (or Veiovis, or Vedius) and unwilling to discuss his identity, claiming our knowledge of this god is insufficient.[239] Most, however, agree that Veiove is a sort of special Jupiter or anti-Iove, or even an underworld Jupiter. In other words, Veiove is indeed the Capitoline god himself, who takes up a different, diminished appearance (iuvenis and parvus, young and gracile), in order to be able to discharge sovereign functions over places, times and spheres that by their own nature are excluded from the direct control of Jupiter as Optimus Maximus.[240] This conclusion is based on information provided by Gellius,[241] who states his name is formed by adding prefix ve (here denoting "deprivation" or "negation") to Iove (whose name Gellius posits as rooted in the verb iuvo "I benefit"). D. Sabbatucci has stressed the feature of bearer of instability and antithesis to cosmic order of the god, who threatens the kingly power of Jupiter as Stator and Centumpeda and whose presence occurs side by side to Janus' on January 1, but also his function of helper to the growth of the young Jupiter.[242] In 1858 Ludwig Preller suggested that Veiovis may be the sinister double of Jupiter.[243]
203
+
204
+ In fact, the god (under the name Vetis) is placed in the last case (number 16) of the outer rim of the Piacenza Liver—before Cilens (Nocturnus), who ends (or begins in the Etruscan vision) the disposition of the gods. In Martianus Capella's division of heaven, he is found in region XV with the dii publici; as such, he numbers among the infernal (or antipodal) gods. The location of his two temples in Rome—near those of Jupiter (one on the Capitoline Hill, in the low between the arx and the Capitolium, between the two groves where the asylum founded by Romulus stood, the other on the Tiber Island near that of Iuppiter Iurarius, later also known as temple of Aesculapius)[244]—may be significant in this respect, along with the fact that he is considered the father[245] of Apollo, perhaps because he was depicted carrying arrows. He is also considered to be the unbearded Jupiter.[246] The dates of his festivals support the same conclusion: they fall on January 1,[247] March 7[248] and May 21,[249] the first date being the recurrence of the Agonalia, dedicated to Janus and celebrated by the king with the sacrifice of a ram. The nature of the sacrifice is debated; Gellius states capra, a female goat, although some scholars posit a ram. This sacrifice occurred rito humano, which may mean "with the rite appropriate for human sacrifice".[250] Gellius concludes by stating that this god is one of those who receive sacrifices so as to persuade them to refrain from causing harm.
205
+
206
+ The arrow is an ambivalent symbol; it was used in the ritual of the devotio (the general who vowed had to stand on an arrow).[251] It is perhaps because of the arrow and of the juvenile looks that Gellius identifies Veiove with Apollo[252] and as a god who must receive worship in order to obtain his abstention from harming men, along with Robigus and Averruncus.[253] The ambivalence in the identity of Veiove is apparent in the fact that while he is present in places and times which may have a negative connotation (such as the asylum of Romulus in between the two groves on the Capitol, the Tiberine island along with Faunus and Aesculapius, the kalends of January, the nones of March, and May 21, a statue of his nonetheless stands in the arx. Moreover, the initial particle ve- which the ancient supposed were part of his name is itself ambivalent as it may have both an accrescitive and diminutive value.[254]
207
+
208
+ Maurice Besnier has remarked that a temple to Iuppiter was dedicated by praetor Lucius Furius Purpureo before the battle of Cremona against the Celtic Cenomani of Cisalpine Gaul.[255] An inscription found at Brescia in 1888 shows that Iuppiter Iurarius was worshipped there[256] and one found on the south tip of Tiber Island in 1854 that there was a cult to the god on the spot too.[257] Besnier speculates that Lucius Furius had evoked the chief god of the enemy and built a temple to him in Rome outside the pomerium. On January 1, the Fasti Praenestini record the festivals of Aesculapius and Vediove on the Island, while in the Fasti Ovid speaks of Jupiter and his grandson.[258] Livy records that in 192 BC, duumvir Q. Marcus Ralla dedicated to Jupiter on the Capitol the two temples promised by L. Furius Purpureo, one of which was that promised during the war against the Gauls.[259] Besnier would accept a correction to Livy's passage (proposed by Jordan) to read aedes Veiovi instead of aedes duae Iovi. Such a correction concerns the temples dedicated on the Capitol: it does not address the question of the dedication of the temple on the Island, which is puzzling, since the place is attested epigraphically as dedicated to the cult of Iuppiter Iurarius, in the Fasti Praenestini of Vediove[260] and to Jupiter according to Ovid. The two gods may have been seen as equivalent: Iuppiter Iurarius is an awesome and vengeful god, parallel to the Greek Zeus Orkios, the avenger of perjury.[261]
209
+
210
+ A. Pasqualini has argued that Veiovis seems related to Iuppiter Latiaris, as the original figure of this Jupiter would have been superseded on the Alban Mount, whereas it preserved its gruesome character in the ceremony held on the sanctuary of the Latiar Hill, the southernmost hilltop of the Quirinal in Rome, which involved a human sacrifice. The gens Iulia had gentilician cults at Bovillae where a dedicatory inscription to Vediove has been found in 1826 on an ara.[262] According to Pasqualini it was a deity similar to Vediove, wielder of lightningbolts and chthonic, who was connected to the cult of the founders who first inhabited the Alban Mount and built the sanctuary. Such a cult once superseded on the Mount would have been taken up and preserved by the Iulii, private citizens bound to the sacra Albana by their Alban origin.[263]
211
+
212
+ Victoria was connected to Iuppiter Victor in his role as bestower of military victory. Jupiter, as a sovereign god, was considered as having the power to conquer anyone and anything in a supernatural way; his contribution to military victory was different from that of Mars (god of military valour). Victoria appears first on the reverse of coins representing Venus (driving the quadriga of Jupiter, with her head crowned and with a palm in her hand) during the first Punic War. Sometimes, she is represented walking and carrying a trophy.[264]
213
+
214
+ A temple was dedicated to the goddess afterwards on the Palatine, testifying to her high station in the Roman mind. When Hieron of Syracuse presented a golden statuette of the goddess to Rome, the Senate had it placed in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter among the greatest (and most sacred) deities.[265]
215
+ Although Victoria played a significant role in the religious ideology of the late Republic and the Empire, she is undocumented in earlier times. A function similar to hers may have been played by the little-known Vica Pota.
216
+
217
+ Juventas and Terminus were the gods who, according to legend,[266] refused to leave their sites on the Capitol when the construction of the temple of Jupiter was undertaken. Therefore, they had to be reserved a sacellum within the new temple. Their stubbornness was considered a good omen; it would guarantee youth, stability and safety to Rome on its site.[267] This legend is generally thought by scholars to indicate their strict connection with Jupiter. An inscription found near Ravenna reads Iuppiter Ter.,[268] indicating that Terminus is an aspect of Jupiter.
218
+
219
+ Terminus is the god of boundaries (public and private), as he is portrayed in literature. The religious value of the boundary marker is documented by Plutarch,[269] who ascribes to king Numa the construction of temples to Fides and Terminus and the delimitation of Roman territory. Ovid gives a vivid description of the rural rite at a boundary of fields of neighbouring peasants on February 23 (the day of the Terminalia.[270] On that day, Roman pontiffs and magistrates held a ceremony at the sixth mile of the Via Laurentina (ancient border of the Roman ager, which maintained a religious value).
220
+ This festival, however, marked the end of the year and was linked to time more directly than to space (as attested by Augustine's apologia on the role of Janus with respect to endings).[271] Dario Sabbatucci has emphasised the temporal affiliation of Terminus, a reminder of which is found in the rite of the regifugium.[272]
221
+ G. Dumézil, on the other hand, views the function of this god as associated with the legalistic aspect of the sovereign function of Jupiter. Terminus would be the counterpart of the minor Vedic god Bagha, who oversees the just and fair division of goods among citizens.[273]
222
+
223
+ Along with Terminus, Iuventas (also known as Iuventus and Iuunta) represents an aspect of Jupiter (as the legend of her refusal to leave the Capitol Hill demonstrates. Her name has the same root as Juno (from Iuu-, "young, youngster"); the ceremonial litter bearing the sacred goose of Juno Moneta stopped before her sacellum on the festival of the goddess. Later, she was identified with the Greek Hebe. The fact that Jupiter is related to the concept of youth is shown by his epithets Puer, Iuuentus and Ioviste (interpreted as "the youngest" by some scholars).[274] Dumézil noted the presence of the two minor sovereign deities Bagha and Aryaman beside the Vedic sovereign gods Varuna and Mitra (though more closely associated with Mitra); the couple would be reflected in Rome by Terminus and Iuventas. Aryaman is the god of young soldiers. The function of Iuventas is to protect the iuvenes (the novi togati of the year, who are required to offer a sacrifice to Jupiter on the Capitol)[275] and the Roman soldiers (a function later attributed to Juno). King Servius Tullius, in reforming the Roman social organisation, required that every adolescent offer a coin to the goddess of youth upon entering adulthood.[276]
224
+
225
+ In Dumézil's analysis, the function of Iuventas (the personification of youth), was to control the entrance of young men into society and protect them until they reach the age of iuvenes or iuniores (i.e. of serving the state as soldiers).[277]
226
+ A temple to Iuventas was promised in 207 BC by consul Marcus Livius Salinator and dedicated in 191 BC.[278]
227
+
228
+ The Romans considered the Penates as the gods to whom they owed their own existence.[279] As noted by Wissowa Penates is an adjective, meaning "those of or from the penus" the innermost part, most hidden recess;[280] Dumézil though refuses Wissowa's interpretation of penus as the storeroom of a household. As a nation the Romans honoured the Penates publici: Dionysius calls them Trojan gods as they were absorbed into the Trojan legend. They had a temple in Rome at the foot of the Velian Hill, near the Palatine, in which they were represented as a couple of male youth. They were honoured every year by the new consuls before entering office at Lavinium,[281] because the Romans believed the Penates of that town were identical to their own.[282]
229
+
230
+ The concept of di Penates is more defined in Etruria: Arnobius (citing a Caesius) states that the Etruscan Penates were named Fortuna, Ceres, Genius Iovialis and Pales; according to Nigidius Figulus, they included those of Jupiter, of Neptune, of the infernal gods and of mortal men.[283] According to Varro the Penates reside in the recesses of Heaven and are called Consentes and Complices by the Etruscans because they rise and set together, are twelve in number and their names are unknown, six male and six females and are the cousellors and masters of Jupiter. Martianus states they are always in agreement among themselves.[284] While these last gods seem to be the Penates of Jupiter, Jupiter himself along with Juno and Minerva is one of the Penates of man according to some authors.[285]
231
+
232
+ This complex concept is reflected in Martianus Capella's division of heaven, found in Book I of his De Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, which places the Di Consentes Penates in region I with the Favores Opertanei; Ceres and Genius in region V; Pales in region VI; Favor and Genius (again) in region VII; Secundanus Pales, Fortuna and Favor Pastor in region XI. The disposition of these divine entities and their repetition in different locations may be due to the fact that Penates belonging to different categories (of Jupiter in region I, earthly or of mortal men in region V) are intended. Favor(es) may be the Etruscan masculine equivalent of Fortuna.[286]
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1
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+ German (Deutsch, pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] (listen)) is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol in Italy, the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The German language is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although they belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
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+ One of the major languages of the world, German is a native language to almost 100 million people worldwide and the most widely spoken native language in the European Union.[6] German is the third most commonly spoken foreign language in the EU after English and French, making it the second biggest language in the EU in terms of overall speakers. German is also the second most widely taught foreign language in the EU after English at primary school level (but third after English and French at lower secondary level), the fourth most widely taught non-English language in the US (after Spanish, French and American Sign Language), the second most commonly used scientific language and the third most widely used language on websites after English and Russian. The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one tenth of all books (including e-books) in the world being published in German. In the United Kingdom, German and French are the most sought-after foreign languages for businesses (with 49% and 50% of businesses identifying these two languages as the most useful, respectively).[7]
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+ German is an inflected language with four cases for nouns, pronouns and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), two numbers (singular, plural), and strong and weak verbs. It derives the majority of its vocabulary from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Some of its vocabulary is derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and Modern English. German is a pluricentric language, with its standardized variants being (German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard German). It is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Italy recognizes all the German-speaking minorities in its territory as national historic minorities and protects the varieties of German spoken in several regions of Northern Italy besides South Tyrol.[8][9] Due to the limited intelligibility between certain varieties and Standard German, as well as the lack of an undisputed, scientific difference between a "dialect" and a "language", some German varieties or dialect groups (e.g. Low German or Plautdietsch[3]) can be described as either "languages" or "dialects".
8
+
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+ Modern Standard German is a West Germanic language in the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic, East Germanic, and West Germanic. The first of these branches survives in modern Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic, all of which are descended from Old Norse. The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch, Yiddish, Afrikaans, and others.[10]
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+ Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf-Benrath and Krefeld-Uerdingen, respectively) serve to distinguish the Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects (nos. 29–34 on the map), while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German/Low Saxon (nos. 19–24) and Low Franconian (no. 25) dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian can be further distinguished historically as Irminonic, Ingvaeonic, and Istvaeonic, respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by the Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser-Rhine group).[10]
12
+
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+ Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian-Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian and Bavarian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects, belonging to the Irminonic High German dialect group (nos. 29–34). German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects – no. 29), and Yiddish. Also closely related to Standard German are the Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries, such as Swiss German (Alemannic dialects – no. 34), and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est, such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central- and Upper Franconian (no. 32) dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian – no. 29).
14
+
15
+ After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g. Dutch and Afrikaans) or Low German/Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic: the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are the Frisian languages—North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland – no. 28), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland – no. 27), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland – no. 26)—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects are all members of the Ingvaeonic family of West Germanic languages, which did not take part in the High German consonant shift.
16
+
17
+ The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, which separated Old High German (OHG) dialects from Old Saxon. This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants (b, d, g, and p, t, k, respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following:
18
+
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+ While there is written evidence of the Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the 6th century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.765–775), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 OHG words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans, the first coherent works written in OHG appear in the 9th century, chief among them being the Muspilli, the Merseburg Charms, and the Hildebrandslied, as well as a number of other religious texts (the Georgslied, the Ludwigslied, the Evangelienbuch, and translated hymns and prayers).[11][12] The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment, and the Merseburg Charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from the pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied, a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from the Alamanni, Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group (Irminones), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the 2nd and 6th centuries during the great migration.[11]
20
+
21
+ In general, the surviving texts of OHG show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as a result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary.[11] At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing.
22
+
23
+ The German language through the OHG period was still predominantly a spoken language, with a wide range of dialects and a much more extensive oral tradition than a written one. Having just emerged from the High German consonant shift, OHG was also a relatively new and volatile language still undergoing a number of phonetic, phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes. The scarcity of written work, instability of the language, and widespread illiteracy of the time explain the lack of standardization up to the end of the OHG period in 1050.
24
+
25
+ While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350.[13][14] This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as the Ostsiedlung). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature.[14][15] A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to a greater need for regularity in written conventions.
26
+
27
+ While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG "house")→haus (MHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→tage (MHG)).[16]
28
+
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+ A great wealth of texts survives from the MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied, an epic poem telling the story of the dragon-slayer Siegfried (c. 13th century), and the Iwein, an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue (c. 1203), as well as several lyric poems and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan. Also noteworthy is the Sachsenspiegel, the first book of laws written in Middle Low German (c. 1220). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms.
30
+
31
+ The Middle High German period is generally seen as ending when the 1346-53 Black Death decimated Europe's population.[13]
32
+
33
+ Modern German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which the influential German philologist Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War.[13] This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in the German states. While these states were still under the control of the Holy Roman Empire and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout the German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language.
34
+
35
+ The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch, used in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and the other being Meißner Deutsch, used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.[17] Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages (Druckersprachen) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible.[18] The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardization in the written form of German.
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+
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+ One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony, spending much time among the population of Saxony researching the dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method:
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+
39
+ One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in the home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says 'ex abundantia cordis os loquitur,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund. But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No, the mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über.[19]
40
+
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+ With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. Furthermore, his Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy.[20] Nevertheless, even with the influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the 18th century.[21]
42
+
43
+ German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality.
44
+
45
+ Some cities, such as Prague (German: Prag) and Budapest (Buda, German: Ofen), were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as Pozsony (German: Pressburg, now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava, as well as cities like Zagreb (German: Agram) and Ljubljana (German: Laibach), contained significant German minorities.
46
+
47
+ In the eastern provinces of Banat, Bukovina, and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns – such as Temeschburg (Timișoara), Hermannstadt (Sibiu) and Kronstadt (Brașov) – but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas.[22]
48
+
49
+ The most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860.[23] In 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook.[24]
50
+
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+ In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a complete standardization of the German language in its written form and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition.[25] The Deutsche Bühnensprache (literally, German stage language) had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres (Bühnendeutsch[26]) three years earlier; however, this was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of Standard German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterize the dialect of the area today – especially the pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, Standard German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of Standard German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century.
52
+
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+ Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries.[27] Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German (often called Hochdeutsch, "High German") which is understood in all areas where German is spoken.
54
+
55
+ Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide
56
+
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+ Due to the German diaspora as well as German being the second most widely spoken language in Europe and the third most widely taught foreign language in the US[28] and the EU (in upper secondary education)[29] amongst others, the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. As for the number of speakers of any language worldwide, an assessment is always compromised by the lack of sufficient, reliable data. For an exact, global number of native German speakers, this is further complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and/or linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic (e.g., Alsatian) and Low German/Plautdietsch.[3] Depending on the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language,[30][31] 10–25 million as a second language,[30] and 75–100 million as a foreign language.[1] This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide.[32] It is estimated that including every person studying German, regardless of their actual proficiency, would amount to about 280 million people worldwide with at least some knowledge of German.
58
+
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+ In Europe, German is the second most widely spoken mother tongue (after Russian) and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English). The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language is called the "German Sprachraum". It comprises an estimated 88 million native speakers and 10 million who speak German as a second language (e.g. immigrants).[30] Excluding regional minority languages, German is the only official language of the following countries:
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+
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+ German is a co-official language of the following countries:
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+
63
+ Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World Wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum.
64
+
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+ Within Europe and Asia, German is a recognized minority language in the following countries:
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+
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+ In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as "regional languages", but the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government.[39] In the Netherlands, the Limburgish, Frisian, and Low German languages are protected regional languages according to the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages;[33] however, they are widely considered separate languages and neither German nor Dutch dialects.
68
+
69
+ Namibia was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1919. Mostly descending from German settlers who immigrated during this time, 25–30,000 people still speak German as a native tongue today.[40] The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called "Namibian Black German", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it.[41]
70
+
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+ German, along with English and Afrikaans, was a co-official language of Namibia from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. At this point, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language, stating that it was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time.[40] German, Afrikaans and several indigenous languages became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, German is used in a wide variety of spheres, especially business and tourism, as well as the churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK)), schools (e.g. the Deutsche Höhere Privatschule Windhoek), literature (German-Namibian authors include Giselher W. Hoffmann), radio (the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation produces radio programs in German), and music (e.g. artist EES). The Allgemeine Zeitung is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa.[40]
72
+
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+ Mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries, an estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa.[42] One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch",[43] a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg. The small town of Kroondal in the North-West Province also has a mostly German-speaking population. The South African constitution identifies German as a "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it.[44] The community is strong enough that several German International schools are supported, such as the Deutsche Schule Pretoria.
74
+
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+ In the United States, the states of North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states where German is the most common language spoken at home after English.[45] German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region of the country, such as New Ulm and many other towns in Minnesota; Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), Munich, Karlsruhe, and Strasburg (named after a town near Odessa in Ukraine)[46] in North Dakota; New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Weimar, and Muenster in Texas; Corn (formerly Korn), Kiefer and Berlin in Oklahoma; and Kiel, Berlin, and Germantown in Wisconsin.
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+
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+ In Brazil, the largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo and Espírito Santo.[47]
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+
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+ There are important concentrations of German-speaking descendants in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia.[42]
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+
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+ The impact of nineteenth century German immigration to southern Chile was such that Valdivia was for a while a Spanish-German bilingual city with "German signboards and placards alongside the Spanish".[54] The prestige[note 4] the German language caused it to acquire qualities of a superstratum in southern Chile.[56] The word for blackberry, a ubiquitous plant in southern Chile, is murra, instead of the ordinary Spanish words mora and zarzamora, from Valdivia to the Chiloé Archipelago and in some towns in the Aysén Region.[56] The use of rr is an adaptation of guttural sounds found in German but difficult to pronounce in Spanish.[56] Similarly the name for marbles, a traditional children's game, is different in Southern Chile compared to areas further north. From Valdivia to the Aysén Region this game is called bochas, in contrast to the word bolitas used further north.[56] The word bocha is likely a derivative of the German Bocciaspiel.[56]
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+
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+ In Australia, the state of South Australia experienced a pronounced wave of immigration in the 1840s from Prussia (particularly the Silesia region). With the prolonged isolation from other German speakers and contact with Australian English, a unique dialect known as Barossa German developed, spoken predominantly in the Barossa Valley near Adelaide. Usage of German sharply declined with the advent of World War I, due to the prevailing anti-German sentiment in the population and related government action. It continued to be used as a first language into the 20th century, but its use is now limited to a few older speakers.[57]
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+
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+ German migration to New Zealand in the 19th century was less pronounced than migration from Britain, Ireland, and perhaps even Scandinavia. Despite this there were significant pockets of German-speaking communities which lasted until the first decades of the 20th century. German speakers settled principally in Puhoi, Nelson, and Gore. At the last census (2013), 36,642 people in New Zealand spoke German, making it the third most spoken European language after English and French and overall the ninth most spoken language.[58]
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+
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+ There is also an important German creole being studied and recovered, named Unserdeutsch, spoken in the former German colony of German New Guinea, across Micronesia and in northern Australia (i.e. coastal parts of Queensland and Western Australia) by a few elderly people. The risk of its extinction is serious and efforts to revive interest in the language are being implemented by scholars.[59]
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+
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+ Like French and Spanish, German has become a standard second foreign language in the western world.[1][60] German ranks second (after English) among the best known foreign languages in the EU (on a par with French)[1] as well as in Russia.[61] In terms of student numbers across all levels of education, German ranks third in the EU (after English and French)[29] as well as in the United States (after Spanish and French).[28][62] In 2015, approximately 15.4 million people were in the process of learning German across all levels of education worldwide.[60] As this number remained relatively stable since 2005 (± 1 million), roughly 75–100 million people able to communicate in German as a foreign language can be inferred, assuming an average course duration of three years and other estimated parameters. According to a 2012 survey, 47 million people within the EU (i.e., up to two-thirds of the 75–100 million worldwide) claimed to have sufficient German skills to have a conversation. Within the EU, not counting countries where it is an official language, German as a foreign language is most popular in Eastern and northern Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden and Poland.[1][63] German was once, and to some extent still is, a lingua franca in those parts of Europe.[64]
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+
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+ The basis of Standard German is the Luther Bible, which was translated by Martin Luther and which had originated from the Saxon court language (it being a convenient norm).[65] However, there are places where the traditional regional dialects have been replaced by new vernaculars based on standard German; that is the case in large stretches of Northern Germany but also in major cities in other parts of the country. It is important to note, however, that the colloquial standard German differs greatly from the formal written language, especially in grammar and syntax, in which it has been influenced by dialectal speech.
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+ Standard German differs regionally among German-speaking countries in vocabulary and some instances of pronunciation and even grammar and orthography. This variation must not be confused with the variation of local dialects. Even though the regional varieties of standard German are only somewhat influenced by the local dialects, they are very distinct. German is thus considered a pluricentric language.
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+ In most regions, the speakers use a continuum from more dialectal varieties to more standard varieties depending on the circumstances.
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+
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+ In German linguistics, German dialects are distinguished from varieties of standard German.
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+ The varieties of standard German refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric standard German. They differ only slightly in lexicon and phonology. In certain regions, they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany.
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+
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+ In the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, mixtures of dialect and standard are very seldom used, and the use of Standard German is largely restricted to the written language. About 11% of the Swiss residents speak High German (Standard German) at home, but this is mainly due to German immigrants.[67] This situation has been called a medial diglossia. Swiss Standard German is used in the Swiss education system, while Austrian Standard German is officially used in the Austrian education system.
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+
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+ A mixture of dialect and standard does not normally occur in Northern Germany either. The traditional varieties there are Low German, whereas Standard German is a High German "variety". Because their linguistic distance is greater, they do not mesh with Standard German the way that High German dialects (such as Bavarian, Swabian, and Hessian) can.
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+
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+ The German dialects are the traditional local varieties of the language; many of them are not mutually intelligibile with standard German, and they have great differences in lexicon, phonology, and syntax. If a narrow definition of language based on mutual intelligibility is used, many German dialects are considered to be separate languages (for instance in the Ethnologue). However, such a point of view is unusual in German linguistics.
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+
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+ The German dialect continuum is traditionally divided most broadly into High German and Low German, also called Low Saxon. However, historically, High German dialects and Low Saxon/Low German dialects do not belong to the same language. Nevertheless, in today's Germany, Low Saxon/Low German is often perceived as a dialectal variation of Standard German on a functional level even by many native speakers. The same phenomenon is found in the eastern Netherlands, as the traditional dialects are not always identified with their Low Saxon/Low German origins, but with Dutch.[68][better source needed]
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+
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+ The variation among the German dialects is considerable, with often only neighbouring dialects being mutually intelligible. Some dialects are not intelligible to people who know only Standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the dialect continuum of High German and Low Saxon.
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+ Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany until the 16th century. In 1534, the Luther Bible was published. The translation is considered to be an important step towards the evolution of the Early New High German. It aimed to be understandable to a broad audience and was based mainly on Central and Upper German varieties. The Early New High German language gained more prestige than Low German and became the language of science and literature. Around the same time, the Hanseatic League, based around northern ports, lost its importance as new trade routes to Asia and the Americas were established, and the most powerful German states of that period were located in Middle and Southern Germany.
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+
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+ The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass education in Standard German in schools. Gradually, Low German came to be politically viewed as a mere dialect spoken by the uneducated. Today, Low Saxon can be divided in two groups: Low Saxon varieties with a reasonable level of Standard German influence and varieties of Standard German with a Low Saxon influence known as Missingsch. Sometimes, Low Saxon and Low Franconian varieties are grouped together because both are unaffected by the High German consonant shift. However, the proportion of the population who can understand and speak it has decreased continuously since World War II. The largest cities in the Low German area are Hamburg and Dortmund.
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+ The Low Franconian dialects are the dialects that are more closely related to Dutch than to Low German. Most of the Low Franconian dialects are spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium, where they are considered as dialects of Dutch, which is itself a Low Franconian language. In Germany, Low Franconian dialects are spoken in the northwest of North Rhine-Westphalia, along the Lower Rhine. The Low Franconian dialects spoken in Germany are referred to as Meuse-Rhenish or Low Rhenish. In the north of the German Low Franconian language area, North Low Franconian dialects (also referred to as Cleverlands or as dialects of South Guelderish) are spoken. These dialects are more closely related to Dutch (also North Low Franconian) than the South Low Franconian dialects (also referred to as East Limburgish and, east of the Rhine, Bergish), which are spoken in the south of the German Low Franconian language area. The South Low Franconian dialects are more closely related to Limburgish than to Dutch, and are transitional dialects between Low Franconian and Ripuarian (Central Franconian). The East Bergish dialects are the easternmost Low Franconian dialects, and are transitional dialects between North- and South Low Franconian, and Westphalian (Low German), with most of their features being North Low Franconian. The largest cities in the German Low Franconian area are Düsseldorf and Duisburg.
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+
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+ The High German dialects consist of the Central German, High Franconian, and Upper German dialects. The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. The High German varieties spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews have several unique features and are considered as a separate language, Yiddish, written with the Hebrew alphabet.
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+
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+ The Central German dialects are spoken in Central Germany, from Aachen in the west to Görlitz in the east. They consist of Franconian dialects in the west (West Central German) and non-Franconian dialects in the east (East Central German). Modern Standard German is mostly based on Central German dialects.
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+
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+ The Franconian, West Central German dialects are the Central Franconian dialects (Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian) and the Rhine Franconian dialects (Hessian and Palatine). These dialects are considered as
121
+
122
+ Luxembourgish as well as the Transylvanian Saxon dialect spoken in Transylvania are based on Moselle Franconian dialects. The largest cities in the Franconian Central German area are Cologne and Frankfurt.
123
+
124
+ Further east, the non-Franconian, East Central German dialects are spoken (Thuringian, Upper Saxon, Ore Mountainian, and Lusatian-New Markish, and earlier, in the then German-speaking parts of Silesia also Silesian, and in then German southern East Prussia also High Prussian). The largest cities in the East Central German area are Berlin and Leipzig.
125
+
126
+ The High Franconian dialects are transitional dialects between Central and Upper German. They consist of the East and South Franconian dialects.
127
+
128
+ The East Franconian dialect branch is one of the most spoken dialect branches in Germany. These dialects are spoken in the region of Franconia and in the central parts of Saxon Vogtland. Franconia consists of the Bavarian districts of Upper, Middle, and Lower Franconia, the region of South Thuringia (Thuringia), and the eastern parts of the region of Heilbronn-Franken (Tauber Franconia and Hohenlohe) in Baden-Württemberg. The largest cities in the East Franconian area are Nuremberg and Würzburg.
129
+
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+ South Franconian is mainly spoken in northern Baden-Württemberg in Germany, but also in the northeasternmost part of the region of Alsace in France. While these dialects are considered as dialects of German in Baden-Württemberg, they are considered as dialects of Alsatian in Alsace (most Alsatian dialects are Low Alemannic, however). The largest cities in the South Franconian area are Karlsruhe and Heilbronn.
131
+
132
+ The Upper German dialects are the Alemannic dialects in the west and the Bavarian dialects in the east.
133
+
134
+ Alemannic dialects are spoken in Switzerland (High Alemannic in the densely populated Swiss Plateau, in the south also Highest Alemannic, and Low Alemannic in Basel), Baden-Württemberg (Swabian and Low Alemannic, in the southwest also High Alemannic), Bavarian Swabia (Swabian, in the southwesternmost part also Low Alemannic), Vorarlberg (Low, High, and Highest Alemannic), Alsace (Low Alemannic, in the southernmost part also High Alemannic), Liechtenstein (High and Highest Alemannic), and in the Tyrolean district of Reutte (Swabian). The Alemannic dialects are considered as Alsatian in Alsace. The largest cities in the Alemannic area are Stuttgart and Zürich.
135
+
136
+ Bavarian dialects are spoken in Austria (Vienna, Lower and Upper Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Burgenland, and in most parts of Tyrol), Bavaria (Upper and Lower Bavaria as well as Upper Palatinate), South Tyrol, southwesternmost Saxony (Southern Vogtlandian), and in the Swiss village of Samnaun. The largest cities in the Bavarian area are Vienna and Munich.
137
+
138
+ German is a fusional language with a moderate degree of inflection, with three grammatical genders; as such, there can be a large number of words derived from the same root.
139
+
140
+ German nouns inflect by case, gender, and number:
141
+
142
+ This degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old High German and other old Indo-European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit, and it is also somewhat less than, for instance, Old English, modern Icelandic, or Russian. The three genders have collapsed in the plural. With four cases and three genders plus plural, there are 16 permutations of case and gender/number of the article (not the nouns), but there are only six forms of the definite article, which together cover all 16 permutations. In nouns, inflection for case is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns only in the genitive and in the dative (only in fixed or archaic expressions), and even this is losing ground to substitutes in informal speech.[69] The singular dative noun ending is considered archaic or at least old-fashioned in almost all contexts and is almost always dropped in writing, except in poetry, songs, proverbs, and other petrified forms. Weak masculine nouns share a common case ending for genitive, dative, and accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns are not declined in the singular. The plural has an inflection for the dative. In total, seven inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: -s, -es, -n, -ns, -en, -ens, -e.
143
+
144
+ In German orthography, nouns and most words with the syntactical function of nouns are capitalised to make it easier for readers to determine the function of a word within a sentence (Am Freitag ging ich einkaufen. – "On Friday I went shopping."; Eines Tages kreuzte er endlich auf. – "One day he finally showed up.") This convention is almost unique to German today (shared perhaps only by the closely related Luxembourgish language and several insular dialects of the North Frisian language), but it was historically common in other languages such as Danish (which abolished the capitalization of nouns in 1948) and English.
145
+
146
+ Like the other Germanic languages, German forms noun compounds in which the first noun modifies the category given by the second: Hundehütte ("dog hut"; specifically: "dog kennel"). Unlike English, whose newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written "open" with separating spaces, German (like some other Germanic languages) nearly always uses the "closed" form without spaces, for example: Baumhaus ("tree house"). Like English, German allows arbitrarily long compounds in theory (see also English compounds). The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, which, literally translated, is "beef labelling supervision duties assignment law" [from Rind (cattle), Fleisch (meat), Etikettierung(s) (labelling), Überwachung(s) (supervision), Aufgaben (duties), Übertragung(s) (assignment), Gesetz (law)]. However, examples like this are perceived by native speakers as excessively bureaucratic, stylistically awkward, or even satirical.
147
+
148
+ The inflection of standard German verbs includes:
149
+
150
+ The meaning of basic verbs can be expanded and sometimes radically changed through the use of a number of prefixes. Some prefixes have a specific meaning; the prefix zer- refers to destruction, as in zerreißen (to tear apart), zerbrechen (to break apart), zerschneiden (to cut apart). Other prefixes have only the vaguest meaning in themselves; ver- is found in a number of verbs with a large variety of meanings, as in versuchen (to try) from suchen (to seek), vernehmen (to interrogate) from nehmen (to take), verteilen (to distribute) from teilen (to share), verstehen (to understand) from stehen (to stand).
151
+
152
+ Other examples include the following:
153
+ haften (to stick), verhaften (to detain); kaufen (to buy), verkaufen (to sell); hören (to hear), aufhören (to cease); fahren (to drive), erfahren (to experience).
154
+
155
+ Many German verbs have a separable prefix, often with an adverbial function. In finite verb forms, it is split off and moved to the end of the clause and is hence considered by some to be a "resultative particle". For example, mitgehen, meaning "to go along", would be split, giving Gehen Sie mit? (Literal: "Go you with?"; Idiomatic: "Are you going along?").
156
+
157
+ Indeed, several parenthetical clauses may occur between the prefix of a finite verb and its complement (ankommen = to arrive, er kam an = he arrived, er ist angekommen = he has arrived):
158
+
159
+ A selectively literal translation of this example to illustrate the point might look like this:
160
+
161
+ German word order is generally with the V2 word order restriction and also with the SOV word order restriction for main clauses. For polar questions, exclamations, and wishes, the finite verb always has the first position. In subordinate clauses, the verb occurs at the very end.
162
+
163
+ German requires a verbal element (main verb or auxiliary verb) to appear second in the sentence. The verb is preceded by the topic of the sentence. The element in focus appears at the end of the sentence. For a sentence without an auxiliary, these are several possibilities:
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+
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+ The position of a noun in a German sentence has no bearing on its being a subject, an object or another argument. In a declarative sentence in English, if the subject does not occur before the predicate, the sentence could well be misunderstood.
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+
167
+ However, German's flexible word order allows one to emphasise specific words:
168
+
169
+ Normal word order:
170
+
171
+ Object in front:
172
+
173
+ Adverb of time in front:
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+
175
+ Both time expressions in front:
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+
177
+ Another possibility:
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+
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+ Swapped adverbs:
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+
181
+ Swapped object:
182
+
183
+ The flexible word order also allows one to use language "tools" (such as poetic meter and figures of speech) more freely.
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+
185
+ When an auxiliary verb is present, it appears in second position, and the main verb appears at the end. This occurs notably in the creation of the perfect tense. Many word orders are still possible:
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+
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+ The main verb may appear in first position to put stress on the action itself. The auxiliary verb is still in second position.
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+
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+ Sentences using modal verbs place the infinitive at the end. For example, the English sentence "Should he go home?" would be rearranged in German to say "Should he (to) home go?" (Soll er nach Hause gehen?). Thus, in sentences with several subordinate or relative clauses, the infinitives are clustered at the end. Compare the similar clustering of prepositions in the following (highly contrived) English sentence: "What did you bring that book that I do not like to be read to out of up for?"
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+
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+ German subordinate clauses have all verbs clustered at the end. Given that auxiliaries encode future, passive, modality, and the perfect, very long chains of verbs at the end of the sentence can occur. In these constructions, the past participle formed with ge- is often replaced by the infinitive.
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+
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+ The order at the end of such strings is subject to variation, but the second one in the last example is unusual.
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+
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+ Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.[70] However, there is a significant amount of loanwords from other languages, in particular Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and most recently English.[71] In the early 19th century, Joachim Heinrich Campe estimated that one fifth of the total German vocabulary was of French or Latin origin.[72]
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+
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+ Latin words were already imported into the predecessor of the German language during the Roman Empire and underwent all the characteristic phonetic changes in German. Their origin is thus no longer recognizable for most speakers (e.g. Pforte, Tafel, Mauer, Käse, Köln from Latin porta, tabula, murus, caseus, Colonia). Borrowing from Latin continued after the fall of the Roman Empire during Christianization, mediated by the church and monasteries. Another important influx of Latin words can be observed during Renaissance humanism. In a scholarly context, the borrowings from Latin have continued until today, in the last few decades often indirectly through borrowings from English. During the 15th to 17th centuries, the influence of Italian was great, leading to many Italian loanwords in the fields of architecture, finance, and music. The influence of the French language in the 17th to 19th centuries resulted in an even greater import of French words. The English influence was already present in the 19th century, but it did not become dominant until the second half of the 20th century.
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+
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+ Thus, Notker Labeo was able to translate Aristotelian treatises into pure (Old High) German in the decades after the year 1000.[73] The tradition of loan translation was revitalized in the 18th century with linguists like Joachim Heinrich Campe, who introduced close to 300 words that are still used in modern German. Even today, there are movements that try to promote the Ersatz (substitution) of foreign words that are deemed unnecessary with German alternatives.[74] It is claimed that this would also help in spreading modern or scientific notions among the less educated and as well democratise public life.
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+
201
+ As in English, there are many pairs of synonyms due to the enrichment of the Germanic vocabulary with loanwords from Latin and Latinized Greek. These words often have different connotations from their Germanic counterparts and are usually perceived as more scholarly.
202
+
203
+ The size of the vocabulary of German is difficult to estimate. The Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary) initiated by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm already contained over 330,000 headwords in its first edition. The modern German scientific vocabulary is estimated at nine million words and word groups (based on the analysis of 35 million sentences of a corpus in Leipzig, which as of July 2003 included 500 million words in total).[75]
204
+
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+ The Duden is the de facto official dictionary of the German language, first published by Konrad Duden in 1880. The Duden is updated regularly, with new editions appearing every four or five years. As of August 2017[update], it was in its 27th edition and in 12 volumes, each covering different aspects such as loanwords, etymology, pronunciation, synonyms, and so forth.The first of these volumes, Die deutsche Rechtschreibung (German Orthography), has long been the prescriptive source for the spelling of German. The Duden has become the bible of the German language, being the definitive set of rules regarding grammar, spelling and usage of German.[76]
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+
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+ The Österreichisches Wörterbuch ("Austrian Dictionary"), abbreviated ÖWB, is the official dictionary of the German language in the Republic of Austria. It is edited by a group of linguists under the authority of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (German: Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur). It is the Austrian counterpart to the German Duden and contains a number of terms unique to Austrian German or more frequently used or differently pronounced there.[77] A considerable amount of this "Austrian" vocabulary is also common in Southern Germany, especially Bavaria, and some of it is used in Switzerland as well. Since the 39th edition in 2001 the orthography of the ÖWB has been adjusted to the German spelling reform of 1996. The dictionary is also officially used in the Italian province of South Tyrol.
208
+
209
+ This is a selection of cognates in both English and German. Instead of the usual infinitive ending -en, German verbs are indicated by a hyphen after their stems. Words that are written with capital letters in German are nouns.
210
+
211
+ German is written in the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with an umlaut mark, namely ä, ö and ü, as well as the eszett or scharfes s (sharp s): ß. In Switzerland and Liechtenstein, ss is used instead of ß. Since ß can never occur at the beginning of a word, it has no traditional uppercase form.
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+
213
+ Written texts in German are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such as umlauts and certain orthographical features – German is the only major language that capitalizes all nouns, a relic of a widespread practice in Northern Europe in the early modern era (including English for a while, in the 1700s) – and the frequent occurrence of long compounds. Because legibility and convenience set certain boundaries, compounds consisting of more than three or four nouns are almost exclusively found in humorous contexts. (In contrast, although English can also string nouns together, it usually separates the nouns with spaces. For example, "toilet bowl cleaner".)
214
+
215
+ Before the German orthography reform of 1996, ß replaced ss after long vowels and diphthongs and before consonants, word-, or partial-word endings. In reformed spelling, ß replaces ss only after long vowels and diphthongs.
216
+
217
+ Since there is no traditional capital form of ß, it was replaced by SS when capitalization was required. For example, Maßband (tape measure) became MASSBAND in capitals. An exception was the use of ß in legal documents and forms when capitalizing names. To avoid confusion with similar names, lower case ß was maintained (thus "KREßLEIN" instead of "KRESSLEIN"). Capital ß (ẞ) was ultimately adopted into German orthography in 2017, ending a long orthographic debate (thus "KREẞLEIN and KRESSLEIN").[78]
218
+
219
+ Umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) are commonly transcribed with ae, oe, and ue if the umlauts are not available on the keyboard or other medium used. In the same manner ß can be transcribed as ss. Some operating systems use key sequences to extend the set of possible characters to include, amongst other things, umlauts; in Microsoft Windows this is done using Alt codes. German readers understand these transcriptions (although they appear unusual), but they are avoided if the regular umlauts are available, because they are a makeshift and not proper spelling. (In Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, city and family names exist where the extra e has a vowel lengthening effect, e.g. Raesfeld [ˈraːsfɛlt], Coesfeld [ˈkoːsfɛlt] and Itzehoe [ɪtsəˈhoː], but this use of the letter e after a/o/u does not occur in the present-day spelling of words other than proper nouns.)
220
+
221
+ There is no general agreement on where letters with umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an e. Some dictionaries sort each umlauted vowel as a separate letter after the base vowel, but more commonly words with umlauts are ordered immediately after the same word without umlauts. As an example in a telephone book Ärzte occurs after Adressenverlage but before Anlagenbauer (because Ä is replaced by Ae). In a dictionary Ärzte comes after Arzt, but in some dictionaries Ärzte and all other words starting with Ä may occur after all words starting with A. In some older dictionaries or indexes, initial Sch and St are treated as separate letters and are listed as separate entries after S, but they are usually treated as S+C+H and S+T.
222
+
223
+ Written German also typically uses an alternative opening inverted comma (quotation mark) as in "Guten Morgen!".
224
+
225
+ Until the early 20th century, German was mostly printed in blackletter typefaces (mostly in Fraktur, but also in Schwabacher) and written in corresponding handwriting (for example Kurrent and Sütterlin). These variants of the Latin alphabet are very different from the serif or sans-serif Antiqua typefaces used today, and the handwritten forms in particular are difficult for the untrained to read. The printed forms, however, were claimed by some to be more readable when used for Germanic languages.[79] (Often, foreign names in a text were printed in an Antiqua typeface even though the rest of the text was in Fraktur.) The Nazis initially promoted Fraktur and Schwabacher because they were considered Aryan, but they abolished them in 1941, claiming that these letters were Jewish.[80] It is also believed that the Nazi régime had banned this script as they realized that Fraktur would inhibit communication in the territories occupied during World War II.[81]
226
+
227
+ The Fraktur script however remains present in everyday life in pub signs, beer brands and other forms of advertisement, where it is used to convey a certain rusticality and antiquity.
228
+
229
+ A proper use of the long s (langes s), ſ, is essential for writing German text in Fraktur typefaces. Many Antiqua typefaces also include the long s. A specific set of rules applies for the use of long s in German text, but nowadays it is rarely used in Antiqua typesetting. Any lower case "s" at the beginning of a syllable would be a long s, as opposed to a terminal s or short s (the more common variation of the letter s), which marks the end of a syllable; for example, in differentiating between the words Wachſtube (guard-house) and Wachstube (tube of polish/wax). One can easily decide which "s" to use by appropriate hyphenation, (Wach-ſtube vs. Wachs-tube). The long s only appears in lower case.
230
+
231
+ The orthography reform of 1996 led to public controversy and considerable dispute. The states (Bundesländer) of North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria refused to accept it. At one point, the dispute reached the highest court, which quickly dismissed it, claiming that the states had to decide for themselves and that only in schools could the reform be made the official rule – everybody else could continue writing as they had learned it. After 10 years, without any intervention by the federal parliament, a major revision was installed in 2006, just in time for the coming school year. In 2007, some traditional spellings were finally invalidated; however, in 2008, many of the old comma rules were again put in force.
232
+
233
+ The most noticeable change was probably in the use of the letter ß, called scharfes s (Sharp S) or ess-zett (pronounced ess-tsett). Traditionally, this letter was used in three situations:
234
+
235
+ Examples are Füße, paßt, and daß. Currently, only the first rule is in effect, making the correct spellings Füße, passt, and dass. The word Fuß 'foot' has the letter ß because it contains a long vowel, even though that letter occurs at the end of a syllable. The logic of this change is that an 'ß' is a single letter whereas 'ss' are two letters, so the same distinction applies as (for example) between the words den and denn.
236
+
237
+ In German, vowels (excluding diphthongs; see below) are either short or long, as follows:
238
+
239
+ Short /ɛ/ is realized as [ɛ] in stressed syllables (including secondary stress), but as [ə] in unstressed syllables. Note that stressed short /ɛ/ can be spelled either with e or with ä (for instance, hätte 'would have' and Kette 'chain' rhyme). In general, the short vowels are open and the long vowels are close. The one exception is the open /ɛː/ sound of long Ä; in some varieties of standard German, /ɛː/ and /eː/ have merged into [eː], removing this anomaly. In that case, pairs like Bären/Beeren 'bears/berries' or Ähre/Ehre 'spike (of wheat)/honour' become homophonous (see: Captain Bluebear).
240
+
241
+ In many varieties of standard German, an unstressed /ɛr/ is not pronounced [ər] but vocalised to [ɐ].
242
+
243
+ Whether any particular vowel letter represents the long or short phoneme is not completely predictable, although the following regularities exist:
244
+
245
+ Both of these rules have exceptions (e.g. hat [hat] "has" is short despite the first rule; Mond [moːnt] "moon" is long despite the second rule). For an i that is neither in the combination ie (making it long) nor followed by a double consonant or cluster (making it short), there is no general rule. In some cases, there are regional differences. In central Germany (Hesse), the o in the proper name "Hoffmann" is pronounced long, whereas most other Germans would pronounce it short. The same applies to the e in the geographical name "Mecklenburg" for people in that region. The word Städte "cities" is pronounced with a short vowel [ˈʃtɛtə] by some (Jan Hofer, ARD Television) and with a long vowel [ˈʃtɛːtə] by others (Marietta Slomka, ZDF Television). Finally, a vowel followed by ch can be short (Fach [fax] "compartment", Küche [ˈkʏçə] "kitchen") or long (Suche [ˈzuːxə] "search", Bücher [ˈbyːçɐ] "books") almost at random. Thus, Lache is homographous between [laːxə] Lache "puddle" and [laxə] Lache "manner of laughing" (colloquial) or lache! "laugh!" (imperative).
246
+
247
+ German vowels can form the following digraphs (in writing) and diphthongs (in pronunciation); note that the pronunciation of some of them (ei, äu, eu) is very different from what one would expect when considering the component letters:
248
+
249
+ Additionally, the digraph ie generally represents the phoneme /iː/, which is not a diphthong. In many varieties, an /r/ at the end of a syllable is vocalised. However, a sequence of a vowel followed by such a vocalised /r/ is not a phonemic diphthong: Bär [bɛːɐ̯] "bear", er [eːɐ̯] "he", wir [viːɐ̯] "we", Tor [toːɐ̯] "gate", kurz [kʊɐ̯ts] "short", Wörter [vœɐ̯tɐ] "words".
250
+
251
+ In most varieties of standard German, syllables that begin with a vowel are preceded by a glottal stop [ʔ].
252
+
253
+ With approximately 26 phonemes, the German consonant system exhibits an average number of consonants in comparison with other languages. One of the more noteworthy ones is the unusual affricate /p͡f/. The consonant inventory of the standard language is shown below.
254
+
255
+ German does not have any dental fricatives (as English th). The th sound, which the English language still has, disappeared on the continent in German with the consonant shifts between the 8th and 10th centuries.[83] It is sometimes possible to find parallels between English and German by replacing the English th with d in German: "Thank" → in German Dank, "this" and "that" → dies and das, "thou" (old 2nd person singular pronoun) → du, "think" → denken, "thirsty" → durstig and many other examples.
256
+
257
+ Likewise, the gh in Germanic English words, pronounced in several different ways in modern English (as an f or not at all), can often be linked to German ch: "to laugh" → lachen, "through" → durch, "high" → hoch, "naught" → nichts, "light" → leicht or Licht, "sight" → Sicht, "daughter" → Tochter, "neighbour" → Nachbar.
258
+
259
+ The German language is used in German literature and can be traced back to the Middle Ages, with the most notable authors of the period being Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach.
260
+ The Nibelungenlied, whose author remains unknown, is also an important work of the epoch. The fairy tales collected and published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century became famous throughout the world.
261
+
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+ Reformer and theologian Martin Luther, who was the first to translate the Bible into German, is widely credited for having set the basis for the modern "High German" language. Among the best-known poets and authors in German are Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Hoffmann, Brecht, Heine, and Kafka. Fourteen German-speaking people have won the Nobel Prize in literature: Theodor Mommsen, Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Paul von Heyse, Gerhart Hauptmann, Carl Spitteler, Thomas Mann, Nelly Sachs, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll, Elias Canetti, Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller and Peter Handke, making it the second most awarded linguistic region (together with French) after English.
263
+
264
+ English has taken many loanwords from German, often without any change of spelling (aside from frequently eliminating umlauts and not capitalizing nouns):
265
+
266
+ Several organisations promote the use and learning of the German language:
267
+
268
+ The government-backed Goethe-Institut[85] (named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) aims to enhance the knowledge of German culture and language within Europe and the rest of the world. This is done by holding exhibitions and conferences with German-related themes, and providing training and guidance in the learning and use of the German language. For example, the Goethe-Institut teaches the Goethe-Zertifikat German language qualification.
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+
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+ The Dortmund-based Verein Deutsche Sprache (VDS), founded in 1997, supports the German language and is the largest language association of citizens in the world. The VDS has more than thirty-five thousand members in over seventy countries. Its founder, statistics professor Dr. Walter Krämer, has remained chairperson of the association from its formation.[86]
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+
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+ The German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle provides radio and television broadcasts in German and 30 other languages across the globe.[87] Its German language services are spoken slowly and thus tailored for learners. Deutsche Welle also provides an e-learning website for teaching German.
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1
+
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+
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+
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+
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+ Hinduism is an Indian religion and dharma, or way of life.[note 1][note 2] It is the world's third-largest religion with over 1.25 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global population, known as Hindus.[web 1][web 2] The word Hindu is an exonym,[1][2] and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world,[note 3] many practitioners refer to their religion as Sanātana Dharma, "the eternal way" which refers to the idea that its origins lie beyond human history, as revealed in the Hindu texts.[3][4][5][6][note 4] Another, though less fitting,[7] self-designation is Vaidika dharma,[8][9][10][11] the 'dharma related to the Vedas.'[web 3]
6
+
7
+ Hinduism includes a range of philosophies, and is linked by shared concepts, recognisable rituals, cosmology, pilgrimage to sacred sites and shared textual resources that discuss theology, philosophy, mythology, Vedic yajna, Yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other topics.[12] Hinduism prescribes the eternal duties, such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings (ahimsa), patience, forbearance, self-restraint, and compassion, among others.[web 4][13] Prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include the four Puruṣārthas, the proper goals or aims of human life; namely, Dharma (ethics/duties), Artha (prosperity/work), Kama (desires/passions) and Moksha (liberation/freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth/salvation),[14][15] as well as karma (action, intent and consequences) and Saṃsāra (cycle of death and rebirth).[16][17]
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+
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+ Hindu practices include rituals such as puja (worship) and recitations, japa, meditation (dhyana), family-oriented rites of passage, annual festivals, and occasional pilgrimages. Along with the practice of various Yogas, some Hindus leave their social world and material possessions and engage in lifelong Sannyasa (monasticism) in order to achieve Moksha.[18]
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+
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+ Hindu texts are classified into Śruti ("heard") and Smṛti ("remembered"), the major scriptures of which are the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Āgamas.[19][16] There are six āstika schools of Hindu philosophy, who recognise the authority of the Vedas, namely Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta.[20][21][22]
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+
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+ While the Puranic chronology presents a geneaology of thousands of years, starting with the Vedic rishis, scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion[note 5] or synthesis[23][note 6] of Brahmanical orthopraxy[note 7] with various Indian cultures,[24][note 8] having diverse roots[25][note 9] and no specific founder.[26] This Hindu synthesis emerged after the Vedic period, between ca. 500[27]–200[28] BCE and c. 300 CE,[27] in the period of the Second Urbanisation and the early classical period of Hinduism, when the Epics and the first Puranas were composed.[27][28] It flourished in the medieval period, with the decline of Buddhism in India.[29]
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+
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+ Currently, the four largest denominations of Hinduism are the Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Smartism.[30] Sources of authority and eternal truths in the Hindu texts play an important role, but there is also a strong Hindu tradition of questioning authority in order to deepen the understanding of these truths and to further develop the tradition.[31] Hinduism is the most widely professed faith in India, Nepal and Mauritius. Significant numbers of Hindu communities are found in Southeast Asia including in Bali, Indonesia,[32] the Caribbean, North America, Europe, Oceania, Africa, and other regions.[33][34]
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+
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+ The word Hindū is derived from Indo-Aryan[35]/Sanskrit[36] root Sindhu.[36][37] The Proto-Iranian sound change *s > h occurred between 850–600 BCE, according to Asko Parpola.[38]
18
+
19
+ The use of the English term "Hinduism" to describe a collection of practices and beliefs is a fairly recent construction: it was first used by Raja Ram Mohun Roy in 1816–17.[39] The term "Hinduism" was coined in around 1830 by those Indians who opposed British colonialism, and who wanted to distinguish themselves from other religious groups.[40][41][39] Before the British began to categorise communities strictly by religion, Indians generally did not define themselves exclusively through their religious beliefs; instead identities were largely segmented on the basis of locality, language, varna, jāti, occupation and sect.[42]
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+
21
+ The word "Hindu" is much older, and it is believed that it was used as the name for the Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent.[39][36][note 10] According to Gavin Flood, "The actual term Hindu first occurs as a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: Sindhu)",[36] more specifically in the 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I (550–486 BCE).[43] The term Hindu in these ancient records is a geographical term and did not refer to a religion.[36] Among the earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in the 7th-century CE Chinese text Record of the Western Regions by Xuanzang,[43] and 14th-century Persian text Futuhu's-salatin by 'Abd al-Malik Isami.[note 11]
22
+
23
+ Thapar states that the word Hindu is found as heptahindu in Avesta – equivalent to Rigvedic sapta sindhu, while hndstn (pronounced Hindustan) is found in a Sasanian inscription from the 3rd century CE, both of which refer to parts of northwestern South Asia.[44] The Arabic term al-Hind referred to the people who live across the River Indus.[45] This Arabic term was itself taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term Hindū, which refers to all Indians. By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as a popular alternative name of India, meaning the "land of Hindus".[46][note 12]
24
+
25
+ The term Hindu was later used occasionally in some Sanskrit texts such as the later Rajataranginis of Kashmir (Hinduka, c. 1450) and some 16th- to 18th-century Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava texts including Chaitanya Charitamrita and Chaitanya Bhagavata. These texts used it to distinguish Hindus from Muslims who are called Yavanas (foreigners) or Mlecchas (barbarians), with the 16th-century Chaitanya Charitamrita text and the 17th-century Bhakta Mala text using the phrase "Hindu dharma".[47] It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus.
26
+
27
+ The term Hinduism, then spelled Hindooism, was introduced into the English language in the 18th century to denote the religious, philosophical, and cultural traditions native to India.[48]
28
+
29
+ Hinduism includes a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but has no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet(s) nor any binding holy book; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, pandeistic, henotheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist.[49][50][51] According to Doniger, "ideas about all the major issues of faith and lifestyle - vegetarianism, nonviolence, belief in rebirth, even caste - are subjects of debate, not dogma."[52]
30
+
31
+ Because of the wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult.[36] The religion "defies our desire to define and categorize it".[53] Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and "a way of life".[54][note 1] From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism like other faiths is appropriately referred to as a religion. In India the term dharma is preferred, which is broader than the Western term religion.
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+ The study of India and its cultures and religions, and the definition of "Hinduism", has been shaped by the interests of colonialism and by Western notions of religion.[55][56] Since the 1990s, those influences and its outcomes have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism,[55][note 13] and have also been taken over by critics of the Western view on India.[57][note 14]
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+ Hinduism as it is commonly known can be subdivided into a number of major currents. Of the historical division into six darsanas (philosophies), two schools, Vedanta and Yoga, are currently the most prominent.[20] Classified by primary deity or deities, four major Hinduism modern currents are Vaishnavism (Vishnu), Shaivism (Shiva), Shaktism (Devi) and Smartism (five deities treated as same).[58][59] Hinduism also accepts numerous divine beings, with many Hindus considering the deities to be aspects or manifestations of a single impersonal absolute or ultimate reality or God, while some Hindus maintain that a specific deity represents the supreme and various deities are lower manifestations of this supreme.[60] Other notable characteristics include a belief in existence of ātman (soul, self), reincarnation of one's ātman, and karma as well as a belief in dharma (duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and right way of living).
36
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+ McDaniel (2007) classifies Hinduism into six major kinds and numerous minor kinds, in order to understand expression of emotions among the Hindus.[61] The major kinds, according to McDaniel are, Folk Hinduism, based on local traditions and cults of local deities and is the oldest, non-literate system; Vedic Hinduism based on the earliest layers of the Vedas traceable to 2nd millennium BCE; Vedantic Hinduism based on the philosophy of the Upanishads, including Advaita Vedanta, emphasizing knowledge and wisdom; Yogic Hinduism, following the text of Yoga Sutras of Patanjali emphasizing introspective awareness; Dharmic Hinduism or "daily morality", which McDaniel states is stereotyped in some books as the "only form of Hindu religion with a belief in karma, cows and caste"; and Bhakti or devotional Hinduism, where intense emotions are elaborately incorporated in the pursuit of the spiritual.[61]
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+ Michaels distinguishes three Hindu religions and four forms of Hindu religiosity.[62] The three Hindu religions are "Brahmanic-Sanskritic Hinduism", "folk religions and tribal religions", and "founded religions".[63] The four forms of Hindu religiosity are the classical "karma-marga",[64] jnana-marga,[65] bhakti-marga,[65] and "heroism", which is rooted in militaristic traditions, such as Ramaism and parts of political Hinduism.[64] This is also called virya-marga.[65] According to Michaels, one out of nine Hindu belongs by birth to one or both of the Brahmanic-Sanskritic Hinduism and Folk religion typology, whether practicing or non-practicing. He classifies most Hindus as belonging by choice to one of the "founded religions" such as Vaishnavism and Shaivism that are salvation-focussed and often de-emphasize Brahman priestly authority yet incorporate ritual grammar of Brahmanic-Sanskritic Hinduism.[66] He includes among "founded religions" Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism that are now distinct religions, syncretic movements such as Brahmo Samaj and the Theosophical Society, as well as various "Guru-isms" and new religious movements such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and ISKCON.[67]
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+ Inden states that the attempt to classify Hinduism by typology started in the imperial times, when proselytizing missionaries and colonial officials sought to understand and portray Hinduism from their interests.[68] Hinduism was construed as emanating not from a reason of spirit but fantasy and creative imagination, not conceptual but symbolical, not ethical but emotive, not rational or spiritual but of cognitive mysticism. This stereotype followed and fit, states Inden, with the imperial imperatives of the era, providing the moral justification for the colonial project.[68] From tribal Animism to Buddhism, everything was subsumed as part of Hinduism. The early reports set the tradition and scholarly premises for typology of Hinduism, as well as the major assumptions and flawed presuppositions that has been at the foundation of Indology. Hinduism, according to Inden, has been neither what imperial religionists stereotyped it to be, nor is it appropriate to equate Hinduism to be merely monist pantheism and philosophical idealism of Advaita Vedanta.[68]
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+ To its adherents, Hinduism is a traditional way of life.[69] Many practitioners refer to the "orthodox" form of Hinduism as Sanātana Dharma, "the eternal law" or the "eternal way".[70][71] Hindus regard Hinduism to be thousands of years old. The Puranic chronology, the timeline of events in ancient Indian history as narrated in the Mahabaratha, the Ramayana, and the Puranas, envisions an chronology of events related to Hinduism starting well before 3000 BCE. The Sanskrit word dharma has a much broader meaning than religion and is not its equivalent. All aspects of a Hindu life, namely acquiring wealth (artha), fulfillment of desires (kama), and attaining liberation (moksha), are part of dharma, which encapsulates the "right way of living" and eternal harmonious principles in their fulfillment.[72][73]
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+ According to the editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Sanātana Dharma historically referred to the "eternal" duties religiously ordained in Hinduism, duties such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings (ahimsa), purity, goodwill, mercy, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, generosity, and asceticism. These duties applied regardless of a Hindu's class, caste, or sect, and they contrasted with svadharma, one's "own duty", in accordance with one's class or caste (varna) and stage in life (puruṣārtha).[web 4] In recent years, the term has been used by Hindu leaders, reformers, and nationalists to refer to Hinduism. Sanatana dharma has become a synonym for the "eternal" truth and teachings of Hinduism, that transcend history and are "unchanging, indivisible and ultimately nonsectarian".[web 4]
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+ According to other scholars such as Kim Knott and Brian Hatcher, Sanātana Dharma refers to "timeless, eternal set of truths" and this is how Hindus view the origins of their religion. It is viewed as those eternal truths and tradition with origins beyond human history, truths divinely revealed (Shruti) in the Vedas – the most ancient of the world's scriptures.[74][4] To many Hindus, the Western term "religion" to the extent it means "dogma and an institution traceable to a single founder" is inappropriate for their tradition, states Hatcher. Hinduism, to them, is a tradition that can be traced at least to the ancient Vedic era.[4][75][note 15]
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+ Some have referred to Hinduism as the Vaidika dharma.[8] The word 'Vaidika' in Sanskrit means 'derived from or conformable to the Veda' or 'relating to the Veda'.[web 3] Traditional scholars employed the terms Vaidika and Avaidika, those who accept the Vedas as a source of authoritative knowledge and those who do not, to differentiate various Indian schools from Jainism, Buddhism and Charvaka. According to Klaus Klostermaier, the term Vaidika dharma is the earliest self-designation of Hinduism.[9][10] According to Arvind Sharma, the historical evidence suggests that "the Hindus were referring to their religion by the term vaidika dharma or a variant thereof" by the 4th-century CE.[77] According to Brian K. Smith "[i]t is 'debatable at the very least' as to whether the term Vaidika Dharma cannot, with the proper concessions to historical, cultural and ideological specificity, be comparable to and translated as 'Hinduism' or 'Hindu religion'."[7]
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+ According to Alexis Sanderson, the early Sanskrit texts differentiate between Vaidika, Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakta, Saura, Buddhist and Jaina traditions. However, the late 1st-millennium CE Indic consensus had "indeed come to conceptualize a complex entity corresponding to Hinduism as opposed to Buddhism and Jainism excluding only certain forms of antinomian Shakta-Shaiva" from its fold.[78] Some in the Mimamsa school of Hindu philosophy considered the Agamas such as the Pancaratrika to be invalid because it did not conform to the Vedas. Some Kashmiri scholars rejected the esoteric tantric traditions to be a part of Vaidika dharma.[78][79] The Atimarga Shaivism ascetic tradition, datable to about 500 CE, challenged the Vaidika frame and insisted that their Agamas and practices were not only valid, they were superior than those of the Vaidikas.[80] However, adds Sanderson, this Shaiva ascetic tradition viewed themselves as being genuinely true to the Vedic tradition and "held unanimously that the Śruti and Smṛti of Brahmanism are universally and uniquely valid in their own sphere, [...] and that as such they [Vedas] are man's sole means of valid knowledge [...]".[80]
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+ The term Vaidika dharma means a code of practice that is "based on the Vedas", but it is unclear what "based on the Vedas" really implies, states Julius Lipner.[75] The Vaidika dharma or "Vedic way of life", states Lipner, does not mean "Hinduism is necessarily religious" or that Hindus have a universally accepted "conventional or institutional meaning" for that term.[75] To many, it is as much a cultural term. Many Hindus do not have a copy of the Vedas nor have they ever seen or personally read parts of a Veda, like a Christian might relate to the Bible or a Muslim might to the Quran. Yet, states Lipner, "this does not mean that their [Hindus] whole life's orientation cannot be traced to the Vedas or that it does not in some way derive from it".[75]
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+ Though many religious Hindus implicitly acknowledge the authority of the Vedas, this acknowledgment is often "no more than a declaration that someone considers himself [or herself] a Hindu,"[81][note 16] and "most Indians today pay lip service to the Veda and have no regard for the contents of the text."[82] Some Hindus challenge the authority of the Vedas, thereby implicitly acknowledging its importance to the history of Hinduism, states Lipner.[75]
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+ Beginning in the 19th century, Indian modernists re-asserted Hinduism as a major asset of Indian civilisation,[56] meanwhile "purifying" Hinduism from its Tantric elements[85] and elevating the Vedic elements. Western stereotypes were reversed, emphasizing the universal aspects, and introducing modern approaches of social problems.[56] This approach had a great appeal, not only in India, but also in the west.[56] Major representatives of "Hindu modernism"[86] are Raja Rammohan Roy, Vivekananda, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Mahatma Gandhi.[87]
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+ Raja Rammohan Roy is known as the father of the Hindu Renaissance.[88] He was a major influence on Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), who, according to Flood, was "a figure of great importance in the development of a modern Hindu self-understanding and in formulating the West's view of Hinduism".[89] Central to his philosophy is the idea that the divine exists in all beings, that all human beings can achieve union with this "innate divinity",[86] and that seeing this divine as the essence of others will further love and social harmony.[86] According to Vivekananda, there is an essential unity to Hinduism, which underlies the diversity of its many forms.[86] According to Flood, Vivekananda's vision of Hinduism "is one generally accepted by most English-speaking middle-class Hindus today".[90] Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan sought to reconcile western rationalism with Hinduism, "presenting Hinduism as an essentially rationalistic and humanistic religious experience".[91]
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+ This "Global Hinduism"[92] has a worldwide appeal, transcending national boundaries[92] and, according to Flood, "becoming a world religion alongside Christianity, Islam and Buddhism",[92] both for the Hindu diaspora communities and for westerners who are attracted to non-western cultures and religions.[92] It emphasizes universal spiritual values such as social justice, peace and "the spiritual transformation of humanity".[92] It has developed partly due to "re-enculturation",[93] or the Pizza effect,[93] in which elements of Hindu culture have been exported to the West, gaining popularity there, and as a consequence also gained greater popularity in India.[93] This globalization of Hindu culture brought "to the West teachings which have become an important cultural force in western societies, and which in turn have become an important cultural force in India, their place of origin".[94]
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+ The definition of Hinduism in Indian Law is: "Acceptance of the Vedas with reverence; recognition of the fact that the means or ways to salvation are diverse; and realization of the truth that the number of gods to be worshipped is large".[95][96]
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+ The term Hinduism was coined in Western ethnography in the 18th century,[48][note 17] and refers to the fusion[note 5] or synthesis[note 6][23] of various Indian cultures and traditions,[24][note 8] with diverse roots[25][note 9] and no founder.[26] This Hindu synthesis emerged after the Vedic period, between ca. 500[27]–200[28] BCE and c. 300 CE,[27] in the period of the Second Urbanisation and the early classical period of Hinduism, when the Epics and the first Puranas were composed.[27][28] It flourished in the medieval period, with the decline of Buddhism in India.[29] Hinduism's tolerance to variations in belief and its broad range of traditions make it difficult to define as a religion according to traditional Western conceptions.[97]
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+ Some academics suggest that Hinduism can be seen as a category with "fuzzy edges" rather than as a well-defined and rigid entity. Some forms of religious expression are central to Hinduism and others, while not as central, still remain within the category. Based on this idea Ferro-Luzzi has developed a 'Prototype Theory approach' to the definition of Hinduism.[98]
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+ Hindu beliefs are vast and diverse, and thus Hinduism is often referred to as a family of religions rather than a single religion.[99] Within each religion in this family of religions, there are different theologies, practices, and sacred texts. This diversity has led to an array of descriptions for Hinduism. It has been described as henotheism,[100] monism,[101][102] polytheism, panentheism,[103] and monotheism.[104] Hinduism does not have a "unified system of belief encoded in a declaration of faith or a creed",[36] but is rather an umbrella term comprising the plurality of religious phenomena of India.[105] Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan mentions that "While fixed intellectual beliefs mark off one religion from another, Hinduism sets itself no such limits", a Hindu is ready to admit different points of view rather than believe in a "self certifying" absolute authority.[106] According to the Supreme Court of India,
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+ Unlike other religions in the World, the Hindu religion does not claim any one Prophet, it does not worship any one God, it does not believe in any one philosophic concept, it does not follow any one act of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not satisfy the traditional features of a religion or creed. It is a way of life and nothing more".[107]
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+ Part of the problem with a single definition of the term Hinduism is the fact that Hinduism does not have a founder.[108] It is a synthesis of various traditions,[109] the "Brahmanical orthopraxy, the renouncer traditions and popular or local traditions".[110]
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+ Theism is also difficult to use as a unifying doctrine for Hinduism, because while some Hindu philosophies postulate a theistic ontology of creation, other Hindus are or have been atheists.[111]
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+ Despite the differences, there is also a sense of unity.[112] Most Hindu traditions revere a body of religious or sacred literature, the Vedas,[113] although there are exceptions.[114] These texts are a reminder of the ancient cultural heritage and point of pride for Hindus,[115][116] with Louis Renou stating that "even in the most orthodox domains, the reverence to the Vedas has come to be a simple raising of the hat".[115][117]
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+ Halbfass states that, although Shaivism and Vaishnavism may be regarded as "self-contained religious constellations",[112] there is a degree of interaction and reference between the "theoreticians and literary representatives"[112] of each tradition that indicates the presence of "a wider sense of identity, a sense of coherence in a shared context and of inclusion in a common framework and horizon".[112]
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+ Brahmins played an essential role in the development of the post-Vedic Hindu synthesis, disseminating Vedic culture to local communities, and integrating local religiosity into the trans-regional Brahmanic culture.[118] In the post-Gupta period Vedanta developed in southern India, where orthodox Brahmanic culture and the Hindu culture were preserved,[119] building on ancient Vedic traditions while "accommoda[ting] the multiple demands of Hinduism."[120]
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+ The notion of common denominators for several religions and traditions of India further developed from 12th century CE.[121] Lorenzen traces the emergence of a "family resemblance", and what he calls as "beginnings of medieval and modern Hinduism" taking shape, at c. 300 – 600 CE, with the development of the early Puranas, and continuities with the earlier Vedic religion.[122] Lorenzen states that the establishment of a Hindu self-identity took place "through a process of mutual self-definition with a contrasting Muslim Other".[123] According to Lorenzen, this "presence of the Other"[123] is necessary to recognise the "loose family resemblance" among the various traditions and schools.[124]
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+ According to the Indologist Alexis Sanderson, before Islam arrived in India, the "Sanskrit sources differentiated Vaidika, Vaiṣṇava, Śaiva, Śākta, Saura, Buddhist, and Jaina traditions, but they had no name that denotes the first five of these as a collective entity over and against Buddhism and Jainism." This absence of a formal name, states Sanderson, does not mean that the corresponding concept of Hinduism did not exist. By late 1st-millennium CE, the concept of a belief and tradition distinct from Buddhism and Jainism had emerged.[125] This complex tradition accepted in its identity almost all of what is currently Hinduism, except certain antinomian tantric movements.[125] Some conservative thinkers of those times questioned whether certain Shaiva, Vaishnava and Shakta texts or practices were consistent with the Vedas, or were invalid in their entirety. Moderates then, and most orthoprax scholars later, agreed that though there are some variations, the foundation of their beliefs, the ritual grammar, the spiritual premises and the soteriologies were same. "This sense of greater unity", states Sanderson, "came to be called Hinduism".[125]
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+ According to Nicholson, already between the 12th and the 16th centuries "certain thinkers began to treat as a single whole the diverse philosophical teachings of the Upanishads, epics, Puranas, and the schools known retrospectively as the 'six systems' (saddarsana) of mainstream Hindu philosophy."[126] The tendency of "a blurring of philosophical distinctions" has also been noted by Burley.[127] Hacker called this "inclusivism"[113] and Michaels speaks of "the identificatory habit".[12] Lorenzen locates the origins of a distinct Hindu identity in the interaction between Muslims and Hindus,[128] and a process of "mutual self-definition with a contrasting Muslim other",[129][note 18] which started well before 1800.[130] Michaels notes:
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+ As a counteraction to Islamic supremacy and as part of the continuing process of regionalization, two religious innovations developed in the Hindu religions: the formation of sects and a historicization which preceded later nationalism [...] [S]aints and sometimes militant sect leaders, such as the Marathi poet Tukaram (1609–1649) and Ramdas (1608–1681), articulated ideas in which they glorified Hinduism and the past. The Brahmins also produced increasingly historical texts, especially eulogies and chronicles of sacred sites (Mahatmyas), or developed a reflexive passion for collecting and compiling extensive collections of quotations on various subjects.[131]
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+ This inclusivism[132] was further developed in the 19th and 20th centuries by Hindu reform movements and Neo-Vedanta,[133] and has become characteristic of modern Hinduism.[113]
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+ The notion and reports on "Hinduism" as a "single world religious tradition"[134] was popularised by 19th-century proselytizing missionaries and European Indologists, roles sometimes served by the same person, who relied on texts preserved by Brahmins (priests) for their information of Indian religions, and animist observations that the missionary Orientalists presumed was Hinduism.[134][68][135] These reports influenced perceptions about Hinduism. Some scholars[weasel words] state that the colonial polemical reports led to fabricated stereotypes where Hinduism was mere mystic paganism devoted to the service of devils,[note 19] while other scholars state that the colonial constructions influenced the belief that the Vedas, Bhagavad Gita, Manusmriti and such texts were the essence of Hindu religiosity, and in the modern association of 'Hindu doctrine' with the schools of Vedanta (in particular Advaita Vedanta) as paradigmatic example of Hinduism's mystical nature".[137][note 20] Pennington, while concurring that the study of Hinduism as a world religion began in the colonial era, disagrees that Hinduism is a colonial European era invention.[144] He states that the shared theology, common ritual grammar and way of life of those who identify themselves as Hindus is traceable to ancient times.[144][note 21]
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+ Prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include (but are not restricted to) Dharma (ethics/duties), Samsāra (the continuing cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth), Karma (action, intent and consequences), Moksha (liberation from samsara or liberation in this life), and the various Yogas (paths or practices).[17]
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+ Classical Hindu thought accepts four proper goals or aims of human life: Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. These are known as the Puruṣārthas:[14][15]
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+ Dharma is considered the foremost goal of a human being in Hinduism.[151] The concept Dharma includes behaviors that are considered to be in accord with rta, the order that makes life and universe possible,[152] and includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and "right way of living".[153] Hindu Dharma includes the religious duties, moral rights and duties of each individual, as well as behaviors that enable social order, right conduct, and those that are virtuous.[153] Dharma, according to Van Buitenen,[154] is that which all existing beings must accept and respect to sustain harmony and order in the world. It is, states Van Buitenen, the pursuit and execution of one's nature and true calling, thus playing one's role in cosmic concert.[154] The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad states it as:
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+ Nothing is higher than Dharma. The weak overcomes the stronger by Dharma, as over a king. Truly that Dharma is the Truth (Satya); Therefore, when a man speaks the Truth, they say, "He speaks the Dharma"; and if he speaks Dharma, they say, "He speaks the Truth!" For both are one.
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+ In the Mahabharata, Krishna defines dharma as upholding both this-worldly and other-worldly affairs. (Mbh 12.110.11). The word Sanātana means eternal, perennial, or forever; thus, Sanātana Dharma signifies that it is the dharma that has neither beginning nor end.[157]
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+ Artha is objective and virtuous pursuit of wealth for livelihood, obligations and economic prosperity. It is inclusive of political life, diplomacy and material well-being. The Artha concept includes all "means of life", activities and resources that enables one to be in a state one wants to be in, wealth, career and financial security.[158] The proper pursuit of artha is considered an important aim of human life in Hinduism.[159][160]
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+ Kāma (Sanskrit, Pali; Devanagari: काम) means desire, wish, passion, longing, pleasure of the senses, the aesthetic enjoyment of life, affection, or love, with or without sexual connotations.[161][162] In Hinduism, Kama is considered an essential and healthy goal of human life when pursued without sacrificing Dharma, Artha and Moksha.[163]
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+ Moksha (Sanskrit: मोक्ष mokṣa) or mukti (Sanskrit: मुक्ति) is the ultimate, most important goal in Hinduism. In one sense, Moksha is a concept associated with liberation from sorrow, suffering and saṃsāra (birth-rebirth cycle). A release from this eschatological cycle, in after life, particularly in theistic schools of Hinduism is called moksha.[164][154] In other schools of Hinduism, such as monistic, moksha is a goal achievable in current life, as a state of bliss through self-realization, of comprehending the nature of one's soul, of freedom and of "realizing the whole universe as the Self".[165][166]
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+ Karma translates literally as action, work, or deed,[167] and also refers to a Vedic theory of "moral law of cause and effect".[168][169] The theory is a combination of (1) causality that may be ethical or non-ethical; (2) ethicization, that is good or bad actions have consequences; and (3) rebirth.[170] Karma theory is interpreted as explaining the present circumstances of an individual with reference to his or her actions in the past. These actions and their consequences may be in a person's current life, or, according to some schools of Hinduism, in past lives.[170][171] This cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth is called samsara. Liberation from samsara through moksha is believed to ensure lasting happiness and peace.[172][173] Hindu scriptures teach that the future is both a function of current human effort derived from free will and past human actions that set the circumstances.[174]
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+ The ultimate goal of life, referred to as moksha, nirvana or samadhi, is understood in several different ways: as the realization of one's union with God; as the realization of one's eternal relationship with God; realization of the unity of all existence; perfect unselfishness and knowledge of the Self; as the attainment of perfect mental peace; and as detachment from worldly desires. Such realization liberates one from samsara, thereby ending the cycle of rebirth, sorrow and suffering.[175][176] Due to belief in the indestructibility of the soul,[177] death is deemed insignificant with respect to the cosmic self.[178]
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+ The meaning of moksha differs among the various Hindu schools of thought. For example, Advaita Vedanta holds that after attaining moksha a person knows their "soul, self" and identifies it as one with Brahman and everyone in all respects.[179][180] The followers of Dvaita (dualistic) schools, in moksha state, identify individual "soul, self" as distinct from Brahman but infinitesimally close, and after attaining moksha expect to spend eternity in a loka (heaven). To theistic schools of Hinduism, moksha is liberation from samsara, while for other schools such as the monistic school, moksha is possible in current life and is a psychological concept. According to Deutsche, moksha is transcendental consciousness to the latter, the perfect state of being, of self-realization, of freedom and of "realizing the whole universe as the Self".[165][179] Moksha in these schools of Hinduism, suggests Klaus Klostermaier,[180] implies a setting free of hitherto fettered faculties, a removing of obstacles to an unrestricted life, permitting a person to be more truly a person in the full sense; the concept presumes an unused human potential of creativity, compassion and understanding which had been blocked and shut out. Moksha is more than liberation from life-rebirth cycle of suffering (samsara); Vedantic school separates this into two: jivanmukti (liberation in this life) and videhamukti (liberation after death).[181][182]
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+ Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, and atheism among others;[183][184][web 5] and its concept of God is complex and depends upon each individual and the tradition and philosophy followed. It is sometimes referred to as henotheistic (i.e., involving devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of others), but any such term is an overgeneralization.[185]
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+ Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen?
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+ The Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) of the Rig Veda is one of the earliest texts[189] which "demonstrates a sense of metaphysical speculation" about what created the universe, the concept of god(s) and The One, and whether even The One knows how the universe came into being.[190][191] The Rig Veda praises various deities, none superior nor inferior, in a henotheistic manner.[192] The hymns repeatedly refer to One Truth and Reality. The "One Truth" of Vedic literature, in modern era scholarship, has been interpreted as monotheism, monism, as well as a deified Hidden Principles behind the great happenings and processes of nature.[193]
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+ Hindus believe that all living creatures have a soul. This soul – the spirit or true "self" of every person, is called the ātman. The soul is believed to be eternal.[194] According to the monistic/pantheistic (non-dualist) theologies of Hinduism (such as Advaita Vedanta school), this Atman is indistinct from Brahman, the supreme spirit.[195] The goal of life, according to the Advaita school, is to realise that one's soul is identical to supreme soul, that the supreme soul is present in everything and everyone, all life is interconnected and there is oneness in all life.[196][197][198] Dualistic schools (see Dvaita and Bhakti) understand Brahman as a Supreme Being separate from individual souls.[199] They worship the Supreme Being variously as Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva, or Shakti, depending upon the sect. God is called Ishvara, Bhagavan, Parameshwara, Deva or Devi, and these terms have different meanings in different schools of Hinduism.[200][201][202]
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+ Hindu texts accept a polytheistic framework, but this is generally conceptualized as the divine essence or luminosity that gives vitality and animation to the inanimate natural substances.[203] There is a divine in everything, human beings, animals, trees and rivers. It is observable in offerings to rivers, trees, tools of one's work, animals and birds, rising sun, friends and guests, teachers and parents.[203][204][205] It is the divine in these that makes each sacred and worthy of reverence. This seeing divinity in everything, state Buttimer and Wallin, makes the Vedic foundations of Hinduism quite distinct from Animism.[203] The animistic premise sees multiplicity, power differences and competition between man and man, man and animal, as well as man and nature. The Vedic view does not see this competition, rather sees a unifying divinity that connects everyone and everything.[203][206][207]
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+ The Hindu scriptures refer to celestial entities called Devas (or devī in feminine form; devatā used synonymously for Deva in Hindi), which may be translated into English as gods or heavenly beings.[note 22] The devas are an integral part of Hindu culture and are depicted in art, architecture and through icons, and stories about them are related in the scriptures, particularly in Indian epic poetry and the Puranas. They are, however, often distinguished from Ishvara, a personal god, with many Hindus worshipping Ishvara in one of its particular manifestations as their iṣṭa devatā, or chosen ideal.[208][209] The choice is a matter of individual preference,[210] and of regional and family traditions.[210][note 23] The multitude of Devas are considered as manifestations of Brahman.[note 24]
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+ The word avatar does not appear in the Vedic literature,[212] but appears in verb forms in post-Vedic literature, and as a noun particularly in the Puranic literature after the 6th century CE.[213] Theologically, the reincarnation idea is most often associated with the avatars of Hindu god Vishnu, though the idea has been applied to other deities.[214] Varying lists of avatars of Vishnu appear in Hindu scriptures, including the ten Dashavatara of the Garuda Purana and the twenty-two avatars in the Bhagavata Purana, though the latter adds that the incarnations of Vishnu are innumerable.[215] The avatars of Vishnu are important in Vaishnavism theology. In the goddess-based Shaktism tradition of Hinduism, avatars of the Devi are found and all goddesses are considered to be different aspects of the same metaphysical Brahman[216] and Shakti (energy).[217][218] While avatars of other deities such as Ganesha and Shiva are also mentioned in medieval Hindu texts, this is minor and occasional.[219]
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+ Both theistic and atheistic ideas, for epistemological and metaphysical reasons, are profuse in different schools of Hinduism. The early Nyaya school of Hinduism, for example, was non-theist/atheist,[220] but later Nyaya school scholars argued that God exists and offered proofs using its theory of logic.[221][222] Other schools disagreed with Nyaya scholars. Samkhya,[223] Mimamsa[224][note 25] and Carvaka schools of Hinduism, were non-theist/atheist, arguing that "God was an unnecessary metaphysical assumption".[225][web 6][226] Its Vaisheshika school started as another non-theistic tradition relying on naturalism and that all matter is eternal, but it later introduced the concept of a non-creator God.[227][228] The Yoga school of Hinduism accepted the concept of a "personal god" and left it to the Hindu to define his or her god.[229] Advaita Vedanta taught a monistic, abstract Self and Oneness in everything, with no room for gods or deity, a perspective that Mohanty calls, "spiritual, not religious".[230] Bhakti sub-schools of Vedanta taught a creator God that is distinct from each human being.[199]
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+ According to Graham Schweig, Hinduism has the strongest presence of the divine feminine in world religion from ancient times to the present.[231] The goddess is viewed as the heart of the most esoteric Saiva traditions.[232]
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+ Authority and eternal truths play an important role in Hinduism.[233] Religious traditions and truths are believed to be contained in its sacred texts, which are accessed and taught by sages, gurus, saints or avatars.[233] But there is also a strong tradition of the questioning of authority, internal debate and challenging of religious texts in Hinduism. The Hindus believe that this deepens the understanding of the eternal truths and further develops the tradition. Authority "was mediated through [...] an intellectual culture that tended to develop ideas collaboratively, and according to the shared logic of natural reason."[233] Narratives in the Upanishads present characters questioning persons of authority.[233] The Kena Upanishad repeatedly asks kena, 'by what' power something is the case.[233] The Katha Upanishad and Bhagavad Gita present narratives where the student criticizes the teacher's inferior answers.[233] In the Shiva Purana, Shiva questions Vishnu and Brahma.[233] Doubt plays a repeated role in the Mahabharata.[233] Jayadeva's Gita Govinda presents criticism via the character of Radha.[233]
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+ Hinduism has no central doctrinal authority and many practising Hindus do not claim to belong to any particular denomination or tradition.[234] Four major denominations are, however, used in scholarly studies: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Smartism.[235][236] These denominations differ primarily in the central deity worshipped, the traditions and the soteriological outlook.[237] The denominations of Hinduism, states Lipner, are unlike those found in major religions of the world, because Hindu denominations are fuzzy with individuals practicing more than one, and he suggests the term "Hindu polycentrism".[238]
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+ Vaishnavism is the devotional religious tradition that worships Vishnu[239] and his avatars, particularly Krishna and Rama.[240] The adherents of this sect are generally non-ascetic, monastic, oriented towards community events and devotionalism practices inspired by "intimate loving, joyous, playful" Krishna and other Vishnu avatars.[237] These practices sometimes include community dancing, singing of Kirtans and Bhajans, with sound and music believed by some to have meditative and spiritual powers.[241] Temple worship and festivals are typically elaborate in Vaishnavism.[242] The Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana, along with Vishnu-oriented Puranas provide its theistic foundations.[243] Philosophically, their beliefs are rooted in the dualism sub-schools of Vedantic Hinduism.[244][245]
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+ Shaivism is the tradition that focuses on Shiva. Shaivas are more attracted to ascetic individualism, and it has several sub-schools.[237] Their practices include Bhakti-style devotionalism, yet their beliefs lean towards nondual, monistic schools of Hinduism such as Advaita and Yoga.[235][241] Some Shaivas worship in temples, while others emphasize yoga, striving to be one with Shiva within.[246] Avatars are uncommon, and some Shaivas visualize god as half male, half female, as a fusion of the male and female principles (Ardhanarishvara). Shaivism is related to Shaktism, wherein Shakti is seen as spouse of Shiva.[235] Community celebrations include festivals, and participation, with Vaishnavas, in pilgrimages such as the Kumbh Mela.[247] Shaivism has been more commonly practiced in the Himalayan north from Kashmir to Nepal, and in south India.[248]
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+ Shaktism focuses on goddess worship of Shakti or Devi as cosmic mother,[237] and it is particularly common in northeastern and eastern states of India such as Assam and Bengal. Devi is depicted as in gentler forms like Parvati, the consort of Shiva; or, as fierce warrior goddesses like Kali and Durga. Followers of Shaktism recognize Shakti as the power that underlies the male principle. Shaktism is also associated with Tantra practices.[249] Community celebrations include festivals, some of which include processions and idol immersion into sea or other water bodies.[250]
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+ Smartism centers its worship simultaneously on all the major Hindu deities: Shiva, Vishnu, Shakti, Ganesha, Surya and Skanda.[251] The Smarta tradition developed during the (early) Classical Period of Hinduism around the beginning of the Common Era, when Hinduism emerged from the interaction between Brahmanism and local traditions.[252][253] The Smarta tradition is aligned with Advaita Vedanta, and regards Adi Shankara as its founder or reformer, who considered worship of God-with-attributes (Saguna Brahman) as a journey towards ultimately realizing God-without-attributes (nirguna Brahman, Atman, Self-knowledge).[254][255] The term Smartism is derived from Smriti texts of Hinduism, meaning those who remember the traditions in the texts.[235][256] This Hindu sect practices a philosophical Jnana yoga, scriptural studies, reflection, meditative path seeking an understanding of Self's oneness with God.[235][257]
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+ There are no census data available on demographic history or trends for the traditions within Hinduism.[258] Estimates vary on the relative number of adherents in the different traditions of Hinduism. According to a 2010 estimate by Johnson and Grim, the Vaishnavism tradition is the largest group with about 641 million or 67.6% of Hindus, followed by Shaivism with 252 million or 26.6%, Shaktism with 30 million or 3.2% and other traditions including Neo-Hinduism and Reform Hinduism with 25 million or 2.6%.[259] In contrast, according to Jones and Ryan, Shaivism is the largest tradition of Hinduism.[260]
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+ The ancient scriptures of Hinduism are in Sanskrit. These texts are classified into two: Shruti and Smriti. Shruti is apauruṣeyā, "not made of a man" but revealed to the rishis (seers), and regarded as having the highest authority, while the smriti are manmade and have secondary authority.[262] They are the two highest sources of dharma, the other two being Śiṣṭa Āchāra/Sadāchara (conduct of noble people) and finally Ātma tuṣṭi ("what is pleasing to oneself")[note 26]
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+ Hindu scriptures were composed, memorized and transmitted verbally, across generations, for many centuries before they were written down.[264][265] Over many centuries, sages refined the teachings and expanded the Shruti and Smriti, as well as developed Shastras with epistemological and metaphysical theories of six classical schools of Hinduism.
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+ Shruti (lit. that which is heard)[266] primarily refers to the Vedas, which form the earliest record of the Hindu scriptures, and are regarded as eternal truths revealed to the ancient sages (rishis).[267] There are four Vedas – Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. Each Veda has been subclassified into four major text types – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions), the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), the Brahmanas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (text discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge).[268][269][270] The first two parts of the Vedas were subsequently called the Karmakāṇḍa (ritualistic portion), while the last two form the Jñānakāṇḍa (knowledge portion, discussing spiritual insight and philosophical teachings).[271][272][273][274]
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+ The Upanishads are the foundation of Hindu philosophical thought, and have profoundly influenced diverse traditions.[275][276] Of the Shrutis (Vedic corpus), they alone are widely influential among Hindus, considered scriptures par excellence of Hinduism, and their central ideas have continued to influence its thoughts and traditions.[275][277] Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan states that the Upanishads have played a dominating role ever since their appearance.[278] There are 108 Muktikā Upanishads in Hinduism, of which between 10 and 13 are variously counted by scholars as Principal Upanishads.[279][280]
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+ The most notable of the Smritis ("remembered") are the Hindu epics and the Puranas. The epics consist of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The Bhagavad Gita is an integral part of the Mahabharata and one of the most popular sacred texts of Hinduism.[281] It is sometimes called Gitopanishad, then placed in the Shruti ("heard") category, being Upanishadic in content.[282] The Puranas, which started to be composed from c. 300 CE onward,[283] contain extensive mythologies, and are central in the distribution of common themes of Hinduism through vivid narratives. The Yoga Sutras is a classical text for the Hindu Yoga tradition, which gained a renewed popularity in the 20th century.[284]
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+ Since the 19th-century Indian modernists have re-asserted the 'Aryan origins' of Hinduism, "purifying" Hinduism from its Tantric elements[85] and elevating the Vedic elements. Hindu modernists like Vivekananda see the Vedas as the laws of the spiritual world, which would still exist even if they were not revealed to the sages.[285][286] In Tantric tradition, the Agamas refer to authoritative scriptures or the teachings of Shiva to Shakti,[287] while Nigamas refers to the Vedas and the teachings of Shakti to Shiva.[287] In Agamic schools of Hinduism, the Vedic literature and the Agamas are equally authoritative.[288][289]
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+ Most Hindus observe religious rituals at home.[291] The rituals vary greatly among regions, villages, and individuals. They are not mandatory in Hinduism. The nature and place of rituals is an individual's choice. Some devout Hindus perform daily rituals such as worshiping at dawn after bathing (usually at a family shrine, and typically includes lighting a lamp and offering foodstuffs before the images of deities), recitation from religious scripts, singing devotional hymns, yoga, meditation, chanting mantras and others.[292]
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+ Vedic rituals of fire-oblation (yajna) and chanting of Vedic hymns are observed on special occasions, such as a Hindu wedding.[293] Other major life-stage events, such as rituals after death, include the yajña and chanting of Vedic mantras.[web 7]
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+ The words of the mantras are "themselves sacred,"[294] and "do not constitute linguistic utterances."[295] Instead, as Klostermaier notes, in their application in Vedic rituals they become magical sounds, "means to an end."[note 27] In the Brahmanical perspective, the sounds have their own meaning, mantras are considered as "primordial rhythms of creation", preceding the forms to which they refer.[295] By reciting them the cosmos is regenerated, "by enlivening and nourishing the forms of creation at their base. As long as the purity of the sounds is preserved, the recitation of the mantras will be efficacious, irrespective of whether their discursive meaning is understood by human beings."[295][note 25]
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+ Major life stage milestones are celebrated as sanskara (saṃskāra, rites of passage) in Hinduism.[296][297] The rites of passage are not mandatory, and vary in details by gender, community and regionally.[298] Gautama Dharmasutras composed in about the middle of 1st millennium BCE lists 48 sanskaras,[299] while Gryhasutra and other texts composed centuries later list between 12 and 16 sanskaras.[296][300] The list of sanskaras in Hinduism include both external rituals such as those marking a baby's birth and a baby's name giving ceremony, as well as inner rites of resolutions and ethics such as compassion towards all living beings and positive attitude.[299]
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+ The major traditional rites of passage in Hinduism include[298] Garbhadhana (pregnancy), Pumsavana (rite before the fetus begins moving and kicking in womb), Simantonnayana (parting of pregnant woman's hair, baby shower), Jatakarman (rite celebrating the new born baby), Namakarana (naming the child), Nishkramana (baby's first outing from home into the world), Annaprashana (baby's first feeding of solid food), Chudakarana (baby's first haircut, tonsure), Karnavedha (ear piercing), Vidyarambha (baby's start with knowledge), Upanayana (entry into a school rite),[301][302] Keshanta and Ritusuddhi (first shave for boys, menarche for girls), Samavartana (graduation ceremony), Vivaha (wedding), Vratas (fasting, spiritual studies) and Antyeshti (cremation for an adult, burial for a child).[303] In contemporary times, there is regional variation among Hindus as to which of these sanskaras are observed; in some cases, additional regional rites of passage such as Śrāddha (ritual of feeding people after cremation) are practiced.[298][web 8]
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+ Bhakti refers to devotion, participation in and the love of a personal god or a representational god by a devotee.[web 9][304] Bhakti marga is considered in Hinduism as one of many possible paths of spirituality and alternative means to moksha.[305] The other paths, left to the choice of a Hindu, are Jnana marga (path of knowledge), Karma marga (path of works), Rāja marga (path of contemplation and meditation).[306][307]
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+ Bhakti is practiced in a number of ways, ranging from reciting mantras, japas (incantations), to individual private prayers within one's home shrine,[308] or in a temple or near a river bank, sometimes in the presence of an idol or image of a deity.[309][310] Hindu temples and domestic altars, states Lynn Foulston, are important elements of worship in contemporary theistic Hinduism.[311] While many visit a temple on a special occasion, most offer a brief prayer on an everyday basis at the domestic altar.[311] This bhakti is expressed in a domestic shrine which typically is a dedicated part of the home and includes the images of deities or the gurus the Hindu chooses.[311] Among Vaishnavism sub-traditions such as Swaminarayan, the home shrines can be elaborate with either a room dedicated to it or a dedicated part of the kitchen. The devotee uses this space for daily prayers or meditation, either before breakfast or after day's work.[312][313]
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+ Bhakti is sometimes private inside household shrines and sometimes practiced as a community. It may include Puja, Aarti,[314] musical Kirtan or singing Bhajan, where devotional verses and hymns are read or poems are sung by a group of devotees.[web 10][315] While the choice of the deity is at the discretion of the Hindu, the most observed traditions of Hindu devotionalism include Vaishnavism (Vishnu), Shaivism (Shiva) and Shaktism (Shakti).[316] A Hindu may worship multiple deities, all as henotheistic manifestations of the same ultimate reality, cosmic spirit and absolute spiritual concept called Brahman in Hinduism.[317][318][note 24]
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+ Bhakti marga, states Pechelis, is more than ritual devotionalism, it includes practices and spiritual activities aimed at refining one's state of mind, knowing god, participating in god, and internalizing god.[319][320] While Bhakti practices are popular and easily observable aspect of Hinduism, not all Hindus practice Bhakti, or believe in god-with-attributes (saguna Brahman).[321][322] Concurrent Hindu practices include a belief in god-without-attributes, and god within oneself.[323][324]
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+ Hindu festivals (Sanskrit: Utsava; literally: "to lift higher") are ceremonies that weave individual and social life to dharma.[325][326] Hinduism has many festivals throughout the year, where the dates are set by the lunisolar Hindu calendar, many coinciding with either the full moon (Holi) or the new moon (Diwali), often with seasonal changes.[327] Some festivals are found only regionally and they celebrate local traditions, while a few such as Holi and Diwali are pan-Hindu.[327][328]
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+ The festivals typically celebrate events from Hinduism, connoting spiritual themes and celebrating aspects of human relationships such as the Sister-Brother bond over the Raksha Bandhan (or Bhai Dooj) festival.[326][329] The same festival sometimes marks different stories depending on the Hindu denomination, and the celebrations incorporate regional themes, traditional agriculture, local arts, family get togethers, Puja rituals and feasts.[325][330]
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+ Some major regional or pan-Hindu festivals include:
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+ Many adherents undertake pilgrimages, which have historically been an important part of Hinduism and remain so today.[331] Pilgrimage sites are called Tirtha, Kshetra, Gopitha or Mahalaya.[332][333] The process or journey associated with Tirtha is called Tirtha-yatra.[334] According to the Hindu text Skanda Purana, Tirtha are of three kinds: Jangam Tirtha is to a place movable of a sadhu, a rishi, a guru; Sthawar Tirtha is to a place immovable, like Benaras, Haridwar, Mount Kailash, holy rivers; while Manas Tirtha is to a place of mind of truth, charity, patience, compassion, soft speech, soul.[335][336] Tīrtha-yatra is, states Knut A. Jacobsen, anything that has a salvific value to a Hindu, and includes pilgrimage sites such as mountains or forests or seashore or rivers or ponds, as well as virtues, actions, studies or state of mind.[337][338]
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+ Pilgrimage sites of Hinduism are mentioned in the epic Mahabharata and the Puranas.[339][340] Most Puranas include large sections on Tirtha Mahatmya along with tourist guides,[341] which describe sacred sites and places to visit.[342][343][344] In these texts, Varanasi (Benares, Kashi), Rameshwaram, Kanchipuram, Dwarka, Puri, Haridwar, Sri Rangam, Vrindavan, Ayodhya, Tirupati, Mayapur, Nathdwara, twelve Jyotirlinga and Shakti Peetha have been mentioned as particularly holy sites, along with geographies where major rivers meet (sangam) or join the sea.[345][340] Kumbhamela is another major pilgrimage on the eve of the solar festival Makar Sankranti. This pilgrimage rotates at a gap of three years among four sites: Prayag Raj at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, Haridwar near source of the Ganges, Ujjain on the Shipra river and Nasik on the bank of the Godavari river.[346] This is one of world's largest mass pilgrimage, with an estimated 40 to 100 million people attending the event.[346][347][web 11] At this event, they say a prayer to the sun and bathe in the river,[346] a tradition attributed to Adi Shankara.[348]
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+ Some pilgrimages are part of a Vrata (vow), which a Hindu may make for a number of reasons.[349][350] It may mark a special occasion, such as the birth of a baby, or as part of a rite of passage such as a baby's first haircut, or after healing from a sickness.[351][352] It may, states Eck, also be the result of prayers answered.[351] An alternative reason for Tirtha, for some Hindus, is to respect wishes or in memory of a beloved person after his or her death.[351] This may include dispersing their cremation ashes in a Tirtha region in a stream, river or sea to honor the wishes of the dead. The journey to a Tirtha, assert some Hindu texts, helps one overcome the sorrow of the loss.[351][note 28]
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+ Other reasons for a Tirtha in Hinduism is to rejuvenate or gain spiritual merit by traveling to famed temples or bathe in rivers such as the Ganges.[355][356][357] Tirtha has been one of the recommended means of addressing remorse and to perform penance, for unintentional errors and intentional sins, in the Hindu tradition.[358][359] The proper procedure for a pilgrimage is widely discussed in Hindu texts.[360] The most accepted view is that the greatest austerity comes from traveling on foot, or part of the journey is on foot, and that the use of a conveyance is only acceptable if the pilgrimage is otherwise impossible.[361]
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+ Hindu society has been categorised into four classes, called varnas. They are the Brahmins: Vedic teachers and priests; the Kshatriyas: warriors and kings; the Vaishyas: farmers and merchants; and the Shudras: servants and labourers.[362]
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+ The Bhagavad Gītā links the varna to an individual's duty (svadharma), inborn nature (svabhāva), and natural tendencies (guṇa).[363] The Manusmṛiti categorises the different castes.[web 12]
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+ Some mobility and flexibility within the varnas challenge allegations of social discrimination in the caste system, as has been pointed out by several sociologists,[364][365] although some other scholars disagree.[366] Scholars debate whether the so-called caste system is part of Hinduism sanctioned by the scriptures or social custom.[367][web 13][note 29] And various contemporary scholars have argued that the caste system was constructed by the British colonial regime.[368]
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+ A renunciant man of knowledge is usually called Varnatita or "beyond all varnas" in Vedantic works. The bhiksu is advised to not bother about the caste of the family from which he begs his food. Scholars like Adi Sankara affirm that not only is Brahman beyond all varnas, the man who is identified with Him also transcends the distinctions and limitations of caste.[369]
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+ In whatever way a Hindu defines the goal of life, there are several methods (yogas) that sages have taught for reaching that goal. Yoga is a Hindu discipline which trains the body, mind and consciousness for health, tranquility and spiritual insight. This is done through a system of postures and exercises to practise control of the body and mind.[370] Texts dedicated to Yoga include the Yoga Sutras, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Bhagavad Gita and, as their philosophical and historical basis, the Upanishads. Yoga is means, and the four major marga (paths) discussed in Hinduism are: Bhakti Yoga (the path of love and devotion), Karma Yoga (the path of right action), Rāja Yoga (the path of meditation), Jñāna Yoga (the path of wisdom)[371] An individual may prefer one or some yogas over others, according to his or her inclination and understanding. Practice of one yoga does not exclude others.
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+ Hinduism has a developed system of symbolism and iconography to represent the sacred in art, architecture, literature and worship. These symbols gain their meaning from the scriptures or cultural traditions. The syllable Om (which represents the Brahman and Atman) has grown to represent Hinduism itself, while other markings such as the Swastika sign represent auspiciousness,[373] and Tilaka (literally, seed) on forehead – considered to be the location of spiritual third eye,[374] marks ceremonious welcome, blessing or one's participation in a ritual or rite of passage.[375] Elaborate Tilaka with lines may also identify a devotee of a particular denomination. Flowers, birds, animals, instruments, symmetric mandala drawings, objects, idols are all part of symbolic iconography in Hinduism.[376][377]
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+ Hindus advocate the practice of ahiṃsā (nonviolence) and respect for all life because divinity is believed to permeate all beings, including plants and non-human animals.[378] The term ahiṃsā appears in the Upanishads,[379] the epic Mahabharata[380] and ahiṃsā is the first of the five Yamas (vows of self-restraint) in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.[381]
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+ In accordance with ahiṃsā, many Hindus embrace vegetarianism to respect higher forms of life. Estimates of strict lacto vegetarians in India (includes adherents of all religions) who never eat any meat, fish or eggs vary between 20% and 42%, while others are either less strict vegetarians or non-vegetarians.[382] Those who eat meat seek Jhatka (quick death) method of meat production, and dislike Halal (slow bled death) method, believing that quick death method reduces suffering to the animal.[383][384] The food habits vary with region, with Bengali Hindus and Hindus living in Himalayan regions, or river delta regions, regularly eating meat and fish.[385] Some avoid meat on specific festivals or occasions.[386] Observant Hindus who do eat meat almost always abstain from beef. The cow in Hindu society is traditionally identified as a caretaker and a maternal figure,[387] and Hindu society honours the cow as a symbol of unselfish giving.[388]
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+ There are many Hindu groups that have continued to abide by a strict vegetarian diet in modern times. Some adhere to a diet that is devoid of meat, eggs, and seafood.[389] Food affects body, mind and spirit in Hindu beliefs.[390][391] Hindu texts such as Śāṇḍilya Upanishad[392] and Svātmārāma[393][394] recommend Mitahara (eating in moderation) as one of the Yamas (virtuous self restraints). The Bhagavad Gita links body and mind to food one consumes in verses 17.8 through 17.10.[395]
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+ Some Hindus such as those belonging to the Shaktism tradition,[396] and Hindus in regions such as Bali and Nepal[397][398] practise animal sacrifice.[397] The sacrificed animal is eaten as ritual food.[399] In contrast, the Vaishnava Hindus abhor and vigorously oppose animal sacrifice.[400][401] The principle of non-violence to animals has been so thoroughly adopted in Hinduism that animal sacrifice is uncommon[402] and historically reduced to a vestigial marginal practice.[403]
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+ A Hindu temple is a house of god(s).[404] It is a space and structure designed to bring human beings and gods together, infused with symbolism to express the ideas and beliefs of Hinduism.[405] A temple incorporates all elements of Hindu cosmology, the highest spire or dome representing Mount Meru – reminder of the abode of Brahma and the center of spiritual universe,[406] the carvings and iconography symbolically presenting dharma, kama, artha, moksha and karma.[407][408] The layout, the motifs, the plan and the building process recite ancient rituals, geometric symbolisms, and reflect beliefs and values innate within various schools of Hinduism.[405] Hindu temples are spiritual destinations for many Hindus (not all), as well as landmarks for arts, annual festivals, rite of passage rituals, and community celebrations.[409][410]
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+ Hindu temples come in many styles, diverse locations, deploy different construction methods and are adapted to different deities and regional beliefs.[411] Two major styles of Hindu temples include the Gopuram style found in south India, and Nagara style found in north India.[412][413] Other styles include cave, forest and mountain temples.[414] Yet, despite their differences, almost all Hindu temples share certain common architectural principles, core ideas, symbolism and themes.[405]
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+ Many temples feature one or more idols (murtis). The idol and Grabhgriya in the Brahma-pada (the center of the temple), under the main spire, serves as a focal point (darsana, a sight) in a Hindu temple.[415] In larger temples, the central space typically is surrounded by an ambulatory for the devotee to walk around and ritually circumambulate the Purusa (Brahman), the universal essence.[405]
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+ Traditionally the life of a Hindu is divided into four Āśramas (phases or life stages; another meaning includes monastery).[416] The four ashramas are: Brahmacharya (student), Grihastha (householder), Vanaprastha (retired) and Sannyasa (renunciation).[417]
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+ Brahmacharya represents the bachelor student stage of life. Grihastha refers to the individual's married life, with the duties of maintaining a household, raising a family, educating one's children, and leading a family-centred and a dharmic social life.[417] Grihastha stage starts with Hindu wedding, and has been considered as the most important of all stages in sociological context, as Hindus in this stage not only pursued a virtuous life, they produced food and wealth that sustained people in other stages of life, as well as the offsprings that continued mankind.[418] Vanaprastha is the retirement stage, where a person hands over household responsibilities to the next generation, took an advisory role, and gradually withdrew from the world.[419][420] The Sannyasa stage marks renunciation and a state of disinterest and detachment from material life, generally without any meaningful property or home (ascetic state), and focused on Moksha, peace and simple spiritual life.[421][422]
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+ The Ashramas system has been one facet of the Dharma concept in Hinduism.[418] Combined with four proper goals of human life (Purusartha), the Ashramas system traditionally aimed at providing a Hindu with fulfilling life and spiritual liberation.[418] While these stages are typically sequential, any person can enter Sannyasa (ascetic) stage and become an Ascetic at any time after the Brahmacharya stage.[423] Sannyasa is not religiously mandatory in Hinduism, and elderly people are free to live with their families.[424]
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+ Some Hindus choose to live a monastic life (Sannyāsa) in pursuit of liberation (moksha) or another form of spiritual perfection.[18] Monastics commit themselves to a simple and celibate life, detached from material pursuits, of meditation and spiritual contemplation.[425] A Hindu monk is called a Sanyāsī, Sādhu, or Swāmi. A female renunciate is called a Sanyāsini. Renunciates receive high respect in Hindu society because of their simple ahimsa-driven lifestyle and dedication to spiritual liberation (moksha) – believed to be the ultimate goal of life in Hinduism.[422] Some monastics live in monasteries, while others wander from place to place, depending on donated food and charity for their needs.[426]
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+ James Mill (1773–1836), in his The History of British India (1817),[427] distinguished three phases in the history of India, namely Hindu, Muslim and British civilisations.[427][428] This periodisation has been criticised for the misconceptions it has given rise to.[429] Another periodisation is the division into "ancient, classical, medieval and modern periods".[430] An elaborate periodisation may be as follows:[12]
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+ Hinduism is a fusion[436][note 5] or synthesis[27][note 6] of various Indian cultures and traditions.[27][note 8] Among the roots of Hinduism are the historical Vedic religion of Iron Age India,[437] itself already the product of "a composite of the Indo-Aryan and Harappan cultures and civilizations",[438][note 31] but also the Sramana[439] or renouncer traditions[110] of northeast India,[439] and mesolithic[440] and neolithic[441] cultures of India, such as the religions of the Indus Valley Civilisation,[442] Dravidian traditions,[443] and the local traditions[110] and tribal religions.[444][note 32]
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+ This "Hindu synthesis" emerged after the Vedic period, between 500[27]-200[28] BCE and c. 300 CE,[27] the beginning of the "Epic and Puranic" c.q. "Preclassical" period,[27][28] and incorporated śramaṇic[28][445] and Buddhist influences[28][446] and the emerging bhakti tradition into the Brahmanical fold via the Smriti literature.[447][28] From northern India this "Hindu synthesis", and its societal divisions, spread to southern India and parts of Southeast Asia, as the Brahmanical culture was adopted by courts and rulers.[448] Hinduism co-existed for several centuries with Buddhism,[449] to finally gain the upper hand at all levels in the 8th century.[450][web 15][note 33]
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+ According to Eliot Deutsch, brahmins played an essential role in the development of this synthesis. They were bilingual and bicultural, speaking both their local language, and popular Sanskrit, which transcended regional differences in culture and language. They were able to "translate the mainstream of the large culture in terms of the village and the culture of the village in terms of the mainstream," thereby integrating the local culture into a larger whole.[118] While vaidikas and, to a lesser degree, smartas, remained faithfull to the traditional Vedic lore, a new brahminism arose which composed litanies for the local and regional gods, and became the ministers of these local traditions.[118]
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+ The earliest prehistoric religion in India that may have left its traces in Hinduism comes from mesolithic as observed in the sites such as the rock paintings of Bhimbetka rock shelters dating to a period of 30,000 BCE or older,[note 34] as well as neolithic times.[note 35] Some of the religious practices can be considered to have originated in 4000 BCE. Several tribal religions still exist, though their practices may not resemble those of prehistoric religions.[web 16]
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+ According to anthropologist Possehl, the Indus Valley Civilization "provides a logical, if somewhat arbitrary, starting point for some aspects of the later Hindu tradition".[452] The religion of this period included worship of a Great male god, which is compared to a proto-Shiva, and probably a Mother Goddess, that may prefigure Shakti. However these links of deities and practices of the Indus religion to later-day Hinduism are subject to both political contention and scholarly dispute.[453]
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+ The Vedic period is the period when the Vedas were composed, the liturgical texts of the religion of some of the Indo-Aryans[454][note 36] as codified at the Kuru Kingdom,[456] lasted from c. 1500 to 500 BCE.[457][note 37] The Indo-Aryans were semi-nomadic pastoralists[456] who migrated into north-western India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization.[455][459][460]
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+ The Puranic chronology, the timeline of events in ancient Indian history as narrated in the Mahabaratha, the Ramayana, and the Puranas, envisions an older chronology for the Vedic culture. In this view, the Vedas were received thousands of years ago. The Kurukshetra War, the background-scene of the Baghavad Gita, which may relate histoical events taking which took place ca. 1000 BCE at the heartland of Aryavarta,[456][461] is dated in this chronology at ca. 3100 BCE, while Gulshan (1940) dates the start of the reign of Manu Vaivasvata at 7350 BCE.[462] Some Indian writers and archaeologists have opposed the notion of a migration of Indo-Aryans into India and argued for an indigenous origin of the Indo-Aryans,[463][455][464] but though popular in India, these ideas have no support in academic mainstream scholarship.[note 38] The linguistic and religious data show clear links with Indo-European languages and religion,[465] while recent genetic research shows that people related to the Corded Ware culture arrived in India from the steppes via the Inner Asia Mountain Corridor in the second millennium BCE.[466][467][468][web 17][web 18] According to Singh, "The dominant view is that the Indo-Aryans came to the subcontinent as immigrants."[464]
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+ During the early Vedic period (c. 1500 – c. 1100 BCE[456]) Vedic tribes were pastoralists, wandering around in north-west India.[469] After 1100 BCE the Vedic tribes moved into the western Ganges Plain, adapting an agrarian lifestyle.[456][470][471] Rudimentary state-forms appeared, of which the Kuru-Pañcāla union was the most influential.[472][473] It was a tribal union, which developed into the first recorded state-level society in South Asia around 1000 BCE.[456] This, according to Witzel, decisively changed their religious heritage of the early Vedic period, collecting their ritual hymns into the Vedic collections, and shifting ritual exchange within a tribe to social exchange within the larger Kuru realm through complicated Srauta rituals.[474] In this period, states Samuel, emerged the Brahmana and Aranyaka layers of Vedic texts, which merged into the earliest Upanishads.[475] These texts began to ask the meaning of a ritual, adding increasing levels of philosophical and metaphysical speculation,[475] or "Hindu synthesis".[27]
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+ The Indo-Aryans brought with them their language[476] and religion.[477][478] The Vedic beliefs and practices of the pre-classical era were closely related to the hypothesised Proto-Indo-European religion,[479] and the Indo-Iranian religion.[480][note 39]
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+ The Vedic religion history is unclear and "heavily contested", states Samuel.[487] In the later Vedic period, it co-existed with local religions, such as the mother goddess worshipping Yaksha cults.[488][web 19] The Vedic was itself likely the product of "a composite of the indo-Aryan and Harappan cultures and civilizations".[438] David Gordon White cites three other mainstream scholars who "have emphatically demonstrated" that Vedic religion is partially derived from the Indus Valley Civilizations.[489][note 31] Their religion was further developed when they migrated into the Ganges Plain after c. 1100 BCE and became settled farmers,[456][491][492] further syncretising with the native cultures of northern India.[493]
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+ The composition of the Vedic literature began in the 2nd millennium BCE.[494][495] The oldest of these Vedic texts is the Rigveda, composed between c. 1500 – 1200 BCE,[496][497][498] though a wider approximation of c. 1700 – 1100 BCE has also been given.[499][500]
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+ The evidence suggests that the Vedic religion evolved in "two superficially contradictory directions", state Jamison and Witzel, namely an ever more "elaborate, expensive, and specialized system of rituals",[501] which survives in the present-day srauta-ritual,[502] and "abstraction and internalization of the principles underlying ritual and cosmic speculation" within oneself,[501][503] akin to the Jain and Buddhist tradition.
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+ The first half of the 1st millennium BCE was a period of great intellectual and social-cultural ferment in ancient India.[504][505] New ideas developed both in the Vedic tradition in the form of the Upanishads, and outside of the Vedic tradition through the Śramaṇa movements.[506][507][508][note 40] For example, prior to the birth of the Buddha and the Mahavira, and related Sramana movements, the Brahmanical tradition had questioned the meaning and efficacy of Vedic rituals,[510] then internalized and variously reinterpreted the Vedic fire rituals as ethical concepts such as Truth, Rite, Tranquility or Restraint.[511] The 9th and 8th centuries BCE witnessed the composition of the earliest Upanishads with such ideas.[511][512]:183 Other ancient Principal Upanishads were composed in the centuries that followed, forming the foundation of classical Hinduism and the Vedanta (conclusion of the Veda) literature.[513]
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+ Brahmanism, also called Brahminism, developed out of the Vedic religion, incorporating non-Vedic religious ideas, and expanding to a region stretching from the northwest Indian subcontinent to the Ganges valley.[514] Brahmanism included the Vedic corpus, but also post-Vedic texts such as the Dharmasutras and Dharmasastras, which gave prominence to the priestly (Brahmin) class of the society.[514] The emphasis on ritual and the dominant position of Brahmans developed as an ideology developed in the Kuru-Pancala realm, and expanded into a wider realm after the demish of the Kuru-Pancala realm.[456] It co-existed with local religions, such as the Yaksha cults.[493][515][516]
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+ Increasing urbanisation of India between 800 and 400 BCE, and possibly the spread of urban diseases, contributed to the rise of ascetic movements and of new ideas which challenged the orthodox Brahmanism.[517] These ideas led to Sramana movements, of which Mahavira (c. 549 – 477 BCE), proponent of Jainism, and Buddha (c. 563 – 483), founder of Buddhism, were the most prominent icons.[512]:184 According to Bronkhorst, the sramana culture arose in greater Magadha, which was Indo-European, but not Vedic. In this culture, kashtriyas were placed higher than Brahmins, and it rejected Vedic authority and rituals.[518][519] Geoffrey Samuel, following Tom Hopkins, also argues that the Gangetic plain, which gave rise to Jainism and Buddhism, incorporated a culture which was different form the Brahmanical orthodoxy practiced in the Kuru-Pancala region.[520]
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+ The ascetic tradition of Vedic period in part created the foundational theories of samsara and of moksha (liberation from samsara), which became characteristic for Hinduism, along with Buddhism and Jainism.[note 41][521]
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+ These ascetic concepts were adopted by schools of Hinduism as well as other major Indian religions, but key differences between their premises defined their further development. Hinduism, for example, developed its ideas with the premise that every human being has a soul (atman, self), while Buddhism developed with the premise that there is no soul or self.[522][523][524]
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+ The chronology of these religious concepts is unclear, and scholars contest which religion affected the other as well as the chronological sequence of the ancient texts.[525][526] Pratt notes that Oldenberg (1854–1920), Neumann (1865–1915) and Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) believed that the Buddhist canon had been influenced by Upanishads, while la Vallee Poussin thinks the influence was nihil, and "Eliot and several others insist that on some points such as the existence of soul or self the Buddha was directly antithetical to the Upanishads".[527][note 42]
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+ The post-Vedic period of the Second Urbanisation saw a decline of Brahmanism.[529][530] At the end of the Vedic period, the meaning of the words of the Vedas had become obscure, and was perceived as "a fixed sequence of sounds"[531][note 43] with a magical power, "means to an end."[note 44] With the growth of cities, which treatened the income and patronage of the rural Brahmins; the rise of Buddhism; and the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great (327-325 BCE), the rise of the Mauryan Empire (322-185 BCE), and the Saka invasions and rule of northwestern India (2nd c. BC - 4th c. CE), Brahmanism faced a grave threat to its existence.[532][533] In some later texts, Northwest-India (which earlier texts consider as part of Aryavarta) is even seen as "impure", probably due to invasions. The Karnaparva 43.5-8 states that those who live on the Sindhu and the five rivers of the Punjab are impure and dharmabahya.
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+ From about 500 BCE through about 300 CE, the Vedic-Brahmanic synthesis or "Hindu synthesis" continued.[27] Classical Hindu and Sramanic (particularly Buddhist) ideas spread within Indian subcontinent, as well outside India such as in Central Asia,[534] and the parts of Southeast Asia (coasts of Indonesia and peninsular Thailand).[note 45][535]
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+ The decline of Brahmanism was overcome by providing new services[536] and incorporating the non-Vedic Indo-Aryan relgious heritage of the eastern Ganges plain and local religious traditions, giving rise to contemporary Hinduism.[532] The "Hindu synthesis" or "Brahmanical synthesis"[27][28] incorporated Sramanic and Buddhist influences[28][446][which?] into the "Brahmanical fold" via the Smriti ("remembered") literature.[447][28] According to Embree, several other religious traditions had existed side by side with the Vedic religion. These indigenous religions "eventually found a place under the broad mantle of the Vedic religion".[537] The Smriti texts of the period between 200 BCE-100 CE affirmed the authority of the Vedas. The acceptance of the ideas in the Vedas and Upanishads became a central criterium for defining Hinduism, while the heterodox movements rejected those ideas.[538]
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+ The major Sanskrit epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, which belong to the Smriti, were compiled over a protracted period during the late centuries BCE and the early centuries CE.[447][web 20] These are legendary dialogues interspersed with philosophical treatises. The Bhagavad Gita was composed in this period and consolidated diverse philosophies and soteriological ideas.[539]
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+ During this period, the foundational texts of several schools of Hindu philosophy were formally written down, including Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Purva-Mimamsa and Vedanta.[540] The Smriti literature of Hinduism, particularly the Sutras, as well as other Hindu texts such as the Arthashastra and Sushruta Samhita were also written or expanded during this period.[447][541]
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+ Many influential Yoga Upanishads, states Gavin Flood, were composed before the 3rd century CE.[542][543] Seven Sannyasa Upanishads of Hinduism were composed between the last centuries of the 1st millennium BCE and before the 3rd century CE.[544][545] All these texts describe Hindu renunciation and monastic values, and express strongly Advaita Vedanta tradition ideas. This, state Patrick Olivelle and other scholars, is likely because the monasteries of Advaita tradition of Hinduism had become well established in ancient times.[546][547][548] The first version of Natyasastra – a Hindu text on performance arts that integrates Vedic ideology – was also completed before the 2nd century CE.[549][550]
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+ During the Gupta period, the first stone and cave Hindu temples dedicated to Hindu deities were built, some of which have survived into the modern era.[551][note 46] Numerous monasteries and universities were also built during the Gupta dynasty era, which supported Vedic and non-Vedic studies, including the famed Nalanda.[553][554]
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+ The first version of early Puranas, likely composed between 250 and 500 CE, show continuities with the Vedic religion, but also an expanded mythology of Vishnu, Shiva and Devi (goddess).[555] The Puranas were living texts that were revised over time,[556] and Lorenzen suggests these texts may reflect the beginnings of "medieval Hinduism".[122]
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+ After the end of the Gupta Empire, power became decentralised in India. The disintegration of central power also led to regionalisation of religiosity, and religious rivalry.[557] Rural and devotional movements arose within Hinduism, along with Shaivism, Vaisnavism, Bhakti and Tantra,[557] that competed with each other, as well as with numerous sects of Buddhism and Jainism.[557][558] Buddhism declined, though many of its ideas, and even the Buddha himself, were absorbed into certain Brahmanical traditions.[559]
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+ Srauta rituals declined in India and were replaced with Buddhist and Hindu initiatory rituals for royal courts.[560] Over time, some Buddhist practices were integrated into Hinduism, monumental Hindu temples were built in South Asia and Southeast Asia,[561] while Vajrayana Buddhism literature developed as a result of royal courts sponsoring both Buddhism and Saivism.[562]</ref>
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+ The first edition of many Puranas were composed in this period. Examples include Bhagavata Purana and Vishnu Purana with legends of Krishna,[563] while Padma Purana and Kurma Purana expressed reverence for Vishnu, Shiva and Shakti with equal enthusiasm;[564] all of them included topics such as Yoga practice and pilgrimage tour guides to Hindu holy sites.[565][566] Early colonial era orientalists proposed that the Puranas were religious texts of medieval Hinduism.[567] However, modern era scholars, such as Urs App, Ronald Inden and Ludo Rocher state that this is highly misleading because these texts were continuously revised, exist in numerous very different versions and are too inconsistent to be religious texts.[567][568][569]
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+ Bhakti ideas centered around loving devotion to Vishnu and Shiva with songs and music, were pioneered in this period by the Alvars and Nayanars of South India.[570][571] Major Hinduism scholars of this period included Adi Shankara, Maṇḍana-Miśra, Padmapada and Sureśvara of the Advaita schools;[572] Śabara, Vatsyayana and Samkarasvamin of Nyaya-Vaisesika schools; Mathara and Yuktidipika (author unknown) of Samkhya-Yoga; Bhartrhari, Vasugupta and Abhinavagupta of Kashmir Shaivism, and Ramanuja of Vishishtadvaita school of Hinduism (Sri Vaishnavism).[573][web 21][574]
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+ The Islamic rule period witnessed Hindu-Muslim confrontation and violence,[575][576] but "violence did not normally characterize the relations of Muslim and Hindu."[577][578] Enslavement of non-Muslims, especially Hindus in India, was part of the Muslim raids and conquests.[579][580] After the 14th century slavery become less common[581] and in 1562 "Akbar abolished the practice of enslaving the families of war captives."[582] Akbar recognized Hinduism, protected Hindu temples, and abolished Jizya (head taxes) against Hindus.[580][583] Occasionally, Muslim rulers of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, before and after Akbar, from the 12th century to the 18th century, destroyed Hindu temples (eg. Kesavadeva Temple was destroyed at Mathura at Eidgah was built,[584][585] Bindumadhava temple was destroyed and Alamgir Mosque was built[586][587][589][note 47]) and persecuted non-Muslims.
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+ Though Islam came to Indian subcontinent in the early 7th century with the advent of Arab traders, it started impacting Indian religions after the 10th century, and particularly after the 12th century with the establishment and then expansion of Islamic rule.[590][591] During this period Buddhism declined rapidly, and a distinct Indo-Islamic culture emerged.[592] Under Akbar an "intriguing blend of Perso-Islamic and Rajput-Hindu traditions became manifest."[593] Nevertheless, many orthodox ulamas ("learned Islamic jurists") opposed the rapprochement of Hinduism and Islam,[593] and the two merely co-existed,[594] although there was more accommodation at the peasantry level of Indian society.[594]
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+ According to Hardy, the Muslim rulers were not concerned with the number of converts, since the stability and continuity of their regime did not depend on the number of Muslims.[595] In general, religious conversion was a gradual process, with some converts attracted to pious Muslim saints, while others converted to Islam to gain religious zijia tax relief on Hindus, land grant, marriage partners, social and economic advancement,[596] or freedom from slavery.[597] In border regions such as the Punjab and eastern Bengal, the share of Muslims grew as large as 70% to 90% of the population, whereas in the heartland of Muslim rule, the upper Gangetic Plain, the Muslims constituted only 10 to 15% of the population.[note 48]
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+ Between the 14th and 18th century, Hinduism was revived in certain provinces of India under two powerful states, viz. Vijayanagar and Maratha. In the 14th and 15th centuries Southern India saw the rise of the Hindu Vijayanagar Empire, which served as a barrier against invasion by the Muslim sultanates of the north, and it fostered the reconstruction of Hindu life and administration.[web 22] Vidyaranya, also known as Madhava, who was the 12th Jagadguru of the Śringeri Śarada Pītham from 1380–6,[598] and a minister in the Vijayanagara Empire,[599] helped establish Shankara as a rallying symbol of values, and helped spread historical and cultural influence of Shankara's Vedanta philosophies.[600][601] The Hindu Maratha Confederacy rose to power in the 18th century and ended up overthrowing Muslim power in India[602][603]
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+ Another Hindu polity was the Eastern Ganga and Surya, which ruled much of present-day Odisha (historically known as Kalinga) from 11th century till mid-16th century CE. During the 13th and 14th centuries, when large parts of India were under the rule of Muslim powers, an independent Kalinga became a stronghold of Hindu religion, philosophy, art, and architecture. The Eastern Ganga rulers were great patrons of religion and the arts, and the temples they built are considered among the masterpieces of Hindu architecture.[604][605]
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+ Hinduism underwent profound changes, aided in part by teachers such as Ramanuja, Madhva, and Chaitanya.[606] Tantra disappeared in northern India, partly due to Muslim rule,[607] while the Bhakti movement grew, with followers engaging in emotional, passionate and community-oriented devotional worship, participating in saguna or nirguna Brahman ideologies.[608][606][609] According to Nicholson, already between the 12th and the 16th century, "certain thinkers began to treat as a single whole the diverse philosophical teachings of the Upanishads, epics, Puranas, and the schools known retrospectively as the 'six systems' (saddarsana) of mainstream Hindu philosophy."[126][note 49] Michaels notes that a historicization emerged which preceded later nationalism, articulating ideas which glorified Hinduism and the past.[131]
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+ With the onset of the British Raj, the colonization of India by the British, there also started a Hindu Renaissance in the 19th century, which profoundly changed the understanding of Hinduism in both India and the west.[610] Indology as an academic discipline of studying Indian culture from a European perspective was established in the 19th century, led by scholars such as Max Müller and John Woodroffe. They brought Vedic, Puranic and Tantric literature and philosophy to Europe and the United States. Western orientalist searched for the "essence" of the Indian religions, discerning this in the Vedas,[611] and meanwhile creating the notion of "Hinduism" as a unified body of religious praxis[612] and the popular picture of 'mystical India'.[612][610] This idea of a Vedic essence was taken over by Hindu reform movements as the Brahmo Samaj, which was supported for a while by the Unitarian Church,[613] together with the ideas of Universalism and Perennialism, the idea that all religions share a common mystic ground.[614] This "Hindu modernism", with proponents like Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Radhakrishnan, became central in the popular understanding of Hinduism.[615][616][617][618][56]
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+ Influential 20th-century Hindus were Ramana Maharshi, B.K.S. Iyengar, Paramahansa Yogananda, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Srila Prabhupada (founder of ISKCON), Sri Chinmoy, Swami Rama and others who translated, reformulated and presented Hinduism's foundational texts for contemporary audiences in new iterations, raising the profiles of Yoga and Vedanta in the West and attracting followers and attention in India and abroad.
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+ Hindu practices such as Yoga, Ayurvedic health, Tantric sexuality through Neotantra and the Kama Sutra have spread beyond Hindu communities and have been accepted by several non-Hindus:
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+ Hinduism is attracting Western adherents through the affiliated practice of yoga. Yoga centers in the West—which generally advocate vegetarianism—attract young, well-educated Westerners who are drawn by yoga's benefits for the physical and emotional health; there they are introduced to the Hindu philosophical system taught by most yoga teachers, known as Vedanta.[619]
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+ It is estimated that around 30 million Americans and 5 million Europeans regularly practice some form of Hatha Yoga.[620] In Australia, the number of practitioners is about 300,000.[web 23] In New Zealand the number is also around 300,000.[web 24]
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+ In the 20th century, Hinduism also gained prominence as a political force and a source for national identity in India. With origins traced back to the establishment of the Hindu Mahasabha in the 1910s, the movement grew with the formulation and development of the Hindutva ideology in the following decades; the establishment of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1925; and the entry, and later success, of RSS offshoots Jana Sangha and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in electoral politics in post-independence India.[621] Hindu religiosity plays an important role in the nationalist movement.[622][note 50][note 51]
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+ Hinduism is a major religion in India. Hinduism was followed by around 79.8% of the country's population of 1.21 billion (2011 census) (960 million adherents).[web 25] Other significant populations are found in Nepal (23 million), Bangladesh (15 million) and the Indonesian island of Bali (3.9 million).[627] The majority of the Vietnamese Cham people also follow Hinduism, with the largest proportion in Ninh Thuận Province.[628]
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+ Countries with the greatest proportion of Hindus:
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+ Demographically, Hinduism is the world's third largest religion, after Christianity and Islam.[web 40][629]
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+ In the modern era, religious conversion from and to Hinduism has been a controversial subject. Some state the concept of missionary conversion, either way, is anathema to the precepts of Hinduism.[631]
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+ Religious conversion to Hinduism has a long history outside India. Merchants and traders of India, particularly from the Indian peninsula, carried their religious ideas, which led to religious conversions to Hinduism in southeast Asia.[632][633][634] Within India, archeological and textual evidence such as the 2nd-century BCE Heliodorus pillar suggest that Greeks and other foreigners converted to Hinduism.[635][636] The debate on proselytization and religious conversion between Christianity, Islam and Hinduism is more recent, and started in the 19th century.[637][638][note 52]
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+ Religious leaders of some Hindu reform movements such as the Arya Samaj launched Shuddhi movement to proselytize and reconvert Muslims and Christians back to Hinduism,[642][643] while those such as the Brahmo Samaj suggested Hinduism to be a non-missionary religion.[631] All these sects of Hinduism have welcomed new members to their group, while other leaders of Hinduism's diverse schools have stated that given the intensive proselytization activities from missionary Islam and Christianity, this "there is no such thing as proselytism in Hinduism" view must be re-examined.[631][642][644]
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+ The appropriateness of conversion from major religions to Hinduism, and vice versa, has been and remains an actively debated topic in India,[645][646][647] and in Indonesia.[648]
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+ Hinduism
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+ Related systems and religions
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+ Subnotes
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+ Introductory
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+ Origins
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+ Texts
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+ Research on Hinduism
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+ Audio on Hinduism
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+ In monotheistic thought, God is conceived of as the supreme being, creator deity, and principal object of faith.[1] God is usually conceived as being omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (all-present) and as having an eternal and necessary existence. These attributes are used either in way of analogy or are taken literally. God is most often held to be incorporeal (immaterial).[1][2][3] Incorporeality and corporeality of God are related to conceptions of transcendence (being outside nature) and immanence (being in nature) of God, with positions of synthesis such as the "immanent transcendence".
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+ Some religions describe God without reference to gender, while others or their translations use terminology that is gender-specific and gender-biased.
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+ God has been conceived as either personal or impersonal. In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, while in deism, God is the creator, but not the sustainer, of the universe. In pantheism, God is the universe itself. In atheism, there is an absence of belief in God. In agnosticism, the existence of God is deemed unknown or unknowable. God has also been conceived as the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent".[1] Many notable philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God.[4]
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+ Monotheists refer to their gods using names prescribed by their respective religions, with some of these names referring to certain cultural ideas about their god's identity and attributes. In the ancient Egyptian era of Atenism, possibly the earliest recorded monotheistic religion, this deity was called Aten,[5] premised on being the one "true" Supreme Being and creator of the universe.[6] In the Hebrew Bible and Judaism, Elohim, Adonai, YHWH (Hebrew: יהוה‎) and other names are used as the names of God. Yahweh and Jehovah, possible vocalizations of YHWH, are used in Christianity. In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, God, coexisting in three "persons", is called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Islam, the name Allah is used, while Muslims also have a multitude of titular names for God. In Hinduism, Brahman is often considered a monistic concept of God.[7] In Chinese religion, Shangdi is conceived as the progenitor (first ancestor) of the universe, intrinsic to it and constantly bringing order to it. Other religions have names for the concept of God, including Baha in the Bahá'í Faith,[8] Waheguru in Sikhism,[9] Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa in Balinese Hinduism,[10] and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism.[11]
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+ The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic * ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form * ǵhu-tó-m was likely based on the root * ǵhau(ə)-, which meant either "to call" or "to invoke".[12] The Germanic words for God were originally neuter—applying to both genders—but during the process of the Christianization of the Germanic peoples from their indigenous Germanic paganism, the words became a masculine syntactic form.[13]
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15
+ In the English language, capitalization is used for names by which a god is known, including 'God'.[14] Consequently, the capitalized form of god is not used for multiple gods (polytheism) or when used to refer to the generic idea of a deity.[15][16]
16
+ The English word God and its counterparts in other languages are normally used for any and all conceptions and, in spite of significant differences between religions, the term remains an English translation common to all. The same holds for Hebrew El, but in Judaism, God is also given a proper name, the tetragrammaton YHWH, in origin possibly the name of an Edomite or Midianite deity, Yahweh.
17
+ In many translations of the Bible, when the word LORD is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton.[17]
18
+
19
+ Allāh (Arabic: الله‎) is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews meaning "The God" (with the first letter capitalized), while "ʾilāh" (Arabic: إِلَٰه‎, plural “`āliha” آلِهَة) is the term used for a deity or a god in general.[18][19][20]
20
+
21
+ God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the personal nature of God, with early references to his name as Krishna-Vasudeva in Bhagavata or later Vishnu and Hari.[21]
22
+
23
+ Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism. "Mazda", or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå, reflects Proto-Iranian *Mazdāh (female). It is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhā, means "intelligence" or "wisdom". Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian *mazdhā-, from Proto-Indo-European mn̩sdʰeh1, literally meaning "placing (dʰeh1) one's mind (*mn̩-s)", hence "wise".[22]
24
+
25
+ Waheguru (Punjabi: vāhigurū) is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God. It means "Wonderful Teacher" in the Punjabi language. Vāhi (a Middle Persian borrowing) means "wonderful" and guru (Sanskrit: guru) is a term denoting "teacher". Waheguru is also described by some as an experience of ecstasy which is beyond all descriptions. The most common usage of the word "Waheguru" is in the greeting Sikhs use with each other:
26
+
27
+ Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh
28
+ Wonderful Lord's Khalsa, Victory is to the Wonderful Lord.
29
+
30
+ Baha, the "greatest" name for God in the Baha'i faith, is Arabic for "All-Glorious".
31
+
32
+ There is no clear consensus on the nature or the existence of God.[23] The Abrahamic conceptions of God include the monotheistic definition of God in Judaism, the trinitarian view of Christians, and the Islamic concept of God.
33
+
34
+ There were also various conceptions of God in the ancient Greco-Roman world, such as Aristotle's view of an unmoved mover, the Neoplatonic concept of the One and the pantheistic God of Stoic Physics.
35
+
36
+ The dharmic religions differ in their view of the divine: views of God in Hinduism vary by region, sect, and caste, ranging from monotheistic to polytheistic. Many polytheistic religions share the idea of a creator deity, although having a name other than "God" and without all of the other roles attributed to a singular God by monotheistic religions. Sikhism is sometimes seen as being pantheistic about God, see: God in Sikhism.
37
+
38
+ Śramaṇa religions are generally non-creationist, while also holding that there divine beings (called Devas in Buddhism and Jainism) of limited power and lifespan. Jainism has generally rejected creationism, holding that soul substances (Jīva) are uncreated and that time is beginningless.[24] Depending on one's interpretation and tradition, Buddhism can be conceived as being either non-theistic, trans-theistic, pantheistic, or polytheistic. However, Buddhism has generally rejected the specific monotheistic view of a Creator God. The Buddha criticizes the theory of creationism in the early buddhist texts.[25][26] Also, the major Indian Buddhist philosophers, such as such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dharmakirti and Buddhaghosa, consistently critiqued Creator God views put forth by Hindu thinkers.[27][28][29]
39
+
40
+ Monotheists believe that there is only one god, and may also believe this god is worshipped in different religions under different names. The view that all theists actually worship the same god, whether they know it or not, is especially emphasized in the Bahá'í Faith, Hinduism[30] and Sikhism.[31]
41
+
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+ In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity describes God as one God in three divine Persons (each of the three Persons is God himself). The Most Holy Trinity comprises[32] God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. In the past centuries, this fundamental mystery of the Christian faith was also summarized by the Latin formula Sancta Trinitas, Unus Deus (Holy Trinity, Unique God), reported in the Litanias Lauretanas.
43
+
44
+ Islam's most fundamental concept is tawhid meaning "oneness" or "uniqueness". God is described in the Quran as: "He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him."[33][34] Muslims repudiate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, comparing it to polytheism. In Islam, God is transcendent and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Thus, Muslims are not iconodules, and are not expected to visualize God.[35]
45
+
46
+ Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities.[36]
47
+
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+ Theism generally holds that God exists realistically, objectively, and independently of human thought; that God created and sustains everything; that God is omnipotent and eternal; and that God is personal and interacting with the universe through, for example, religious experience and the prayers of humans.[37] Theism holds that God is both transcendent and immanent; thus, God is simultaneously infinite and, in some way, present in the affairs of the world.[38] Not all theists subscribe to all of these propositions, but each usually subscribes to some of them (see, by way of comparison, family resemblance).[37] Catholic theology holds that God is infinitely simple and is not involuntarily subject to time. Most theists hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, although this belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Some theists ascribe to God a self-conscious or purposeful limiting of omnipotence, omniscience, or benevolence. Open Theism, by contrast, contends that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future. Theism is sometimes used to refer in general to any belief in a god or gods, i.e., monotheism or polytheism.[39][40]
49
+
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+ Deism holds that God is wholly transcendent: God exists, but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it.[38] In this view, God is not anthropomorphic, and neither answers prayers nor produces miracles. Common in Deism is a belief that God has no interest in humanity and may not even be aware of humanity. Pandeism combines Deism with Pantheistic beliefs.[41][42][43] Pandeism is proposed to explain as to Deism why God would create a universe and then abandon it,[44] and as to Pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe.[44][45]
51
+
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+ Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God, whereas Panentheism holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe.[46] It is also the view of the Liberal Catholic Church; Theosophy; some views of Hinduism except Vaishnavism, which believes in panentheism; Sikhism; some divisions of Neopaganism and Taoism, along with many varying denominations and individuals within denominations. Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, paints a pantheistic/panentheistic view of God—which has wide acceptance in Hasidic Judaism, particularly from their founder The Baal Shem Tov—but only as an addition to the Jewish view of a personal god, not in the original pantheistic sense that denies or limits persona to God.[citation needed]
53
+
54
+ Dystheism, which is related to theodicy, is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the problem of evil. One such example comes from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, in which Ivan Karamazov rejects God on the grounds that he allows children to suffer.[47]
55
+
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+ In modern times, some more abstract concepts have been developed, such as process theology and open theism. The contemporaneous French philosopher Michel Henry has however proposed a phenomenological approach and definition of God as phenomenological essence of Life.[48]
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+
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+ God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent".[1] These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides,[49] Augustine of Hippo,[49] and Al-Ghazali,[4] respectively.
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+
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+ Non-theist views about God also vary. Some non-theists avoid the concept of God, whilst accepting that it is significant to many; other non-theists understand God as a symbol of human values and aspirations. The nineteenth-century English atheist Charles Bradlaugh declared that he refused to say "There is no God", because "the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation";[50] he said more specifically that he disbelieved in the Christian god. Stephen Jay Gould proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural, such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non-empirical and are the proper domain of theology. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world.[51]
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+
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+ Another view, advanced by Richard Dawkins, is that the existence of God is an empirical question, on the grounds that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference."[52] Carl Sagan argued that the doctrine of a Creator of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could disprove the existence of a Creator (not necessarily a God) would be the discovery that the universe is infinitely old.[53]
63
+
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+ Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their book, The Grand Design, that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Both authors claim however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.[54]
65
+
66
+ Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine or the supernatural exist—are unknown and perhaps unknowable.[55][56][57]
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+
68
+ Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[58][59] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities, although it can be defined as a lack of belief in the existence of any deities, rather than a positive belief in the nonexistence of any deities.[60]
69
+
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+ Pascal Boyer argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much like people. The construction of gods and spirits like persons is one of the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from Greek mythology, which is, in his opinion, more like a modern soap opera than other religious systems.[61]
71
+ Bertrand du Castel and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' epistemology in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries.[62]
72
+ Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human features onto non-human aspects of the world because it makes those aspects more familiar. Sigmund Freud also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father.[63]
73
+
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+ Likewise, Émile Durkheim was one of the earliest to suggest that gods represent an extension of human social life to include supernatural beings. In line with this reasoning, psychologist Matt Rossano contends that when humans began living in larger groups, they may have created gods as a means of enforcing morality. In small groups, morality can be enforced by social forces such as gossip or reputation. However, it is much harder to enforce morality using social forces in much larger groups. Rossano indicates that by including ever-watchful gods and spirits, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups.[64]
75
+
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+ Arguments about the existence of God typically include empirical, deductive, and inductive types. Different views include that: "God does not exist" (strong atheism); "God almost certainly does not exist" (de facto atheism); "no one knows whether God exists" (agnosticism[65]); "God exists, but this cannot be proven or disproven" (de facto theism); and that "God exists and this can be proven" (strong theism).[51]
77
+
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+ Countless arguments have been proposed to prove the existence of God.[66] Some of the most notable arguments are the Five Ways of Aquinas, the Argument from desire proposed by C.S. Lewis, and the Ontological Argument formulated both by St. Anselm and René Descartes.[67]
79
+
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+ St. Anselm's approach was to define God as, "that than which nothing greater can be conceived". Famed pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza would later carry this idea to its extreme: "By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence." For Spinoza, the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or its equivalent, Nature.[68] His proof for the existence of God was a variation of the Ontological argument.[69]
81
+
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+ Scientist Isaac Newton saw the nontrinitarian God[70] as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation.[71] Nevertheless, he rejected polymath Leibniz' thesis that God would necessarily make a perfect world which requires no intervention from the creator. In Query 31 of the Opticks, Newton simultaneously made an argument from design and for the necessity of intervention:
83
+
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+ For while comets move in very eccentric orbs in all manner of positions, blind fate could never make all the planets move one and the same way in orbs concentric, some inconsiderable irregularities excepted which may have arisen from the mutual actions of comets and planets on one another, and which will be apt to increase, till this system wants a reformation.[72]
85
+
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+ St. Thomas believed that the existence of God is self-evident in itself, but not to us. "Therefore I say that this proposition, "God exists", of itself is self-evident, for the predicate is the same as the subject.... Now because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us; but needs to be demonstrated by things that are more known to us, though less known in their nature—namely, by effects."[73]
87
+ St. Thomas believed that the existence of God can be demonstrated. Briefly in the Summa theologiae and more extensively in the Summa contra Gentiles, he considered in great detail five arguments for the existence of God, widely known as the quinque viae (Five Ways).
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+
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+ Some theologians, such as the scientist and theologian A.E. McGrath, argue that the existence of God is not a question that can be answered using the scientific method.[75][76] Agnostic Stephen Jay Gould argues that science and religion are not in conflict and do not overlap.[77]
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+
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+ Some findings in the fields of cosmology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience are interpreted by some atheists (including Lawrence M. Krauss and Sam Harris) as evidence that God is an imaginary entity only, with no basis in reality.[78][79] These atheists claim that a single, omniscient God who is imagined to have created the universe and is particularly attentive to the lives of humans has been imagined, embellished and promulgated in a trans-generational manner.[80] Richard Dawkins interprets such findings not only as a lack of evidence for the material existence of such a God, but as extensive evidence to the contrary.[51] However, his views are opposed by some theologians and scientists including Alister McGrath, who argues that existence of God is compatible with science.[81]
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+
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+ Different religious traditions assign differing (though often similar) attributes and characteristics to God, including expansive powers and abilities, psychological characteristics, gender characteristics, and preferred nomenclature. The assignment of these attributes often differs according to the conceptions of God in the culture from which they arise. For example, attributes of God in Christianity, attributes of God in Islam, and the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy in Judaism share certain similarities arising from their common roots.
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+
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+ The word God is "one of the most complex and difficult in the English language." In the Judeo-Christian tradition, "the Bible has been the principal source of the conceptions of God". That the Bible "includes many different images, concepts, and ways of thinking about" God has resulted in perpetual "disagreements about how God is to be conceived and understood".[82]
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+
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+ Many traditions see God as incorporeal and eternal, and regard him as a point of living light like human souls, but without a physical body, as he does not enter the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. God is seen as the perfect and constant embodiment of all virtues, powers and values and that he is the unconditionally loving Father of all souls, irrespective of their religion, gender, or culture.[83]
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+
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+ Throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bibles there are many names for God. One of them is Elohim. Another one is El Shaddai, translated "God Almighty".[84] A third notable name is El Elyon, which means "The High God".[85] Also noted in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles is the name "I Am that I Am".[86]
100
+
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+ God is described and referred in the Quran and hadith by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahman, meaning "Most Compassionate" and Al-Rahim, meaning "Most Merciful" (See Names of God in Islam).[87] Many of these names are also used in the scriptures of the Bahá'í Faith.
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+
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+ Vaishnavism, a tradition in Hinduism, has a list of titles and names of Krishna.
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+
105
+ The gender of God may be viewed as either a literal or an allegorical aspect of a deity who, in classical western philosophy, transcends bodily form.[88][89] Polytheistic religions commonly attribute to each of the gods a gender, allowing each to interact with any of the others, and perhaps with humans, sexually. In most monotheistic religions, God has no counterpart with which to relate sexually. Thus, in classical western philosophy the gender of this one-and-only deity is most likely to be an analogical statement of how humans and God address, and relate to, each other. Namely, God is seen as begetter of the world and revelation which corresponds to the active (as opposed to the receptive) role in sexual intercourse.[90]
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+
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+ Biblical sources usually refer to God using male words, except Genesis 1:26–27,[91][92] Psalm 123:2–3, and Luke 15:8–10 (female); Hosea 11:3–4, Deuteronomy 32:18, Isaiah 66:13, Isaiah 49:15, Isaiah 42:14, Psalm 131:2 (a mother); Deuteronomy 32:11–12 (a mother eagle); and Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 (a mother hen).
108
+
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+ Prayer plays a significant role among many believers. Muslims believe that the purpose of existence is to worship God.[93][94] He is viewed as a personal God and there are no intermediaries, such as clergy, to contact God. Prayer often also includes supplication and asking forgiveness. God is often believed to be forgiving. For example, a hadith states God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance.[95] Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that there are good reasons to suggest that a "personal god" is integral to the Christian outlook, but that one has to understand it is an analogy. "To say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe."[96]
110
+
111
+ Adherents of different religions generally disagree as to how to best worship God and what is God's plan for mankind, if there is one. There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view is taken by exclusivists, who believe they are the chosen people or have exclusive access to absolute truth, generally through revelation or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is religious pluralism. A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but does not deny the partial truth of other religions. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is supersessionism, i.e., the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is relativistic inclusivism, where everybody is seen as equally right; an example being universalism: the doctrine that salvation is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is syncretism, mixing different elements from different religions. An example of syncretism is the New Age movement.
112
+
113
+ Jews and Christians believe that humans are created in the image of God, and are the center, crown and key to God's creation, stewards for God, supreme over everything else God had made (Gen 1:26); for this reason, humans are in Christianity called the "Children of God".[97]
114
+
115
+ During the early Parthian Empire, Ahura Mazda was visually represented for worship. This practice ended during the beginning of the Sassanid empire. Zoroastrian iconoclasm, which can be traced to the end of the Parthian period and the beginning of the Sassanid, eventually put an end to the use of all images of Ahura Mazda in worship. However, Ahura Mazda continued to be symbolized by a dignified male figure, standing or on horseback which is found in Sassanian investiture.[98]
116
+
117
+ At least some Jews do not use any image for God, since God is the unimaginable Being who cannot be represented in material forms.[99]
118
+
119
+ The burning bush that was not consumed by the flames is described in Book of Exodus as a symbolic representation of God when he appeared to Moses.[100]
120
+
121
+ Early Christians believed that the words of the Gospel of John 1:18: "No man has seen God at any time" and numerous other statements were meant to apply not only to God, but to all attempts at the depiction of God.[101]
122
+
123
+ However, later depictions of God are found. Some, like the Hand of God, are depiction borrowed from Jewish art.
124
+
125
+ The beginning of the 8th century witnessed the suppression and destruction of religious icons as the period of Byzantine iconoclasm (literally image-breaking) started. The Second Council of Nicaea in 787 effectively ended the first period of Byzantine iconoclasm and restored the honouring of icons and holy images in general.[102] However, this did not immediately translate into large scale depictions of God the Father. Even supporters of the use of icons in the 8th century, such as Saint John of Damascus, drew a distinction between images of God the Father and those of Christ.
126
+
127
+ Prior to the 10th century no attempt was made to use a human to symbolize God the Father in Western art.[101] Yet, Western art eventually required some way to illustrate the presence of the Father, so through successive representations a set of artistic styles for symbolizing the Father using a man gradually emerged around the 10th century AD. A rationale for the use of a human is the belief that God created the soul of Man in the image of his own (thus allowing Human to transcend the other animals).
128
+
129
+ It appears that when early artists designed to represent God the Father, fear and awe restrained them from a usage of the whole human figure. Typically only a small part would be used as the image, usually the hand, or sometimes the face, but rarely a whole human. In many images, the figure of the Son supplants the Father, so a smaller portion of the person of the Father is depicted.[103]
130
+
131
+ By the 12th century depictions of God the Father had started to appear in French illuminated manuscripts, which as a less public form could often be more adventurous in their iconography, and in stained glass church windows in England. Initially the head or bust was usually shown in some form of frame of clouds in the top of the picture space, where the Hand of God had formerly appeared; the Baptism of Christ on the famous baptismal font in Liège of Rainer of Huy is an example from 1118 (a Hand of God is used in another scene). Gradually the amount of the human symbol shown can increase to a half-length figure, then a full-length, usually enthroned, as in Giotto's fresco of c. 1305 in Padua.[104] In the 14th century the Naples Bible carried a depiction of God the Father in the Burning bush. By the early 15th century, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry has a considerable number of symbols, including an elderly but tall and elegant full-length figure walking in the Garden of Eden, which show a considerable diversity of apparent ages and dress. The "Gates of Paradise" of the Florence Baptistry by Lorenzo Ghiberti, begun in 1425 use a similar tall full-length symbol for the Father. The Rohan Book of Hours of about 1430 also included depictions of God the Father in half-length human form, which were now becoming standard, and the Hand of God becoming rarer. At the same period other works, like the large Genesis altarpiece by the Hamburg painter Meister Bertram, continued to use the old depiction of Christ as Logos in Genesis scenes. In the 15th century there was a brief fashion for depicting all three persons of the Trinity as similar or identical figures with the usual appearance of Christ.
132
+
133
+ In an early Venetian school Coronation of the Virgin by Giovanni d'Alemagna and Antonio Vivarini (c. 1443), The Father is depicted using the symbol consistently used by other artists later, namely a patriarch, with benign, yet powerful countenance and with long white hair and a beard, a depiction largely derived from, and justified by, the near-physical, but still figurative, description of the Ancient of Days.[105]
134
+
135
+ . ...the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. (Daniel 7:9)
136
+
137
+ In the Annunciation by Benvenuto di Giovanni in 1470, God the Father is portrayed in the red robe and a hat that resembles that of a Cardinal. However, even in the later part of the 15th century, the symbolic representation of the Father and the Holy Spirit as "hands and dove" continued, e.g. in Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ in 1472.[106]
138
+
139
+ In Renaissance paintings of the adoration of the Trinity, God may be depicted in two ways, either with emphasis on The Father, or the three elements of the Trinity. The most usual depiction of the Trinity in Renaissance art depicts God the Father using an old man, usually with a long beard and patriarchal in appearance, sometimes with a triangular halo (as a reference to the Trinity), or with a papal crown, specially in Northern Renaissance painting. In these depictions The Father may hold a globe or book (to symbolize God's knowledge and as a reference to how knowledge is deemed divine). He is behind and above Christ on the Cross in the Throne of Mercy iconography. A dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit may hover above. Various people from different classes of society, e.g. kings, popes or martyrs may be present in the picture. In a Trinitarian Pietà, God the Father is often symbolized using a man wearing a papal dress and a papal crown, supporting the dead Christ in his arms. They are depicted as floating in heaven with angels who carry the instruments of the Passion.[107]
140
+
141
+ Representations of God the Father and the Trinity were attacked both by Protestants and within Catholicism, by the Jansenist and Baianist movements as well as more orthodox theologians. As with other attacks on Catholic imagery, this had the effect both of reducing Church support for the less central depictions, and strengthening it for the core ones. In the Western Church, the pressure to restrain religious imagery resulted in the highly influential decrees of the final session of the Council of Trent in 1563. The Council of Trent decrees confirmed the traditional Catholic doctrine that images only represented the person depicted, and that veneration to them was paid to the person, not the image.[108]
142
+
143
+ Artistic depictions of God the Father were uncontroversial in Catholic art thereafter, but less common depictions of the Trinity were condemned. In 1745 Pope Benedict XIV explicitly supported the Throne of Mercy depiction, referring to the "Ancient of Days", but in 1786 it was still necessary for Pope Pius VI to issue a papal bull condemning the decision of an Italian church council to remove all images of the Trinity from churches.[109]
144
+
145
+ God the Father is symbolized in several Genesis scenes in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, most famously The Creation of Adam (whose image of near touching hands of God and Adam is iconic of humanity, being a reminder that Man is created in the Image and Likeness of God (Gen 1:26)).God the Father is depicted as a powerful figure, floating in the clouds in Titian's Assumption of the Virgin in the Frari of Venice, long admired as a masterpiece of High Renaissance art.[110] The Church of the Gesù in Rome includes a number of 16th-century depictions of God the Father. In some of these paintings the Trinity is still alluded to in terms of three angels, but Giovanni Battista Fiammeri also depicted God the Father as a man riding on a cloud, above the scenes.[111]
146
+
147
+ In both the Last Judgment and the Coronation of the Virgin paintings by Rubens he depicted God the Father using the image that by then had become widely accepted, a bearded patriarchal figure above the fray. In the 17th century, the two Spanish artists Diego Velázquez (whose father-in-law Francisco Pacheco was in charge of the approval of new images for the Inquisition) and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo both depicted God the Father using a patriarchal figure with a white beard in a purple robe.
148
+
149
+ While representations of God the Father were growing in Italy, Spain, Germany and the Low Countries, there was resistance elsewhere in Europe, even during the 17th century. In 1632 most members of the Star Chamber court in England (except the Archbishop of York) condemned the use of the images of the Trinity in church windows, and some considered them illegal.[112] Later in the 17th century Sir Thomas Browne wrote that he considered the representation of God the Father using an old man "a dangerous act" that might lead to Egyptian symbolism.[113] In 1847, Charles Winston was still critical of such images as a "Romish trend" (a term used to refer to Roman Catholics) that he considered best avoided in England.[114]
150
+
151
+ In 1667 the 43rd chapter of the Great Moscow Council specifically included a ban on a number of symbolic depictions of God the Father and the Holy Spirit, which then also resulted in a whole range of other icons being placed on the forbidden list,[115][116] mostly affecting Western-style depictions which had been gaining ground in Orthodox icons. The Council also declared that the person of the Trinity who was the "Ancient of Days" was Christ, as Logos, not God the Father. However some icons continued to be produced in Russia, as well as Greece, Romania, and other Orthodox countries.
152
+
153
+ Muslims believe that God (Allah) is beyond all comprehension and equal, and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Thus, Muslims are not iconodules, are not expected to visualize God, and instead of having pictures of Allah in their mosques, typically have religious calligraphy written on the wall.[35]
154
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+ In the Kitáb-i-Íqán, the primary theological work of the Bahá’í Faith, God is described as “Him Who is the central Orb of the universe, its Essence and ultimate Purpose.” Bahá'u'lláh taught that God is directly unknowable to common mortals, but that his attributes and qualities can be indirectly known by learning from and imitating his divine Manifestations, which in Bahá'í theology are somewhat comparable to Hindu avatars or Abrahamic prophets. These Manifestations are the great prophets and teachers of many of the major religious traditions. These include Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, Muhammad, Bahá'ú'lláh, and others. Although the faith is strictly monotheistic, it also preaches the unity of all religions and focuses on these multiple epiphanies as necessary for meeting the needs of humanity at different points in history and for different cultures, and as part of a scheme of progressive revelation and education of humanity.
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+ Classical theists (such as ancient Greco-Medieval philosophers, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, many Jews and Muslims, and some Protestants)[a] speak of God as a divinely simple 'nothing' that is completely transcendent (totally independent of all else), and having attributes such as immutability, impassibility, and timelessness.[118] Theologians of theistic personalism (the view held by Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, and most modern evangelicals) argue that God is most generally the ground of all being, immanent in and transcendent over the whole world of reality, with immanence and transcendence being the contrapletes of personality.[119] Carl Jung equated religious ideas of God with transcendental metaphors of higher consciousness, in which God can be just as easily be imagined "as an eternally flowing current of vital energy that endlessly changes shape ... as an eternally unmoved, unchangeable essence."[120]
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+ Many philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God,[4] while attempting to comprehend the precise implications of God's attributes. Reconciling some of those attributes—particularly the attributes of the God of theistic personalism—generated important philosophical problems and debates. For example, God's omniscience may seem to imply that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does know this, their ostensible free will might be illusory, or foreknowledge does not imply predestination, and if God does not know it, God may not be omniscient.[121]
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+ The last centuries of philosophy have seen vigorous questions regarding the arguments for God's existence raised by such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, David Hume and Antony Flew, although Kant held that the argument from morality was valid. The theist response has been either to contend, as does Alvin Plantinga, that faith is "properly basic", or to take, as does Richard Swinburne, the evidentialist position.[122] Some theists agree that only some of the arguments for God's existence are compelling, but argue that faith is not a product of reason, but requires risk. There would be no risk, they say, if the arguments for God's existence were as solid as the laws of logic, a position summed up by Pascal as "the heart has reasons of which reason does not know."[123]
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+ Many religious believers allow for the existence of other, less powerful spiritual beings such as angels, saints, jinn, demons, and devas.[124][125][126][127][128]
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+ Footnotes
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+ Citations