Money, also sometimes called currency, can be defined as anything that people use to buy goods and services. Money is what many people receive for selling their own things or services.
There are lots of different kinds of money in the world. Most countries have their own kind of money, such as the United States dollar or the British pound.

History
The idea of bartering things is very old. A long time ago, people did not buy or sell with money. Instead, they traded one thing for another to get what they wanted or needed. One person who owned many cows could trade with another person who had a lot of wheat. Each would trade a little of what he had with the other. This would support the people on his farm. Other things that were easier to carry around than cows also came to be held as valuable. This gave rise to trade items such as jewelry and spices.

When people changed from trading in things like, for example, cows and wheat to using money instead, they needed things that would last a long time. They must still have a known value, and could be carried around. The first country in the world to make metal coins was called Lydia. These first appeared during the 7th century BC, in the western part of what is now Turkey. The Lydian coins were made of a weighed amount of precious metal and were stamped with a picture of a lion. This idea soon spread to Greece, the rest of the Mediterranean, and the rest of the world. Coins were all made to the same size and shape. In some parts of the world, different things have been used as money, like clam shells or blocks of salt.

Besides being easier to carry than cows, using money had many other advantages. Money is easier to divide than many trade goods. If someone own cows, and wants to trade for only "half a cow's worth" of wheat, he probably does not want to cut his cow in half. But if he sells his cow for money, and buys wheat with money, he can get exactly the amount he wants.

Cows die, and wheat rots. But money lasts longer than most trade goods. If someone sells a cow for money, he can save that money away until he needs it. He can always leave it to his children when he dies. It can last a very long time, and he can use it at any time.

Not every cow is as good as another cow. Some cows are sick and old, and others are healthy and young. Some wheat is good and other wheat is moldy or stale. So if a person trades cows for wheat, he might have a hard time arguing over how much wheat each cow is worth. However, money is standard. That means one dollar is worth the same as another dollar. It is easier to add up and count money, than to add up the value of different cows or amounts of wheat.

Later, after coins had been used for hundreds of years, paper money started out as a promise to pay in coin, much like an "I.O.U." note. The first true paper money was used in China in the 10th century AD. Paper money was also printed in Sweden between 1660 and 1664. Both times, it did not work well, and had to be stopped because the banks kept running out of coins to pay on the notes. Massachusetts Bay Colony printed paper money in the 1690s. This time, the use became more common.

Today, most of what people think of as money is not even things you can hold. It is numbers in bank accounts, saved in computer memories. Many people still feel more comfortable using coins and paper, and do not totally trust using electronic money on a computer memory.

Kinds

Many types of money have been used at different times in history. These are:
 Cowry shells
 Commodity money
 Convertible paper money
 Inconvertible money
 Bank deposits
 Electronic money

Commodity money can be used for other purposes besides serving as a medium of exchange. We say it possesses intrinsic value, because it is useful or valuable by itself. Some examples of commodity money are cattle, silk, gold and silver. Convertible paper money is money that is convertible into gold and silver. Gold and Silver certificates are convertible paper money as they can be fully convertible into gold and silver.

Inconvertible money is money that cannot be converted into gold and silver. Notes and coins are inconvertible money. They are inconvertible and are declared by the government money. Such fiat money is a country's legal tender. Today, notes and coins are the currencies used in bank deposits.

Types of bank deposits:
 Demand deposits
 Savings deposits
 Time deposits
 Negotiable certificate

More reading
 Ferguson, Niall (2008). The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. Allen Lane.
 Davies, Glyn (2010). History of Money: From Ancient Times to the Present Day (Fourth ed.). University of Wales Press.

References

Other websites

 Linguistic and Commodity Exchanges by Elmer G. Wiens. Examines the structural differences between barter and monetary commodity exchanges and oral and written linguistic exchanges.

Basic English 850 words

Money


The endocrine system includes those organs of the body which produce hormones.
It helps to regulate metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, and plays a part also in mood.
The field of medicine that deals with disorders of endocrine glands is endocrinology.

In physiology, the endocrine system is a system of glands, each of which secretes a type of hormone directly into the bloodstream to regulate the body.

The endocrine system is in contrast to the exocrine system, which secretes its chemicals using ducts. The endocrine system is an information signal system like the nervous system, yet its effects and mechanism are different.

The endocrine system's effects are slow to start, and long-lasting in their response. The nervous system sends information quickly, and responses are generally short lived. Hormones are complex chemicals released from endocrine tissue into the bloodstream where they travel to target tissues and trigger a response.

Features of endocrine glands are, in general, they have no ducts, they have a good blood supply, and usually they have vacuoles or granules inside their cells, storing their hormones.

Endocrine glands and the hormones they secrete

Central nervous system

 Hypothalamus produces
 Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) Parvocellular neurosecretory neurons
 Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH)  Neuroendocine cells of the Preoptic area
 Growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH)  Neuroendocrine neurons of the Arcuate nucleus
 Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)  Parvocellular neurosecretory neurons
 Vasopressin Parvocellular neurosecretory neurons
 Somatostatin (SS; also GHIH, growth hormone-inhibiting hormone) Neuroendocrince cells of the Periventricular nucleus
 Prolactin inhibiting hormone or PIH or Dopamine (DA) Dopamine neurons of the arcuate nucleus
 Prolactin releasing hormone
 Pineal body produces
 Melatonin (mainly)  Pinealocytes
 Pituitary gland (hypophysis) produces
 Anterior pituitary lobe (adenohypophysis)
 Growth hormone (GH) Somatotropes
 Prolactin (PRL) Lactotropes
 Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH, corticotropin) Corticotropes
 Lipotropin Corticotropes
 Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH, thyrotropin) Thyrotropes
 Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) Gonadotropes
 Luteinizing hormone (LH)  Gonadotropes
 Posterior pituitary lobe (neurohypophysis)
 Oxytocin Magnocellular neurosecretory cells
 Vasopressin (AVP; also ADH, antidiuretic hormone) Magnocellular neurosecretory cells
 Intermediate pituitary lobe (pars intermedia)
 Melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH) Melanotroph

Thyroid
 Thyroid produces
 Triiodothyronine (T3), the potent form of thyroid hormone Thyroid epithelial cell
 Thyroxine (T4), also known as tetraiodothyronine: it is a  less active form of thyroid hormone (mainly) Thyroid epithelial cells
 Calcitonin  Parafollicular cells

Parathyroid
Parathyroid hormone PTH triggers an increase in blood calcium levels.

Muscles
 Striated muscle produces
 Thrombopoietin  Myocytes

Alimentary system

 Stomach produces
 Gastrin (mainly)  G cells
 Ghrelin  P/D1 cells
 Neuropeptide Y (NPY)
 Secretin S cells
 Somatostatin  D cells
 Histamine  ECL cells
 Endothelin X cells
 Duodenum produces
 Cholecystokinin  I cells
 Liver produces
 Insulin-like growth factor (IGF) (mainly)  Hepatocytes
 Angiotensinogen  Hepatocytes
 Thrombopoietin Hepatocytes
 Pancreas produces
 Insulin (mainly)  β Islet cells
 Glucagon (also mainly)  α Islet cells
 Somatostatin  δ Islet cells
 Pancreatic polypeptide  PP cells

Kidney
 Kidney produces
 Renin (Primarily) Juxtaglomerular cells
 Erythropoietin (EPO)  Extraglomerular mesangial cells
 Calcitriol (the active form of vitamin D3)
 Thrombopoietin

Adrenal glands
 Adrenal glands
 Adrenal cortex produces
 Glucocorticoids (chiefly cortisol) Zona fasciculata and Zona reticularis cells
 Mineralocorticoids (chiefly aldosterone) Zona glomerulosa cells
 Androgens (including DHEA and testosterone) Zona fasciculata and Zona reticularis cells
 Adrenal medulla produces
 Adrenaline (epinephrine) (Primarily) Chromaffin cells
 Noradrenaline (norepinephrine)  Chromaffin cells
 Dopamine  Chromaffin cells
 Enkephalin  Chromaffin cells

Reproductive system

Male
 Testes
 Androgens (chiefly testosterone) Leydig cells
 Oestradiol Sertoli cells
 Inhibin Sertoli cells

Female
Oestrous cycle
 Ovarian follicle/Corpus luteum
 Progesterone Granulosa cells, Theca cells
 Androstenedione  Theca cells
 Oestrogens (mainly oestradiol) Granulosa cells
 Inhibin Granulosa cells
 Placenta (when a woman is pregnant)
 Progesterone (Primarily)
 Oestrogens (mainly oestriol) (Also primarily)
 Human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG)  Syncytiotrophoblast
 Human placental lactogen (HPL)  Syncytiotrophoblast
 Inhibin Fetal trophoblasts
 Uterus (when a woman is pregnant)
 Prolactin (PRL) Decidual cells
 Relaxin  Decidual cells

Calcium regulation
 Parathyroid produces
 Parathyroid hormone (PTH) Parathyroid chief cell
 Skin produces
 Vitamin D3 (calciferol)

Miscellaneous

 Heart produces
 Atrial-natriuretic peptide (ANP) Cardiac myocytes
 Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP)  Cardiac myocytes
 Adenosine  Cardiac myocytes
 Adipose tissue
 Leptin (Primarily) Adipocytes
 Oestrogens (mainly oestrone)  Adipocytes
 Bone marrow produces
 Thrombopoietin

Related pages
 Hormones
 Nervous system

References

Other websites
 Journals Designed for Clinical Endocrinologists
 Islet cell antibody
 Binding of antibody to pancreas
 Kidshealth.org

Hormones
Glands

Endocrine system


Organic compounds are carbon-based compounds. Organic compounds contain carbon bonds in which at least one carbon atom is covalently linked to an atom of another type (usually hydrogen, oxygen or nitrogen). Most polymers are organic compounds.

History
The name "organic" is a historical name from the 19th century.

People believed that only living things could make organic compounds and "dead" things (such as minerals) could make inorganic compounds. However, Friedrich Wöhler proved this wrong by synthesizing urea, a well-known organic compound.

Kinds of organic compounds
There are natural organic compounds, and synthetic ones. Their structure may be described by using names, and making diagrams.

One way of showing the molecule is by drawing its structural formula. Because molecules can have complicated structures, people have made ways to show them in simple language. One way is to use line diagrams. Each atom is shown by a letter, and connected by a line to each atom with which it is has a covalent bond. One line means a single bond, two lines means a double bond and so on.

Because there is in an infinite number of possible organic compounds, language is needed to give a unique name to each one. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, or IUPAC, made a system for doing this. Although an IUPAC name makes every single possible molecule unique, the names are often long and complicated, so in everyday life, trivial names--unofficial but widely understood names--are used, such as the trivial names Paracetamol, Tylenol, and Acetaminophen, which are used for a compound whose IUPAC name is N-(4-hydroxyphenyl) acetamide. Some of these trivial names are trademarks.

Natural Compounds
Natural compounds are compounds made by living beings. These could also be made in a lab, but many of these compounds are taken from nature because it is easier and less expensive to do it that way. For example, every year people grow and eat huge amounts of natural sugar and starch. Other common natural compounds are: amino acids, proteins, carbohydrates, many antibiotics like Penicillin and Amoxicillin.

Synthetic compounds
Synthetic compounds are those made by people. Sometimes, this is done by taking something natural and changing the molecule in a small way, such as making glycerin from vegetable oils. Other compounds are synthesized in long, complicated reactions with many steps. Plastics are sometimes mostly natural, and other kinds are manufactured.

Structure
Since a compound is often first discovered in nature instead of being made on purpose in a lab, people may know the compound exists, and even know what it does sometimes, but not know exactly what atoms it is made of and how it is arranged. There are several ways of taking an unknown compound and finding out this structure:
 Mass spectrometry
 X-ray diffraction
 Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
 Infrared spectroscopy

Related pages
Acetone
Inorganic compound
Organic chemistry
Biochemistry

Other websites
 Organic chemistry online

Organic compound


An alphabet is a writing system, a list of symbols for writing. The basic symbols in an alphabet are called letters. In an alphabet, each letter is a symbol for a sound or related sounds. To make the alphabet work better, more signs assist the reader: punctuation marks, spaces, standard reading direction, and so on.

The name alphabet comes from Aleph and Beth, the first two letters in the Phoenician alphabet.

This article is written with the Roman alphabet (or Latin alphabet).  It was first used in Ancient Rome to write Latin.  Many languages use the Latin alphabet: it is the most used alphabet today.

Alphabets
It seems that the idea of an alphabet – a script based entirely upon sound – has been copied and adapted to suit many different languages. Although no alphabet fits its language perfectly, they are flexible enough to fit any language approximately. The alphabet was a unique invention.p12

The Roman alphabet, the Cyrillic, and a few others come from the ancient Greek alphabet, which dates back to about 1100 to 800BC.p167 The Greek alphabet was probably developed from the Phoenician script, which appeared somewhat earlier, and had some similar letter-shapes.

The Phoenicians spoke a Semitic language, usually called Canaanite. The Semitic group of languages includes Arabic, Maltese, Hebrew and also Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus. We do not know much about how the alphabetic idea arose, but the Phoenicians, a trading people, came up with letters which were adapted by the early Greeks to produce their alphabet. The one big difference is that the Phoenician script had no pure vowels. Arabic script has vowels which may, or may not, be shown by diacritics (small marks above or below the line). The oldest Qu'ran manuscripts had no diacritics. Israeli children to about the third grade use Hebrew texts with vowel 'dots' added.p89

No ancient script, alphabetic or not, had pure vowels before the Greeks. The Greek alphabet even has two vowels (Eta) and Epsilon) for 'e' and two (Omega and Omicron) for 'o', to distinguish between the long and short sounds. It appears that careful thought went into both the Phoenician invention and the Greek adaptation, but no details survive of either process.

Semitic scripts apparently derive from Proto-Sinaitic, a script of which only 31 inscriptions (plus 17 doubtful) are known. It is thought by some researchers that the original source of this script was the Egyptian hieratic script, which by the late Middle Kingdom (about 1900BC) had added some alphabetic signs for representing the consonants of foreign names. Egyptian activity in Sinai was at its height at that time. A similar idea had been suggested many years previously.

Short list of alphabets
A list of alphabets and examples of the languages they are used for:
Proto-Sinaitic script
 Phoenician alphabet, used in ancient Phoenicia.
 Greek alphabet, used for Greek
 Roman alphabet (or Latin alphabet), most commonly used today
 Arabic alphabet, used for Arabic, Urdu and Persian
 Hebrew alphabet, used for Hebrew, Ladino (only in Israel) and Yiddish
 Devanagari, used for many languages of India
 Cyrillic alphabet, which is based on the Greek alphabet, used for Russian and Bulgarian
 Hangul, used for Korean
 Ethiopic

Other writing systems
Other writing systems do not use letters, but they do (at least in part) represent sounds. For example, many systems represent syllables. In the past such writing systems were used by many cultures, but today they are almost only used by languages people speak in Asia.  A syllabary is a system of writing that is similar to an alphabet. A syllabary uses one symbol to indicate each syllable of a word, instead of one symbol for each letter of the word. For example, a syllabary would use one symbol to mean the syllable "ga", instead of two letters of the alphabet "g" and "a".

 Japanese uses a mix of the Chinese writing (kanji) and two syllabaries called hiragana and katakana. Modern Japanese often also uses romaji, which is the Japanese syllabary written in the Roman alphabet.
 The Koreans used the Chinese writing in the past, but they created their own alphabet called hangul.

Originally, 1200 BC in the Shang dynasty, Chinese characters were mainly "pictographic", using pictures to show words or ideas.  Now only 1% of Chinese characters are pictographic.p97 97% of modern characters are SP characters.  These are a pair of symbols, one for meaning (semantics) and the other for pronunciation.p99 In many cases the P and S parts are put together into one joint character.  Chinese is not one spoken language, but many, but the same writing system is used for all.  This writing system has been reformed a number of times.

Related pages
 Multialphabetism
 Writing

References

Alphabet


The Pennsylvanian is the Upper Carboniferous epoch in the strata of North America. It comes after (above) the Mississippian, and before the Permian. The Pennsylvanian started about 323 million years ago (mya), and ended about 299 mya.

The coal measures, which give the Carboniferous its name, are the remains of peat formed by dense tropical wetland forests. They were formed in the Pennsylvanian, from about 315–300 million years years ago.

These forests were on the equator, and the wetlands, which are always low-lying, stretched from North America in the west, through what is now Europe to China in the east, because these continents were all together at the time (Laurussia). The river plain which was the heart of the wetland stretched 5000km from eastern Canada to Ukraine, and was 700km wide.p6 This would make the Pennsylvanian basin larger than any wetlands on Earth today.

The characteristic vertebrates of the coal measures were amphibia, and the plants were mostly giant clubmosses such as Lepidodendron.

Change of climate
The rainforest system collapsed about halfway through the Pennsylvanian, and was replaced by a cooler, drier climate. The wetland forests ended when the land level was raised by the pressure of the Gondwana continent against Laurussia, causing the zone of contact to be raised. The end of the Coal Measures marks the end of the Carboniferous period. China was too far away to be affected, and there the wetland forests continued for another 50 million years, into the early Permian.p30

As the climate became drier, egg-laying amniotes (Synapsids and Sauropsids) became more common than amphibia. These are the lines that would lead to reptiles and mammals. These egg-laying land vertebrates probably split from the early amniotes in the Mississippian.

References

Carboniferous

Pennsylvanian


The Bishop o Rome, whiles cried the Pape, is the heid o the Roman Catholic Kirk an sovereign o Vatican Ceety. The Bishop is waled by Cairdinals in whit is kent as a Papal Conclave. The current Bishop is His Haliness Pape Frauncis, wha succeedit Pape Benedict XVI efter his reteirement in Februar, 2013. The line o Bishop can be traced richt back tae the verra first Pape, St. Peter, wha wis appyntit bi Jesus Christ.

Ecclesiastical teetles
Episcopacy in Roman Catholicism

Releegious leadership roles

Pape


The Franks ( or ; ) were originally a Germanic people who lived near the Lower Rhine, on the northern frontier of the late Roman Empire, but they successfully expanded their power and influence during the Middle Ages, until much of the population of western Europe, particularly in or near France, were commonly described as Franks, for example in the context of their joint efforts during the crusades starting in the 11th century. This expansion came about because the romanized Frankish dynasties based within the collapsing Western Roman Empire first became the rulers of the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine, and then subsequently imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empire.

Although the Frankish name does not appear until the 3rd century, at least some of the original Frankish tribes had long been known to the Romans under their own names, both as allies providing soldiers, and as enemies.  The Franks were first reported as working together to raid Roman territory. However, the Romans also reported the Franks suffering attacks upon them from outside their frontier area, and being allowed to move into Roman territory. Frankish peoples subsequently living inside Rome's frontier on the Rhine river are often divided by historians into two groups - the Salian Franks to the west, who came south via the Rhine delta; and the Ripuarian or Rhineland Franks to the east, who eventually conquered the Roman frontier city of Cologne and took control of the left bank of the Lower Rhine in that region.

In the middle of the 5th century, Childeric I, a Salian Frank, was one of several military leaders commanding Roman forces with various ethnic affiliations in the northern part of Roman Gaul, which corresponds roughly with modern France and the Low countries. He and his son Clovis I founded the Merovingian dynasty which succeeded in conquering most of Gaul during the 6th century, as well as establishing leadership over all the Frankish kingdoms on or near the Rhine frontier. The dynasty subsequently gained control over a significant part of what is now western and southern Germany. It was by building upon the basis of this Merovingian empire that the subsequent dynasty, the Carolingians, eventually came to be seen as the new emperors of Western Europe in 800, when Charlemagne was crowned by the pope.

In 870 the Frankish realm came to be permanently divided between western and eastern kingdoms, which were the predecessors of the future Kingdom of France and Holy Roman Empire respectively. It is the western kingdom whose inhabitants eventually came to be known simply as "the French" (,  etc.) which has become a distinct modern concept connected to the nation state of France. However, in various historical contexts, such as during the medieval crusades, the peoples of neighbouring regions in Western Europe continued to be referred to collectively as Franks. The crusaders in particular had a lasting impact on the use of Frank-related names for Western Europeans in many non-European languages.

Etymology

The name  was not a tribal name, but within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the original peoples who constituted them. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the English adjective frank, originally meaning "free". There have also been proposals that Frank comes from the Germanic word for "javelin" (such as in Old English  or Old Norse ). Words in other Germanic languages meaning "fierce", "bold" or "insolent" (German , Middle Dutch , Old English  and Old Norwegian ), may also be significant.

Eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures:  ("Where now is that ferocity of yours? Where is that ever untrustworthy fickleness?"). Latin  was used often to describe the Franks. Contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. The formulary of Marculf written about 700 AD described a continuation of national identities within a mixed population when it stated that "all the peoples who dwell (in the official's province), Franks, Romans, Burgundians and those of other nations, live … according to their law and their custom." Writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that "the word 'Frankish' quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have been considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest (except Bretons); Romani (Romans) were essentially the inhabitants of Aquitaine after that".

Mythological origins
Apart from the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, two early sources relate the mythological origin of the Franks: a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar and the anonymous , written a century later.

The author of the Chronicle of Fredegar claimed that the Franks came originally from Troy and quoted the works of Virgil and Hieronymus:

According to historian Patrick J. Geary, those two stories are "alike in betraying both the fact that the Franks knew little about their background and that they may have felt some inferiority in comparison with other peoples of antiquity who possessed an ancient name and glorious tradition. (...) Both legends are of course equally fabulous for, even more than most barbarian peoples, the Franks possessed no common history, ancestry, or tradition of a heroic age of migration. Like their Alemannic neighbours, they were by the sixth century a fairly recent creation, a coalition of Rhenish tribal groups who long maintained separate identities and institutions."

The other work, the , previously known as  before its republication in 1888 by Bruno Krusch, described how 12,000 Trojans, led by Priam and Antenor, sailed from Troy to the River Don in Russia and on to Pannonia, which is on the River Danube, settling near the Sea of Azov. There they founded a city called Sicambria. (The Sicambri were the most well-known tribe in the Frankish homeland in the time of the early Roman empire, still remembered though defeated and dispersed long before the Frankish name appeared.) The Trojans joined the Roman army in accomplishing the task of driving their enemies into the marshes of Mæotis, for which they received the name of Franks (meaning "fierce"). A decade later the Romans killed Priam and drove away Marcomer and Sunno, the sons of Priam and Antenor, and the other Franks.

History

Early history
The most important contemporary sources mentioning the early Franks include the , Ammianus Marcellinus, Claudian, Zosimus, Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours. The Franks are first mentioned in the Augustan History, a collection of biographies of the Roman emperors. None of these sources presents a detailed list of which tribes or parts of tribes became Frankish, or concerning the politics and history, but to quote :
A Roman marching-song joyfully recorded in a fourth-century source, is associated with the 260s; but the Franks' first appearance in a contemporary source was in 289. [...] The Chamavi were mentioned as a Frankish people as early as 289, the Bructeri from 307, the Chattuarri from 306–315, the Salii or Salians from 357, and the Amsivarii and Tubantes from c. 364–375.

The Franks were described in Roman texts both as allies () and enemies (). About the year 260 one group of Franks penetrated as far as Tarragona in present-day Spain, where they plagued the region for about a decade before they were subdued and expelled by the Romans. In 287 or 288, the Roman Caesar Maximian forced a Frankish leader Genobaud and his people to surrender without a fight.

In 288 the emperor Maximian defeated the Salian Franks, Chamavi, Frisii and other Germanic people living along the Rhine and moved them to Germania inferior to provide manpower and prevent the settlement of other Germanic tribes. In 292 Constantius, the father of Constantine I  defeated the Franks who had settled at the mouth of the Rhine. These were moved to the nearby region of Toxandria. Eumenius mentions Constantius as having "killed, expelled, captured [and] kidnapped" the Franks who had settled there and others who had crossed the Rhine, using the term  for the first time. It seems likely that the term Frank in this first period had a broader meaning, sometimes including coastal Frisii.

The Life of Aurelian, which was possibly written by Vopiscus, mentions that in 328, Frankish raiders were captured by the 6th Legion stationed at Mainz. As a result of this incident, 700 Franks were killed and 300 were sold into slavery. Frankish incursions over the Rhine became so frequent that the Romans began to settle the Franks on their borders in order to control them.

The Franks appear to be mentioned in the , an atlas of Roman roads. (It is a 13th-century copy of a 4th or 5th century document that reflects information from the 3rd century.) Several tribal names are written at the mouth of the Rhine. One of these says , which is generally believed to mean 'The Chamavi who are Franks' (despite the letter p). Further up the river the word "Francia" is clearly marked, indicating a country name on the bank opposite to Nijmegen and Xanten.

Salians

The Salians were first mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus, who described Julian's defeat of "the first Franks of all, those whom custom has called the Salians," in 358. Julian allowed the Franks to remain in Texuandria as  within the Empire, having moved there from the Rhine-Maas delta. The 5th century  lists a group of soldiers as .

Some decades later, Franks in the same region, possibly the Salians, controlled the River Scheldt and were disrupting transport links to Britain in the English Channel. Although Roman forces managed to pacify them, they failed to expel the Franks, who continued to be feared as pirates.

The Salians are generally seen as the predecessors of the Franks who pushed southwestwards into what is now modern France, who eventually came to be ruled by the Merovingians (see below). This is because when the Merovingian dynasty published the Salian law (Lex Salica) it applied in the Neustrian area from the river Liger (Loire) to the Silva Carbonaria, the western kingdom founded by them outside the original area of Frankish settlement. In the 5th century, Franks under Chlodio pushed into Roman lands in and beyond the "Silva Carbonaria" or "Charcoal forest", which ran through the area of modern western Wallonia. The forest was the boundary of the original Salian territories to the north and the more Romanized area to the south in the Roman province of Belgica Secunda, which now lies in northern France. Chlodio conquered Tournai, Artois, Cambrai, and as far as the Somme river. Chlodio is often seen as an ancestor of the future Merovingian dynasty. Childeric I, who according to Gregory of Tours was a reputed descendant of Chlodio, was later seen as administrative ruler over Roman Belgica Secunda and possibly other areas.

Records of Childeric show him to have been active together with Roman forces in the Loire region, quite far to the south. His descendants came to rule Roman Gaul all the way to there, and this became the Frankish kingdom of Neustria, the basis of what would become medieval France. Childeric's son Clovis I also took control of the more independent Frankish kingdoms east of the Silva Carbonaria and Belgica II. This later became the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia, where the early legal code was referred to as "Ripuarian".

Ripuarians

The Rhineland Franks who lived near the stretch of the Rhine from roughly Mainz to Duisburg, the region of the city of Cologne, are often considered separately from the Salians, and sometimes in modern texts referred to as Ripuarian Franks. The Ravenna Cosmography suggests that Francia Renensis included the old civitas of the Ubii, in Germania II (Germania Inferior), but also the northern part of Germania I (Germania Superior), including Mainz. Like the Salians they appear in Roman records both as raiders and as contributors to military units. Unlike the Salii, there is no record of when, if ever, the empire officially accepted their residence within its borders. They eventually succeeded to hold the city of Cologne, and at some point seem to have acquired the name Ripuarians, which may have meant "river people". In any case a Merovingian legal code was called the Lex Ribuaria, but it probably applied in all the older Frankish lands, including the original Salian areas.

Jordanes, in his Getica mentions a group called the "Riparii" as auxiliaries of Flavius Aetius during the Battle of Châlons in 451, and disctinct from the "Franci":   But these  ("river dwellers") are today not considered to be Ripuarian Franks, but rather a known military unit based on the river Rhone.

The Ripuarian territory on both sides of the Rhine thus became a central part of Merovingian Austrasia. This stretched to include Roman Germania Inferior (later Germania Secunda), which included the original Salian and Ripuarian lands, and roughly equates to medieval Lower Lotharingia. It also included Gallia Belgica Prima (roughly medieval Upper Lotharingia), and further lands on the east bank of the Rhine.

Merovingian kingdom (481–751)

Gregory of Tours (Book II) reported that small Frankish kingdoms existed during the fifth century around Cologne, Tournai, Cambrai and elsewhere. The kingdom of the Merovingians eventually came to dominate the others, possibly because of its association with Roman power structures in northern Gaul, into which the Frankish military forces were apparently integrated to some extent. In the 450s and 460s, Childeric I, a Salian Frank, was one of several military leaders commanding Roman forces with various ethnic affiliations in Roman Gaul (roughly modern France). Childeric and his son Clovis I faced competition from the Roman Aegidius as competitor for the "kingship" of the Franks associated with the Roman Loire forces (according to Gregory of Tours, Aegidius held the kingship of the Franks for 8 years while Childeric was in exile). This new type of kingship, perhaps inspired by Alaric I, represents the start of the Merovingian dynasty which succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, as well as establishing its leadership over all the Frankish kingdoms on the Rhine frontier. Aegidius died in 464 or 465. Childeric and his son Clovis I were both described as rulers of the Roman Province of , by its spiritual leader in the time of Clovis, Saint Remigius.

Clovis later defeated the son of Aegidius, Syagrius, in 486 or 487 and then had the Frankish king Chararic imprisoned and executed. A few years later, he killed Ragnachar, the Frankish king of Cambrai, and his brothers. After conquering the Kingdom of Soissons and expelling the Visigoths from southern Gaul at the Battle of Vouillé, he established Frankish hegemony over most of Gaul, excluding Burgundy, Provence and Brittany, which were eventually absorbed by his successors. By the 490s, he had conquered all the Frankish kingdoms to the west of the River Maas except for the Ripuarian Franks and was in a position to make the city of Paris his capital. He became the first king of all Franks in 509, after he had conquered Cologne.

Clovis I divided his realm between his four sons, who united to defeat Burgundy in 534. Internecine feuding occurred during the reigns of the brothers Sigebert I and Chilperic I, which was largely fuelled by the rivalry of their queens, Brunhilda and Fredegunda, and which continued during the reigns of their sons and their grandsons. Three distinct subkingdoms emerged: Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy, each of which developed independently and sought to exert influence over the others. The influence of the Arnulfing clan of Austrasia ensured that the political centre of gravity in the kingdom gradually shifted eastwards to the Rhineland.

The Frankish realm was reunited in 613 by Chlothar II, the son of Chilperic, who granted his nobles the Edict of Paris in an effort to reduce corruption and reassert his authority. Following the military successes of his son and successor Dagobert I, royal authority rapidly declined under a series of kings, traditionally known as les rois fainéants. After the Battle of Tertry in 687, each mayor of the palace, who had formerly been the king's chief household official, effectively held power until in 751, with the approval of the Pope and the nobility, Pepin the Short deposed the last Merovingian king Childeric III and had himself crowned. This inaugurated a new dynasty, the Carolingians.

Carolingian empire (751–843)

The unification achieved by the Merovingians ensured the continuation of what has become known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The Carolingian Empire was beset by internecine warfare, but the combination of Frankish rule and Roman Christianity ensured that it was fundamentally united. Frankish government and culture depended very much upon each ruler and his aims and so each region of the empire developed differently. Although a ruler's aims depended upon the political alliances of his family, the leading families of Francia shared the same basic beliefs and ideas of government, which had both Roman and Germanic roots.

The Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. With the coronation of their ruler Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III in 800 AD, he and his successors were recognised as legitimate successors to the emperors of the Western Roman Empire. As such, the Carolingian Empire gradually came to be seen in the West as a continuation of the ancient Roman Empire. This empire would give rise to several successor states, including France, the Holy Roman Empire and Burgundy, though the Frankish identity remained most closely identified with France.

After the death of Charlemagne, his only adult surviving son became Emperor and King Louis the Pious. Following Louis the Pious's death, however, according to Frankish culture and law that demanded equality among all living male adult heirs, the Frankish Empire was now split between Louis' three sons.

Military

Participation in the Roman army
Germanic peoples, including those tribes in the Rhine delta that later became the Franks, are known to have served in the Roman army since the days of Julius Caesar. After the Roman administration collapsed in Gaul in the 260s, the armies under the Germanic Batavian Postumus revolted and proclaimed him emperor and then restored order. From then on, Germanic soldiers in the Roman army, most notably Franks, were promoted from the ranks. A few decades later, the Menapian Carausius created a Batavian–British rump state on Roman soil that was supported by Frankish soldiers and raiders. Frankish soldiers such as Magnentius, Silvanus and Arbitio held command positions in the Roman army during the mid 4th century. From the narrative of Ammianus Marcellinus it is evident that both Frankish and Alamannic tribal armies were organised along Roman lines.

After the invasion of Chlodio, the Roman armies at the Rhine border became a Frankish "franchise" and Franks were known to levy Roman-like troops that were supported by a Roman-like armour and weapons industry. This lasted at least until the days of the scholar Procopius (c. 500 – c. 565), more than a century after the demise of the Western Roman Empire, who wrote describing the former Arborychoi, having merged with the Franks, retaining their legionary organization in the style of their forefathers during Roman times. The Franks under the Merovingians melded Germanic custom with Romanised organisation and several important tactical innovations. Before their conquest of Gaul, the Franks fought primarily as a tribe, unless they were part of a Roman military unit fighting in conjunction with other imperial units.

Military practices of the early Franks
The primary sources for Frankish military custom and armament are Ammianus Marcellinus, Agathias and Procopius, the latter two Eastern Roman historians writing about Frankish intervention in the Gothic War.

Writing of 539, Procopius says:

His contemporary, Agathias, who based his own writings upon the tropes laid down by Procopius, says:

In the Strategikon, supposedly written by the emperor Maurice, or in his time, the Franks are lumped together with the Lombards under the heading of the "fair-haired" peoples.

While the above quotations have been used as a statement of the military practices of the Frankish nation in the 6th century and have even been extrapolated to the entire period preceding Charles Martel's reforms (early mid-8th century), post-Second World War historiography has emphasised the inherited Roman characteristics of the Frankish military from the date of the beginning of the conquest of Gaul. The Byzantine authors present several contradictions and difficulties. Procopius denies the Franks the use of the spear while Agathias makes it one of their primary weapons. They agree that the Franks were primarily infantrymen, threw axes and carried a sword and shield. Both writers also contradict the authority of Gallic authors of the same general time period (Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours) and the archaeological evidence. The , the early 7th century legal code of the Rhineland or Ripuarian Franks, specifies the values of various goods when paying a wergild in kind; whereas a spear and shield were worth only two , a sword and scabbard were valued at seven, a helmet at six, and a "metal tunic" at twelve. Scramasaxes and arrowheads are numerous in Frankish graves even though the Byzantine historians do not assign them to the Franks.

The evidence of Gregory and of the  implies that the early Franks were a cavalry people. In fact, some modern historians have hypothesised that the Franks possessed so numerous a body of horses that they could use them to plough fields and thus were agriculturally technologically advanced over their neighbours. The  specifies that a mare's value was the same as that of an ox or of a shield and spear, two  and a stallion seven or the same as a sword and scabbard, which suggests that horses were relatively common. Perhaps the Byzantine writers considered the Frankish horse to be insignificant relative to the Greek cavalry, which is probably accurate.

Merovingian military

Composition and development
The Frankish military establishment incorporated many of the pre-existing Roman institutions in Gaul, especially during and after the conquests of Clovis I in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. Frankish military strategy revolved around the holding and taking of fortified centres () and in general these centres were held by garrisons of  or , who were former Roman mercenaries of Germanic origin. Throughout Gaul, the descendants of Roman soldiers continued to wear their uniforms and perform their ceremonial duties.

Immediately beneath the Frankish king in the military hierarchy were the , his sworn followers, who were generally 'old soldiers' in service away from court. The king had an elite bodyguard called the truste. Members of the truste often served in , garrison settlements that were established for military and police purposes. The day-to-day bodyguard of the king was made up of antrustiones (senior soldiers who were aristocrats in military service) and  (junior soldiers and not aristocrats). All high-ranking men had pueri.

The Frankish military was not composed solely of Franks and Gallo-Romans, but also contained Saxons, Alans, Taifals and Alemanni. After the conquest of Burgundy (534), the well-organised military institutions of that kingdom were integrated into the Frankish realm. Chief among these was the standing army under the command of the Patrician of Burgundy.

In the late 6th century, during the wars instigated by Fredegund and Brunhilda, the Merovingian monarchs introduced a new element into their militaries: the local levy. A levy consisted of all the able-bodied men of a district who were required to report for military service when called upon, similar to conscription. The local levy applied only to a city and its environs. Initially only in certain cities in western Gaul, in Neustria and Aquitaine, did the kings possess the right or power to call up the levy. The commanders of the local levies were always different from the commanders of the urban garrisons. Often the former were commanded by the counts of the districts. A much rarer occurrence was the general levy, which applied to the entire kingdom and included peasants ( and ). General levies could also be made within the still-pagan trans-Rhenish stem duchies on the orders of a monarch. The Saxons, Alemanni and Thuringii all had the institution of the levy and the Frankish monarchs could depend upon their levies until the mid-7th century, when the stem dukes began to sever their ties to the monarchy. Radulf of Thuringia called up the levy for a war against Sigebert III in 640.

Soon the local levy spread to Austrasia and the less Romanised regions of Gaul. On an intermediate level, the kings began calling up territorial levies from the regions of Austrasia (which did not have major cities of Roman origin). All the forms of the levy gradually disappeared, however, in the course of the 7th century after the reign of Dagobert I. Under the so-called , the levies disappeared by mid-century in Austrasia and later in Burgundy and Neustria. Only in Aquitaine, which was fast becoming independent of the central Frankish monarchy, did complex military institutions persist into the 8th century. In the final half of the 7th century and first half of the 8th in Merovingian Gaul, the chief military actors became the lay and ecclesiastical magnates with their bands of armed followers called retainers. The other aspects of the Merovingian military, mostly Roman in origin or innovations of powerful kings, disappeared from the scene by the 8th century.

Strategy, tactics and equipment
Merovingian armies used coats of mail, helmets, shields, lances, swords, bows and arrows and war horses. The armament of private armies resembled those of the Gallo-Roman  of the late Empire. A strong element of Alanic cavalry settled in Armorica influenced the fighting style of the Bretons down into the 12th century. Local urban levies could be reasonably well-armed and even mounted, but the more general levies were composed of  and , who were mostly farmers by trade and carried ineffective weapons, such as farming implements. The peoples east of the Rhine – Franks, Saxons and even Wends – who were sometimes called upon to serve, wore rudimentary armour and carried weapons such as spears and axes. Few of these men were mounted.

Merovingian society had a militarised nature. The Franks called annual meetings every Marchfeld (1 March), when the king and his nobles assembled in large open fields and determined their targets for the next campaigning season. The meetings were a show of strength on behalf of the monarch and a way for him to retain loyalty among his troops. In their civil wars, the Merovingian kings concentrated on the holding of fortified places and the use of siege engines. In wars waged against external foes, the objective was typically the acquisition of booty or the enforcement of tribute. Only in the lands beyond the Rhine did the Merovingians seek to extend political control over their neighbours.

Tactically, the Merovingians borrowed heavily from the Romans, especially regarding siege warfare. Their battle tactics were highly flexible and were designed to meet the specific circumstances of a battle. The tactic of subterfuge was employed endlessly. Cavalry formed a large segment of an army , but troops readily dismounted to fight on foot. The Merovingians were capable of raising naval forces: the naval campaign waged against the Danes by Theuderic I in 515 involved ocean-worthy ships and rivercraft were used on the Loire, Rhône and Rhine.

Culture

Language

In a modern linguistic context, the language of the early Franks is variously called "Old Frankish" or "Old Franconian" and these terms refer to the language of the Franks prior to the advent of the High German consonant shift, which took place between 600 and 700 CE. After this consonant shift the Frankish dialect diverges, with the dialects which would become modern Dutch not undergoing the consonantal shift, while all others did so to varying degrees. As a result, the distinction between Old Dutch and Old Frankish is largely negligible, with Old Dutch (also called Old Low Franconian) being the term used to differentiate between the affected and non-affected variants following the aforementioned Second Germanic consonant shift.

The Frankish language has not been directly attested, apart from a very small number of runic inscriptions found within contemporary Frankish territory such as the Bergakker inscription. Nevertheless a significant amount of Frankish vocabulary has been reconstructed by examining early Germanic loanwords found in Old French as well as through comparative reconstruction through Dutch. The influence of Old Frankish on contemporary Gallo-Roman vocabulary and phonology, have long been questions of scholarly debate. Frankish influence is thought to include the designations of  the four cardinal directions: nord "north", sud "south", est "east" and ouest "west" and at least an additional 1000 stem words.

Although the Franks would eventually conquer all of Gaul, speakers of Frankish apparently expanded in sufficient numbers only into northern Gaul to have a linguistic effect. For several centuries, northern Gaul was a bilingual territory (Vulgar Latin and Frankish). The language used in writing, in government and by the Church was Latin. Urban T. Holmes has proposed that a Germanic language continued to be spoken as a second tongue by public officials in western Austrasia and Northern Neustria as late as the 850s, and that it completely disappeared as a spoken language during the 10th century from regions where only French is spoken today.

The Germanic tribes who were called Franks in Late Antiquity are associated with the Weser-Rhine Germanic/Istvaeonic cultural-linguistic grouping.

Art and architecture

Early Frankish art and architecture belongs to a phase known as Migration Period art, which has left very few remains. The later period is called Carolingian art, or, especially in architecture, pre-Romanesque. Very little Merovingian architecture has been preserved. The earliest churches seem to have been timber-built, with larger examples being of a basilica type. The most completely surviving example, a baptistery in Poitiers, is a building with three apses of a Gallo-Roman style. A number of small baptistries can be seen in Southern France: as these fell out of fashion, they were not updated and have subsequently survived as they were.

Jewelry (such as brooches), weapons (including swords with decorative hilts) and clothing (such as capes and sandals) have been found in a number of grave sites. The grave of Queen Aregund, discovered in 1959, and the Treasure of Gourdon, which was deposited soon after 524, are notable examples. The few Merovingian illuminated manuscripts that have survived, such as the Gelasian Sacramentary, contain a great deal of zoomorphic representations. Such Frankish objects show a greater use of the style and motifs of Late Antiquity and a lesser degree of skill and sophistication in design and manufacture than comparable works from the British Isles. So little has survived, however, that the best quality of work from this period may not be represented.

The objects produced by the main centres of the Carolingian Renaissance, which represent a transformation from that of the earlier period, have survived in far greater quantity. The arts were lavishly funded and encouraged by Charlemagne, using imported artists where necessary, and Carolingian developments were decisive for the future course of Western art. Carolingian illuminated manuscripts and ivory plaques, which have survived in reasonable numbers, approached those of Constantinople in quality. The main surviving monument of Carolingian architecture is the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, which is an impressive and confident adaptation of San Vitale, Ravenna – from where some of the pillars were brought. Many other important buildings existed, such as the monasteries of Centula or St Gall, or the old Cologne Cathedral, since rebuilt. These large structures and complexes made frequent use of towers.

Religion
A sizeable portion of the Frankish aristocracy quickly followed Clovis in converting to Christianity (the Frankish church of the Merovingians). The conversion of all under Frankish rule required a considerable amount of time and effort.

Paganism

Echoes of Frankish paganism can be found in the primary sources, but their meaning is not always clear. Interpretations by modern scholars differ greatly, but it is likely that Frankish paganism shared most of the characteristics of other varieties of Germanic paganism. The mythology of the Franks was probably a form of Germanic polytheism. It was highly ritualistic. Many daily activities centred around the multiple deities, chiefest of which may have been the Quinotaur, a water-god from whom the Merovingians were reputed to have derived their ancestry. Most of their gods were linked with local cult centres and their sacred character and power were associated with specific regions, outside of which they were neither worshipped nor feared. Most of the gods were "worldly", possessing form and having connections with specific objects, in contrast to the God of Christianity.

Frankish paganism has been observed in the burial site of Childeric I, where the king's body was found covered in a cloth decorated with numerous bees. There is a likely connection with the bees to the traditional Frankish weapon, the angon (meaning "sting"), from its distinctive spearhead. It is possible that the fleur-de-lis is derived from the angon.

Christianity

Some Franks, like the 4th century usurper Silvanus, converted early to Christianity. In 496, Clovis I, who had married a Burgundian Catholic named Clotilda in 493, was baptised by Saint Remi after a decisive victory over the Alemanni at the Battle of Tolbiac. According to Gregory of Tours, over three thousand of his soldiers were baptised with him. Clovis' conversion had a profound effect on the course of European history, for at the time the Franks were the only major Christianised Germanic tribe without a predominantly Arian aristocracy and this led to a naturally amicable relationship between the Catholic Church and the increasingly powerful Franks.

Although many of the Frankish aristocracy quickly followed Clovis in converting to Christianity, the conversion of all his subjects was only achieved after considerable effort and, in some regions, a period of over two centuries. The Chronicle of St. Denis relates that, following Clovis' conversion, a number of pagans who were unhappy with this turn of events rallied around Ragnachar, who had played an important role in Clovis' initial rise to power. Although the text remains unclear as to the precise pretext, Clovis had Ragnachar executed. Remaining pockets of resistance were overcome region by region, primarily due to the work of an expanding network of monasteries.

The Merovingian Church was shaped by both internal and external forces. It had to come to terms with an established Gallo-Roman hierarchy that resisted changes to its culture, Christianise pagan sensibilities and suppress their expression, provide a new theological basis for Merovingian forms of kingship deeply rooted in pagan Germanic tradition and accommodate Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionary activities and papal requirements. The Carolingian reformation of monasticism and church-state relations was the culmination of the Frankish Church.

The increasingly wealthy Merovingian elite endowed many monasteries, including that of the Irish missionary Columbanus. The 5th, 6th and 7th centuries saw two major waves of hermitism in the Frankish world, which led to legislation requiring that all monks and hermits follow the Rule of St Benedict. The Church sometimes had an uneasy relationship with the Merovingian kings, whose claim to rule depended on a mystique of royal descent and who tended to revert to the polygamy of their pagan ancestors. Rome encouraged the Franks to slowly replace the Gallican Rite with the Roman rite. When the mayors took over, the Church was supportive and an Emperor crowned by the Pope was much more to their liking.

Laws
As with other Germanic peoples, the laws of the Franks were memorised by "rachimburgs", who were analogous to the lawspeakers of Scandinavia. By the 6th century, when these laws first appeared in written form, two basic legal subdivisions existed: Salian Franks were subject to Salic law and Ripuarian Franks to Ripuarian law. Gallo-Romans south of the River Loire and the clergy remained subject to traditional Roman law. Germanic law was overwhelmingly concerned with the protection of individuals and less concerned with protecting the interests of the state. According to Michel Rouche, "Frankish judges devoted as much care to a case involving the theft of a dog as Roman judges did to cases involving the fiscal responsibility of , or municipal councilors".

Crusaders and other Western Europeans as "Franks"

The term Frank has been used by many of the Eastern Orthodox and Muslim neighbours of medieval Latin Christendom (and beyond, such as in Asia) as a general synonym for a European from Western and Central Europe, areas that followed the Latin rites of Christianity under the authority of the Pope in Rome. Another term with similar use was Latins.

Modern historians often refer to Christians following the Latin rites in the eastern Mediterranean as Franks or Latins, regardless of their country of origin, whereas they use the words Rhomaios and Rûmi ("Roman") for Orthodox Christians. On a number of Greek islands, Catholics are still referred to as  () or "Franks", for instance on Syros, where they are called  (). The period of Crusader rule in Greek lands is known to this day as the Frankokratia ("rule of the Franks").

During the Mongol Empire in the 13–14th centuries, the Mongols used the term "Franks" to designate Europeans. Persianate Turkic dynasties used and spread the term in throughout Iran and India with the expansion of the language. The term Frangistan ("Land of the Franks") was used by Muslims to refer to Christian Europe and was commonly used over several centuries in Iberia, North Africa, and the Middle East.

The Chinese called the Portuguese  佛郎機 ("Franks") in the 1520s at the Battle of Tunmen and Battle of Xicaowan. Some other varieties of Mandarin Chinese pronounced the characters as Fah-lan-ki.

The Mediterranean Lingua Franca (or "Frankish language") was a pidgin first spoken by 11th century European Christians and Muslims in Mediterranean ports that remained in use until the 19th century.

Examples of derived words include:
  () in Greek
  in Albanian
  in Turkish
  in Azerbaijani (derived from Persian)
 ,  and  in Arabic
 ,  in Persian, also the toponym
 Faranji in Tajik.
 Ferengi or Faranji in some Turkic languages
  in Amharic in Ethiopia,  in Tigrinya, and derivative forms in other languages of the Horn of Africa, refers to white people or any white (European stock) person
  or  in Hindi and Urdu (derived from Persian)
 Phirangee in some other Indian languages
  in Tamil
  in Malayalam; in Sinhala, the word refers specifically to Portuguese people
  () in Burmese
  in Khmer
  in Malay
  or Fah-lan-ki () and Fulang in Chinese
  () in Thai.
  ("blonde"),  ("temperament/al") in Bahasa Indonesia

In the Thai usage, the word can refer to any European person. When the presence of US soldiers during the Vietnam War placed Thai people in contact with African Americans, they (and people of African ancestry in general) came to be called  ("Black Farang", ). Such words sometimes also connote things, plants or creatures introduced by Europeans/Franks. For example, in Khmer, , literally "French Chicken", refers to a turkey and in Thai,  is the name both for Europeans and for the guava fruit, introduced by Portuguese traders over 400 years ago. In contemporary Israel, the Yiddish word  () has, by a curious etymological development, come to refer to Mizrahi Jews in Modern Hebrew and carries a strong pejorative connotation.

Some linguists (among them Drs. Jan Tent and Paul Geraghty) have suggested that the Samoan and generic Polynesian term for Europeans, Palagi (pronounced Puh-LANG-ee) or Papalagi, might also be cognate, possibly a loan term gathered by early contact between Pacific islanders and Malays.

See also

 Germanic Christianity
 List of Frankish kings
 List of Frankish queens
 Name of France
 List of Germanic peoples
 Frankokratia

References

Sources

Primary sources

 Fredegar

 Gregory of Tours

 Ammianus Marcellinus

Procopius

Secondary sources

 Bachrach, Bernard S. Merovingian Military Organization, 481–751. University of Minnesota Press, 1971.
 Collins, Roger. Early Medieval Europe 300–1000. MacMillan, 1991.

 .

 Lewis, Archibald R. "The Dukes in the Regnum Francorum, A.D. 550–751." Speculum, Vol. 51, No 3 (July 1976), pp. 381–410.
 McKitterick, Rosamond. The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751–987. London: Longman, 1983. .
 Murray, Archibald Callander, and Goffart, Walter A. After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1998.
 Nixon, C. E. V. and Rodgers, Barbara. In Praise of Later Roman Emperors. Berkeley, 1994.

 Schutz, Herbert. The Germanic Realms in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400–750. American University Studies, Series IX: History, Vol. 196. New York: Peter Lang, 2000.
 Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. The Long-Haired Kings. London: Butler & Tanner Ltd, 1962.
 Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. The Barbarian West. London: Hutchinson, 1970.

Further reading

External links

Early Germanic peoples
Historical ethnic groups of Europe
Early Middle Ages
Medieval Belgium
Medieval Netherlands
German tribes

Franks


The flute is a musical instrument. A person who plays the flute is called a flutist.

There are many kinds of flutes. The most common concert flute is on C tuning. In addition, there are other flutes like piccolos, alto flutes, and bass flutes.

Flutes have changed over time. Pan flutes were made for many centuries. Later, the "Renaissance flute" came into use. In Baroque music flute means recorder, so flutes were called traverso in order not to confuse them. A Bavarian flute maker named Boehm reformed flutes largely to enlarge the volume and improve the way of using the chromatic scale. Later improvements created the modern flute.

There is a large repertoire of music for the flute. Baroque composers used them in their orchestras, usually in pairs, and composed concertos, chamber music and solo music for them. This has continued to the present day. Orchestras have at least 2 flutes each, sometimes three or four. Sometimes there is 1 piccolo which plays an octave higher, or an alto flute which plays a fifth lower than the flute.

The flute sounds very bright and cheerful playing high notes. Please listen, for example, to the Badinerie from Bach's Orchestral Suite no 2. It can also sound very thoughtful or sad when playing in its lowest register. A good example is the opening of Debussy's Prélude à l'après midi d'un faune also flutes Andre a brass instrument and can make a really low pitch.

Playing

The flute is a woodwind instrument, but modern flutes are made of metal. It was made of wood a long time ago. It doesn't need lip vibration like brass instruments. Flute players hold it horizontally and make a sound by blowing their breath over the edge of the hole of flute's head. This makes the air vibrate. Flutes need the second most amount of air for an instrument, next to the tuba. Flautists can change the pitch by pushing buttons or changing the direction of the breath. These buttons are called keys. The breath also can change the tone or the volume. Flute has many variations of the sound. The sound of flute is high, so composers often express it as a bird. A flute matches with many instruments such as violin and piano, and is often part of an ensemble.

Material
There are many kinds of flute, so the material also varies.  Most flutes are made out of silver. Gold, platinum, wood, and aluminum are also used. The price of flute depends on the material, but there are many different playing situations, so not only expensive flutes are useful.

Different Flutes
 Flutes of India and China
The oldest kind of side-blown flute was made in India.
In India, a flute called bansuri is used. It has no keys and is often made of bamboo or cane.

In China, a simple flute is used, which has no keys. The Chinese flute sometimes has a thin piece of paper over one hole, which adds a bright raspiness to the sound.

 Other flutes
There are other kinds of flute, that are played by blowing into the end, like a recorder. Some of these are tin whistle, flageolet, tabor pipe, and ocarina.

In Japan there is a kind of flute called a shakuhachi, which is made from the bottom of a bamboo plant. It is blown at the end, but is not like the recorder because it does not have an opening that guides the air across a hole that makes the sound.

In South America, there is a flute called a quena that makes its sound the same way as the shakuhachi''.

The Pan pipes are a form of flute with no holes. It has more than one pipe connected together, with the bottom closed. The player blows across the top of one of the pipes to make a note. The pipes are in different sizes, so that each one makes a different note. They are named after Pan, who played this instrument in Greek myth.

Gallery
There are flutes in many cultures.  The flute has been described as "a musical weed which springs up everywhere".

Famous Flutists
The band Jethro Tull was founded by a flute player (Ian Anderson). It can be heard in many songs. One of them is the hit "Locomotive Breath".

Related pages
 Digeridoo
 Piccolo
 Pan Flute

References

Other websites

Flute


Chamber music means music written for small groups of instruments. A "chamber" is a "room" (from the French word "chambre"). Usually the word "chamber" in English means a room in a large house or castle. In the days when people with big houses or castles kept their own musicians, they might have their own private orchestra which played in the large hall. Sometimes there would be a concert in a small chamber. This was called "chamber music".

Chamber music can be any group of instruments from two up to nine. Each player will be playing something different from the others ("one to a part"). Unlike an orchestra where there may be many violins all playing the same notes.

The word "chamber" is also used for a "chamber orchestra" meaning: a small orchestra. By contrast: a large orchestra is often called a "symphony orchestra". A small choir may be called a "chamber choir". But these examples are not usually thought of as "chamber music".

Words for the size of groups

These words are used to show how many people are playing. They can also be used for groups of singers (vocal solo, duet etc.):

 a solo is just one player (or singer). This is not usually called chamber music.

 a duet or duo is a piece for two instruments. The word "duo" usually means a piece in which the two parts are of equal importance. Violin sonatas, flute sonatas etc. usually have piano accompaniment but are not normally called "duets". Piano duets are for two players at one piano.

 a trio is a piece for three instruments. Piano trios are pieces for piano, violin and cello. Sometimes trios may be called after one of the instruments, for example: Brahms' "Horn Trio" is for French horn, violin and piano, not for three horns!

 a quartet is a piece for four instruments. String quartets are the most popular form of chamber music. They are for two violins, viola and cello. A piano quartet would be for piano, violin, viola and cello.

 a quintet is a piece for five instruments. A string quintet can be for two violins, two violas and cello (e.g. Mozart's string quintets) or it can be for two violins, viola and two cellos (e.g. the one by Schubert). A piano quintet is for piano and string quartet (although Schubert's Trout Quintet is unusual: it is for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass).

 a sextet is a piece for six instruments. String sextets are normally for two violins, two violas and two cellos. Poulenc's Sextet is for piano and five wind instruments.

 a septet is quite unusual and could be for any combination of instruments. Beethoven, Saint-Saëns and Ravel all wrote septets, but for different combinations.

 an octet is for eight instruments. Schubert's Octet is for clarinet, horn, bassoon, string quartet and double bass. Mendelssohn's Octet is for two string quartets.

 a nonet is quite rare. Louis Spohr wrote a nonet for violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and French horn.

History

Chamber music for instruments became popular as something different from big orchestras. The orchestra developed in the 17th century and so did chamber music. Composers wrote trio sonatas which were for two high instruments (e.g. two violins) and a continuo accompaniment (usually harpsichord and cello). Arcangelo Corelli and Johann Sebastian Bach wrote many trio sonatas.

Joseph Haydn wrote lots of string quartets. He made this combination popular. Mozart and Beethoven also wrote some very great string quartets. The last ones that Beethoven wrote were very difficult to play and to understand, but composers of the 19th century like Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms were inspired by them. In the twentieth century some of the best string quartets were written by Bartók and Shostakovich.

Playing chamber music
It is great fun to play chamber music because each player is an individual. It is like having a conversation in music. There is no conductor, so each musician has to listen carefully to the others and learn to play together as a small team. The musicians can also hear their own playing better than they can in an orchestra. Some living composers have written a lot of music for young players who are not very advanced. Some of Mozart's earlier string quartets are not too difficult and make an excellent introduction to chamber music playing.

Example

Music genres

Chamber music


An engine, or motor, is a machine used to change energy into movement that can be used. The energy can be in any form. Common forms of energy used in engines are electricity, chemical (such as petrol or diesel) or heat. When a chemical is used to produce energy it is known as fuel.

Terminology
In past centuries motor and "engine" meant very different things. A motor was made to move something such as a vehicle. This meaning is still often used. Sometimes a thing is called an engine if it creates mechanical energy from heat, and a motor if it creates mechanical energy from other kinds of energy, like electricity. Typical engines in this meaning are steam engine and internal combustion engine, while typical motors are electric motor and hydraulic motor. And sometimes the two words mean the same thing.

"Engine" was originally a term for any mechanical device that converts force into motion. Hence, pre-industrial weapons such as catapults, trebuchets and battering rams were called "siege engines". The word "gin," as in "cotton gin", is short for "engine." The word derives from Old French engine, from the Latin ingenium, which is also the root of the word ingenious. Most mechanical devices invented during the industrial revolution were described as engines—the steam engine being a notable example.

Piston engines

Early kinds of engine used heat that was outside of the engine itself to heat up a gas to a high pressure. This was usually steam and the engines are called steam engines. The steam was piped to the engine where it pushed on pistons to bring about motion. These engines were commonly used in old factories, boats and trains.

Most cars use a chemical engine that burns fuel inside it. This is called an internal combustion engine.  There are many different types of internal combustion engine. They can be grouped by fuel, cycle and configuration. Common fuel types for internal combustion engines are petrol, diesel, auto gas and alcohol. There are many other types of fuels.

There are 3 different types of cycle. 2-stroke engines produce power once every turn of the engine. 4-stroke engines cylinders make power once every two turns of the engine. 6-stroke engines cylinders make power twice in every six turns of the engine.

There are lots of different configurations of piston engines. Their cylinders have pistons in them and a crankshaft. Any number of cylinders can be used but 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 are common. The cylinders can be arranged in many ways, in a straight line, at an angle to each other or in a circle.

A Wankel engine has no cylinders and uses a triangle shaped rotor spinning in an oval housing which mimics the movement of a piston.

Turbine engines

Hot gas can also be made to push a turbine around rather like the way the wind turns a windmill. Most electric power stations use big steam turbines. Others use water or wind turbines. Smaller turbines called gas turbines are used for internal combustion engines, such as the jet engines used in aircraft.

Rocket engines

A rocket causes movement by shooting jets of gas very fast out of a nozzle. The gas may have been stored under pressure or be a chemical fuel that burns to make a very hot gas. Although they are very simple, rockets are the most powerful engines we know how to make. They will work in space where there is nothing to push against.

Electric motors

Electric motors do not use a fuel. The energy is supplied to them by electricity carried along wires.  The energy may come from a fuel being burnt somewhere else a long way off. The electricity is used to make powerful magnets inside the motor switch on and off at the right time to turn the shaft of the motor.

Electric engine is not a motor, but a railway locomotive which runs on electricity.

Related pages
Diesel engine
Steam engine
Turbine
Electric motor
Stirling engine

Reference section

Machines
Basic English 850 words
Motors

Engine


Mesons are incredibly small subatomic particles that are made of one quark and one antiquark. Antiquarks are the antimatter counterpart of a regular quark. Since antimatter quarks have the opposite spin of regular quarks, their spins can cancel each other out, which forms a particle similar to a Higgs Boson. The name meson comes from Greek "mesos", meaning middle. This is because the masses of the first mesons discovered were between the mass of light particles like electrons, called leptons, and heavy particles like protons, called baryons.

Mesons' spin
Mesons are hadrons, which simply means that they are made of quarks. Since quarks have different fractional charges, mesons can have a charge. However, the charges of the quarks may cancel out, forming an uncharged meson. The rest of the hadron family are known as baryons, which are made of three quarks. Since quarks all have a spin of 1/2, three of them will never add up to an integer spin. An integer spin is simply 0, 1, or 2. Particles with an integer spin are called bosons, which obey Bose-Einstein Statistics. This means that more than one boson can actually be in the same point in space at the same time. However, a meson is made of one quark and one antiquark, which each do not have an integer spin. Particles which do not have an integer spin have a spin of 1/2 or 3/2. These particles with 1/2 spin are called Fermions because they obey Fermi-Dirac Statistics. This means that no more than one fermion can be in the same point in space at the same time. All known baryons and quarks (and antiquarks) are fermions, and all mesons are bosons. This can get very confusing because this means that more than one meson can exist in the same point in space at the same time, but the quarks that make up mesons cannot exist in the same point in space at the same time.

Creation of Mesons
The most common natural way that we find mesons are through the interactions of cosmic rays with matter. This process can be duplicated in particle accelerators, which smash high-energy quarks and antiquarks. However, the mesons are very unstable and quickly turn into other particles. Charged Mesons can decay into electrons and neutrinos, and uncharged mesons can decay into photons. Since antimatter is destroying matter, a large amount of energy is given off. The energy follows the equation E=mc2.

Quantum mechanics
Subatomic particles

Meson


Morality  is the concept of doing the right thing. Morals are basic guidelines for living.

Many people have written about ways of choosing what the right thing is. Some believe that there is an objective (true even if you do not agree with it) morality, often thinking it was set by God or another similar being; others think that morality is subjective (that what is good or bad is a community choice).

People can learn morals from religion, parents, friends, school, books, or from ethical traditions. People that teach or follow morals are called moralists.

It can also be a lesson that someone learns in a book or story. It is usually one line at the end of the story ("The moral of this story is....."). Fables are stories with a moral.

The opposite of "moral" is "immoral", meaning the wrong thing to do. "Amoral" means something that is not related to morality, or has no morally good or bad aspect to it. It is the same as "morally neutral". Morality means that you can tell between a right and a wrong thing.

Some morally correct things to do are

•Eat healthy

•Sleep well

•be polite

•use your brain

•use common sense

•Don't smoke

•Don't drink alcohol

•Don't murder

Related pages
Ethics
Moral equivalence
Moral hazard

Ethics
Psychology
Philosophy

Morality