ArticleTitle stringclasses 109 values | Question stringlengths 4 586 ⌀ | Answer stringlengths 1 926 ⌀ | ArticleFile stringclasses 57 values | EvidencesAvailable stringclasses 120 values |
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Giraffe | Do male giraffes have larger horns than female giraffes? | Yes | data/set1/a5 | Giraffe
The giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant. Males can be 4.8 to 5.5 metres (16 to 18 feet) tall and weigh up to 1,700 kilograms (3,800 pounds). The record-sized bull, shot in Kenya in 1934, was 5.87 m (19.2 ft) tall and weighed approximately 2,000 kg (4,400 lb). San Diego Zoo giraffe fact sheet Retrieved 14 August 2006. Females are generally slightly shorter, and weigh less than the males do.
The giraffe is related to deer and cattle, but is placed in a separate family, the Giraffidae, consisting only of the giraffe and its closest relative, the okapi. Its range extends from Chad to South Africa.
Giraffes can inhabit savannas, grasslands, or open woodlands. They prefer areas enriched with acacia growth. They drink large quantities of water and, as a result, they can spend long periods of time in dry, arid areas. When searching for more food they will venture into areas with denser foliage.
The species name camelopardalis (camelopard) is derived from its early Roman name, where it was described as having characteristics of both a camel and a leopard. Camelopard The English word camelopard first appeared in the 14th century and survived in common usage well into the 19th century. The Afrikaans language retained it. The Arabic word اÙزراÙØ© ziraafa or zurapha, meaning "assemblage" (of animals), or just "tall", was used in English from the sixteenth century on, often in the Italianate form giraffa.
Comparison of the African Miocene giraffids: Palaeotragus (two top) and Climacoceras (two bottom) Giraffids evolved from a 3 metre (10 ft) tall antelope-like mammal which roamed Europe and Asia 30-50 million years ago. Stevens, J. (1993). Familiar Strangers. International Wildlife, 23, 6-10. The earliest giraffid was the Climacoceras, which still resembled deer, having large antler-like ossicones. It first appeared in the early Miocene period. As the lineage went on the genuses Palaeotragus and Samotherium appeared in the early to mid-Miocene. One species of Palaeotragus developed more giraffe-like ossicones. They both were tall at the shoulder but still had short necks. From there the genus Giraffa evolved in the Pliocene period and Okapia evolved in the Pleistocene. The modern long-necked giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis, appeared 1 million years ago.
There are nine generally accepted subspecies, differentiated by colour and pattern variations and range:
* Reticulated or Somali Giraffe (G.c. reticulata) â large, polygonal liver-coloured spots outlined by a network of bright white lines. The blocks may sometimes appear deep red and may also cover the legs. Range: northeastern Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia.
* Angolan or Smoky Giraffe (G.c. angolensis) â large spots and some notches around the edges, extending down the entire lower leg. Range: Angola, Zambia.
* Kordofan Giraffe (G.c. antiquorum) â smaller, more irregular spots that cover the inner legs. Range: western and southwestern Sudan.
* Masai or Kilimanjaro Giraffe (G.c. tippelskirchi) â jagged-edged, vine-leaf shaped spots of dark chocolate on a yellowish background. Range: central and southern Kenya, Tanzania.
* Nubian Giraffe (G.c. camelopardalis) large, four-sided spots of chestnut brown on an off-white background and no spots on inner sides of the legs or below the hocks. Range: eastern Sudan, northeast Congo.
* Rothschild Giraffe or Baringo Giraffe or Ugandan Giraffe (G.c. rothschildi) â deep brown, blotched or rectangular spots with poorly defined cream lines. Hocks may be spotted. Range: Uganda, north-central Kenya.
* South African Giraffe (G.c. giraffa) â rounded or blotched spots, some with star-like extensions on a light tan background, running down to the hooves. Range: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique.
* Thornicroft or Rhodesian Giraffe (G.c. thornicrofti) â star-shaped or leafy spots extend to the lower leg. Range: eastern Zambia.
* West African or Nigerian Giraffe (G.c. peralta) â numerous pale, yellowish red spots. Range: Niger, Cameroon.
Some scientists regard Kordofan and West African Giraffes as a single subspecies; similarly with Nubian and Rothschild's Giraffes, and with Angolan and South African Giraffes. Further, some scientists regard all populations except the Masai Giraffes as a single subspecies. By contrast, scientists have proposed four other subspecies â Cape Giraffe (G.c. capensis), Lado Giraffe (G.c. cottoni), Congo Giraffe (G.c. congoensis), and Transvaal Giraffe (G.c. wardi) â but none of these is widely accepted.
Though giraffes of these populations interbreed freely under conditions of captivity, suggesting that they are subspecific populations, genetic testing published in 2007 David Brown, Rick A Brenneman, et al., "Extensive Population Genetic Structure in the Giraffe", BioMedCentral Biology. Reported in BBC News, "Not one but 'six giraffe species'", 21 December 2007 and in ScienceDaily, "Giraffes And Frogs Provide More Evidence Of New Species Hidden In Plain Sight", 21 December 2007 has been interpreted to show that there may be at least six species of giraffe that are reproductively isolated and not interbreeding, even though no natural obstacles, like mountain ranges or impassable rivers block their mutual access. In fact, the study found that the two giraffe populations that live closest to each otherâ the reticulated giraffe (G. camelopardalis reticulata) of north Kenya, and the Masai giraffe (G. c. tippelskirchi) in south Kenyaâ separated genetically between 0.13 and 1.62 million years BP, judging from genetic drift in nuclear and mitochondrial DNA.
The implications for conservation of as many as eleven such cryptic species and sub-species were summarised by David Brown for BBC "Lumping all giraffes into one species obscures the reality that some kinds of giraffe are on the brink. Some of these populations number only a few hundred individuals and need immediate protection."
Giraffe skeleton as illustrated by Richard Lydekker.
Male giraffes are around 4.8-5.5 m (16-19 ft) tall at the horn tips, and normally weigh 1300-1700 kg (2900-3800 lb) Females are 30-60 cm (1-2 ft) shorter and weigh about 200-400 kg (400-800 lb) less than males. Giraffes have spots covering their entire bodies, except their underbellies, with each giraffe having a unique pattern of spots.
Both sexes have horns, although the horns of a female are smaller. The prominent horns are formed from ossified cartilage, and are called ossicones. The appearance of horns is a reliable method of identifying the sex of giraffes, with the females displaying tufts of hair on the top of the horns, where as males' horns tend to be bald on top â an effect of necking in combat. Males sometimes develop calcium deposits which form bumps on their skull as they age, which can give the appearance of up to three additional horns. San Diego Zoo's Animal Bytes: Giraffe
Giraffe in captivity at the Melbourne Zoo
Giraffes have long necks which they use to browse tree leaves. They possess seven vertebrae in the neck (the usual number for a mammal) that are elongated. The vertebrae are separated by highly flexible joints. The base of the neck has spines which project upward and form a hump over the shoulders. They have anchor muscles that hold the neck upright.
Giraffes also have slightly elongated forelegs, about 10% longer than their hind legs. The pace of the giraffe is an amble, though when pursued it can run extremely fast, up to 55 km/h. Articlebase The Kenyan Giraffe It can not sustain a lengthy chase. Its leg length compels an unusual gait with the left legs moving together followed by right (similar to pacing) at low speed, and the back legs crossing outside the front at high speed. When hunting adult giraffes, lions try to knock the lanky animal off its feet and pull it down. Giraffes are difficult and dangerous prey. The giraffe defends itself with a powerful kick. A single well-placed kick from an adult giraffe can shatter a lion's skull or break its spine. Lions are the only predators which pose a serious threat to an adult giraffe.
Giraffes bending down to drink
Modifications to the giraffe's structure have evolved, particularly to the circulatory system. A giraffe's heart, which can weigh up to 10 kg (22 lb) and measure about 60 cm (2 ft) long, must generate approximately double the normal blood pressure for an average large mammal to maintain blood flow to the brain. In the upper neck, a complex pressure-regulation system called the rete mirabile prevents excess blood flow to the brain when the giraffe lowers its head to drink. Conversely, the blood vessels in the lower legs are under great pressure (because of the weight of fluid pressing down on them). In other animals such pressure would force the blood out through the capillary walls; giraffes, however, have a very tight sheath of thick skin over their lower limbs which maintains high extravascular pressure in the same way as a pilot's g-suit.
thumb
Female giraffes associate in groups of a dozen or so members, occasionally including a few younger males. Younger males tend to live in "bachelor" herds, with older males often leading solitary lives. Reproduction is polygamous, with a few older males impregnating all the fertile females in a herd. Male giraffes determine female fertility by tasting the female's urine in order to detect estrus, in a multi-step process known as the Flehmen response.
Giraffes will mingle with the other herbivores in the African bush. Their company is beneficial, since they are tall enough to have a much wider scope of an area and will watch for predators.
Giraffe gestation lasts between 14 and 15 months, after which a single calf is born. The mother gives birth standing up and the embryonic sack usually bursts when the baby falls to the ground. Newborn giraffes are about 1.8 m (6 ft) tall.
Mating Angolan Giraffes at Chudop waterhole, Etosha, Namibia.
Within a few hours of being born, calves can run around and are indistinguishable from a week-old calf; however, for the first two weeks, they spend most of their time lying down, guarded by the mother. The young can fall prey to lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, and wild dogs. It has been speculated that their characteristic spotted pattern provides a certain degree of camouflage. Only 25 to 50% of giraffe calves reach adulthood; the life expectancy is between 20 and 25 years in the wild and 28 years in captivity (Encyclopedia of Animals).
Two males necking.
As noted above, males often engage in necking, which has been described as having various functions. One of these is combat. Battles can be fatal, but are more often less severe. The longer the neck, and the heavier the head at the end of the neck, the greater the force a giraffe is able to deliver in a blow. It has also been observed that males that are successful in necking have greater access to estrous females, so the length of the neck may be a product of sexual selection. Robert E. Simmons and Lue Scheepers: Winning by a neck: Sexual selection in the evolution of giraffe. The American Naturalist, 148 (1996): pp. 771-786.
After a necking duel, a giraffe can land a powerful blow with his head â occasionally knocking a male opponent to the ground. These fights rarely last more than a few minutes or end in physical harm.
Another function of necking is sexual, in which two males caress and court each other, leading up to mounting and climax. Such interactions between males are more frequent than heterosexual coupling. Coe, M.J. (1967). "Necking" behavior in the giraffe." Journal of Zoology, London 151: 313-321. In one study, up to 94% of observed mounting incidents took place between two males. The proportion of same sex activities varied between 30 and 75%, and at any given time one in twenty males were engaged in non-combative necking behaviour with another male. Only 1% of same-sex mounting incidents occurred between females. Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, St. Martin's Press, 1999; pp.391-393.
Many animals when kept in captivity, such as in zoos, display abnormal behaviours. Such unnatural behaviours are known as stereotypic behaviours. Jentz, D.C. & A.B. Gull 1978. Towards a definition of abnormal activity: stereotypic behaviours in captive primates. Mamm. Ecol. 12: 145â154. In particular, giraffes show distinct patterns of stereotypic behaviours when removed from their natural environment. Due to a subconscious response to suckle milk from their mother, something which many human-reared giraffes and other captive animals do not experience, giraffes resort instead to excessive tongue use on inanimate objects. Harrison, J.C, Q.F. George & C.C. Cronk 2001. Stereotypic behaviour in zoo animals. J. Zoo Sc. 23: 71â86.
Due to the obvious social and cultural discomfort associated with the addition of milk delivery devices, animal enclosures are often enriched with other stimuli, such as food and mental distractions (toys, scent markings etc.). This operates as a distraction, removing the giraffeâs focus from its instinctual tendencies towards suckling, resulting in tongue lolling and licking of objects in close proximity.
Giraffes use their long, prehensile tongues to extend their reach.
The giraffe browses on the twigs of trees, preferring trees of the genus Mimosa; but it appears that it can live without inconvenience on other vegetable food. A giraffe can eat 63 kg (140 lb) of leaves and twigs daily. As ruminants, they first chew their food, swallow for processing and then visibly regurgitate the semi-digested cud up their necks and back into the mouth, in order to chew again. This process is usually repeated several times for each mouthful.
Male giraffe making a cough-like mating call at the Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence, Rhode Island
A giraffe will clean off any bugs that appear on its face with its extremely long tongue (about 45 cm/18 in). The tongue is tough due to the giraffe's diet, which can include tree thorns. In Southern Africa, giraffes feed on all acacias, especially Acacia erioloba, and possess a specially-adapted tongue and lips that are tough enough to withstand the vicious thorns of this plant.
The giraffe has one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, which is between 10 minutes and two hours in a 24-hour period, averaging 1.9 hours per day. BBC - Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - What is sleep
Although generally quiet and not vocal, giraffes have been heard to make various sounds. Courting males will emit loud coughs. Females will call their young by whistling or bellowing. Calves will bleat, moo, or make mewing sounds. In addition, giraffes will grunt, snort, hiss, or make strange flute-like sounds. Recent research has shown evidence that the animal communicates at an infrasound level. Infrasound From the Giraffe
Lone giraffe at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya
Giraffes are hunted for their hides, hair, and meat. In addition, habitat destruction also hurts the giraffe. In the Sahel trees are cut down for firewood and to make way for livestock. Normally, giraffes are able to cope with livestock since they feed in the trees above their heads. The giraffe population is shrinking in West Africa. However, the populations in eastern and southern Africa are stable and, due to the popularity of privately-owned game ranches and sanctuaries (i.e. Bour-Algi Giraffe Sanctuary), are expanding. The giraffe is a protected species in most of its range. The total African giraffe population has been estimated to range from 110,000 to 150,000. Kenya (45,000), Tanzania (30,000), and Botswana (12,000), have the largest national populations. East, R. 1998, in: African Antelope Database 1998. IUCN/SSC Antelope Specialist Group Report.
An unexpected danger to giraffes in captivity is that, as they are typically the tallest objects in a zoo, giraffes are at increased risk of being struck by lightning. In the wild, this hazard is reduced by the presence of trees; as well, the giraffe's natural habitat range has an extremely low occurrence of lightning -- NASA's satellite lightning detection system indicates that the area receives an average of less than one cloud-to-ground flash per square kilometre per year. Lightning strikes giraffes
Painting of a giraffe taken to China from Africa during the Ming Dynasty
Giraffes can be seen in paintings, including the famous painting of a giraffe which was taken from Africa to China in 1414. The giraffe was placed in a Ming Dynasty zoo.
The Medici giraffe was a giraffe presented to Lorenzo de' Medici in 1486. It caused a great stir on its arrival in Florence, being reputedly the first living giraffe to be seen in Italy since the days of Ancient Rome. Another famous giraffe, called Zarafa, was brought from Africa to Paris in the early 1800s and kept in a menagerie for 18 years.
Giraffe is a novel by the author J. M. Ledgard. The work concerns a true incident in which 49 giraffes were slaughtered in the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) in 1975 following the suspected outbreak of disease amongst the group. The novel contains extensive information about the species, including the long history of European fascination with the beast and its captivity in zoos.
Notable fictional giraffes include:
* Toys "R" Us mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe. He was originally portrayed as a cartoon giraffe but in the 2001 commercials he was portrayed as a real-life giraffe who talks; an animatronic version of Geoffrey the Giraffe (created by Stan Winston Studios), was voiced by Jim Hanks in commercials for radio and television.
* Longrack of the Transformers universe
* Girafarig from the Pokémon franchise
* Melman from ''Madagascar
* Video - Giraffe birth at the San Francisco Zoo
* Giraffes: Wildlife summary from the African Wildlife Foundation
*ARKive - images and movies of the giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis).
* Introduction to the history of the Giraffe in Middle Ages (French)
* Animal Diversity Web - Giraffa camelopardalis
* Giraffe Recruitment
* Giraffe Central web directory
* IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
* PBS Nature: Tall Blondes (Giraffes)
* Matt's World of Wicked Giraffes
* Mating System
* Giraffe Info Sheet
* Long-term suppression of fertility in female giraffe using the GnRH agonist deslorelin as a long-acting implant
*
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Giraffe | Do male giraffes have larger horns than female giraffes? | Yes | data/set1/a5 | Giraffe
The giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant. Males can be 4.8 to 5.5 metres (16 to 18 feet) tall and weigh up to 1,700 kilograms (3,800 pounds). The record-sized bull, shot in Kenya in 1934, was 5.87 m (19.2 ft) tall and weighed approximately 2,000 kg (4,400 lb). San Diego Zoo giraffe fact sheet Retrieved 14 August 2006. Females are generally slightly shorter, and weigh less than the males do.
The giraffe is related to deer and cattle, but is placed in a separate family, the Giraffidae, consisting only of the giraffe and its closest relative, the okapi. Its range extends from Chad to South Africa.
Giraffes can inhabit savannas, grasslands, or open woodlands. They prefer areas enriched with acacia growth. They drink large quantities of water and, as a result, they can spend long periods of time in dry, arid areas. When searching for more food they will venture into areas with denser foliage.
The species name camelopardalis (camelopard) is derived from its early Roman name, where it was described as having characteristics of both a camel and a leopard. Camelopard The English word camelopard first appeared in the 14th century and survived in common usage well into the 19th century. The Afrikaans language retained it. The Arabic word اÙزراÙØ© ziraafa or zurapha, meaning "assemblage" (of animals), or just "tall", was used in English from the sixteenth century on, often in the Italianate form giraffa.
Comparison of the African Miocene giraffids: Palaeotragus (two top) and Climacoceras (two bottom) Giraffids evolved from a 3 metre (10 ft) tall antelope-like mammal which roamed Europe and Asia 30-50 million years ago. Stevens, J. (1993). Familiar Strangers. International Wildlife, 23, 6-10. The earliest giraffid was the Climacoceras, which still resembled deer, having large antler-like ossicones. It first appeared in the early Miocene period. As the lineage went on the genuses Palaeotragus and Samotherium appeared in the early to mid-Miocene. One species of Palaeotragus developed more giraffe-like ossicones. They both were tall at the shoulder but still had short necks. From there the genus Giraffa evolved in the Pliocene period and Okapia evolved in the Pleistocene. The modern long-necked giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis, appeared 1 million years ago.
There are nine generally accepted subspecies, differentiated by colour and pattern variations and range:
* Reticulated or Somali Giraffe (G.c. reticulata) â large, polygonal liver-coloured spots outlined by a network of bright white lines. The blocks may sometimes appear deep red and may also cover the legs. Range: northeastern Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia.
* Angolan or Smoky Giraffe (G.c. angolensis) â large spots and some notches around the edges, extending down the entire lower leg. Range: Angola, Zambia.
* Kordofan Giraffe (G.c. antiquorum) â smaller, more irregular spots that cover the inner legs. Range: western and southwestern Sudan.
* Masai or Kilimanjaro Giraffe (G.c. tippelskirchi) â jagged-edged, vine-leaf shaped spots of dark chocolate on a yellowish background. Range: central and southern Kenya, Tanzania.
* Nubian Giraffe (G.c. camelopardalis) large, four-sided spots of chestnut brown on an off-white background and no spots on inner sides of the legs or below the hocks. Range: eastern Sudan, northeast Congo.
* Rothschild Giraffe or Baringo Giraffe or Ugandan Giraffe (G.c. rothschildi) â deep brown, blotched or rectangular spots with poorly defined cream lines. Hocks may be spotted. Range: Uganda, north-central Kenya.
* South African Giraffe (G.c. giraffa) â rounded or blotched spots, some with star-like extensions on a light tan background, running down to the hooves. Range: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique.
* Thornicroft or Rhodesian Giraffe (G.c. thornicrofti) â star-shaped or leafy spots extend to the lower leg. Range: eastern Zambia.
* West African or Nigerian Giraffe (G.c. peralta) â numerous pale, yellowish red spots. Range: Niger, Cameroon.
Some scientists regard Kordofan and West African Giraffes as a single subspecies; similarly with Nubian and Rothschild's Giraffes, and with Angolan and South African Giraffes. Further, some scientists regard all populations except the Masai Giraffes as a single subspecies. By contrast, scientists have proposed four other subspecies â Cape Giraffe (G.c. capensis), Lado Giraffe (G.c. cottoni), Congo Giraffe (G.c. congoensis), and Transvaal Giraffe (G.c. wardi) â but none of these is widely accepted.
Though giraffes of these populations interbreed freely under conditions of captivity, suggesting that they are subspecific populations, genetic testing published in 2007 David Brown, Rick A Brenneman, et al., "Extensive Population Genetic Structure in the Giraffe", BioMedCentral Biology. Reported in BBC News, "Not one but 'six giraffe species'", 21 December 2007 and in ScienceDaily, "Giraffes And Frogs Provide More Evidence Of New Species Hidden In Plain Sight", 21 December 2007 has been interpreted to show that there may be at least six species of giraffe that are reproductively isolated and not interbreeding, even though no natural obstacles, like mountain ranges or impassable rivers block their mutual access. In fact, the study found that the two giraffe populations that live closest to each otherâ the reticulated giraffe (G. camelopardalis reticulata) of north Kenya, and the Masai giraffe (G. c. tippelskirchi) in south Kenyaâ separated genetically between 0.13 and 1.62 million years BP, judging from genetic drift in nuclear and mitochondrial DNA.
The implications for conservation of as many as eleven such cryptic species and sub-species were summarised by David Brown for BBC "Lumping all giraffes into one species obscures the reality that some kinds of giraffe are on the brink. Some of these populations number only a few hundred individuals and need immediate protection."
Giraffe skeleton as illustrated by Richard Lydekker.
Male giraffes are around 4.8-5.5 m (16-19 ft) tall at the horn tips, and normally weigh 1300-1700 kg (2900-3800 lb) Females are 30-60 cm (1-2 ft) shorter and weigh about 200-400 kg (400-800 lb) less than males. Giraffes have spots covering their entire bodies, except their underbellies, with each giraffe having a unique pattern of spots.
Both sexes have horns, although the horns of a female are smaller. The prominent horns are formed from ossified cartilage, and are called ossicones. The appearance of horns is a reliable method of identifying the sex of giraffes, with the females displaying tufts of hair on the top of the horns, where as males' horns tend to be bald on top â an effect of necking in combat. Males sometimes develop calcium deposits which form bumps on their skull as they age, which can give the appearance of up to three additional horns. San Diego Zoo's Animal Bytes: Giraffe
Giraffe in captivity at the Melbourne Zoo
Giraffes have long necks which they use to browse tree leaves. They possess seven vertebrae in the neck (the usual number for a mammal) that are elongated. The vertebrae are separated by highly flexible joints. The base of the neck has spines which project upward and form a hump over the shoulders. They have anchor muscles that hold the neck upright.
Giraffes also have slightly elongated forelegs, about 10% longer than their hind legs. The pace of the giraffe is an amble, though when pursued it can run extremely fast, up to 55 km/h. Articlebase The Kenyan Giraffe It can not sustain a lengthy chase. Its leg length compels an unusual gait with the left legs moving together followed by right (similar to pacing) at low speed, and the back legs crossing outside the front at high speed. When hunting adult giraffes, lions try to knock the lanky animal off its feet and pull it down. Giraffes are difficult and dangerous prey. The giraffe defends itself with a powerful kick. A single well-placed kick from an adult giraffe can shatter a lion's skull or break its spine. Lions are the only predators which pose a serious threat to an adult giraffe.
Giraffes bending down to drink
Modifications to the giraffe's structure have evolved, particularly to the circulatory system. A giraffe's heart, which can weigh up to 10 kg (22 lb) and measure about 60 cm (2 ft) long, must generate approximately double the normal blood pressure for an average large mammal to maintain blood flow to the brain. In the upper neck, a complex pressure-regulation system called the rete mirabile prevents excess blood flow to the brain when the giraffe lowers its head to drink. Conversely, the blood vessels in the lower legs are under great pressure (because of the weight of fluid pressing down on them). In other animals such pressure would force the blood out through the capillary walls; giraffes, however, have a very tight sheath of thick skin over their lower limbs which maintains high extravascular pressure in the same way as a pilot's g-suit.
thumb
Female giraffes associate in groups of a dozen or so members, occasionally including a few younger males. Younger males tend to live in "bachelor" herds, with older males often leading solitary lives. Reproduction is polygamous, with a few older males impregnating all the fertile females in a herd. Male giraffes determine female fertility by tasting the female's urine in order to detect estrus, in a multi-step process known as the Flehmen response.
Giraffes will mingle with the other herbivores in the African bush. Their company is beneficial, since they are tall enough to have a much wider scope of an area and will watch for predators.
Giraffe gestation lasts between 14 and 15 months, after which a single calf is born. The mother gives birth standing up and the embryonic sack usually bursts when the baby falls to the ground. Newborn giraffes are about 1.8 m (6 ft) tall.
Mating Angolan Giraffes at Chudop waterhole, Etosha, Namibia.
Within a few hours of being born, calves can run around and are indistinguishable from a week-old calf; however, for the first two weeks, they spend most of their time lying down, guarded by the mother. The young can fall prey to lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, and wild dogs. It has been speculated that their characteristic spotted pattern provides a certain degree of camouflage. Only 25 to 50% of giraffe calves reach adulthood; the life expectancy is between 20 and 25 years in the wild and 28 years in captivity (Encyclopedia of Animals).
Two males necking.
As noted above, males often engage in necking, which has been described as having various functions. One of these is combat. Battles can be fatal, but are more often less severe. The longer the neck, and the heavier the head at the end of the neck, the greater the force a giraffe is able to deliver in a blow. It has also been observed that males that are successful in necking have greater access to estrous females, so the length of the neck may be a product of sexual selection. Robert E. Simmons and Lue Scheepers: Winning by a neck: Sexual selection in the evolution of giraffe. The American Naturalist, 148 (1996): pp. 771-786.
After a necking duel, a giraffe can land a powerful blow with his head â occasionally knocking a male opponent to the ground. These fights rarely last more than a few minutes or end in physical harm.
Another function of necking is sexual, in which two males caress and court each other, leading up to mounting and climax. Such interactions between males are more frequent than heterosexual coupling. Coe, M.J. (1967). "Necking" behavior in the giraffe." Journal of Zoology, London 151: 313-321. In one study, up to 94% of observed mounting incidents took place between two males. The proportion of same sex activities varied between 30 and 75%, and at any given time one in twenty males were engaged in non-combative necking behaviour with another male. Only 1% of same-sex mounting incidents occurred between females. Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, St. Martin's Press, 1999; pp.391-393.
Many animals when kept in captivity, such as in zoos, display abnormal behaviours. Such unnatural behaviours are known as stereotypic behaviours. Jentz, D.C. & A.B. Gull 1978. Towards a definition of abnormal activity: stereotypic behaviours in captive primates. Mamm. Ecol. 12: 145â154. In particular, giraffes show distinct patterns of stereotypic behaviours when removed from their natural environment. Due to a subconscious response to suckle milk from their mother, something which many human-reared giraffes and other captive animals do not experience, giraffes resort instead to excessive tongue use on inanimate objects. Harrison, J.C, Q.F. George & C.C. Cronk 2001. Stereotypic behaviour in zoo animals. J. Zoo Sc. 23: 71â86.
Due to the obvious social and cultural discomfort associated with the addition of milk delivery devices, animal enclosures are often enriched with other stimuli, such as food and mental distractions (toys, scent markings etc.). This operates as a distraction, removing the giraffeâs focus from its instinctual tendencies towards suckling, resulting in tongue lolling and licking of objects in close proximity.
Giraffes use their long, prehensile tongues to extend their reach.
The giraffe browses on the twigs of trees, preferring trees of the genus Mimosa; but it appears that it can live without inconvenience on other vegetable food. A giraffe can eat 63 kg (140 lb) of leaves and twigs daily. As ruminants, they first chew their food, swallow for processing and then visibly regurgitate the semi-digested cud up their necks and back into the mouth, in order to chew again. This process is usually repeated several times for each mouthful.
Male giraffe making a cough-like mating call at the Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence, Rhode Island
A giraffe will clean off any bugs that appear on its face with its extremely long tongue (about 45 cm/18 in). The tongue is tough due to the giraffe's diet, which can include tree thorns. In Southern Africa, giraffes feed on all acacias, especially Acacia erioloba, and possess a specially-adapted tongue and lips that are tough enough to withstand the vicious thorns of this plant.
The giraffe has one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, which is between 10 minutes and two hours in a 24-hour period, averaging 1.9 hours per day. BBC - Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - What is sleep
Although generally quiet and not vocal, giraffes have been heard to make various sounds. Courting males will emit loud coughs. Females will call their young by whistling or bellowing. Calves will bleat, moo, or make mewing sounds. In addition, giraffes will grunt, snort, hiss, or make strange flute-like sounds. Recent research has shown evidence that the animal communicates at an infrasound level. Infrasound From the Giraffe
Lone giraffe at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya
Giraffes are hunted for their hides, hair, and meat. In addition, habitat destruction also hurts the giraffe. In the Sahel trees are cut down for firewood and to make way for livestock. Normally, giraffes are able to cope with livestock since they feed in the trees above their heads. The giraffe population is shrinking in West Africa. However, the populations in eastern and southern Africa are stable and, due to the popularity of privately-owned game ranches and sanctuaries (i.e. Bour-Algi Giraffe Sanctuary), are expanding. The giraffe is a protected species in most of its range. The total African giraffe population has been estimated to range from 110,000 to 150,000. Kenya (45,000), Tanzania (30,000), and Botswana (12,000), have the largest national populations. East, R. 1998, in: African Antelope Database 1998. IUCN/SSC Antelope Specialist Group Report.
An unexpected danger to giraffes in captivity is that, as they are typically the tallest objects in a zoo, giraffes are at increased risk of being struck by lightning. In the wild, this hazard is reduced by the presence of trees; as well, the giraffe's natural habitat range has an extremely low occurrence of lightning -- NASA's satellite lightning detection system indicates that the area receives an average of less than one cloud-to-ground flash per square kilometre per year. Lightning strikes giraffes
Painting of a giraffe taken to China from Africa during the Ming Dynasty
Giraffes can be seen in paintings, including the famous painting of a giraffe which was taken from Africa to China in 1414. The giraffe was placed in a Ming Dynasty zoo.
The Medici giraffe was a giraffe presented to Lorenzo de' Medici in 1486. It caused a great stir on its arrival in Florence, being reputedly the first living giraffe to be seen in Italy since the days of Ancient Rome. Another famous giraffe, called Zarafa, was brought from Africa to Paris in the early 1800s and kept in a menagerie for 18 years.
Giraffe is a novel by the author J. M. Ledgard. The work concerns a true incident in which 49 giraffes were slaughtered in the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) in 1975 following the suspected outbreak of disease amongst the group. The novel contains extensive information about the species, including the long history of European fascination with the beast and its captivity in zoos.
Notable fictional giraffes include:
* Toys "R" Us mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe. He was originally portrayed as a cartoon giraffe but in the 2001 commercials he was portrayed as a real-life giraffe who talks; an animatronic version of Geoffrey the Giraffe (created by Stan Winston Studios), was voiced by Jim Hanks in commercials for radio and television.
* Longrack of the Transformers universe
* Girafarig from the Pokémon franchise
* Melman from ''Madagascar
* Video - Giraffe birth at the San Francisco Zoo
* Giraffes: Wildlife summary from the African Wildlife Foundation
*ARKive - images and movies of the giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis).
* Introduction to the history of the Giraffe in Middle Ages (French)
* Animal Diversity Web - Giraffa camelopardalis
* Giraffe Recruitment
* Giraffe Central web directory
* IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
* PBS Nature: Tall Blondes (Giraffes)
* Matt's World of Wicked Giraffes
* Mating System
* Giraffe Info Sheet
* Long-term suppression of fertility in female giraffe using the GnRH agonist deslorelin as a long-acting implant
*
|
Giraffe | Are male females generally taller than female giraffes? | Yes | data/set1/a5 | Giraffe
The giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant. Males can be 4.8 to 5.5 metres (16 to 18 feet) tall and weigh up to 1,700 kilograms (3,800 pounds). The record-sized bull, shot in Kenya in 1934, was 5.87 m (19.2 ft) tall and weighed approximately 2,000 kg (4,400 lb). San Diego Zoo giraffe fact sheet Retrieved 14 August 2006. Females are generally slightly shorter, and weigh less than the males do.
The giraffe is related to deer and cattle, but is placed in a separate family, the Giraffidae, consisting only of the giraffe and its closest relative, the okapi. Its range extends from Chad to South Africa.
Giraffes can inhabit savannas, grasslands, or open woodlands. They prefer areas enriched with acacia growth. They drink large quantities of water and, as a result, they can spend long periods of time in dry, arid areas. When searching for more food they will venture into areas with denser foliage.
The species name camelopardalis (camelopard) is derived from its early Roman name, where it was described as having characteristics of both a camel and a leopard. Camelopard The English word camelopard first appeared in the 14th century and survived in common usage well into the 19th century. The Afrikaans language retained it. The Arabic word اÙزراÙØ© ziraafa or zurapha, meaning "assemblage" (of animals), or just "tall", was used in English from the sixteenth century on, often in the Italianate form giraffa.
Comparison of the African Miocene giraffids: Palaeotragus (two top) and Climacoceras (two bottom) Giraffids evolved from a 3 metre (10 ft) tall antelope-like mammal which roamed Europe and Asia 30-50 million years ago. Stevens, J. (1993). Familiar Strangers. International Wildlife, 23, 6-10. The earliest giraffid was the Climacoceras, which still resembled deer, having large antler-like ossicones. It first appeared in the early Miocene period. As the lineage went on the genuses Palaeotragus and Samotherium appeared in the early to mid-Miocene. One species of Palaeotragus developed more giraffe-like ossicones. They both were tall at the shoulder but still had short necks. From there the genus Giraffa evolved in the Pliocene period and Okapia evolved in the Pleistocene. The modern long-necked giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis, appeared 1 million years ago.
There are nine generally accepted subspecies, differentiated by colour and pattern variations and range:
* Reticulated or Somali Giraffe (G.c. reticulata) â large, polygonal liver-coloured spots outlined by a network of bright white lines. The blocks may sometimes appear deep red and may also cover the legs. Range: northeastern Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia.
* Angolan or Smoky Giraffe (G.c. angolensis) â large spots and some notches around the edges, extending down the entire lower leg. Range: Angola, Zambia.
* Kordofan Giraffe (G.c. antiquorum) â smaller, more irregular spots that cover the inner legs. Range: western and southwestern Sudan.
* Masai or Kilimanjaro Giraffe (G.c. tippelskirchi) â jagged-edged, vine-leaf shaped spots of dark chocolate on a yellowish background. Range: central and southern Kenya, Tanzania.
* Nubian Giraffe (G.c. camelopardalis) large, four-sided spots of chestnut brown on an off-white background and no spots on inner sides of the legs or below the hocks. Range: eastern Sudan, northeast Congo.
* Rothschild Giraffe or Baringo Giraffe or Ugandan Giraffe (G.c. rothschildi) â deep brown, blotched or rectangular spots with poorly defined cream lines. Hocks may be spotted. Range: Uganda, north-central Kenya.
* South African Giraffe (G.c. giraffa) â rounded or blotched spots, some with star-like extensions on a light tan background, running down to the hooves. Range: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique.
* Thornicroft or Rhodesian Giraffe (G.c. thornicrofti) â star-shaped or leafy spots extend to the lower leg. Range: eastern Zambia.
* West African or Nigerian Giraffe (G.c. peralta) â numerous pale, yellowish red spots. Range: Niger, Cameroon.
Some scientists regard Kordofan and West African Giraffes as a single subspecies; similarly with Nubian and Rothschild's Giraffes, and with Angolan and South African Giraffes. Further, some scientists regard all populations except the Masai Giraffes as a single subspecies. By contrast, scientists have proposed four other subspecies â Cape Giraffe (G.c. capensis), Lado Giraffe (G.c. cottoni), Congo Giraffe (G.c. congoensis), and Transvaal Giraffe (G.c. wardi) â but none of these is widely accepted.
Though giraffes of these populations interbreed freely under conditions of captivity, suggesting that they are subspecific populations, genetic testing published in 2007 David Brown, Rick A Brenneman, et al., "Extensive Population Genetic Structure in the Giraffe", BioMedCentral Biology. Reported in BBC News, "Not one but 'six giraffe species'", 21 December 2007 and in ScienceDaily, "Giraffes And Frogs Provide More Evidence Of New Species Hidden In Plain Sight", 21 December 2007 has been interpreted to show that there may be at least six species of giraffe that are reproductively isolated and not interbreeding, even though no natural obstacles, like mountain ranges or impassable rivers block their mutual access. In fact, the study found that the two giraffe populations that live closest to each otherâ the reticulated giraffe (G. camelopardalis reticulata) of north Kenya, and the Masai giraffe (G. c. tippelskirchi) in south Kenyaâ separated genetically between 0.13 and 1.62 million years BP, judging from genetic drift in nuclear and mitochondrial DNA.
The implications for conservation of as many as eleven such cryptic species and sub-species were summarised by David Brown for BBC "Lumping all giraffes into one species obscures the reality that some kinds of giraffe are on the brink. Some of these populations number only a few hundred individuals and need immediate protection."
Giraffe skeleton as illustrated by Richard Lydekker.
Male giraffes are around 4.8-5.5 m (16-19 ft) tall at the horn tips, and normally weigh 1300-1700 kg (2900-3800 lb) Females are 30-60 cm (1-2 ft) shorter and weigh about 200-400 kg (400-800 lb) less than males. Giraffes have spots covering their entire bodies, except their underbellies, with each giraffe having a unique pattern of spots.
Both sexes have horns, although the horns of a female are smaller. The prominent horns are formed from ossified cartilage, and are called ossicones. The appearance of horns is a reliable method of identifying the sex of giraffes, with the females displaying tufts of hair on the top of the horns, where as males' horns tend to be bald on top â an effect of necking in combat. Males sometimes develop calcium deposits which form bumps on their skull as they age, which can give the appearance of up to three additional horns. San Diego Zoo's Animal Bytes: Giraffe
Giraffe in captivity at the Melbourne Zoo
Giraffes have long necks which they use to browse tree leaves. They possess seven vertebrae in the neck (the usual number for a mammal) that are elongated. The vertebrae are separated by highly flexible joints. The base of the neck has spines which project upward and form a hump over the shoulders. They have anchor muscles that hold the neck upright.
Giraffes also have slightly elongated forelegs, about 10% longer than their hind legs. The pace of the giraffe is an amble, though when pursued it can run extremely fast, up to 55 km/h. Articlebase The Kenyan Giraffe It can not sustain a lengthy chase. Its leg length compels an unusual gait with the left legs moving together followed by right (similar to pacing) at low speed, and the back legs crossing outside the front at high speed. When hunting adult giraffes, lions try to knock the lanky animal off its feet and pull it down. Giraffes are difficult and dangerous prey. The giraffe defends itself with a powerful kick. A single well-placed kick from an adult giraffe can shatter a lion's skull or break its spine. Lions are the only predators which pose a serious threat to an adult giraffe.
Giraffes bending down to drink
Modifications to the giraffe's structure have evolved, particularly to the circulatory system. A giraffe's heart, which can weigh up to 10 kg (22 lb) and measure about 60 cm (2 ft) long, must generate approximately double the normal blood pressure for an average large mammal to maintain blood flow to the brain. In the upper neck, a complex pressure-regulation system called the rete mirabile prevents excess blood flow to the brain when the giraffe lowers its head to drink. Conversely, the blood vessels in the lower legs are under great pressure (because of the weight of fluid pressing down on them). In other animals such pressure would force the blood out through the capillary walls; giraffes, however, have a very tight sheath of thick skin over their lower limbs which maintains high extravascular pressure in the same way as a pilot's g-suit.
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Female giraffes associate in groups of a dozen or so members, occasionally including a few younger males. Younger males tend to live in "bachelor" herds, with older males often leading solitary lives. Reproduction is polygamous, with a few older males impregnating all the fertile females in a herd. Male giraffes determine female fertility by tasting the female's urine in order to detect estrus, in a multi-step process known as the Flehmen response.
Giraffes will mingle with the other herbivores in the African bush. Their company is beneficial, since they are tall enough to have a much wider scope of an area and will watch for predators.
Giraffe gestation lasts between 14 and 15 months, after which a single calf is born. The mother gives birth standing up and the embryonic sack usually bursts when the baby falls to the ground. Newborn giraffes are about 1.8 m (6 ft) tall.
Mating Angolan Giraffes at Chudop waterhole, Etosha, Namibia.
Within a few hours of being born, calves can run around and are indistinguishable from a week-old calf; however, for the first two weeks, they spend most of their time lying down, guarded by the mother. The young can fall prey to lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, and wild dogs. It has been speculated that their characteristic spotted pattern provides a certain degree of camouflage. Only 25 to 50% of giraffe calves reach adulthood; the life expectancy is between 20 and 25 years in the wild and 28 years in captivity (Encyclopedia of Animals).
Two males necking.
As noted above, males often engage in necking, which has been described as having various functions. One of these is combat. Battles can be fatal, but are more often less severe. The longer the neck, and the heavier the head at the end of the neck, the greater the force a giraffe is able to deliver in a blow. It has also been observed that males that are successful in necking have greater access to estrous females, so the length of the neck may be a product of sexual selection. Robert E. Simmons and Lue Scheepers: Winning by a neck: Sexual selection in the evolution of giraffe. The American Naturalist, 148 (1996): pp. 771-786.
After a necking duel, a giraffe can land a powerful blow with his head â occasionally knocking a male opponent to the ground. These fights rarely last more than a few minutes or end in physical harm.
Another function of necking is sexual, in which two males caress and court each other, leading up to mounting and climax. Such interactions between males are more frequent than heterosexual coupling. Coe, M.J. (1967). "Necking" behavior in the giraffe." Journal of Zoology, London 151: 313-321. In one study, up to 94% of observed mounting incidents took place between two males. The proportion of same sex activities varied between 30 and 75%, and at any given time one in twenty males were engaged in non-combative necking behaviour with another male. Only 1% of same-sex mounting incidents occurred between females. Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, St. Martin's Press, 1999; pp.391-393.
Many animals when kept in captivity, such as in zoos, display abnormal behaviours. Such unnatural behaviours are known as stereotypic behaviours. Jentz, D.C. & A.B. Gull 1978. Towards a definition of abnormal activity: stereotypic behaviours in captive primates. Mamm. Ecol. 12: 145â154. In particular, giraffes show distinct patterns of stereotypic behaviours when removed from their natural environment. Due to a subconscious response to suckle milk from their mother, something which many human-reared giraffes and other captive animals do not experience, giraffes resort instead to excessive tongue use on inanimate objects. Harrison, J.C, Q.F. George & C.C. Cronk 2001. Stereotypic behaviour in zoo animals. J. Zoo Sc. 23: 71â86.
Due to the obvious social and cultural discomfort associated with the addition of milk delivery devices, animal enclosures are often enriched with other stimuli, such as food and mental distractions (toys, scent markings etc.). This operates as a distraction, removing the giraffeâs focus from its instinctual tendencies towards suckling, resulting in tongue lolling and licking of objects in close proximity.
Giraffes use their long, prehensile tongues to extend their reach.
The giraffe browses on the twigs of trees, preferring trees of the genus Mimosa; but it appears that it can live without inconvenience on other vegetable food. A giraffe can eat 63 kg (140 lb) of leaves and twigs daily. As ruminants, they first chew their food, swallow for processing and then visibly regurgitate the semi-digested cud up their necks and back into the mouth, in order to chew again. This process is usually repeated several times for each mouthful.
Male giraffe making a cough-like mating call at the Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence, Rhode Island
A giraffe will clean off any bugs that appear on its face with its extremely long tongue (about 45 cm/18 in). The tongue is tough due to the giraffe's diet, which can include tree thorns. In Southern Africa, giraffes feed on all acacias, especially Acacia erioloba, and possess a specially-adapted tongue and lips that are tough enough to withstand the vicious thorns of this plant.
The giraffe has one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, which is between 10 minutes and two hours in a 24-hour period, averaging 1.9 hours per day. BBC - Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - What is sleep
Although generally quiet and not vocal, giraffes have been heard to make various sounds. Courting males will emit loud coughs. Females will call their young by whistling or bellowing. Calves will bleat, moo, or make mewing sounds. In addition, giraffes will grunt, snort, hiss, or make strange flute-like sounds. Recent research has shown evidence that the animal communicates at an infrasound level. Infrasound From the Giraffe
Lone giraffe at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya
Giraffes are hunted for their hides, hair, and meat. In addition, habitat destruction also hurts the giraffe. In the Sahel trees are cut down for firewood and to make way for livestock. Normally, giraffes are able to cope with livestock since they feed in the trees above their heads. The giraffe population is shrinking in West Africa. However, the populations in eastern and southern Africa are stable and, due to the popularity of privately-owned game ranches and sanctuaries (i.e. Bour-Algi Giraffe Sanctuary), are expanding. The giraffe is a protected species in most of its range. The total African giraffe population has been estimated to range from 110,000 to 150,000. Kenya (45,000), Tanzania (30,000), and Botswana (12,000), have the largest national populations. East, R. 1998, in: African Antelope Database 1998. IUCN/SSC Antelope Specialist Group Report.
An unexpected danger to giraffes in captivity is that, as they are typically the tallest objects in a zoo, giraffes are at increased risk of being struck by lightning. In the wild, this hazard is reduced by the presence of trees; as well, the giraffe's natural habitat range has an extremely low occurrence of lightning -- NASA's satellite lightning detection system indicates that the area receives an average of less than one cloud-to-ground flash per square kilometre per year. Lightning strikes giraffes
Painting of a giraffe taken to China from Africa during the Ming Dynasty
Giraffes can be seen in paintings, including the famous painting of a giraffe which was taken from Africa to China in 1414. The giraffe was placed in a Ming Dynasty zoo.
The Medici giraffe was a giraffe presented to Lorenzo de' Medici in 1486. It caused a great stir on its arrival in Florence, being reputedly the first living giraffe to be seen in Italy since the days of Ancient Rome. Another famous giraffe, called Zarafa, was brought from Africa to Paris in the early 1800s and kept in a menagerie for 18 years.
Giraffe is a novel by the author J. M. Ledgard. The work concerns a true incident in which 49 giraffes were slaughtered in the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) in 1975 following the suspected outbreak of disease amongst the group. The novel contains extensive information about the species, including the long history of European fascination with the beast and its captivity in zoos.
Notable fictional giraffes include:
* Toys "R" Us mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe. He was originally portrayed as a cartoon giraffe but in the 2001 commercials he was portrayed as a real-life giraffe who talks; an animatronic version of Geoffrey the Giraffe (created by Stan Winston Studios), was voiced by Jim Hanks in commercials for radio and television.
* Longrack of the Transformers universe
* Girafarig from the Pokémon franchise
* Melman from ''Madagascar
* Video - Giraffe birth at the San Francisco Zoo
* Giraffes: Wildlife summary from the African Wildlife Foundation
*ARKive - images and movies of the giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis).
* Introduction to the history of the Giraffe in Middle Ages (French)
* Animal Diversity Web - Giraffa camelopardalis
* Giraffe Recruitment
* Giraffe Central web directory
* IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
* PBS Nature: Tall Blondes (Giraffes)
* Matt's World of Wicked Giraffes
* Mating System
* Giraffe Info Sheet
* Long-term suppression of fertility in female giraffe using the GnRH agonist deslorelin as a long-acting implant
*
|
Henri_Becquerel | Was Henri Becquerel one of the discoverers of radioactivity? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
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Henri_Becquerel | Was Henri Becquerel one of the discoverers of radioactivity? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
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August 25
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Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
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Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
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uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
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2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
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Rumford Medal
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Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
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SI
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France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Is the SI unit for radioactivity named after him? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Is the SI unit for radioactivity named after him? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Was Henri Becquerel a French physicist? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Was Henri Becquerel a French physicist? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | In what year did Henri Becquerel die? | 1908 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | In what year did Henri Becquerel die? | August 24, 1908 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Where was Henri Becquerel born? | Paris | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
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France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
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Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
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Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
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radioactivity
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Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Where was Henri Becquerel born? | Paris | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | In what year did Henri Becquerel win the Nobel Prize in Physics? | 1903 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | In what year did Henri Becquerel win the Nobel Prize in Physics? | 1903 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Was Henri Becquerel first in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle? | No | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Was Henri Becquerel first in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle? | No | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Was Henri Becquerel the sole winner of the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics? | No | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Was Henri Becquerel the sole winner of the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics? | No | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Did Henri Becquerel intentionally discover radioactivity? | No | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Did Henri Becquerel intentionally discover radioactivity? | He discovered it accidentally | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | If Henri Becquerel was alive today, how old would he have been? | 157 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | For how many years did Henri Becquerel live? | 56 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Did Henri Becquerel live to be 80 years old? | no | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | What was Henri Becquerel`s profession? | physisist | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
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Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | How old was Henri Becquerel when he died? | 53 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | How many years ago was it when he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Musum National d`Histoire Naturelle? | 117 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | In 1908, the year of his death, was Becquerel elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
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France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | When was Henri Becquerel born? | December 15, 1852 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Did he become chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Did he share the Nobel Prize in Physics? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
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Ãcole Polytechnique
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physicist
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September 10
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Académie des Sciences
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SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
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Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Is it true that Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance in photographic plates? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
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Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
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Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
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Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
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France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance in what? | photographic plates and black material | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
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France
Le Croisic
Brittany
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France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Is there a Becquerel crater on the Moon for radioactivity? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
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Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
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Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Must ⦠One conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts ? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
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France
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Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | What is Henri Becquerel? | Henri Becquerel was a famous physicist. | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
Paris
France
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
France
France
Physicist
Chemist
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
Marie Curie
Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel
Maltese Cross (symbol)
December 15
1852
August 25
1908
France
physicist
Nobel laureate
radioactivity
Nobel Prize in Physics
radioactivity
Paris
Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
uranium
radioactivity
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
Paris
France
August 25
1908
Le Croisic
Brittany
France
|
Henri_Becquerel | Where is Henri Becquerel from? | Paris | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
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Henri_Becquerel | What does Henri Becquerel do? | was a physisist | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
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France
Le Croisic
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Ãcole Polytechnique
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Henri_Becquerel | What does Henri Becquerel do? | Henri Becquerel was a physicist. | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (December 15, 1852 ; August 25, 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity.
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which, including he and his son Jean, produced four generations of scientists. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were fully exposed. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1896, he said,
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed September 10, 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him, and there is a Becquerel crater on the Moon and a Becquerel crater on Mars.
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
*Barnard Medal (1905)
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as an unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Related Wikipedia Articles
physicist
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Ãcole Polytechnique
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole nationale des ponts et chaussées
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Radioactivity
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
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December 15
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August 25
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France
physicist
Nobel laureate
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Nobel Prize in Physics
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Jean Becquerel
Ãcole Polytechnique
Ãcole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
phosphorescence
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Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
potassium uranyl sulfate
photographic plate
nuclear radiation
French Academy of Sciences
September 10
2006
Nobel Prize in Physics
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie
Académie des Sciences
Le Croisic
SI
becquerel
Becquerel (lunar crater)
Becquerel (crater)
Rumford Medal
Helmholtz Medal
Nobel Prize for Physics
Barnard Medal
Antoine César Becquerel
A. E. Becquerel
Jean Becquerel
SI
France
physicist
December 15
1852
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|
Isaac_Newton | Was Newton a English physicist? | Yes. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | Was Newton a English physicist? | Yes | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | Did Newton reject the church's doctrine of the Trinity? | Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
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*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
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* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
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* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
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* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | Did Newton reject the church's doctrine of the Trinity? | Maybe | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | Was Newton admitted into Havard College? | No. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | Was Newton admitted into Havard College? | Maybe, but it doesn't say so in the article | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
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* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
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* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
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* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | When was Newton's date of birth recorded? | Christmas Day, Decembeer 25, 1642. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
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*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
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* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | When was Newton's date of birth recorded? | his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642 | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | How many laws of motion did Netwon have? | Three | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
Newton-Cotes formulas
Newton's cannonball
Newton's Laws of Motion
The Parable of the Solar System Model
Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
Standing on the shoulders of giants
Huntington Library
Nova (TV series)
Isaac Barrow
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics
University of Cambridge
William Whiston
Thomas Neale
Master of the Mint
John Conduitt
Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth
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England
Kensington
London
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Isaac_Newton | How many laws of motion did Netwon have? | Three | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
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*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
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* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
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* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
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* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | Who did Newton see as the master creator? | God | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
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* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | Who did Newton see as the master creator? | Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | When did Netwon investigate the refraction of light | From 1670 to 1672 | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
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*
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*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
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* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
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* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
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* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | When did Netwon investigate the refraction of light | 1670-1672 | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
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*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | What principles did Newton explain for mechanics? | The principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | What principles did Newton explain for mechanics? | In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
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* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Inertia
kilograms
newton
gravitation
Adam
Don Juan
William Stukeley
Woolsthorpe Manor
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
Flower of Kent
Method of Fluxions
Indiana University (Bloomington)
January 11
2007
De Motu Corporum in Gyrum
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Opticks
Arithmetica Universalis
An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture
Joseph Louis Lagrange
Alexander Pope
epitaph
Robert Hooke
Patristics
David Berlinski
Stephen Hawking
Copernicus
Johannes Kepler
Galileo Galilei
Albert Einstein
Michael H. Hart
The 100
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I. Bernard Cohen
Richard de Villamil
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Standing on the shoulders of giants
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William Whiston
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Master of the Mint
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Isaac_Newton | Interaction with what man stirred up Newton's interest in alchemy? | Henry More | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
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*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
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* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
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* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
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* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Isaac_Newton | Interaction with what man stirred up Newton's interest in alchemy? | The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy | data/set4/a1 | Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727) [ OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 [ OS: December 25, 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.
There are a rumours that he remained a virgin. Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003 However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic. Biography of Isaac Newton at www.knittingcircle.org.uk However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science. notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.
In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 31, 1727 [ OS: March 20, 1727 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"
Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator. Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201. Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
The famous three laws of motion:
# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum, p . Mathematically, this is written as \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,. Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be \vec a \ =\ d\vec v/dt results in the famous equation \vec F = m \, \vec a \, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).
# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671â75) unpublished work on alchemy Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University retrieved January 11, 2007
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
And then in a memoir later
* Excerpt
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.
*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).
* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.
* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).
*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).
* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.
* Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.
* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.
* Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.
* Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Biography. W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999) Warning: common mistranslations exposed!
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
* Simmons, J. The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).
* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).
*Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.
*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Koyré, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.
*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.
*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.
*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
* De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Gauss-Newton algorithm
* History of calculus
* Isaac Newton's religious views
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton series
* Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy
* Newton-Cotes formulas
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's Laws of Motion
* The Parable of the Solar System Model
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
* "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
* ScienceWorld biography
* The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.
*
* Newton's First ODE - A study by Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.
* Newton Research Project
* PDF of Newton's Principia: 1687, 1713, and 1726 editions
* Newton's Principia - read and search
* Portraits of Isaac Newton
* Sir Isaac Newton Scientist and Mathematician
*
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* March 5âJune 12, 2005 Isaac Newton's personal copy of Principia at Huntington Library
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.
*
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's views on space, time, and motion
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
* Isaac Newton on £1 note.
* FMA Live! Cool program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
* Pastore, Giovanni, Antikythera E I Regoli Calcolatori, Rome, 2006, privately published
* The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
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Italian_language | What was Italian language`s profession? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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*22px Sovereign Military Order of Malta
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* (not official but de facto)
Co-official:
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* (Only in Slovenian Littoral)
* (Only in Istria)
Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | What is Italian language`s first name? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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*22px Sovereign Military Order of Malta
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* (not official but de facto)
Co-official:
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* (Only in Slovenian Littoral)
* (Only in Istria)
Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | What is Italian language`s last name? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | How many offspring did Italian language have? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Where did Italian language die? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Are geminate plosives and affricates realised as lengthened closures? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Where is this letter silent? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Is Italian one of official four languages? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Is it true that legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Legge sulle fonti del diritto of what? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Is it true that Italian retained the contrast between short consonants? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Italian retained the contrast between what? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Is stress distinctive in most Romance languages? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Are the speakers who use italian as a second or cultural language estimated at around 110-120 million ? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Are front/back vowel rules for C and G similar in French , Romanian , Spanish , and to some extent English ? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | So can Italian language hear "istà nbul " or "Ãstanbul" ? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Will , the vowel sounds be pronounced separately) ? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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*22px Sovereign Military Order of Malta
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Can Regional differences be recognized by various factors : the openness of vowels , the length of the consonants , and influence of the local dialect ? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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Italian_language | Give dictionaries the latter as an alternative pronunciation ? | null | data/set5/a9 | Italian_language
Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people as a first language, and by about 50 million more as a second or studied language, making the total number of speakers up to 120 million. Ethnologue. SIL International. Tuesday 21 October 1997. As collected at: /ref> primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. See also Languages of the Vatican City Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Barbaric invaders but first and foremost it has been directly and heavily influenced by Latin.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance, 77% with Romanian, and 52% with Maltese. Ethnologue report for language code:ita
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, taxi). X has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. J in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of I, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternative spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. J may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Each of these foreign letters has an Italian equivalent spelling: gi for j, c or ch for k, u or v for w (depending on what sound it makes), s, ss, or cs for x, and i for y.
Italian uses the acute accent over the letter E (as in perché, why/because) to indicate a front mid-closed vowel, and the grave accent (as in tè, tea) to indicate a front mid-open vowel. The grave accent is also used on letters A, I, O, and U to mark stress when it falls on the final vowel of a word (for instance gioventù, youth). Typically, the penultimate syllable is stressed. If syllables other than the last one are stressed, the accent is not mandatory, unlike in Spanish, and, in virtually all cases, it is omitted. When the word is potentially ambiguous (as principi), the accent is sometimes used for disambiguation (in this case, prìncipi, princes, or princìpi, principles). This is, however, not compulsory. This example demonstrates how meanings may depend on pronunciation (as in è, third person of the verb to be, and e, "and"). Rare words with three or more syllables can confuse Italians themselves, and the pronunciation of Istanbul is a common example of a word in which placement of stress is not clearly established. Turkish, like French, tends to put the accent on the ultimate syllable, but Italian doesn't. So we can hear "Istà nbul" or "Ãstanbul". Another instance is the American State of Florida: the correct way to pronounce it in Italian is as in Spanish, "Florìda", but since there is an Italian word with the same meaning ("flourishing"), "flòrida", and because of the influence of English, most Italians pronounce it that way. Dictionaries give the latter as an alternative pronunciation. Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia
The letter H at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year'). In the spoken language this letter is always silent in the words given above, even though in ho it changes the pronunciation making the vowel open. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see below), but no phoneme exists in Italian. In foreign words entered in common use, like "hotel" or "hovercraft", the H is commonly silent, so they are pronounced as and
The letter Z represents , for example: zanzara (mosquito), or , for example: nazione (nation), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. The same goes for S, which can represent or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in that environment there are extremely few minimal pairs, so that this distinction is being lost in many varieties.
The letters c and g represent affricates: as in "chair" and as in "gem", respectively, before the front vowels I and E. They are pronounced as plosives , (as in "call" and "gall") otherwise. Front/back vowel rules for C and G are similar in French, Romanian, Spanish, and to some extent English (including Old English). Swedish and Norwegian have similar rules for K and G. (See also palatalization.)
However, an H can be added between C or G and E or I to convert the preceding consonant to a plosive, and an I can be added between C or G and A, O or U to signal that the consonant is an affricate. For example:
:
:Note that the H is silent in the digraphs CH and GH, as also the I in cia, cio, ciu and even cie is not pronounced as a separate vowel, unless it carries the primary stress. For example, it is silent in ciao and cielo , but it is pronounced in farmacia and farmacie .
There are three other special digraphs in Italian: GN, GL and SC. GN represents . GL represents only before i, and never at the beginning of a word, except in the personal pronoun and definite article gli. (Compare with Spanish ñ and ll, Portuguese nh and lh.) SC represents fricative before i or e. Except in the speech of some Northern Italians, all of these are normally geminate between vowels.
In general, there is a clear one-to-one correspondence between letters or digraphs and phonemes; in standard varieties of Italian, there is little allophonic variation. The most notable exceptions are assimilation of /n/ in point of articulation before consonants, assimilatory voicing of /s/ to following voiced consonants, and vowel length (vowels are long in stressed open syllables â except at the end of words, and short elsewhere) compare with the enormous number of allophones of the English phoneme /t/. Spelling is clearly phonemic and difficult to mistake given a clear pronunciation. Exceptions are generally only found in foreign borrowings. There are fewer cases of dyslexia than among speakers of languages such as English, E. Paulescu et al., Dyslexia - cultural diversity and biological unity, "Science", vol. 291, pp. 2165â2167. and the concept of a spelling bee is strange to Italians.
The history of the Italian language is long, but the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. The earliest surviving texts which can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as opposed to its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the region of Benevento dating from 960-963. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy.
Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city since the cities were, until recently, thought of as city-states. The latter now has considerable variety, however. As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout the nation, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are the gemination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" in some cases (e.g. va bene "all right": is pronounced by a Roman, by a Milanese; a casa "at home": Roman , Milanese ).
In contrast to the dialects of northern Italy, southern Italian dialects were largely untouched by the Franco-Occitan influences introduced to Italy, mainly by bards from France, during the Middle Ages. Even in the case of Northern Italian dialects, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. (See La Spezia-Rimini Line.)
The economic might and relative advanced development of Tuscany at the time (Late Middle Ages), gave its dialect weight, though Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life. Also, the increasing cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of Humanism and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts.
The re-discovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia and a renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century sparked a debate which raged throughout Italy concerning which criteria should be chosen to establish a modern Italian standard to be used as much as a literary as a spoken language. Scholars were divided into three factions: the purists, headed by Pietro Bembo who in his Gli Asolani claimed that the language might only be based on the great literary classics (notably, Petrarch, and Boccaccio but not Dante as Bembo believed that the Divine Comedy was not dignified enough as it used elements from other dialects), Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines who preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times, and the courtiers like Baldassarre Castiglione and Gian Giorgio Trissino who insisted that each local vernacular must contribute to the new standard. Eventually Bembo's ideas prevailed, the result being the publication of the first Italian dictionary in 1612 and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582-3), the official legislative body of the Italian language.
Two notable defining moments in the history of the Italian language came between 1500 and 1850. Both events were invasions. The rulers of Spain (themselves members of the Habsburg dynasty) invaded and occupied Italy down to Rome and the Vatican in the mid-16th century (see the aftermath of the Italian Wars). This occupation left a lasting influence upon the formerly irregular Italian grammar, simplifying it to conform more with the dominant Spanish language. The second was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy and pushed the Italian language to a lingua franca, further reducing regional dialects in order to compensate for the increased united nature of the people.
Italian literature's first modern novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), by Alessandro Manzoni further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese 'in the waters of the Arno" (Florence's river), as he states in the Preface to his 1840 edition.
After unification a huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home dialects ("ciao" is Venetian, "panettone" is Milanese etc.).
Italian is most closely related to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian. The three are part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates the former Italian colonies, where Italian was taught and spoken until their independence, and it is understood to some extent today.
The total speakers of Italian as a maternal language are between 60 and 70 million. The speakers who use Italian as a second or cultural language are estimated at around 110-120 million.
Official:
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*22px Sovereign Military Order of Malta
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Significant / Historically official:
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Used by some immigrant communities in:
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Brazil
* 1,500,000 1,500,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in Argentina
* 1,008,370 over 1 million Americans speak Italian at home
* 661,000 Statistics Canada 2006
* 353,605 353,605 mother tounge Italian speakers in Australia
* 200,000 200,000 mother tounge Italian speakers in the UK
* 72,400 72,400 mother tounge Italian speakers in Egypt
|speakers= Maternal language: 62 - 70 million Microsoft Word - Frontespizio.doc
Cultural language: c. 110-120 million
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in the cantons of Ticino and part of Grisons (Grigioni in Italian), a region referred to as Italian Switzerland. It is also the second official language in some areas of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia, where an Italian minority exists, just as in the Croatian city of Rijeka just outside Istria. It is the primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and taught in Monaco and Malta. It served as Malta's official language until the Maltese language was enshrined in the 1934 Constitution. It is also spoken to a significant extent in France, with over 1,000,000 speakers Ethnologue report for France (especially in Corsica and the County of Nice, areas that historically spoke Italian dialects before annexation to France), and in Albania.
Italian is also spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). However, its use has sharply dropped off since the colonial period. In Eritrea, Italian is widely understood Languages of Eritrea - Tigrinya . In fact, for 50 years, during the colonial period, Italian was the language of education, but , there is only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils. Tekle M. Woldemikael, "Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea," in African Studies Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Apr., 2003), pp. 117â136. The number of Italian speakers may increase a little when the number of students at that school increases and because it is still spoken in commerce , and Eritrea will be the only African nation where Italian is widely spoken and understood. In Somalia, Italian used to be a major language but due to the civil war and lack of education, only the older generation still uses it. The only Italian-language school in the nation was damaged by the war. In Egypt and Tunisia, it is mostly spoken by Italian Egyptians and Italian Tunisians and some professionals of non-Italian descent. In all of the above former Italian African colonies, most of the fluent Italian speakers are people who grew up in officially Italian-speaking nations, most especially Italy, and returned to Africa.
Italian and Italian dialects are widely used by Italian immigrants and many of their descendants (see Italians) living throughout Western Europe (especially France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg), the United States, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (especially Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela).
In the United States, Italian speakers are most commonly found in five cities: Boston (7,000), Boston, Massachusetts, MLA Data Center Chicago (12,000), Chicago, Illinois, MLA Data Center the Miami region (27,000), /ref> New York City (140,000), New York, New York, MLA Data Center and Philadelphia (15,000). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MLA Data Center According to the United States Census in 2000, over 1 million Italian Americans spoke Italian at home, with the largest concentrations (nearly half) found in the states of New York (294,271) and New Jersey (116,365).
In Canada, Italian is the fourth most commonly spoken language, with 661,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census. Particularly large Italian-speaking communities are found in Montreal (c. 179,000) and Toronto (c. 262,000). Statistics Canada 2006
Italian is the second most commonly spoken language in Australia, where 353,605 Italian Australians, or 1.9% of the population, reported speaking Italian at home in the 2001 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005, "Language other than English" (spreadsheet of figures from 2001 Census) In 2001 there were 130,000 Italian speakers in Melbourne, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Melbourne" and 90,000 in Sydney. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002, "A Snapshot of Sydney"
Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught foreign language in the world. 9
In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In francophone Canada it is third after English. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, Spanish, and German. www.iic-colonia.de
In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%). , February 2006 It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.
From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, thousands of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, where they formed a very strong physical and cultural presence (see the Italian diaspora).
In some cases, colonies were established where variants of Italian dialects were used, and some continue to use a derived dialect. An example is Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where Talian is used, and in the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continuing to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Another example is Cocoliche, an Italian-Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires, and Lunfardo.
Rioplatense Spanish, and particularly the speech of the city of Buenos Aires, has intonation patterns that resemble those of Italian dialects, Unidad en la diversidad â Portal informativo sobre la lengua castellana due to the fact that Argentina has had a continuous large influx of Italian settlers since the second half of the 19th century; initially primarily from Northern Italy; then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from Southern Italy.
Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This was consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.
During the Renaissance, Italy held artistic sway over the rest of Europe. All educated European gentlemen were expected to make the Grand Tour, visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It thus became expected that educated Europeans would learn at least some Italian; the English poet John Milton, for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. In England, Italian became the second most common modern language to be learned, after French (though the classical languages, Latin and Greek, came first). However, by the late 18th century, Italian tended to be replaced by German as the second modern language in the curriculum. Yet Italian loanwords continue to be used in most other European languages in matters of art and music.
Today, the Italian language continues to be used as a lingua franca in some environments. Within the Catholic church, Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. The presence of Italian as the primary language in the Vatican City indicates not only use within the Holy See, but also throughout the world where an episcopal seat is present. It continues to be used in music and opera. Other examples where Italian is sometimes used as a means of communication is in some sports (sometimes in football and motorsports) and in the design and fashion industries.
In Italy, all Romance languages spoken as the vernacular, other than standard Italian and other unrelated, non-Italian languages, are termed "Italian dialects". Many Italian dialects may be considered as historical languages in their own right. Ethnologue web reference for Italian These include recognized language groups such as Friulian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, and others, and regional variants of these languages such as Calabrian. The distinction between dialect and language has been made by scholars (such as Francesco Bruni): on the one hand are the languages that made up the Italian koine; and on the other, those which had very little or no part in it, such as Albanian, Greek, German, Ladin, and Occitan, which are still spoken by minorities.
Non-standard dialects are not generally used for mass communication and are usually limited to native speakers in informal contexts. In the past, speaking in dialect was often deprecated as a sign of poor education. The younger generations, especially those under 35 (though it may vary in different areas), speak almost exclusively dialects of standard Italian in all situations, usually with local accents and idioms. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors: the openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local dialect (for example, annà replaces andare in the area of Rome for the infinitive "to go").
Italian has seven vowel phonemes: , , , , , , , represented by five letters: "a, e, i, o, u". The pairs - , and - are seldom distinguished in writing and often confused, even though most varieties of Italian employ both phonemes consistently. Compare, for example standard "perché" (why, because) and "senti" (you hear), as pronounced by most central and southern speakers, with and , employed by some northern speakers. As a result, the usage is strongly indicative of a person's origin. The standard (Tuscan) usage of these vowels is listed in vocabularies, and employed outside Tuscany mainly by specialists, especially actors and very few (television) journalists.
These are truly different phonemes, however: compare (fishing) and (peach), both spelled pesca ( ). Similarly ('barrel') and ('beatings'), both spelled botte, discriminate and ( ).
In general, vowel combinations usually pronounce each vowel separately. Diphthongs exist (e.g. uo, iu, ie, ai), but are limited to an unstressed u or i before or after a stressed vowel.
The unstressed u in a diphthong approximates the English semivowel w, and the unstressed i approximates the semivowel y. E.g.: buono , ieri .
Triphthongs exist in Italian as well, like "continuiamo" ("we continue"). Three vowel combinations exist only in the form semiconsonant ( or ), followed by a vowel, followed by a desinence vowel (usually ), as in miei, suoi, or two semiconsonants followed by a vowel, as the group -uia- exemplified above, or -iuo- in the word aiuola.
Many Latin words with a short e or o have Italian counterparts with a mobile diphthong (ie and uo respectively). When the vowel sound is stressed, it is pronounced and written as a diphthong; when not stressed, it is pronounced and written as a single vowel.
So Latin focus gave rise to Italian fuoco (meaning both "fire" and "optical focus"): when unstressed, as in focale ("focal") the "o" remains alone. Latin pes (more precisely its accusative form pedem) is the source of Italian piede (foot): but unstressed "e" was left unchanged in pedone (pedestrian) and pedale (pedal). From Latin iocus comes Italian giuoco ("play", "game"), though in this case gioco is more common: giocare means "to play (a game)". From Latin homo comes Italian uomo (man), but also umano (human) and ominide (hominid). From Latin ovum comes Italian uovo (egg) and ovaie (ovaries). (The same phenomenon occurs in Spanish: juego (play, game) and jugar (to play), nieve (snow) and nevar (to snow)).
Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, respectively.
Nasals undergo assimilation when followed by a consonant, e.g., when preceding a velar ( or ) only appears, etc.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are distinguished by length. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for , , , , which are always geminate, and which is always single.
Geminate plosives and affricates are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives, nasals, and are realized as lengthened continuants. The flap consonant is typically dialectal. The correct standard pronunciation is .
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is the Gorgia Toscana, or "Tuscan Throat", the weakening or lenition of certain intervocalic consonants in Tuscan dialects. See also Syntactic doubling.
The voiced postalveolar fricative is only present in loanwords. For example, garage .
Italian has few diphthongs, so most unfamiliar diphthongs that are heard in foreign words (in particular, those beginning with vowel "a", "e", or "o") will be assimilated as the corresponding diaeresis (i.e., the vowel sounds will be pronounced separately). Italian phonotactics do not usually permit verbs and polysyllabic nouns to end with consonants, excepting poetry and song, so foreign words may receive extra terminal vowel sounds.
Some variations in the usage of the writing system may be present in practical use. These are scorned by educated people, but they are so common in certain contexts that knowledge of them may be useful.
* Usage of x instead of per: this is very common among teenagers and in SMS abbreviations. The multiplication operator is pronounced "per" in Italian, and so it is sometimes used to replace the word "per", which means "for"; thus, for example, "per te" ("for you") is shortened to "x te" (compare with English "4 U"). Words containing per can also have it replaced with x: for example, perché (both "why" and "because") is often shortened as xché or xké or x' (see below). This usage might be useful to jot down quick notes or to fit more text into the low character limit of an SMS, but it is unacceptable in formal writing.
* Usage of foreign letters such as k, j and y, especially in nicknames and SMS language: ke instead of che, Giusy instead of Giuseppina (or sometimes Giuseppe). This is curiously mirrored in the usage of i in English names such as Staci instead of Stacey, or in the usage of c in Northern Europe (Jacob instead of Jakob). The use of "k" instead of "ch" or "c" to represent a plosive sound is documented in some historical texts from before the standardization of the Italian language; however, that usage is no longer standard in Italian. Possibly because it is associated with the German language, the letter "k" has sometimes also been used in satire to suggest that a political figure is an authoritarian or even a "pseudo-nazi": Francesco Cossiga was famously nicknamed Kossiga by rioting students during his tenure as minister of internal affairs. [Cf. the politicized spelling Amerika in the USA.]
* Usage of the following abbreviations is limited to the electronic communications media and is deprecated in all other cases: nn instead of non (not), cmq instead of comunque (anyway, however), cm instead of come (how, like, as), d instead of di (of), (io/loro) sn instead of (io/loro) sono (I am/they are), (io) dv instead of (io) devo (I must/I have to) or instead of dove (where), (tu) 6 instead of (tu) sei (you are).
* Whenever ASCII characters are not available, or when they cannot be relied on, for example in emails, sometimes accents are replaced by apostrophes for convenience, such as in perche ' instead of perché (this was standard in the days of manual typewriters that had no accents, and is still common for upper case letters). Uppercase à is particularly rare, as it is absent from the Italian keyboard layout, and is very often written as E' (even though there are several ways of producing the uppercase à on a computer). This never happens in books or other professionally typeset material. On the other hand, many people confuse the grave and the acute accent, and write perchè instead of perché or caffé instead of caffè, since these two accents are usually written in the same way in handwriting; this is never justifiable.
*Cheers: "Salute!"
*English: inglese
*Good-bye: arrivederci
*Hello: ciao
*Good day: buon giorno
*Good evening: buona sera
*Yes: sì
*No: no
*How are you? : Come stai? (informal); Come sta? (formal)
*Sorry: mi dispiace
*Excuse me: scusa (informal); scusi (formal)
*Again: di nuovo, / /; ancora / /
*Always: sempre / /
*When: quando
*Where: dove
*Why/Because: perché
*How: come
*How much is it?: quanto costa?
*Thank you!: grazie!
*Bon appetit: buon appetito
*You're welcome!: prego!
*I love you: Ti amo , Ti voglio bene . ("Ti amo" is used in a romantic relationship, "Ti voglio bene" in any other occasion, to parents, to relatives, to friends...)
Counting to thirty:
*One: uno
*Two: due
*Three: tre
*Four: quattro
*Five: cinque
*Six: sei
*Seven: sette
*Eight: otto
*Nine: nove
*Ten: dieci
*Eleven: undici
*Twelve: dodici
*Thirteen: tredici
*Fourteen: quattordici
*Fifteen: quindici
*Sixteen: sedici
*Seventeen: diciassette
*Eighteen: diciotto
*Nineteen: diciannove
*Twenty: venti
*Twenty-one: "ventuno"
*Twenty-two: "ventidue"
*Twenty-three: "ventitre"
*Twenty-four: "ventiquattro"
*Twenty-five: "venticinque"
*Twenty-six: "ventisei"
*Twenty-seven: "ventisette"
*Twenty-eight: "ventotto"
*Twenty-nine: "ventinove"
*Thirty: "trenta"
The days of the week:
*Monday: lunedì
*Tuesday: martedì
*Wednesday: mercoledì
*Thursday: giovedì
*Friday: venerdì
*Saturday: sabato
*Sunday: domenica
There is a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy read by Lino Pertile available at
* Italian grammar
* Italian literature
* Italian alphabet
* Italian phonology
* Guide to phonetic transliteration of Italian
* Italian exonyms
* Italian honorifics
* Italian profanity
* Italian musical terms
* Italian Wikipedia
* Italian Sign Language
* Italian dialects
* List of languages of Italy
* List of English words of Italian origin
* Sicilian School
* Veronese Riddle
* Enciclopedia Italiana
* AP Italian Language and Culture
* CELI
* CILS (Qualification)
*
* M. Vitale, Studi di Storia della Lingua Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 1992, ISBN 88-7916-015-X
* S. Morgana, Capitoli di Storia Linguistica Italiana, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-7916-211-X
*Swadesh list in English and Italian
*Italian proverbs
*" Learn Italian," BBC
* Italian Grammar Primer
* The online edition (2007) of the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia (DOP), a pronouncing dictionary of standard Italian, RAI
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James_Watt | James Watt's improvements of what were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution? | The steam engine. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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James_Watt | James Watt's improvements of what were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution? | steam engine | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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|
James_Watt | James Watt was born where? | Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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steamboat
machine tools
Watt steam engine
Royal Society of Edinburgh
Royal Society of London
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|
James_Watt | What was the name of James Watt's mother? | Agnus Muirhead | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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inventor
engineer
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James_Watt | What was the name of James Watt's mother? | Agnes Muirhead | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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James_Watt | How many of James Watt's children did not live to adulthood? | 3 | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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|
James_Watt | How many of James Watt's children did not live to adulthood? | 3 | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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engineer
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|
James_Watt | James Watt ranked first among how many people in Charles Murray's survey of historiometry? | 229 | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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|
James_Watt | James Watt ranked first among how many people in Charles Murray's survey of historiometry? | 229 | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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|
James_Watt | In what year did James travel to Lodon to study instrument-making? | 1753 | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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|
James_Watt | For how many years of James Watt's life was his mother alive? | 17 years | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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19 August
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engineer
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Handsworth, West Midlands
Staffordshire
19 August
1819
17 August
1784
William Murdoch
Jonathan Hornblower
sun and planet gear
steam locomotive
January 5
1782
Industrial Revolution
Factory
locomotive
steamboat
machine tools
Watt steam engine
Royal Society of Edinburgh
Royal Society of London
French Academy of Sciences
St. Mary's Church, Handsworth
Boulton, Watt and Murdoch
Chamberlain Square
Lunar Society Moonstones
Birmingham Central Library
Soho House
University of Glasgow
James Watt College
Inverclyde
George Square
Princes Street
Edinburgh
Kilwinning
Largs
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh
George Heriot's School
James Eckford Lauder
National Gallery of Scotland
Thomas Edison
Charles Murray (author)
historiometry
Michael H. Hart
The 100
SI
Power (physics)
watt
Francis Legatt Chantrey
Westminster Abbey
cenotaph
University of Birmingham
Hugh Pembroke Vowles
1943
1948
1949
Spanish language
Portuguese language
British Council
Samuel Smiles
Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Andrew Carnegie
James Watt International Medal
Watt steam engine
Industrial Revolution
engineer
steam engine
Greenock
Scotland
Handsworth, West Midlands
Staffordshire
England
|
James_Watt | What is James Watt most famous for? | Steam engine. | data/set4/a2 | James_Watt
James Watt (January 19 1736 August 19 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt was born on 19th of January, 1736 in Greenock, a seaport on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, while his mother, Agnus Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters.
Watt attended school irregularly but instead he was mostly schooled at home by his mother. He exhibited great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek left him cold, and he absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
When he was 17, his mother died and his father's health had begun to fail. Watt travelled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland to Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. However, because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen (any artisans using hammers) blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland.
Watt was saved from this impasse by three professors of the University of Glasgow, who offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was established in 1758 and one of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black, became Watt's friend.
In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.
Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.
Four years after opening his shop, Watt began to experiment with steam after his friend, Professor John Robison, called his attention to it. At this point Watt had still never seen an operating steam engine, but he tried constructing a model. It failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything about it he could. He independently discovered the importance of latent heat in understanding the engine, which, unknown to him, Black had famously discovered some years before. He learned that the University owned a model Newcomen engine, but it was in London for repairs. Watt got the university to have it returned, and he made the repairs in 1763. It too just barely worked, and after much experimentation he showed that about 80% of the heat of the steam was consumed in heating the cylinder, because the steam in it was condensed by an injected stream of cold water. His critical insight, to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam, came finally in 1765 and he soon had a working model.
Now came a long struggle to produce a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. But the principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than machinists, so the results left much to be desired. Much capital was spent in pursuing the ground-breaking patent, which in those days required an act of parliament. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment as a surveyor for eight years. Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho foundry works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership (Boulton & Watt), which lasted for the next twenty-five years.
Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Finally, in 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used for pumps and produced only reciprocating motion. Orders began to pour in and for the next five years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall for pumping water out of mines.
The field of application of the invention was greatly widened only after Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the logical and obvious solution to the conversion Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard, and associates proposed to cross-license the external condensor. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.
Over the next six years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the two sides of the piston was one. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor to keep it from "running away" were very important. He described methods for working the steam expansively. A compound engine, which connected two or more engines was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one of which Watt was most proud of, was the Parallel motion / three-bar linkage which was especially important in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to five times as efficient in its use of fuel as the Newcomen engine.
Because of the danger of exploding boilers and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt was opposed from the first to the use of high pressure steam--all of his engines used steam at very low pressure.
In 1794 the partners established Boulton and Watt to exclusively manufacture steam engines, and this became a large enterprise. By 1824 it had produced 1164 steam engines having a total nominal horsepower of about 26,000. Carnegie, p 195 Boulton proved to be an excellent businessman, and both men eventually made fortunes.
Watt was an enthusiastic inventor, with a fertile imagination that sometimes got in the way of finishing his works, because he could always see "just one more improvement." He was skilled with his hands, and was also able to perform systematic scientific measurements that could quantify the improvements he made and produce a greater understanding of the phenomenon he was working
with.
Watt was a gentleman, greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society, and was a much sought after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to utilize the steam engine. Until he retired, he was always much concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His personal relationships with his friends and partners were always congenial and long-lasting.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Boulton and James Watt Jr. William Murdoch was made a partner and the firm prospered.
Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. He invented a new method of measuring distances by telescope, a device for copying letters, improvements in the oil lamp, a steam mangle and a machine for copying sculptures.
He and his second wife travelled to France and Germany, and he purchased an estate in Wales, which he much improved.
He died in his home "Heathfield" in Handsworth, Staffordshire on August 19 1819 at the age of 83.
As with many major inventions, there is some dispute as to whether Watt was the original sole inventor of some of the numerous inventions he patented. There is no dispute, however, that he was the sole inventor of his most important invention, the separate condenser. It was his practice (from around the 1780s) to pre-empt others' ideas which were known to him by filing patents with the intention of securing credit for the invention for himself, and ensuring that no one else was able to practice it. As he states in a letter to Boulton of August 17 1784:
:"I have given such descriptions of engines for wheel carriages as I could do in the time and space I could allow myself; but it is very defective and can only serve to keep other people from similar patents".
Some argue that his prohibitions on his employee William Murdoch from working with high pressure steam on his steam locomotive experiments delayed its development. Watt, with his partner Matthew Boulton, battled against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower who tried to develop engines which did not fall foul of his patents.
Watt patented the application of the sun and planet gear to steam in 1781 and a steam locomotive in 1784, both of which have strong claims to have been invented by his employee, William Murdoch. Watt himself described the provenance of the invention of the sun and planet gear in a letter to Boulton from Watt dated January 5 1782:
:"I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines revived and executed by W. M(urdock) and which merits being included in the specification as a fifth method..."
The patent was never contested by Murdoch, who remained an employee of Boulton and Watt for most of his life, and Boulton and Watt's firm continued to use the sun and planet gear in their rotative engines, even long after the patent for the crank expired in 1794.
James Watt's improved steam engine transformed the Newcomen engine, which had hardly changed for fifty years, into a source of power that transformed the world of work, and was the key innovation that brought forth the Industrial Revolution. The importance of the invention can hardly be overstated--it gave us the modern world. A key feature of it was that it brought the engine out of the remote coal fields into factories where many mechanics, engineers, and even tinkerers were exposed to its virtues and limitations. It was a platform for generations of inventors to improve. It was clear to many that higher pressures produced in improved boilers would produce engines having even higher efficiency, and would lead to the revolution in transportation that was soon embodied in the locomotive and steamboat. It made possible the construction of new factories that, since they were not dependent on water power, could work the year round, and could be placed almost anywhere. Work was moved out of the cottages, resulting in economies of scale. Capital could work more efficiently, and manufacturing productivity greatly improved. It made possible the cascade of new sorts of machine tools that could be used to produce better machines, including that most remarkable of all of them, the Watt steam engine.
Watt celebrated as a statue in Chamberlain Square, outside Birmingham Central Library
Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences.
Watt was buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham. Later expansion of the church, over his grave, means that his tomb is now buried inside the church. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square, the other outside the Law Courts. He is also remembered by the Moonstones and a school is named in his honour, both in Birmingham. An extensive archive of his papers is held at Birmingham Central Library. Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, is now a museum, commemorating the work of both men. The University of Glasgow's Faculty of Engineering, the oldest in the United Kingdom, (where Watt was a professor) has its headquarters in the James Watt Building, which also houses the department of Mechanical Engineering and the department of Aerospace Engineering.
The location of James Watt's birth in Greenock is commemorated by a statue, close to his birthplace. Several locations and street names in Greenock recall him, most notably the Watt Memorial Library, which was begun in 1816 with Watt's donation of scientific books, and developed as part of the Watt Institution by his son (which ultimately became the James Watt College). Taken over by the local authority in 1974, the library now also houses the local history collection and archives of Inverclyde, and is dominated by a large seated statue in the vestibule. Watt is additionally commemorated by statuary in George Square, Glasgow and Princes Street, Edinburgh.
The James Watt College has expanded from its original location to include campuses in Kilwinning (North Ayrshire), Finnart Street and The Waterfront in Greenock, and the Sports campus in Largs. The Heriot-Watt University near Edinburgh was at one time the "Watt Institution and School of Arts" named in his memory, then merged with George Heriot's Hospital for needy orphans and the name was changed to Heriot-Watt College. Dozens of university and college buildings (chiefly of science and technology) are named after him.
The huge painting James Watt contemplating the steam engine by James Eckford Lauder is now owned by the National Gallery of Scotland.
Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him, as are over 50 roads or streets in the UK.
A colossal statue of him by Chantrey was placed in Westminster Abbey, and on this cenotaph the inscription reads:
:NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME,
:WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH,
:BUT TO SHOW
:THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNED TO HONOUR THOSE
:WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE,
:THE KING,
:HIS MINISTERS, AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
:AND COMMONERS OF THE REALM
:RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
:JAMES WATT
:WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
:EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
:TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
:THE STEAM-ENGINE
:ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
:INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
:AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
:AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
:AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
:BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
:DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX
A lecture theatre in the Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering building at the University of Birmingham is named 'G31 - The James Watt Lecture Theatre'
*Dickenson, H. W., James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer Cambridge University Press (1935).
* H.W. Dickinson and Hugh Pembroke Vowles James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (published in 1943, new edition 1948 and reprinted in 1949. Also published in Spanish and Portuguese (1944) by the British Council)
*J. P. Muirhead, Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854).
*J. P. Muirhead, Life of Watt (London, 1858).
*Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, (London, 1861-62, new edition, five volumes, 1905).
*"Some Unpublished Letters of James Watt" in Journal of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London, 1915).
*Carnegie, Andrew, James Watt University Press of the Pacific (2001) (Reprinted from the 1913 ed.), ISBN 0-89875-578-6.
*Hills, Rev. Dr. Richard L., James Watt, Vol 1, His time in Scotland, 1736-1774 (2002); Vol 2, The years of toil, 1775-1785; Vol 3 Triumph through adversity 1785-1819. Landmark Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84306-045-0.
*Marsden, Ben. Watt's Perfect Engine Columbia University Press (New York, 2002) ISBN 0-231-13172-0.
*James Watt International Medal
*Watt steam engine
* James Watt by Andrew Carnegie (1905)
* James Watt by Thomas H. Marshall (1925)
* Archives of Soho at Birmingham Central Library.
* James Watt at Birmingham Jewellery Quarter website
* James Watt at Important Scots website
* BBC History: James Watt
* Revolutionary Players website
* Cornwall Record Office Boulton & Watt letters
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Japanese_language | What was Japanese language`s profession? | null | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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¶é¤å¸ååæï¼ä»¥å¸å¿ ç¯ã After the ruin of Baekje, Japan invited scholars from China to learn more of the Chinese writing system. Japanese Emperors gave an official rank to Chinese scholars (ç¶å®è¨/è©å¼æ ¼/ Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±äºå¹´ ä¹æ己巳æ壬ç³ãè³é³å士大åç¶å®è¨ãè©å¼æªãæ¸å士ç¾æ¸æ«å£«åä¿¡ãé人äºå両ã Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±å
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | What is Japanese language`s first name? | null | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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¶é¤å¸ååæï¼ä»¥å¸å¿ ç¯ã After the ruin of Baekje, Japan invited scholars from China to learn more of the Chinese writing system. Japanese Emperors gave an official rank to Chinese scholars (ç¶å®è¨/è©å¼æ ¼/ Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±äºå¹´ ä¹æ己巳æ壬ç³ãè³é³å士大åç¶å®è¨ãè©å¼æªãæ¸å士ç¾æ¸æ«å£«åä¿¡ãé人äºå両ã Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±å
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Is the basic sentence structure topic-comment? | null | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Where are the circumstances complicated? | null | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Does the form indicate a perfect tense? | null | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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¶é¤å¸ååæï¼ä»¥å¸å¿ ç¯ã After the ruin of Baekje, Japan invited scholars from China to learn more of the Chinese writing system. Japanese Emperors gave an official rank to Chinese scholars (ç¶å®è¨/è©å¼æ ¼/ Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±äºå¹´ ä¹æ己巳æ壬ç³ãè³é³å士大åç¶å®è¨ãè©å¼æªãæ¸å士ç¾æ¸æ«å£«åä¿¡ãé人äºå両ã Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±å
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Is or a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect? | null | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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¶é¤å¸ååæï¼ä»¥å¸å¿ ç¯ã After the ruin of Baekje, Japan invited scholars from China to learn more of the Chinese writing system. Japanese Emperors gave an official rank to Chinese scholars (ç¶å®è¨/è©å¼æ ¼/ Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±äºå¹´ ä¹æ己巳æ壬ç³ãè³é³å士大åç¶å®è¨ãè©å¼æªãæ¸å士ç¾æ¸æ«å£«åä¿¡ãé人äºå両ã Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±å
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Do most Japanese people employ politeness? | yes | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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¶é¤å¸ååæï¼ä»¥å¸å¿ ç¯ã After the ruin of Baekje, Japan invited scholars from China to learn more of the Chinese writing system. Japanese Emperors gave an official rank to Chinese scholars (ç¶å®è¨/è©å¼æ ¼/ Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±äºå¹´ ä¹æ己巳æ壬ç³ãè³é³å士大åç¶å®è¨ãè©å¼æªãæ¸å士ç¾æ¸æ«å£«åä¿¡ãé人äºå両ã Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±å
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Is it true that Japanese borrowed a considerable number of words? | yes | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
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Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Japanese borrowed a considerable number of what? | null | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Is japanese language in the island? | null | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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¶é¤å¸ååæï¼ä»¥å¸å¿ ç¯ã After the ruin of Baekje, Japan invited scholars from China to learn more of the Chinese writing system. Japanese Emperors gave an official rank to Chinese scholars (ç¶å®è¨/è©å¼æ ¼/ Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±äºå¹´ ä¹æ己巳æ壬ç³ãè³é³å士大åç¶å®è¨ãè©å¼æªãæ¸å士ç¾æ¸æ«å£«åä¿¡ãé人äºå両ã Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±å
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Is there a form of the language? | null | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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¶é¤å¸ååæï¼ä»¥å¸å¿ ç¯ã After the ruin of Baekje, Japan invited scholars from China to learn more of the Chinese writing system. Japanese Emperors gave an official rank to Chinese scholars (ç¶å®è¨/è©å¼æ ¼/ Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±äºå¹´ ä¹æ己巳æ壬ç³ãè³é³å士大åç¶å®è¨ãè©å¼æªãæ¸å士ç¾æ¸æ«å£«åä¿¡ãé人äºå両ã Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±å
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é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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Japanese_language | Are the several dialects of Kagoshima famous to speakers? | yes | data/set5/a6 | Japanese_language
IPA: [nʲihoÅÉ¡o] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of his or her presence). The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and it has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. It is a mora-timed language.
The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (æ¼¢å), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮å) and katakana (çä»®å). The Latin alphabet, rÅmaji (ãã¼ãå), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.
Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and sometimes still is spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands before and during World War II, Japanese is listed as one of the official languages of Angaur state, Palau ( Ethnologe, CIA World Factbook). This official status is disputed; there were very few Japanese speakers on Angaur as of the 2005 census. locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there are many people in these countries who can speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 5% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese , with Japanese ancestry the largest single ancestry in the state (over 24% of the population). Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry , and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna). Their descendants, who are known as ( , literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently after the second generation.
Japanese is the official language of Japan and in Palau, in the island of Angaur. There is a form of the language considered standard: Standard Japanese, or the common language. The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. or is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo for communicating necessity. is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
Provincial differences of copula da
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between and , though KyÅ«shÅ«-type dialects form a third, smaller group. Within each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, KyÅto, HyÅgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also that type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in HachijÅ-jima island and few islands.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as TÅhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects of Kagoshima in southern KyÅ«shÅ« are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in KyÅ«shÅ« as well . This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as or for Standard Japanese "spider"). A dialects group of Kansai is spoken and known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (See Kansai dialect). Dialects of TÅhoku and North KantÅ are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and Amami Islands that are politically part of Kagoshima, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family. But many Japanese common people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.
Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and increase of mobility networks within Japan, as well as economic integration.
All Japanese vowels are pureâthat is, they are Monophthong with no prescence of diphthongs. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel , which is like , but compressed instead of rounded. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, so each one has both a short and a long version.
Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately chi ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī "Western style tea" and chii "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language (technically a lateral apical postalveolar flap), is of particular interest, sounding to most English speakers to be something between an "l" and a retroflex "r" depending on its position in a word. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, most speakers pronounce it like the ng in "singer".
The syllabic structure and the phonotactics are very simple: the only consonant clusters allowed within a syllable consist of one of a subset of the consonants plus . These type of clusters only occur in onsets. However, consonant clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are a nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Consonant length (gemination) is also phonemic.
Japanese word order is classified as Subject Object Verb. However, unlike many Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences only require that verbs come last for intelligibility. This is because the Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic-comment. For example, ( ). ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle -wa. The verb is , a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, is the comment. This sentence loosely translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mr./Mrs./Miss Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like Chinese, Korean, and many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. The sentence ã( ) literally means, "As for elephants, (their) noses are long". The topic is "elephant", and the subject is "nose".
Japanese could be considered a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. (Note however that Chomsky's original formulation of this category explicitly excluded languages such as Japanese.) In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example, would mean "[their] noses are long," while by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: "[I'm] jealous [of it]!".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. Instead, Japanese typically relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group doesn't, and their boundary depends on context. For example, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained it to [me/us]". Similarly, (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one cannot say in English:
: *The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect)
But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
: (grammatically correct)
This is partly due to the fact that these words evolved from regular nouns, such as "you" ( "lord"), "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted or Portuguese o senhor. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ( "private") or (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ( "oneself", "myself") or . Similarly, different words such as , , and ( , more formally "the one before me") may be used to refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ( , teacher), but inappropriate to use . This is because is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has allegedly higher status.
For English speaking learners of Japanese, a frequent beginners mistake is to include or at the beginning of sentences as one would with I or you in English. Though these sentences are not grammatically incorrect, even in formal settings it would be considered unnatural and would equate in English to repeatedly using a noun where a pronoun would suffice.
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ( ) may refer to a single book or several books; ( ) can mean "person" or "people"; and ( ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix. Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus usually means Mr./Ms. Tanaka. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as "people" and "we/us", while the word "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present, or non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) tense. For others that represent a change of state, the form indicates a perfect tense. For example, means "He has come (and is still here)", but means "He is eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle is added. For example, ( ) "It is OK" becomes ( ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ( ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: "(What about) this?"; ( ) "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ( ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ( ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread".
The so-called verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence ( "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions ( "May I go out?"), etc.
The word (plain), (polite) is the copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English be, but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form (plain), (polite). This comes into use because only adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: (negative ) and (negative ), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, "There's a cat", "[I] haven't got a good idea". Note that the negative forms of the verbs and are actually i-adjectives and inflect as such, e.g. "There was no cat".
The verb "to do" ( , polite form ) is often used to make verbs from nouns ( "to cook", "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and a preposition (e.g. "to fly out, to flee," from "to fly, to jump" + "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjective (see also Japanese adjectives):
# , or adjectives, which have a conjugating ending ( ) (such as "to be hot") which can become past ( "it was hot"), or negative ( "it is not hot"). Note that is also an adjective, which can become past ( "it was not hot").
#: "a hot day".
# , or adjectives, which are followed by a form of the copula, usually . For example (strange)
#: "a strange person".
# , also called true adjectives, such as "that"
#: "that mountain".
Both and may predicate sentences. For example,
: "The rice is hot."
: "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include "big", "this", "so-called" and "amazing".
Both and form adverbs, by following with in the case of :
: "become strange",
and by changing to in the case of :
: "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by postpositions, also called particles. These include for example:
* for the nominative case. Not necessarily a subject.
: "He did it."
* for the dative case.
: "Please give it to Mr. Tanaka."
It is also used for the lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: "I want to go to Japan."
* for the genitive case, or nominalizing phrases.
: "my camera"
: "(I) like going skiing."
* for the accusative case. Not necessarily an object.
: "What will (you) eat?"
* for the topic. It can co-exist with case markers above except , and it overrides and .
: "As for me, Thai food is good." The nominative marker after is hidden under . (Note that English generally makes no distinction between sentence topic and subject.)
Note: The difference between and goes beyond the English distinction between sentence topic and subject. While indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
: "As for Mr. Ikeda, he is forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.
Absence of often means the subject is the focus of the sentence.
: "It is Mr. Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question who in this group is forty-two years old.
Unlike most western languages, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality.
Most relationships are not equal in Japanese society. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other might use a more plain form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they are teens, at which point they are expected to begin speaking in a more adult manner. See uchi-soto.
Whereas ( ) (polite language) is commonly an inflectional system, ( ) (respectful language) and ( ) (humble language) often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: "go" becomes in polite form, but is replaced by in honorific speech and or in humble speech.
The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and his/her group. For example, the suffix ("Mr" "Mrs." or "Miss") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's "group". When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and his or her speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of his or her own in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents. For this reason, the Japanese system for explicit indication of social register is known as a system of "relative honorifics." This stands in stark contrast to the Korean system of "absolute honorifics," in which the same register is used to refer to a particular individual (e.g. one's father, one's company president, etc.) in any context regardless of the relationship between the speaker and interlocutor. Thus, polite Korean speech can sound very presumptuous when translated verbatim into Japanese, as in Korean it is acceptable and normal to say things like "Our Mr. Company-President..." when communicating with a member of an out-group, which would be very inappropriate in a Japanese social context.
Most nouns in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of or as a prefix. is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word 'friend,' would become when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to 'water' as in order to show politeness.
Most Japanese people employ politeness to indicate a lack of familiarity. That is, they use polite forms for new acquaintances, but if a relationship becomes more intimate, they no longer use them. This occurs regardless of age, social class, or gender.
The original language of Japan, or at least the original language of a certain population that was ancestral to a significant portion of the historical and present Japanese nation, was the so-called ( or infrequently , i.e. "Yamato words"), which in scholarly contexts is sometimes referred to as ( or rarely , i.e. the words"). In addition to words from this original language, present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as ( ), entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten (æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸), Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, Wago is 33.8% and other foreign words are 8.8%. æ°é¸å½èªè¾å
¸, éç°ä¸äº¬å©, å°å¦é¤¨, 2001, ISBN 4095014075
Like Latin-derived words in English, words typically are perceived as somewhat formal or academic compared to equivalent Yamato words. Indeed, it is generally fair to say that an English word derived from Latin/French roots typically corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Yamato equivalent.
A much smaller number of words has been borrowed from Korean and Ainu. Japan has also borrowed a number of words from other languages, particularly ones of European extraction, which are called . This began with borrowings from Portuguese in the 16th century, followed by borrowing from Dutch during Japan's long isolation of the Edo period. With the Meiji Restoration and the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, borrowing occurred from German, French and English. Currently, words of English origin are the most commonly borrowed.
In the Meiji era, the Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, ("politics"), and ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages, although many academic words formed from such roots were certainly coined by native speakers of other languages, such as English.
In the past few decades, (made-in-Japan English) has become a prominent phenomenon. Words such as ( Book of Song é å¸ææäºå¹´ï¼é£ä½¿ä¸è¡¨æ°ï¼å°ååé ï¼ä½è©äºå¤ï¼èªæç¥ç¦°ï¼èº¬æç²åï¼è·æ¸å±±å·ï¼ä¸é寧èãæ±å¾æ¯äººäºååï¼è¥¿æè¡å¤·å
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åï¼æ¸¡å¹³æµ·åä¹åäºåï¼çéèæ³°ï¼å»åéç¿ï¼ç´¯èæå®ï¼ä¸æäºæ³ãè£éä¸æï¼å¿è¤å
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¶é¤å¸ååæï¼ä»¥å¸å¿ ç¯ã After the ruin of Baekje, Japan invited scholars from China to learn more of the Chinese writing system. Japanese Emperors gave an official rank to Chinese scholars (ç¶å®è¨/è©å¼æ ¼/ Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±äºå¹´ ä¹æ己巳æ壬ç³ãè³é³å士大åç¶å®è¨ãè©å¼æªãæ¸å士ç¾æ¸æ«å£«åä¿¡ãé人äºå両ã Nihon shoki Chapter 30:æçµ±å
å¹´ åäºæè¾é
æç²æãè³é³å士ç¶å®è¨ãè©å¼æªæ°´ç°äººåçº è¢æå¿ Shoku Nihongi å®äºä¹å¹´ åäºæåºå¯
ãçèé å¾äºä½ä¸è¢æå¿è³å§æ¸
æ宿禰ãæå¿å人ä¹ã天平ä¸å¹´éææ使帰æãæå¹´åå
«ä¹ãå¦å¾æé¸ç¾é
é³ãçºå¤§å¦é³å士ãæ¼å¾ãæ´å¤§å¦é å®æ¿å®ã ) and spread the use of Chinese characters from the 7th century to the 8th century.
The table of Kana. (Hiragana top, Katakana in the center and Romaji on the bottom.)
At first, the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese, with Japanese names represented by characters used for their meanings and not their sounds. Later, during the seventh century CE, the Chinese-sounding phoneme principle was used to write pure Japanese poetry and prose (comparable to Akkadian's retention of Sumerian cuneiform), but some Japanese words were still written with characters for their meaning and not the original Chinese sound. This is when the history of Japanese as a written language begins in its own right. By this time, the Japanese language was already distinct from the Ryukyuan languages. What leaves a mark should no longer stain: Progressive erasure and reversing language shift activities in the Ryukyu Islands, 2005, citing Hattori, Shiro (1954) 'Gengo nendaigaku sunawachi goi tokeigaku no hoho ni tsuite' [âConcerning the Method of Glottochronology and Lexicostatisticsâ], Gengo kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan] v26/27
The Korean settlers and their descendants used Kudara-on or Baekje pronunciation (ç¾æ¸é³), which was also called Tsushima-pronunciation (対馬é³) or Go-on (åé³).
An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as , a syllabic script which used Chinese characters for their sounds in order to transcribe the words of Japanese speech syllable by syllable.
Over time, a writing system evolved. Chinese characters (kanji) were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used to write grammatical elements, were simplified, and eventually became two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana.
Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, characters of Chinese origin used to represent both Chinese loanwords into Japanese and a number of native Japanese morphemes; and two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet is also sometimes used. Arabic numerals are much more common than the kanji when used in counting, but kanji numerals are still used in compounds, such as ("unification").
Hiragana are used for words without kanji representation, for words no longer written in kanji, and also following kanji to show conjugational endings. Because of the way verbs (and adjectives) in Japanese are conjugated, kanji alone cannot fully convey Japanese tense and mood, as kanji cannot be subject to variation when written without losing its meaning. For this reason, hiragana are suffixed to the ends of kanji to show verb and adjective conjugations. Hiragana used in this way are called okurigana. Hiragana are also written in a superscript called furigana above or beside a kanji to show the proper reading. This is done to facilitate learning, as well as to clarify particularly old or obscure (or sometimes invented) readings.
Katakana, like hiragana, are a syllabary; katakana are primarily used to write foreign words, plant and animal names, and for emphasis. For example "Australia" has been adapted as ( ), and "supermarket" has been adapted and shortened into ( ). The Latin alphabet (in Japanese referred to as RÅmaji ( ), literally "Roman letters") is used for some loan words like "CD" and "DVD", and also for some Japanese creations like "Sony".
Historically, attempts to limit the number of kanji in use commenced in the mid-19th century, but did not become a matter of government intervention until after Japan's defeat in the Second World War. During the period of post-war occupation (and influenced by the views of some U.S. officials), various schemes including the complete abolition of kanji and exclusive use of rÅmaji were considered. The ("common use kanji", originally called [kanji for general use]) scheme arose as a compromise solution.
Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of ("education kanji", a subset of ), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 939 characters in junior high school, covering in total 1,945 . The official list of was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.
As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated. and (an appendix of additional characters for names) are approved for registering personal names. Names containing unapproved characters are denied registration. However, as with the list of , criteria for inclusion were often arbitrary and led to many common and popular characters being disapproved for use. Under popular pressure and following a court decision holding the exclusion of common characters unlawful, the list of was substantially extended from 92 in 1951 (the year it was first decreed) to 983 in 2004. Furthermore, families whose names are not on these lists were permitted to continue using the older forms.
Many writers rely on newspaper circulation to publish their work with officially sanctioned characters. This distribution method is more efficient than traditional pen and paper publications.
Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. International interest in the Japanese language dates from the 1800s but has become more prevalent following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the global popularity of Japanese pop culture (such as anime and video games) since the 1990s. About 2.3 million people studied the language worldwide in 2003: 900,000 South Koreans, 389,000 Chinese, 381,000 Australians, and 140,000 Americans study Japanese in lower and higher educational institutions.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students study at Japanese universities and Japanese language schools, including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in 2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups provide free Japanese language classes for foreign residents, including Japanese Brazilians and foreigners married to Japanese nationals. In the United Kingdom, studies are supported by the British Association for Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools.
The Japanese government provides standardised tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features 4 levels of exams, ranging from elementary (4) to advanced (1). The Japanese External Trade Organization JETRO organizes the Business Japanese Proficiency Test which tests the learner's ability to understand Japanese in a business setting.
When learning Japanese in a college setting, students are usually first taught how to pronounce romaji. From that point, they are taught the two main syllabaries, with kanji usually being introduced in the second semester. Focus is usually first on polite (distal) speech, as students who might interact with native speakers would be expected to use. Casual speech and formal speech usually follow polite speech, as well as the usage of honorific.
* Classification of Japanese
* Culture of Japan
* Eurasiatic languages
* Henohenomoheji
* Japanese counter word
* Japanese dialects
* Japanese dictionaries
* Japanese language and computers
* Japonic languages
* Japanese literature
* Japanese name
* Japanese numerals
* Japanese orthography issues
* Japanese words and words derived from Japanese in other languages at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project
* Late Old Japanese
* Old Japanese
* Rendaku
* Romanization of Japanese
** Hepburn romanization
* Ryūkyūan languages
* Sino-Japanese vocabulary
* Yojijukugo
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, pp. 97 130.
* Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, pp. 200 248.
* Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25 56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
* Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417 444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
* Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
* McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [ ]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
* Miller, Roy. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
* Miller, Roy. (1980). Origins of the Japanese language: Lectures in Japan during the academic year, 1977 78. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95766-2.
* Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: [ ]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4789003388 ;
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
* Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
* Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies
* Jim Breen's dictionary and translation server
* Nihongoresources Various dictionaries and worked out textbook grammar.
* Denshi Jisho Find words, example sentences and kanji (through words or radicals). Kanji also contain references to various dictionaries and textbooks.
* Tangorin.com Japanese Dictionary, standard dictionary and Kanji search with example sentences.
* Tatoeba Project, collaborative project that aims to collect example sentences. Has mostly Japanese and English sentences. The sentences can be downloaded.
* JapanOD.com, Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary with support for browsers without Japanese fonts
* OmegaJi: Free, opensource (GNU GPL) Japanese-English dictionary program with 190'000 expressions, based on the JMdict project.
* Eijiro Very complete Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary, with many example sentences.
* Sanseido Web Dictionary
* Basic verb conjugation search
* A free Japanese lesson finder
*
* Japanese phrasebook on WikiTravel
* Japanese Online Talk
* Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar
* Video lectures from York University
* Japanese - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
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