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7d9cbb54560cb41435ac7620739fab58 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Koguryo-tomb-murals | Koguryŏ tomb murals | Koguryŏ tomb murals
Koguryŏ tomb murals, group of wall paintings that typify the painting style prevalent in the Koguryŏ kingdom (37 bce– 668 ce) of the Three Kingdoms period. The Koguryŏ were a horse-riding northern people, and their art was powered by the forceful spirit of a hunter-warrior tribe. Their fresco paintings on the walls of tombs are characterized by movement and emotion rather than formal beauty and decorative visual effect. Outlines are bold and forceful to heighten the effect of movement and animation.
Buddhist sculpture tended to develop a schematic approach to emphasize a spiritual, expressive quality during the late Koguryŏ period. As a whole, Koguryŏ art is powerful and emotional compared with the arts of the two southern kingdoms, Silla and Paekche.
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db43147d1727d1703f7f4d517c377ebd | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kok-Turki-alphabet | Kök Turki alphabet | Kök Turki alphabet
Kök Turki alphabet, writing system used by Turkic-speaking peoples in Central Asia from the 6th to the 8th century ad. It is sometimes called Kök Turki runes because of the resemblance of its letter forms to those of the (Germanic) runic alphabet. The script occurred in two forms, monumental and cursive, and was written either vertically downward or horizontally from right to left. The monumental form has many symbols that resemble runic letters but represent entirely different sounds. The resemblance, therefore, must be assumed to be coincidental.
The script occurs in many inscriptions and a few manuscript fragments from eastern Turkistan, northwestern Mongolia, and south-central Siberia. The language of the inscriptions is the earliest recorded form of Turkic, and the alphabet is probably related to Pahlavik or Sogdian (two Persian scripts derived from the Aramaic alphabet). Kök Turki has 38 letters, 4 of them vowels; many of the consonants occur in several forms, depending on what vowel precedes or follows them.
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ad7dca250dc734ef97d1259653a831b0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Koljada | Koljada | Koljada
…in the case of the Koljada (Latin Kalendae)—the annual visit made by the spirits of the dead, under the disguise of beggars, to all the houses in the village. It is possible that the bones of the disinterred were kept for a long period inside the dwellings, as is still…
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fbe92437837ecd797c534fd8448c3527 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Komsomolskaya-Pravda | Komsomolskaya Pravda | Komsomolskaya Pravda
Komsomolskaya Pravda, (Russian: “Young Communist League Truth”) morning daily newspaper published in Moscow that was the official voice of the Central Council of the Komsomol, or communist youth league, for young people aged 14 to 28. Komsomolskaya Pravda was founded in 1925 and historically had its main offices in Moscow, with those of Pravda, the Communist Party daily newspaper, but with its own editorial staff.
In 1953 Komsomolskaya Pravda began to use a livelier layout and a greater variety of material. Under its then editor, Nikita S. Khrushchev’s son-in-law, Alexei Adzhubei, it introduced more travel articles, sports pieces, and short fiction and reduced the amount of propaganda. At its peak in the 1970s and early ’80s, Komsomolskaya Pravda had a circulation of more than 15 million. The newspaper continued after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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ba6524cac3a345f883426065bb4f33b7 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kongo-language | Kongo language | Kongo language
Kongo language, Kongo also called Kikongo and also spelled Congo, a Bantu language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Kongo is related to Swahili, Shona, and Bembe, among others. Kikongo is the name used by its speakers. There are many dialects of Kongo; San Salvador Kongo, spoken in Congo (Kinshasa) and Angola, has more than 1.5 million speakers and is often listed as a separate language because it is not mutually intelligible with other Kongo dialects. There are more than seven million native speakers of Kongo, many of whom live in western Congo (Kinshasa), where Kongo is a national language. The remaining native speakers live in Congo (Brazzaville) and northern Angola. An additional seven million Africans claim Kongo as a second language.
Kongo was one of the first African languages to be studied and documented by Western scholars. The first such documentation came in 1591 when the Italian Filippo Pigafetta included several words in Kongo in a description of the Kongo area that he based on the work of an earlier Portuguese traveler. In 1650 a multilingual dictionary of Kongo that reportedly included explanations in Portuguese, Latin, and Italian was produced by Giacinto Brusciotto, also an Italian; however, material proof of the dictionary does not exist. In 1652 a 7,000-word dictionary of Kongo was produced, and in 1659 Brusciotto wrote the first grammatical analysis of Kongo. Brusciotto’s work is still praised for its accurate understanding of the nominal and verbal systems of Kongo, despite the lack of analogous systems in Latin or any other previously studied grammars.
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ba93705d84916f09f5135d02977bca85 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Konig-Rother | König Rother | König Rother
König Rother, English King Rother, medieval German romance (c. 1160) that is the earliest record of the type of popular entertainment literature circulated by wandering minstrels. It combines elements from German heroic literature (without the grimness of the older tales) with Orientalisms derived from the Crusades. In the story, the young king Rother sends 12 envoys to the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople to ask his daughter’s hand, but before the envoys leave, Rother takes a harp and plays three tunes, which they are to listen for if in danger. After their arrival, the emperor throws the envoys in prison, so Rother sets out, assuming the name Dietrich. He is accompanied by his vassal Berchter, whose seven sons are among the envoys, and by a great army. Dietrich tells the emperor he has been banished by Rother. He contrives to meet the princess, learns she intends to marry only King Rother, and reveals his true identity. The princess persuades her father to release the starving prisoners for three days, and Rother signals his presence by playing the harp. He rescues the envoys and carries off the princess. Her father, however, sends a cunning Spielmann (minstrel) after them, who then tricks the princess into returning. To get her back, Rother has to undertake a second series of adventures.
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146c260c9589a41c0b7617ae9e05b8e3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kornilov-affair | Kornilov affair | Kornilov affair
The most effective spokesman for the new right was Gen. Lavr Kornilov, an officer of humble origin. He was the son of poor Cossack parents, basically apolitical but certainly no admirer of Nicholas II. Impressed by Kornilov’s military record and his personal qualities,…
…government was Kerensky’s conflict with Kornilov, which broke into the open in August (September, New Style). Although many aspects of the “Kornilov affair” remain obscure to this day, it appears that Kerensky deliberately provoked the confrontation in order to be rid of a suspected competitor and emerge as the saviour…
…that he helped organize the Kornilov Rebellion (of 1917) and other anti-Soviet military efforts. After the October Revolution he emigrated to Paris.
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af2055ab309f647cb9fec4d5799ef8e2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Korravai | Korravai | Korravai
…mother, the fierce war goddess Korravai, with Durga. Varunan, a sea god who had adopted the name of an old Vedic god but otherwise had few Vedic features, and Mayon, a black god who was a rural divinity with many of the characteristics of Krishna in his pastoral aspect, also…
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a57eaeabbb53a7c5ba124f54331a31db | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kosher | Kosher | Kosher
Kosher, Yiddish Kosher, Hebrew Kāshēr, (“fit,” or “proper”), in Judaism, the fitness of an object for ritual purposes. Though generally applied to foods that meet the requirements of the dietary laws (kashruth), kosher is also used to describe, for instance, such objects as a Torah scroll, water for ritual bathing (mikvah), and the ritual ram’s horn (shofar). When applied to food, kosher is the opposite of terefah (“forbidden”); when applied to other things, it is the opposite of pasul (“unfit”).
In connection with the dietary laws, kosher implies (1) that the food is not derived from the animals, birds, or fish prohibited in Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14; (2) that the animals or birds have been slaughtered by ritual method of shehitah (see below); (3) that the meat has been salted to remove the blood (Deuteronomy 12:16, 23–25, and elsewhere) after the carcass has been critically examined for physical blemishes and that the ischiatic nerve has been removed from hindquarters (Genesis 32:32); and (4) that meat and milk have not been cooked together (Exodus 23:19) and that separate utensils have been employed. In consequence of (2), the term terefah (that which has been torn by beasts; Genesis 31:39) is extended to all food violating the law, even, incorrectly, to admixtures of leaven on Passover, though Kāshēr la-Pesach, “fit for Passover,” is fairly correct. So-called kosher wine is prepared under observation, to prevent libations to idols and, by Talmudic extension, to avoid handling by non-Jews. This last regulation is presently observed only by the ultra-Orthodox. A relic of Roman days, it once was common to both Judaism and early Christianity.
The special method of slaughtering animals, called shehitah, consists of an incision made across the neck of the animal or fowl by a qualified person especially trained for ritual slaughter, with a special knife that is razor-sharp and has a smooth edge with absolutely no nicks. The cutting must be made by moving the knife in a single swift and uninterrupted sweep, and not by pressure or by stabbing. The cut severs the main arteries, rendering the animal unconscious and permitting the blood to drain from the body. The slaughterer (shohet) recites a prayer before the act of shehitah.
Objections have sometimes been raised to this method of slaughter on the grounds of cruelty. The sight of the struggling animal aroused the concern of humane societies, and in some European countries this resulted in legislation forbidding shehitah. Scientific opinion indicates, however, that severance of the carotid arteries and the jugular vein by one swift movement results in almost immediate loss of consciousness, and the afterstruggle is reflex muscular action.
In Orthodox Judaism the dietary laws are considered implications of the divine command to “be holy” (Leviticus 19:2), but in Reform Judaism their observance has been declared to be unnecessary to the life of piety. See also kashruth.
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58108c0cb534c600531aa2d0cae6851d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kota-South-Asian-people | Kota | Kota
Kota, one of the indigenous, Dravidian-speaking peoples of the Nīlgiri Hills in the south of India. They lived in seven villages totalling about 2,300 inhabitants during the 1970s; these were interspersed among settlements of the other Nīlgiri peoples, Baḍaga and Toda. A village has two or three streets, each inhabited by the members of a single patrilineal clan. Most adult Kota also speak Tamil, another Dravidian tongue.
They were traditionally artisans and musicians. Each Kota family was associated with a number of Baḍaga and Toda families for whom they provided metal tools, wooden implements, and pots. They also furnished the music necessary for the ceremonies of their neighbours. From its associated families the Kota family received a share of grain from the Baḍaga harvest and some dairy products from the Toda. The Kota also cooperated with the jungle-dwelling Kurumbas, who provided jungle products and magical protection. Because the Kota handled animal carcasses and had other menial occupations, their neighbours considered them to be of inferior rank.
Aboriginal Kota religion entails a family trinity of two brother deities and the goddess-wife of the elder. Each deity has a priest and a diviner in every village. The diviner becomes possessed on appropriate occasions and speaks with the voice of god.
After 1930 the traditional interdependence among the Nīlgiri groups was abandoned, and only a few Kota families continue to supply tools and music. Kota livelihood depends mainly upon the cultivation of grain and potatoes.
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6ba48091e10de5414aa3a53f7d2d0f41 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Krapps-Last-Tape | Krapp's Last Tape | Krapp's Last Tape
Krapp’s Last Tape, one-act monodrama by Samuel Beckett, written in English, produced in 1958, and published in 1959. Krapp sits at a cluttered desk and listens to tape recordings he made decades earlier when he was in the prime of life, leaving only occasionally to imbibe liquor offstage. To Krapp, the voice in the recorded diary is that of a naive and foolish stranger. Although he comments savagely on the young Krapp’s hope and idealism, he is drawn to the recorded voice of his younger, more hopeful self.
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5ec2794fedcb990c90e7cba4fee2bc8c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kremsier-constitution | Kremsier constitution | Kremsier constitution
…Austrian constitutional convention assembled at Kremsier. The Kremsier assembly had drawn up a constitution that would have granted Austria’s many nationalities far-reaching autonomy. The constitution sponsored by Schwarzenberg and introduced by decree on March 4, 1849, however, transformed the Habsburg empire into a unitary, centralized, absolutist state, with extensive imperial…
…the assembly prepared the short-lived Kremsier constitution, designed to provide for the autonomy of national cultures under a liberal dynasty in Vienna. The city’s historic buildings include the former summer residence of the archbishop of Olomouc (built as a Baroque castle) with archiepiscopal archives, the Gothic Church of St. Maurice…
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4952ce48afc30405c07fa522af7549f3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/krepis | Krepis | Krepis
…a peripheral stone ring, or krepis. Some tholoi were built on the surface of the land, but most were built in a deep pit excavated into the slope of a hillside. The stones that were overlapped in rings to form the vault in the corbeled system were laid with a…
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3e827d9ebf1e582eefc2a8f5a6da6c70 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kreuzzeitung | Kreuzzeitung | Kreuzzeitung
The founding of the Kreuzzeitung gave him a platform from which to expound his conservative views. A strong Christian, Ludwig advocated freedom of the church from state interference and the formation of Protestants and Catholics into one conservative political bloc. He influenced practical politics chiefly through his brother. After…
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ed85763252cda53ba855c6cf894ced00 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Krik-Krak | Krik? Krak! | Krik? Krak!
The following year Krik? Krak!, a collection of short stories, was published. The collection, which took its title from a call-and-response phrase common in Haitian storytelling, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her second novel, The Farming of Bones (1998), used as its title the Haitian…
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1cb0999d4b3ce79566361e88b30099b2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kristall | Kristall | Kristall
…equipment and a large airlock; Kristall (1990), a materials-sciences laboratory; and Spektr (1995) and Priroda (1996), two science modules containing remote-sensing instruments for ecological and environmental studies of Earth. With the exception of its first occupants, Mir’s cosmonaut crews traveled between the station and Earth in upgraded Soyuz TM spacecraft,…
Docking of the third module, Kristall, a materials-processing factory, transformed the L configuration into a T. Beginning in September 1989, Mir was continuously inhabited for nearly a decade by a succession of crews. Although in most cases they served a standard six-month tour of duty, Valery Polyakov, a physician, spent…
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7f503b0060bf7935d79b64b68d46e020 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Krupp-AG | Krupp AG | Krupp AG
Krupp AG, also known as Fried. Krupp, former German corporation that was one of the world’s principal steelmakers and arms manufacturers until the end of World War II. For the rest of the 20th century it was an important manufacturer of industrial machinery and materials. It became a limited-liability company in 1968 when its assets were transferred from the private ownership of the Krupp family to the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation. The corporation merged with Thyssen AG in 1999, creating ThyssenKrupp AG, a leading global manufacturer of steel, construction materials, automotive parts and assemblies, and industrial and mechanical services.
The history of the Krupp industrial empire is essentially the history of the Krupp family through much of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1811 Friedrich Krupp and two partners founded in Essen a plant to produce English cast steel and related products, called a Gussstahlfabrik (cast-steel factory). Under his eldest son, Alfred Krupp, the company gained a worldwide reputation during the 19th century. It was the first to introduce the Bessemer and open-hearth steelmaking processes on the European continent. Alfred was best known, however, as the “Cannon King,” producing in 1851 a cast-steel cannon that was the sensation of London’s Great Exhibition. In the course of his career, he manufactured field guns and other armaments for countries around the world.
Under the direction of Alfred’s son, Friedrich Alfred Krupp (1854–1902), the business experienced enormous expansion resulting from the rise of the German navy and the demand for armour plate. Krupp acquired the Germania shipbuilding yards at Kiel in 1902. By that time the firm employed more than 40,000 people. Friedrich Alfred was succeeded by his elder daughter, Bertha Krupp (1886–1957); in 1906 she married Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, and he was authorized by the emperor William II to add the name Krupp to his own (see Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Gustav). Meanwhile (in 1903), the family concerns were incorporated under the umbrella name Fried. Krupp Grusonwerk AG.
During World War I the firm gained special international significance by the manufacture of heavy guns such as the 16.5-inch (420-mm) howitzer “Big Bertha” and the long-range gun that in the spring of 1918 bombarded Paris from a distance of about 75 miles (120 km). After the war, parts of the works had to be dismantled and the labour force reduced.
Adolf Hitler’s policy of military conquest switched the Krupp combine back to armament products. During World War II the aged Gustav was succeeded by his eldest son, Alfried von Bohlen und Halbach, who, by the Lex Krupp (Krupp Law) of 1943, assumed the name Krupp and became the sole owner of his mother’s vast holdings. Even before 1939, the extent of these holdings had become staggering. Within Germany, the Krupp concern had wholly owned 87 industrial complexes, held a controlling interest in 110 firms, and possessed substantial investments in 142 other German corporations. Abroad, Krupp works existed in almost every continental country; the family owned more than 50 percent of the stock in 41 foreign plants and large blocks of shares in another 25. There had been thousands of Krupp ore pits and coal mines, a chain of Krupp hotels, a group of Krupp banks, a Krupp cement works, and a score of private estates.
During the war, the Krupp combine manufactured submarines, trucks, locomotives, and warships, in addition to artillery and munitions. After World War II, Alfried Krupp was convicted of war crimes at Nürnberg, specifically for employment of slave labour, but the company had also been guilty of plundering property and plants in all the occupied countries. Under the terms of an Allied decree of March 4, 1953, Krupp was ordered to sell about 75 percent of the value of the concern. There were ultimately no buyers, however, and by the early 1960s, Alfried had restored the prosperity of the firm, its value exceeding $1 billion. Under his management, Krupp became one of the largest companies in West Germany (now Germany) and a major manufacturer of steel, heavy machinery, transportation equipment, and industrial plants.
Krupp stock had never been traded on the stock exchanges until credit problems emerged in 1966–67. At the same time, Alfried’s only son, Arndt, decided that he did not wish to take over the family business. In exchange for renouncing his succession rights, Arndt was granted $500,000 a year until his death (on May 12, 1986). Alfried died in Essen on July 31, 1967, and the following January the firm became a corporation wholly owned by a foundation called Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung.
Upon acquiring the rival German steelmaker Hoesch AG in 1992, the Krupp firm was converted from a limited-liability company to a stock corporation and adopted the name Fried. Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp. Following its merger in 1999 with rival firm Thyssen AG, headquarters were established in Düsseldorf, Germany. While ThyssenKrupp is known to produce amusement and sports items such as sparklers (fireworks), bobsleds, and protective glass (polycarbonate) panels for ice hockey rinks, the firm’s main business sectors involve metal fabrication, mechanical engineering, the production of elevator systems, the manufacture of automotive parts, and trading and services.
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76bdce4475c380be3129c87eb48bb4a9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Krypteia | Krypteia | Krypteia
…the Spartan secret police, the Krypteia, to patrol the Laconian countryside and put to death any supposedly dangerous helots. Sparta’s conservative foreign policy is often attributed to the fear of revolts by the helots. During wartime helots attended their masters on campaign and served as light-armed troops and sometimes also…
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6c505a38cc0fc48b74507749a6b8f10c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kryz-language | Kryz language | Kryz language
…11,000); Archi (fewer than 1,000); Kryz (about 6,000); Budukh (about 2,000); Khinalug (about 1,500); and Udi (about 3,700). The majority of Lezgi languages are spoken in southern Dagestan, but some of them (Kryz, Budukh, Khinalug, Udi) are spoken chiefly in Azerbaijan; and one village of Udi speakers is located in…
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fb10d69c19501f3b4427a278a8cce77f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kuala | Kuala | Kuala
Kuala, also called kua, in Finno-Ugric religion, a small, windowless, and floorless log shrine erected by the Udmurt people for the worship of their family ancestors.
The term kuala is etymologically related to similar words in other Finno-Ugric languages, such as kola (Zyryan), kota (Finnish), and koda (Estonian), all of which simply mean “shelter,” “house,” or “home.” The kuala developed into a shrine from the actual dwellings of the Udmurt, but since the 20th century it has been relegated to the status of a mere outbuilding for storage.
The kuala was historically unfurnished except perhaps for a table used for eating during the summer months. In the centre of the room was a hearth for cooking, and on the back wall was a shelf on which was kept a sacred case associated with an ancestral spirit. Both the case and the spirit were called voršud (“luck protector”). As the focal point of family ceremonies, the kuala cult served to bind together the members of a lineage in a concrete fashion. Members of a family could worship only at their own ancestral kuala. Because the kuala families were exogamous, a wife could not worship at the kuala of her husband but had to return to that of her parents. When a family grew large or moved far away, a new kuala was built and dedicated by taking some ashes from the ancestral kuala and transferring them to the new site. A new voršud case was also made at the old kuala and used to transfer some of the power of the ancestral kuala, thenceforth to be known as a great kuala, to the new one, which was then called a lesser kuala (see mudor šuan).
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a1a6b34fd3f43841e66d3399dabaa545 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kubla-Khan | Kubla Khan | Kubla Khan
Kubla Khan, in full Kubla Khan; or, a Vision in a Dream, poetic fragment by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1816. According to Coleridge, he composed the 54-line work while under the influence of laudanum, a form of opium. Coleridge believed that several hundred lines of the poem had come to him in a dream, but he was able to remember only this fragment after waking.
The poem begins with these well-known lines:
and concludes:
Because of the exotic imagery and rhythmic cadence of the poem, early critics decided that it should be read simply as a reverie and enjoyed for its vivid and sensual qualities. After studying Coleridge’s mythological and psychological interests, later critics held that the work had a complex structure of meaning and was basically a poem about the nature of human genius.
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8231d6bd72dee5bf687df83cd69a9c35 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kulturphilosophie | Kulturphilosophie | Kulturphilosophie
…was moved to write his Kulturphilosophie (1923; “Philosophy of Civilization”), in which he set forth his personal philosophy of “reverence for life,” an ethical principle involving all living things, which he believed essential to the survival of civilization.
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1e56d06d5e5d03317a924eec6aed3d55 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kumarasambhava | Kumarasambhava | Kumarasambhava
Kumarasambhava, (Sanskrit: “Birth of Kumara”) epic poem by Kalidasa written in the 5th century ce. The work describes the courting of the ascetic Shiva, who is meditating in the mountains, by Parvati, the daughter of the Himalayas; the conflagration of Kama (the god of desire)—after his arrow struck Shiva—by the fire from Shiva’s third eye; the wedding and lovemaking of Shiva and Parvati; and the subsequent birth of Kumara (Skanda), the war god. The original poem is in eight cantos, but a sequel was added by an imitator.
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8d3ddfe93b35666b165a34e5a4bc7488 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kumbet-Camii | Kümbet Camii | Kümbet Camii
Kars’s historical buildings include Kümbet Camii (“Church of the Apostles”), an Armenian church that was converted into a mosque; a bath dating from the Ottoman period; and an old citadel overhanging the river that was once a strong military post (probably late 16th century). The region around Kars was…
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1768cb6315731ff78f85d88e10f49792 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kundalini | Kuṇḍalinī | Kuṇḍalinī
Kuṇḍalinī, in some Tantric (esoteric) forms of Yoga, the cosmic energy that is believed to lie within everyone, pictured as a coiled serpent lying at the base of the spine. In the practice of Laya Yoga (“Union of Mergence”), the adept is instructed to awaken the kuṇḍalinī, also identified with the deity Shakti. Through a series of techniques that combine prescribed postures, gestures, and breathing exercises, the practitioner brings the kuṇḍalinī up along the spine to his head. On the way the kuṇḍalinī passes through six imagined centres, or cakras. When the kuṇḍalinī arrives at the seventh cakra, at the top of the head, the practitioner experiences an overwhelming and indescribable feeling of bliss that mystically represents the practitioner’s reintegration with atman, or the eternal essence of the self.
The exercises used by the adept to achieve this union involve the purificatory practices, bodily postures, breathing, and meditation exercises that are common to other forms of Yoga.
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f4467c9bb6c2caedd9e822e383dbf18d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kung | !Kung | !Kung
…but groups such as the !Kung build light-framed shelters of sticks and saplings covered with grass. Other hunter-gatherers, such as the Hadza of Tanzania, live in dry savanna territory, which contains a wide range of game animals. Their domed dwellings of tied branches are given a thick thatch in winter.…
Nomadic women of the !Kung, a group of the San people of southern Africa, use no contraceptives but have a mean interval between births of 44 months and an average of four or five deliveries in a fertile lifetime. Modern methods of birth control substitute for the control over…
…of two San groups, the !Kung and the |Gui, seem to be similar, in that both groups believe in two supernatural beings, one of which is the creator of the world and of living things whereas the other has lesser powers but is partly an agent of sickness and death.…
Of these latter peoples, the Kung (!Kung), !xong, and G/wi tribes (the “! ” and “/” representing click sounds) were intensively studied. While each group was distinct, the G/wi of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve can be considered an example of the traditional San hunter-gatherer way of life.
The tone system of the !Kung people is tetratonic. It may manifest itself, however, in three different versions with different intervals, leading, as in the first of the tunings shown below, to a semitone interval (shown as F–E). Because the melodic and harmonic results of these particular tunings are unique,…
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f79a0d08cd36fffc5a09dfea256bbb8f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kuro-Current | Kuro Current | Kuro Current
This flow, known as the Kuro Current, moves north as far as Japan, then east as the North Pacific Current (West Wind Drift), part of which then turns south as the California Current, which joins the equatorial countercurrent to form the Pacific North Equatorial Current.
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04e42c26cacb23ed6d5a8dc044cdbcb0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kurodo-dokoro | Kurōdo-dokoro | Kurōdo-dokoro
Kurōdo-dokoro, Japanese bureau of archivists originally established for the transmission and receipt of documents for the emperor. Initiated by the emperor Saga in 810, the Kurōdo-dokoro soon became the major organ for conveying memorials to the emperor and issuing imperial decrees. During the Heian period (794–1185), the Kurōdo-dokoro was the de facto government council of state, assuming many of the executive and legislative functions of the administration. The bureau was used as a tool of the powerful Fujiwara family for issuing official ordinances on behalf of the emperor. After the decline of Fujiwara power, the importance of the institution diminished, although it was not officially abolished until the end of the Edo (Tokugawa) period in 1867.
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29e21dfdb602f20aacfec3466541941b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kuru-Pancala | Kuru-Pancala | Kuru-Pancala
…the greatest respect, was the Kuru-Pancala, which incorporated the two families of Kuru and Puru (and the earlier Bharatas) and of which the Pancala was a confederation of lesser-known tribes. They occupied the upper Ganges–Yamuna Doab and the Kurukshetra region. In the north the Kamboja, Gandhara, and Madra groups predominated.…
The Kuru-Pancala, still dominant in the Ganges–Yamuna Doab area, were extending their control southward and eastward; the Kuru capital had reportedly been moved from Hastinapura to Kaushambi when the former was devastated by a great flood, which excavations show to have occurred about the 9th century…
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4ec7975f376b012b1537dbc6bb258a49 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kwangmyongsong | Kwangmyŏngsŏng | Kwangmyŏngsŏng
Kwangmyŏngsŏng, (Korean: “Bright Star”) any of a North Korean series of satellites. The first successful satellite, Kwangmyŏngsŏng 3, entered orbit on December 12, 2012. It was launched from Sŏhae in North P’yŏngan province by an Unha-3 (Korean: “Galaxy-3”) launch vehicle, which was a version of the Unha-2 rocket that used a third stage based on that of the Iranian Safīr rocket. This Earth-observing satellite traveled in a polar orbit at an altitude between 505.6 and 588.8 km (314.2 and 365.9 miles), circling the planet every 96 minutes.
The launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng 3 caused an international outcry because it was North Korea’s first successful test of long-range missile technology and represented a step toward possible development of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Two previous launches, in August 1998 and April 2009, had failed to achieve orbit, but, to international observers, those were intended not as actual satellite launches but as missile tests. (North Korea claimed that those launches had placed satellites in orbit, but no such satellites were ever observed.) For a launch in April 2012, North Korea took the unusual step of inviting foreign media to Sŏhae to see the satellite (the first version of Kwangmyŏngsŏng 3) and the Unha-3, but no reporters were present at the actual launch, which ended with the failure of the first stage.
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a2e0430806eb0ecf3f04f822120c02e1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kwena | Kwena | Kwena
…the east and even the Kwena and Hurutshe in the west were strong enough to avoid being conscripted as labour and thus limited the labour supply.
…of southern Sotho people, the Kwena and the Tlokwa. The Orange Free State’s government settled these peoples at Witsieshoek and in the surrounding area in the 1870s by concluding peace with their leaders. In 1926 the Orange Free State government placed the Tlokwa under the authority of the Kwena but…
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30ba6a77ef8e5470e2cef62f5400dc5a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kyodo-Tsushinsha | Kyōdō Tsūshinsha | Kyōdō Tsūshinsha
Kyōdō Tsūshinsha, (Japanese: “Cooperative News Agency”) national nonprofit news agency founded in November 1945 to replace the pre-World War II Dōmei Tsūshinsha (“Federated News Agency”), which had served as the official news service of the Japanese government since 1936. Despite competition from the beginning with the Jiji news agency, formed by Dōmei employees who did not join Kyōdō, the latter gradually gained prestige among Japan’s newspapers, in part by introducing technological innovations such as a teletype system for the transmission of kanji (Japanese: “Chinese characters”). Kyōdō’s American subsidiary, Kyōdō News International, Inc., was created in 1982 in New York City. By the early 21st century, the agency had representatives in many major world cities and employed more than 1,000 journalists, photographers, foreign correspondents, and stringers.
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ac296da6b8a513166d84706725adbda7 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kyoto-University | Kyōto University | Kyōto University
Kyōto University, Japanese Kyōto Daigaku, coeducational state institution of higher education in Kyōto, Japan. It was founded in 1897 under the provisions of an 1872 Japanese law that established a system of imperial universities admitting small numbers of carefully selected students to be trained as scholars and imperial officials. Kyōto Imperial University (Kyōto Teikoku Daigaku), popularly called Kyōdai, soon became one of the most important imperial universities, surpassed in prestige only by Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo).
After World War II the American forces of occupation encouraged the Japanese to establish a system of mass higher education. Although Kyōto was integrated into this system and the appellation “imperial” was dropped from the university’s name, it maintained its prestige. Because admission to Kyōto or Tokyo is said to be essential for students who desire good jobs in Japanese industry or civil service, admission to these universities is highly competitive. The university has faculties of engineering, science, agriculture, and medicine, among others, and a college of liberal arts and sciences. It also has a large number of specialized research institutes dealing with various branches of the pure and applied sciences and technology.
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b37d224e9f3696b338ed4e7ed1087e8c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kyrie-religion | Kyrie | Kyrie
Kyrie, the vocative case of the Greek word kyrios (“lord”). The word Kyrie is used in the Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament, to translate the Hebrew word Yahweh. In the New Testament, Kyrie is the title given to Christ, as in Philippians 2:11. As part of the Greek formula Kyrie eleison (“Lord, have mercy”), the word is used as a preliminary petition before a formal prayer and as a congregational response in the liturgies of many Christian churches.
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2e07858d683419b7e2b4ae5c3c5b14a3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Bagarre | La Bagarre | La Bagarre
…orchestral works Half-Time (1924) and La Bagarre (1927) were inspired by contemporary events, respectively a Czech-French football (soccer) game and the crowds that met Charles Lindbergh’s plane as it ended its transatlantic flight. Of his later works, the Concerto grosso for chamber orchestra (1941) uses the alternation between soloists and…
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8d9d33232614662cc6a12c43dcec77c9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Barraca | La Barraca | La Barraca
…a traveling student theatre group, La Barraca (the name of makeshift wooden stalls housing puppet shows and popular fairs in Spain), sponsored by the country’s progressive new Republican government.
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d4866164a49ce548d0c6075181b3fe43 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Boheme-opera-by-Puccini/Act-II | Act II | Act II
A few minutes later, in the Latin Quarter.
Vendors hawk their holiday wares in the busy Latin Quarter. Schaunard tries out a horn; Colline gets his coat mended and buys a rare book; Rodolfo buys Mimì a pink bonnet; and Marcello flirts with the girls. Everyone meets at Café Momus, where Rodolfo introduces Mimì to his friends. With great ceremony they fetch a table and chairs from the café and set them up outside, next to a table of townsfolk. A toy peddler, Parpignol, strolls by, besieged by children. The bohemians order a huge supper. Marcello asks Mimì what rare gift Rodolfo has given her, and she tells him about the bonnet, which she had long coveted. As they rise for a toast, the flamboyant entrance of Musetta makes Marcello wish he were drinking poison instead of wine. Musetta, Marcello’s former mistress, is richly dressed and attended by the wealthy, aged Alcindoro, who can barely keep up with her as she sails through the crowd to end up at a very conspicuous table near the bohemians.
As Marcello rages to his friends about Musetta’s flaws, Musetta notices him and is vexed that he refuses to acknowledge her. She decides to create a scene by calling the waiter to her and smashing a plate on the ground in disgust. Alcindoro, already distressed at being in so public a place with her, tries in vain to calm her down. Schaunard and Colline find the situation hilarious. Finally, Musetta turns the full power of her charm on Marcello, bragging that everyone watches her when she walks down the street and that their admiration fills her with desire (“Musetta’s Waltz”: “Quando me’n vo’”). Mimì feels sorry for her; Rodolfo explains that Marcello had once loved Musetta, but she had abandoned him for being poor. Ignoring Alcindoro’s pleas that she keep quiet and noticing that Marcello is feeling humiliated, Musetta pretends to have a dreadful pain in her foot and sends the old man off to find someone to fix her too-tight shoe. Marcello is overcome with emotion and embraces her passionately.
When the bill comes, the bohemians find themselves without funds. Musetta has a bright idea: combine her bill with theirs and let Alcindoro pay it. They all carry Musetta off in triumph as a colourful parade passes by. Alcindoro returns with the shoe to find that his paramour has vanished, leaving him with a large bill to pay.
A snowy morning at dawn, a month later, at the customs gate just outside Paris.
Customs officers sleepily let street sweepers and vendors past the barrier into Paris as late revelers celebrate in a nearby tavern. Mimì approaches the tavern; she is clearly ill. She sends word to Marcello, who works there, that she must speak to him. Marcello is surprised to see her. He tells her that he and Musetta have been there for a month at the innkeeper’s expense; he is painting a mural, and she is giving voice lessons. When he asks Mimì to come in out of the cold, she refuses because Rodolfo is there. She begs the stunned Marcello for help, explaining that although Rodolfo loves her, he has left her because he became jealous and suspicious without provocation. She has caught him watching her as she sleeps, and he has told her that she is not for him and should take another lover. She is at her wits’ end. Marcello can only advise that they stay apart. Mimì agrees but explains that they have tried to part many times and could not do it. She again begs for his help, and he agrees to speak to Rodolfo, who had arrived there an hour before dawn and had fallen asleep on a bench. When Marcello notices her cough, she tells him that she has been ill since the day before and that Rodolfo left her last night, saying, “It’s over.”
Marcello sees through the tavern window that Rodolfo has awakened. Mimì does not want him to see her. Marcello tells her to go home, but she hides nearby and overhears Rodolfo tell Marcello that he wants to leave Mimì because he is bored. But Marcello knows better. He accuses Rodolfo of being jealous and stubborn. Rodolfo then claims that Mimì has been flirting with a viscount. Again, Marcello does not believe it. Finally, Rodolfo tells the truth: he loves Mimì more than anything in the world, but she is dying of consumption (tuberculosis), and in his poverty he cannot provide for her properly. He is only making her health worse. Mimì, in tears, reveals herself; Rodolfo rushes to comfort her. The sound of Musetta’s laughter from the tavern prompts the jealous Marcello to run inside.
Mimì says goodbye to Rodolfo. She is returning to her apartment alone, where she will embroider her artificial flowers (“Donde lieta uscì”). She asks him to gather her few little things and send them to her. She has left the pink bonnet under her pillow; if he wishes, he can keep it as a souvenir of their love. They sadly recall the moments they will no longer share, the sweet kisses, the waking together in the morning; but they will also say goodbye to quarrels and jealousy. However, as Marcello and Musetta’s spat spills out of the tavern and they end their relationship, Rodolfo and Mimì decide to remain together until the spring.
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03f95e4b110a8fefba6eb31452be7288 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Boheme-opera-by-Puccini/Act-IV | Act IV | Act IV
Several months later in the garret.
Marcello and Rodolfo are working but are also tormenting each other with remarks about Musetta and Mimì and pretending to be unaffected. Finally, neither can stand it any longer. Marcello furtively removes a ribbon from his pocket and kisses it; Rodolfo does the same with the pink bonnet. They muse sorrowfully on their lost loves (Duet: “O Mimì, tu più non torni”).
Schaunard bursts in, but this time all he carries are four rolls, a pickled herring, a bottle of water, and Colline. They all pretend that before them is a great feast. Colline makes a great pretense of having to leave early for an appointment with the king. Things get sillier as Schaunard suggests that the four of them dance. Rodolfo and Marcello (in the female role) dance together as Schaunard beats time and Colline calls the steps. Schaunard and Colline turn a disagreement over dance steps into a mock duel. Into the resulting bedlam suddenly comes Musetta, who announces that Mimì is downstairs and is seriously ill. Rodolfo and Marcello rush out to get her as the others prepare a bed.
Rodolfo tenderly carries Mimì to the bed. She expresses doubt that he wants her there, and he reassures her. Musetta explains to the others that Mimì, nearly dying, had left the viscount and was searching for Rodolfo. Musetta found her stumbling in the street; Mimì told her that she wanted to die with Rodolfo and asked Musetta to take her to him. As the lovers embrace, Marcello reveals that they have nothing to give Mimì to eat or drink. Schaunard realizes that she will be dead within a half hour.
Mimì’s hands are cold; she wishes she had a muff. Rodolfo takes her hands in his and tries to warm them as she smiles and greets the others. Musetta takes Marcello aside and gives him her earrings, telling him to sell them so they can get medicine and a doctor; she will go with him to get a muff for Mimì. Colline takes off his faithful old coat, in the pockets of which the work of great philosophers and poets have resided, and bids it farewell (“Coat Aria”: “Vecchia zimarra”). He advises Schaunard to do the lovers a kindness and leave them alone.
Mimì tells Rodolfo that she was pretending to be asleep because she wanted to be alone with him to tell him that he is her lifelong love. She recalls telling him her name at their first meeting. Rodolfo takes the pink bonnet out of his pocket, bringing back more sweet memories. She teases him, for she knows that on their first meeting he had found her dropped key much earlier than he pretended. Mimì’s coughing fit brings Schaunard back into the room. But she assures him and Rodolfo that she is all right, and she closes her eyes.
Musetta and Marcello return; the doctor is on his way, and they have brought some medicine. Musetta slips the muff onto Mimì’s hands. Mimì marvels at its softness and warmth. She asks if Rodolfo bought it; Musetta quickly says yes. When Mimì playfully calls him a spendthrift, he bursts into tears. She asks why he is crying when she is better, she is with her love, her hands are warm, and she can sleep.
Believing that she is asleep, Rodolfo leaves the bedside and asks Marcello about the doctor. Meanwhile, Musetta prepares the medicine and prays for Mimì. Schaunard checks on Mimì and discovers that she has died; he tells Marcello, who is horrified. Colline returns and asks Rodolfo about Mimì’s condition. Rodolfo begins to say she is asleep when he notices how Marcello and Schaunard are looking at him. Marcello tries to comfort Rodolfo, but he is overcome with despair and embraces her dead body, calling out to his Mimì.
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4aae9e3d18c554cd7c33537e6f1d5e3c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-caduta-de-giganti | La caduta de’ giganti | La caduta de’ giganti
…a performance of Gluck’s opera La caduta de’ giganti on Jan. 17, 1746; the libretto, by A.F. Vanneschi, glorified the hero of the day, the Duke of Cumberland, after his victory at Culloden over the forces of Prince Charles Edward, the Stuart claimant to the British throne. This work, as…
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b029a7602274102d27c01b391b32728b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-capanna-indiana | La capanna indiana | La capanna indiana
…moved to Rome and published La capanna indiana (1951; revised and enlarged, 1955, 1973; “The Indian Hut”), which discusses his struggle for peace and privacy in a turbulent world. The work earned Bertolucci the Premio Viareggio, one of Italy’s most prestigious literary awards, in 1951. La camera da letto (1984;…
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763e33dd1fd6aea8246f65fbb3183931 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Chute-dun-ange | La Chute d’un ange | La Chute d’un ange
…poem under the appropriate title La Chute d’un ange (“The Fall of an Angel”). In 1832–33 he travelled to Lebanon, Syria, and the Holy Land. He had by then definitively lost the Catholic faith he had tried to recover in 1820; a further blow was the death in Beirut, on…
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0fbc96d57f510ba51ef3907f5e6ce295 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Compagnie-des-Quinze | La Compagnie des Quinze | La Compagnie des Quinze
…an outgrowth of that company, La Compagnie des Quinze, which reopened the Vieux-Colombier with André Obey’s Noé (“Noah”) in 1931 and went on to produce several other highly acclaimed productions that eventually toured England.
nephew, Michel Saint-Denis, formed the Compagnie des Quinze in 1930 with members of the defunct Vieux-Colombier and produced several of André Obey’s plays, including Noé (1931; Noah). By the time the Compagnie des Quinze disbanded in 1934, it had become internationally famous for its lively productions. In the same year,…
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5f792ba08f47337c424f60f56648788b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Croqueuse-de-diamants | La Croqueuse de diamants | La Croqueuse de diamants
…circus performers; the imaginative creation La Croqueuse de diamants (1950; “The Diamond Cruncher”), whose heroine eats the gems her associates steal; and L’Oeuf à la coque (1949; “The Soft-Boiled Egg”), in which the leading female dancer hatches from an egg in hell. Carmen (1949) was one of Petit’s most popular…
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2eb51cd8a873c36a6e2a712622f3febb | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Flute-a-Siebel | La Flute à Siebel | La Flute à Siebel
…one important collection of verse, La Flute à Siebel (1887; “The Flute of Siebel”), made up of deft and clever little poems in the Parnassian style. Yet his poetry was closest in feeling to that of Heinrich Heine, Jules Laforgue, and Paul Verlaine.
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e2f1a2eb89fe9844ea80989c46e9d2f0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Geometrie | La Géométrie | La Géométrie
Descartes’s La Géométrie appeared in 1637 as an appendix to his famous Discourse on Method, the treatise that presented the foundation of his philosophical system. Although supposedly an example from mathematics of his rational method, La Géométrie was a technical treatise understandable independently of philosophy. It…
In his famous book La Géométrie (1637), Descartes established equivalences between algebraic operations and geometric constructions. In order to do so, he introduced a unit length that served as a reference for all other lengths and for all operations among them. For example, suppose that Descartes was given a…
and mathematician René Descartes in La Géométrie (1637). The English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton restated the formula in 1707, though no proof of his has been discovered; some mathematicians speculate that he considered its proof too trivial to bother recording. The earliest known proof was by the French…
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193a09be36a65220fb8fcedb1df38380 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Guardia-Airport | La Guardia Airport | La Guardia Airport
…at New York City (La Guardia), London (Croydon), Paris (Le Bourget), and Berlin (Tempelhof) were laid out on sites close to the city centres. Because even transport aircraft of the period were relatively light, paved runways were a rarity. Croydon, Tempelhof, and Le Bourget, for example, all operated from…
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41f6828d49f9dffa9982c59b2d6e1fb6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Langue-des-calculs | La Langue des calculs | La Langue des calculs
…works La Logique (1780) and La Langue des calculs (1798; “The Language of Calculation”), Condillac emphasized the importance of language in logical reasoning, stressing the need for a scientifically designed language and for mathematical calculation as its basis. His economic views, which were presented in Le Commerce et le gouvernement,…
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8ed6990ae4072ba78b8dc215ae2f5df4 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Legende-dun-peuple | La Légende d’un peuple | La Légende d’un peuple
…liberal nationalism, Fréchette then wrote La Légende d’un peuple (1887; “The Story of a People”), his famous cycle of poems that was an epic chronicle of Canadian history. Other works include Poésies choisies (1908; “Selected Poems”); the prose stories in Originaux et détraqués (1892; “Eccentrics and Lunatics”) and Le Noël…
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9ba7eb5d11dc26f3e9bdaff8180a02a0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Modalite-du-jugement | La Modalité du jugement | La Modalité du jugement
…his widely acclaimed doctoral thesis, La Modalité du jugement (1897; Sorbonne), Brunschvicg set down his fundamental assertion that knowledge creates the only world we know. He maintained that there can be no philosophy beyond judgment, for judgment is the first activity of the mind and synthesizes the form and content…
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09cd5019810c3d550a7e353f7cf37783 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Nacion | La Nación | La Nación
…critic in Buenos Aires for La Nación, and then he was editor in chief (1962–69) of the magazine Primera Plana. From 1969 to 1970 he served as a reporter in Paris, and from 1970 to 1972 he was the director of the magazine Panorama. For three years (1972–75) Martínez was…
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105bc9d8376bcda540d20bde7c8469bb | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Plainte-au-loin-du-faune | La Plainte au loin du faune | La Plainte au loin du faune
…admirer Claude Debussy, the evocative La Plainte au loin du faune (1920), and a song setting, the charming “Sonnet de Ronsard” (1924). A few weeks before his death, he destroyed several of his musical manuscripts. Dukas collaborated with the Paris publishing firm of Durand in preparing modern editions of some…
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d4f458a19d2516db5f835fda8e266d71 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Pleiade-French-literary-series | La Pléiade | La Pléiade
…firm also published the well-known La Pléiade series of French literary classics (acquired 1933) as well as the Série Noire, a series of some 2,000 thrillers, detective novels, and spy stories.
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7cc43cb9cbee193821f2ce484dfc1ce8 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Rencontre-imprevue | La Rencontre imprévue | La Rencontre imprévue
In La Rencontre imprévue, first performed in Vienna on Jan. 7, 1764, no vaudeville elements remain at all, with the result that the work is a perfect example of opéra comique. Gluck gave the scores of Le Cadi dupé and La Rencontre imprévue particular charm by…
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3ec3d6b68c819b9176b64721238543f1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Revue-Blanche | La Revue Blanche | La Revue Blanche
…it inspired its own periodical, La Revue Blanche, and Le Théâtre de l’Oeuvre (both founded in Paris in 1891). There were exhibitions twice a year at a Paris gallery, Le Barc de Boutteville, from 1891 to 1897.
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d3b6c953c5b19ebbeef8343fb5077bc0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Salle-University | La Salle University | La Salle University
La Salle University, private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is operated by the Christian Brothers, a teaching order of the Roman Catholic church. It comprises schools of Arts and Sciences, Business Administration, and Nursing, offering a range of bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in nursing, education, business, computer sciences, central and eastern European studies, and other areas. Students can spend a year of study in Switzerland or Spain. The university has a cooperative relationship with nearby Chestnut Hill College, a Catholic college for women. Total enrollment is approximately 6,300.
The university was founded in 1863 and named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, founder of the Christian Brothers. The university occupied several locations throughout Philadelphia before settling on a portion of Belfield Farm, the former home of the painter Charles Willson Peale. Women were first admitted as full-time students in 1970.
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b91a20371e12675a490d23f5e4c30ef3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-serva-padrona | La serva padrona | La serva padrona
…Pozzuoli), Italian composer whose intermezzo La serva padrona (“The Maid Turned Mistress”) was one of the most celebrated stage works of the 18th century.
…as La serva padrona (1733; The Maid Mistress), by the Neapolitan composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. From the early, tentative efforts of several 17th-century Roman and Florentine composers, then, comic opera eventually acquired a bustling, rude, independent vitality of its own, often with a satirical bent.
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795028728ef2e3b87c98f3ada6033ff4 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-strada-film-by-Fellini | La strada | La strada
With La strada (1954; “The Road”), Fellini returned to the world of showmen. It starred Anthony Quinn as Zampanò, a brutish but phoney itinerant "strong man," and Masina as the waif who loves him. The film was shot on desolate locations between Viterbo and Abruzzi, mean…
>film of the same name by Federico Fellini. Rota’s music was one of the relatively rare European film scores to attract wide attention in the United States as well.
…films such as Federico Fellini’s La strada (1954) and Le notti di Cabiria (1957; The Nights of Cabiria), both of which won Academy Awards for best foreign-language film. In 1964 he opened a studio, Dinocittà, where he made several epics; their lack of success, combined with increasingly stringent nationalist restrictions…
…of which was Federico Fellini’s La strada (1954), in which he gave one of his finest performances. Quinn won his second Oscar for Lust for Life (1956) and went on to roles in the memorable motion pictures Wild Is the Wind (1957), The Savage Innocents (1959), The Guns of Navarone…
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5aa5b1348271e53e1fe75ddebb911c97 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-strada-film-score-by-Rota | La strada | La strada
La strada, (Italian: “The Street” or “The Road”) film score by Italian composer Nino Rota for the 1954 film of the same name by Federico Fellini. Rota’s music was one of the relatively rare European film scores to attract wide attention in the United States as well.
Many European composers of Rota’s generation had relocated to Hollywood at the outbreak of World War II, but Rota was not one of them. Although he had studied music in Philadelphia before the war, he returned to his native Italy for further studies and spent most of his career there. Of the more than 100 films for which he wrote the music, few others were widely distributed outside of Italy.
Rota’s score for La strada masterfully conveys moods ranging from energy to poignancy, and it demonstrates his deft handling of music to portray quirky characters. He also used a technique practiced by many of the great composers of opera, using the recurrence of a character’s unique musical motif to convey the memory of that person in the thoughts of another.
A dozen years after the film was released, Milan’s La Scala, one of the world’s principal opera houses, asked Rota to write a balletic version of La strada; it premiered in 1966.
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c7dbb0131256f34a07087045b3d5e0c0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-sucesion-presidencial-en-1910 | La sucesión presidencial en 1910 | La sucesión presidencial en 1910
…immensely successful book by Madero, La sucesión presidencial en 1910 (1908; “The Presidential Succession in 1910”), in which he called for honest elections, mass participation in the political process, and no reelection to the office of president. The political scene became even more hectic when Díaz changed his mind in…
…in the 1910 elections, published La sucesión presidencial en 1910 (1908; “The Presidential Succession in 1910”) as a campaign document, two-thirds of which dealt with the history of Mexico and the corrupting influences of absolute power and the rest with his program to revive the democracy that had atrophied for…
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11c1c24ad185c14c143b04af1247b0a5 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Victoria-de-Junin-Canto-a-Bolivar | La Victoria de Junín: Canto a Bolívar | La Victoria de Junín: Canto a Bolívar
…which he is best remembered, La victoria de Junín: Canto a Bolívar (1825; “The Victory at Junín: Song to Bolívar”), commemorates the decisive battle won there by the forces of the liberator Simón Bolívar against the Spanish armies. Neoclassical in form, yet Romantic in inspiration and imagery, the Canto a…
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5f59667e100f8996d0b26a2dafffa29b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Vie-de-Marianne | La Vie de Marianne | La Vie de Marianne
La Vie de Marianne (1731–41), which preceded Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), anticipates the novel of sensibility in its glorification of a woman’s feelings and intuition. Le Paysan parvenu (1734–35; “The Fortunate Peasant”) is the story of a handsome opportunistic young peasant who uses his attractiveness…
…La Vie de Marianne (1731–41; The Life of Marianne) and Le Paysan parvenu (1734–35; Up from the Country), follow one single character recounting, as in Manon Lescaut, her or his past experience. But it is the comic note that prevails as Marianne and Jacob make their way upward in society.…
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d1f547c8f2e592381e420ce6397b3170 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Vie-en-rose-film-by-Dahan | La Vie en rose | La Vie en rose
…Môme (2007; also released as La Vie en rose) propelled her to international fame.
…Môme (2007; also released as La Vie en rose) he portrayed the nightclub impresario who discovered Edith Piaf. He later appeared as a crime boss in the true-life gangster movie L’Instinct de mort (2008; Mesrine: Killer Instinct), as the titular police detective in Claude Chabrol’s thriller Bellamy (2009; Inspector Bellamy),…
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37a69f9da714fa0b3a5274ad838b24ae | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Violencia | La Violencia | La Violencia
Liberal hegemony continued through the 1930s and the World War II era, and Alfonso López Pumarejo was reelected in 1942; however, wartime conditions were not favourable to social change. In the elections of 1946, two Liberal candidates, Gabriel Turbay…
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60b21e6d44052067a76d4c9b5a1892ba | https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Vita-nuova | La vita nuova | La vita nuova
La vita nuova, (Italian: “The New Life”) work written about 1293 by Dante regarding his feelings for Beatrice, who comes to represent for Dante the ideal woman. La vita nuova describes Dante’s first sight of Beatrice when both are nine years of age, her salutation when they are 18, Dante’s expedients to conceal his love for her, the crisis experienced when Beatrice withholds her greeting, Dante’s anguish when he perceives that she is making light of him, his determination to rise above anguish and sing only of his lady’s virtues, anticipations of her death and her actual death, Dante’s mourning, the temptation of the sympathetic donna gentile (a young woman who temporarily replaces Beatrice), Beatrice’s final triumph and apotheosis, and, in the last chapter, Dante’s determination to write at some later time about her “that which has never been written of any woman.”
The work contains 42 brief chapters with commentaries on 25 sonnets, one ballata, and four canzones; a fifth canzone is left dramatically interrupted by Beatrice’s death. The prose commentary provides the frame story, which is not treated by the poems themselves.
For a discussion of La vita nuova in the context of Dante’s life and work, see Dante: Early life and the Vita nuova.
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afd56444b4acbf03a6dd73479dfa819b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Labhani | Labhani | Labhani
…Banjari or Vanjari (also called Labhani), originally from Rajasthan and related to the Roma (Gypsies) of Europe, roams over large areas of central India and the Deccan, largely as agricultural labourers and construction workers. Many tribal peoples practice similar occupations seasonally. Shepherds, largely of the Gujar caste, practice transhumance in…
…of whom are farmers; the Banjara, who have been known as traveling traders and artisans; and the Gadia Lohar, another historically itinerant tribe, who traditionally have made and repaired agricultural and household implements. The Bhil, one of the oldest communities in India, generally inhabit southern Rajasthan and have a history…
The Lambadi women of Andhra Pradesh wear mirror-speckled headdresses and skirts and cover their arms with broad, white bone bracelets. They dance in slow, swaying movements, with men acting as singers and drummers. Their social dance is imbued with impassioned grace and lyricism.
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ead5f7a172006c76f72d59fc4e11422b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/labour-economics/Pay-incentives | Pay incentives | Pay incentives
By contrast, there are a great variety of devices that use pay as a positive motivator. The most common method of payment is according to the duration of time worked—by hour, week, month, or year. But additional merit payments may be added on at the discretion of management as rewards for good performance. The hazard here is that, if employees feel the criteria on which these are based are inconsistent, the effect may be negative.
Salary structures are more formal devices that offer a range of pay levels for different job grades. The employee’s position within the range may depend upon managerial discretion, or it may be formalized into automatic annual increments. Promotion between job grades depends upon criteria over which managerial discretion has stronger incentive effects.
Payment by results most commonly relates money payment to physical output for a part of the wage. This may be done for an individual as piecework or for a group of workers. In order that the incentive effect be seen as fair for employees engaged on different tasks, it is necessary to develop common standards to provide the same rewards to comparable increases in effort. The work study techniques devised for this use a combination of accurate timing and the observer’s judgment of the effort being applied over many repetitions of the job to arrive at a standard time, which is then directly comparable with the standard times for other jobs. This provides a basis for incentive payment, with the same bonus being earned by workers who complete their different tasks in the same percentage briefer than their standard time. In practice, there is ample opportunity for dispute and for the emergence of contentious anomalies, particularly as a result of minor changes in production technology. The incentive effect usually fades with time, and most payment-by-results systems have a limited life.
Payment related to corporate performance has become increasingly popular since the 1970s. Rather than linking employees’ bonuses to their own performance, it is tied to profits or some other indicator of the state of the company. The main advantage of this is didactic; it is believed to increase loyalty and to educate the work force about the commercial circumstances within which the company operates. For similar reasons many governments have encouraged employee share ownership schemes.
In the United States, Japan, Great Britain, and a growing number of other countries, the scope of pay bargaining is often no greater than a single employer or even a single plant. This has the advantage that the wage structure and incentive system can be closely tailored to a broader package that includes training, motivation, and career development. It requires the employer to sever links with the multiemployer industrywide agreements that have often prevailed previously. It also implies that the trade union unit of organization is focused on the single firm as well—as a “local” in the United States, as an “enterprise union” in Japan, or as a “joint shop stewards’ committee” in Britain. Such organizations enjoy considerable or complete autonomy from the wider union movement, making them in some respects weaker and more pliable.
Single-employer bargaining is a strategy that offers a firm greater freedom to manipulate the productivity of its work force by isolating its trade union (if any) and developing organization-oriented attitudes and company-specific training and job descriptions. It does not, however, provide the employer with any influence over the generally prevailing level of pay settlements. This is offered by the alternative multiemployer strategy, which also permits a more market-oriented approach to labour with industrywide wage and training agreements. Multiemployer strategies do not imply complete uniformity of payment across all firms: in practice they tend to have discretion to vary the agreement somewhat at plant level. In some countries this is a fairly disciplined two-tier arrangement; in others, local bargaining pressures cause the plant-level element to dominate in what becomes known as wage drift.
Governments have intervened in three ways to enforce minimum rates for workers who lacked both the protection of trade unions and competition between employers for their services and whose wages in consequence were regarded as needlessly low. One way has been to provide by law that “recognized terms and conditions of employment,” such as those reached by collective bargaining for workers of a particular description, shall be applied to all others engaged in the same kind of work. A second way, followed by the United Kingdom since 1909 and by a number of state legislatures in the United States, has been to set up boards of representatives of the workers concerned and their employers, together with independent members, charged with determining rates of pay and hours of work that are legally binding as minimal on all employers within the scope of the board. The board discusses and negotiates wage claims in much the same way as in collective bargaining, albeit if the parties cannot reach agreement, the independent members have a deciding vote.
These two forms of intervention are calculated to raise the pay of particular groups of unorganized workers only to the extent that it would be raised by the extension of collective bargaining to cover them. A third way, followed notably by the United States in its Fair Labor Standards Act since 1938, has been to specify by statute the actual minimum wage applicable to wide categories of employment—the amount set being such that only a relatively small number of workers, namely the lowest paid, are immediately affected. When such measures were first proposed, critics argued that they would only result in the workers they were intended to protect losing their jobs. In some cases this has happened, as when the United States minimum wage was applied to the needleworkers of Puerto Rico. More often, however, the workers concerned were receiving lower pay than a competitive market would have afforded them—that is, if they had had more access to alternative employers. Minimum-wage measures tend to discourage labour-intensive methods of production, so that while they may cost jobs in the short term, they tend to force employers into more advanced production technologies, which create greater long-term growth and employment potential.
Another way of regulating rates of pay is a by-product of arbitration systems set up originally as a means of avoiding strikes and lockouts. In Australia it has become the practice, accepted by both employers and trade unions, to have the main proportions of the wage structure and the movements of the general level of wages determined by the awards of arbitrators to whom these issues are submitted in the form of disputes. In setting rates for particular occupations or industries relatively to others, arbitrators must in practice have regard to what is acceptable to the parties; for even where arbitration is compulsory, its awards would cease to be observed if either party had cause to believe that the terms of the awards were persistently less favourable than it could obtain by its own bargaining power. In regulating the movement of the general level of pay, the arbitrators have more discretion; but the government, and the employers insofar as they meet international competition at home and abroad, will make them aware of the effects of the awards on the level of domestic costs and prices and on the balance of payments.
Under full employment the rise in effective rates of pay has generally been inflationary in that it has exceeded the rise of productivity. The consequent rise in costs and prices has at times been disturbing domestically and has been particularly embarrassing to governments that face difficulties in balancing their external payments. Governments in general have been unwilling to check the rise of inflation by applying fiscal and monetary restraints to the degree that unemployment would be substantially raised. In the belief that at least part of the rise is due not to excess purchasing power but to the pushing up of costs and prices, governments have appealed to those who make decisions affecting labour costs and product prices to moderate the rise in pay and profits. Some governments have formulated norms that would, in theory, keep the general level of prices constant and would keep the general level of pay rising only at the rate of the expected rise in productivity—allowing, of course, for specific exceptions. Agencies have been set up to apply these principles, but usually only by way of investigation, assessment, and advice. Governments have preferred to rely on the acceptance of the policy in principle by employers and trade unions, and on their efforts to secure its observance by their affiliates. Even where statutory powers of control exist, they have usually been kept in reserve. During times of recession, governments have generally suspended their efforts to enforce a national incomes policy.
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64db0ce2bd4cfbb494afa10a1f7d48ad | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lacerba | Lacerba | Lacerba
…he founded another Florentine periodical, Lacerba (1913), to further its aims. In 1921 Papini was reconverted to the Roman Catholicism in which he had been reared. A number of religious works followed, notably Storia di Cristo (1921; The Story of Christ), a vivid and realistic re-creation of the life of…
(1904), La Voce (1908), and Lacerba (1913), founded and edited by relatively small literary coteries. The two main literary trends were Crepuscolarismo (the Twilight School), which, in reaction to the high-flown rhetoric of D’Annunzio, favoured a colloquial style to express dissatisfaction with the present and memories of sweet things past,…
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16130b122fb6610d543dc6efc2951f62 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/LAction-essai-dune-critique-de-la-vie-et-dune-science-de-la-pratique | L’Action essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une science de la pratique | L’Action essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une science de la pratique
…first formulated his philosophy in L’Action: essai d’une critique de la vie et d’une science de la pratique (1893; Action: Essay on a Critique of Life and a Science of Practice). Blondel was influenced by the theory that belief is a matter of will as well as logical demonstration. For…
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8a6988af559e1e68c9e5c3bc63e70b7b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/LAction-francaise | L’Action française | L’Action française
Action Française was also the name of a daily newspaper (published from March 21, 1908, to Aug. 24, 1944) that expressed the group’s ideas.
…he and Charles Maurras refashioned L’Action française into a daily paper of avowedly reactionary, nationalist, and royalist opinion. Daudet had published an antirepublican satire, Le Pays des partementeurs, in 1901, and his contributions to L’Action française showed the same satirical and Rabelaisian flavour.
…one of the founders of L’Action française, a review devoted to integral nationalism, which emphasized the supremacy of the state and the national interests of France; promoted the notion of a national community based on “blood and soil”; and opposed the French Revolutionary ideals of liberté, égalité, and fraternité (“liberty,”…
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ccf36bb4c4a44e34aee9ac37d2cddc55 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lad-serca | Ład serca | Ład serca
…was followed by the novel Ład serca (1938; “Heart’s Harmony”), in which Andrzejewski tried to find in Roman Catholic teachings solutions to the problems of contemporary life. During the German occupation of World War II, he participated in the Polish underground.
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6c50751a87ce5a9d529c541caaf075f3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/lady | Lady | Lady
Lady, in the British Isles, a general title for any peeress below the rank of duchess and also for the wife of a baronet or of a knight. Before the Hanoverian succession, when the use of “princess” became settled practice, royal daughters were styled Lady Forename or the Lady Forename. “Lady” is ordinarily used as a less formal alternative to the full title of a countess, viscountess, or baroness; where the name is territorial, the “of ” is dropped—thus the Vicountess of A. but Lady A. The daughters of dukes, marquesses, and earls also have, by courtesy, the title of lady prefixed to their forename and surname—e.g., Lady Jane Grey.
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97ce576336610124e444892825d521ac | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lady-Anne | Lady Anne | Lady Anne
He woos and marries Lady Anne, whose husband (Edward, prince of Wales) and father-in-law he has murdered, and then arranges for Anne’s death as well once she is no longer useful to him. He displays his animosity toward King Edward’s wife and then widow, Queen Elizabeth, by arranging for…
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4821e72da4293a6dfb290a076e1d0a9d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lady-Chatterleys-Lover | Lady Chatterley's Lover | Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, novel by D. H. Lawrence, published in a limited English-language edition in Florence (1928) and in Paris (1929). It was first published in England in an expurgated version in 1932. The full text was published only in 1959 in New York City and in 1960 in London, when it was the subject of a landmark obscenity trial (Regina v. Penguin Books, Ltd.) that turned largely on the justification of the use in the novel of until-then taboo sexual terms. This last of Lawrence’s novels reflects the author’s belief that men and women must overcome the deadening restrictions of industrialized society and follow their natural instincts to passionate love.
SUMMARY: Constance (Connie) Chatterley is married to Sir Clifford, a wealthy landowner who is paralyzed from the waist down and is absorbed in his books and his estate, Wragby. After a disappointing affair with the playwright Michaelis, Connie turns to the estate’s gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, a symbol of natural man, who awakens her passions.
DETAIL: The publication history of Lady Chatterly’s Lover provides a plot itself worthy of a novel. Published privately in 1928 and long available in foreign editions, the first unexpurgated edition did not appear in England until Penguin risked publishing it in 1960. Prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, Penguin was acquitted after a notorious trial, in which many eminent authors of the day appeared as witnesses for the defense.
Due to this infamous history, the novel is most widely known for its explicit descriptions of sexual intercourse. These occur in the context of a plot that centers on Lady Constance Chatterly and her unsatisfying marriage to Sir Clifford, a wealthy Midlands landowner, writer, and intellectual. Constance enters into a passionate love affair with her husband’s educated gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. Pregnant by him, she leaves her husband and the novel ends with Mellors and Constance temporarily separated in the hope of securing divorces in order to begin a new life together.
What remains so powerful and so unusual about this novel is not just its honesty about the power of the sexual bond between a man and a woman, but the fact that, even in the early years of the 21st century, it remains one of the few novels in English literary history that addresses female sexual desire. It depicts a woman’s experience of the exquisite pleasure of good sex, her apocalyptic disappointment in bad sex, and her fulfillment in truly making love. As if all this were not enough to mark Lady Chatterly’s Lover as one of the truly great English novels, it is also a sustained and profound reflection on the state of modern society and the threat to culture and humanity of the unceasing tide of industrialization and capitalism.
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3d144f81a014c34294aedd5f4d1b708b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lady-for-a-Day | Lady for a Day | Lady for a Day
…Capra’s next film, the sentimental Lady for a Day (1933), was. Capra both produced and directed Riskin’s adaptation of Damon Runyon’s short story “Madame La Gimp.” It concerned a decrepit peddler, Apple Annie (May Robson), who enlists a sympathetic gangster (Warren William) to transform her into a society matron so…
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1a9391ab7ccb1bf2939f352e0b71f80b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lady-Sings-the-Blues-film-by-Furie | Lady Sings the Blues | Lady Sings the Blues
…and began producing films, including Lady Sings the Blues (1972), featuring Ross in her film debut as Billie Holiday. By the mid-1980s the company boasted annual revenues in excess of \$100 million, and Motown acts had recorded more than 50 number one hits on the Billboard pop singles chart. Facing…
Motown’s most famous film, Lady Sings the Blues (1972), starred Ross and was loosely based on the career of jazz singer Billie Holiday.
…in motion pictures such as Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and Silver Streak (1976), becoming a major box-office attraction. He also had success with his own concert films, including Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982). In 1986 he starred in the autobiographical Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is…
Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Mahogany (1975), and The Wiz (1978) and their soundtrack albums kept Ross in the public eye and ear for most of the 1970s. The Boss (1979), produced by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, and Diana (1980), produced by Chic’s Nile…
…blues singer Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and continuing with Mahogany (1975), for which she also recorded the hit theme song “Do You Know Where You’re Going To,” and The Wiz (1978).
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97ffcb4f8470e573f609c3003a8791a9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laestrygones | Laestrygones | Laestrygones
Laestrygones, also spelled Laestrygonians or Lestrygonians, fictional race of cannibalistic giants described in Book 10 of Homer’s Odyssey. When Odysseus and his men land on the island native to the Laestrygones, the giants pelt Odysseus’s ships with boulders, sinking all but Odysseus’s own ship.
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de0e5ba37b358a8f9402deaa851c4b4d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lafayette-College | Lafayette College | Lafayette College
Lafayette College, private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Easton, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The college is dedicated solely to undergraduate education and awards bachelor’s degrees in arts, sciences, and engineering. Students can choose to study abroad at the college’s centres in Brussels, Athens, London, and Dijon, France. Campus research facilities include the Engineering Computer Aid Design Center. Total enrollment is approximately 2,000.
The college was chartered in 1826 and named for the Marquis de Lafayette. Instruction began in 1832 with students and faculty from the Manual Labor Academy of Pennsylvania, which had closed its Germantown campus in favour of the new college in Easton. In 1838 the college instituted one of the first teacher-training programs in the United States. It was also one of the first colleges to offer instruction in engineering. Lafayette College became coeducational in 1970.
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7af214fed725ec4586e9e741653c4a66 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laffer-curve | Laffer curve | Laffer curve
Laffer drew the famous Laffer curve, which showed that, starting from a zero tax rate, increases in tax rates will increase the government’s tax revenue but that, at some point, when the rates become high enough, further increases in tax rates will decrease revenue. This occurs because higher tax…
…among other ideas, the “Laffer curve” of taxation.
…Laffer, the originator of the Laffer curve. The Laffer curve shows the relationship between federal taxes and revenue, as plotted on a line graph. It takes the form of an inverted “U,” which shows federal revenue at zero when tax rates are zero and again at 100%. When tax rates…
…debate has persisted over the “Laffer curve,” which postulates that at some level of tax the disincentive effects will be so great as to mean that an increase in tax rates actually reduces revenue. This idea has been influential in leading governments to attempt to curtail the share of public…
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8d918e7682f6d8aaef8362125a49020d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Laguna-people | Laguna | Laguna
Acoma, and Laguna. As farmers, Ancestral Pueblo peoples and their nomadic neighbours were often mutually hostile; this is the source of the term Anasazi, a Navajo word meaning “ancestors of the enemy,” which once served as the customary scientific name for this group.
Acoma, and Laguna villages, all in western New Mexico. Of the western Pueblo peoples, Acoma and Laguna speak Keresan; the Zuni speak Zuni, a language of Penutian affiliation; and the Hopi, with one exception, speak Hopi, a Uto-Aztecan language. The exception is the village of Hano, composed…
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bd6e92f5abfa997df568ac0a0c347af6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lai-de-lombre | Lai de l’ombre | Lai de l’ombre
…defends her reputation; and the Lai de l’ombre, about a knight who presses a ring on his lady and, when she refuses it, throws it to her reflection in a well—a gesture that persuades her to accept him. Renart’s authorship of the first two works, which had each survived only…
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d64d5580f4e71be10915f5afd4323a39 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/LAllegro-poem-by-Milton | L'Allegro | L'Allegro
L’Allegro, early lyric poem by John Milton, written in 1631 and published in his Poems (1645). It was written in rhymed octosyllabics. A contrasting companion piece to his “Il Penseroso,” “L’Allegro” invokes the goddess Mirth, with whom the poet wants to live, first in pastoral simplicity and then amid the “busy hum of men” in cities full of vitality.
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0ab393f2b50e03d30518c39c6a97db11 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lamante-fedele | L’amante fedele | L’amante fedele
His L’amante fedele (1953; “The Faithful Lover”), a collection of surrealistic stories, won Italy’s highest literary award, the Strega Prize.
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426a2aa56d59a906c726bfdd8c2a50ef | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lana-Sisters | Lana Sisters | Lana Sisters
…girl group known as the Lana Sisters. Reinventing herself as Dusty Springfield, she then joined her brother Dion (stage name Tom Springfield) in the British country-music trio the Springfields, who achieved moderate success in the early 1960s.
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490487aa94bfa71c52126b74035ac0b1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lancelot-by-Chretien-de-Troyes | Lancelot | Lancelot
…charette, she was rescued by Lancelot (a character whom Chrétien had earlier named as one of Arthur’s knights) from the land of Gorre, to which she had been taken by Meleagant (a version of the story that was incorporated in the 13th-century prose Vulgate cycle). Chrétien presented her as one…
…happy life with her lover; Lancelot, an exaggerated but perhaps parodic treatment of the lover who is servile to the god of love and to his imperious mistress Guinevere, wife of his overlord Arthur; Yvain, a brilliant extravaganza, combining the theme of a widow’s too hasty marriage to her husband’s…
…composition of Chrétien de Troyes’s Lancelot (Le Chevalier de la charrette), a courtly romance whose hero obeys every imperious (and unreasonable) demand of the heroine. Soon afterward the doctrine was “codified” in a three-book treatise by André le Chapelain. In the 13th century a long allegorical poem, the Roman de…
…made him the hero of Lancelot; ou, le chevalier de la charrette, which retold an existing legend about Guinevere’s abduction, making Lancelot her rescuer and lover. It also mentioned Lancelot’s upbringing by a fairy in a lake, a story that received fuller treatment in the German poem Lanzelet. These two…
Lancelot; ou, le chevalier de la charrette (Lancelot; or, The Knight of the Cart) relates the infatuated hero’s rescue of the abducted queen Guinevere. Yvain; ou, le chevalier au lion (The Knight with the Lion) treats the converse of the situation depicted in Erec et…
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be82df37792f3c5fe5c321a8c5b48df6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lancome | Lancôme | Lancôme
…acquiring the luxury beauty brand Lancôme, the American cosmetics company Helena Rubinstein, and the American fashion retailer Ralph Lauren, among others, growing her wealth and making her one of the richest women in the world. In 1987 she and her family established the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller, a charity organization devoted…
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722c5f4951f52f74a5c2d709d8c5f5be | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Land-Apportionment-Act | Land Apportionment Act | Land Apportionment Act
The crucial legislation was the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, which barred African landownership outside the reserves, except in a special freehold purchase area set aside for “progressive farmers.” The best land was allocated to whites; less than one-third went to Africans, while about one-fifth remained unassigned. From 1937 Africans…
The Land Apportionment Act, a segregationist measure that governed land allocation and acquisition prior to independence, made no provision for Blacks who chose an urban life, because towns were designated as white areas. As a result, though urban Blacks now outnumber whites by more than four…
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61b8ee43fa5066637bb6e6630939d620 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Land-League | Land League | Land League
Land League, Irish agrarian organization that worked for the reform of the country’s landlord system under British rule. The league was founded in October 1879 by Michael Davitt, the son of an evicted tenant farmer and a member of the Fenian (Irish Republican) Brotherhood. Davitt asked Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Home Rule Party in the British Parliament, to preside over the league; this linking of the land reform movement with parliamentary activity constituted a new departure in the Irish national movement.
The league’s program was based upon the “three F’s”: fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale of the right of occupancy. The passage in 1881 of Gladstone’s Land Act, restricting the privileges of landlords, was a victory for the league. Parnell’s increasingly violent speeches, however, led to his arrest on Oct. 13, 1881, and the league called on tenants to withhold all rents. The government used this “no-rent manifesto” as a pretext for its suppression of the league on October 20.
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9f9c3832326024c59e6581773a437713 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/land-reform/Mexico | Mexico | Mexico
The Mexican reform of 1915 followed a revolution and dealt mainly with lands of Indian villages that had been illegally absorbed by neighbouring haciendas (plantations). Legally there was no serfdom; but the Indian wage workers, or peons, were reduced to virtual serfdom through indebtedness. Thus, the landlords were masters of the land and of the peons. The immediate aim of reform was to restore the land to its legal owners, settle the title, and use public land to reconstruct Indian villages. The motives were mainly to reduce poverty and inequality and to secure political stability, which was then in the balance. A decree of 1915 voided all land alienations that had taken place illegally since 1856 and provided for extracting land from haciendas to reestablish the collective Indian villages, or ejidos. The 1917 constitution reaffirmed those provisions but also guaranteed protection of private property, including haciendas. Nevertheless, a combination of loopholes, litigation, and reactionary forces slowed implementation, and effective reform came only after passage of the Agrarian Code of 1934 and the sympathetic efforts of Pres. Lázaro Cárdenas.
The reform restored many villages and freed the peons, but land concentration and poverty continued. In 1950, more than 31 percent of the private cropland was owned by fewer than 0.5 percent of the owners. Small-scale operation was retained or encouraged, a fact explaining the decline of output in the early years. More recently, efficiently run farms have been exempted from distribution.
The social and political impact was more positive. The peasants acquired more land and liberty, and control by landlords was reduced, although it was replaced by village restrictions. At least legally, farming became the basis of landholding. Some have seen in land reform the reason for Mexico’s political stability, although there have been sporadic peasant uprisings and other violent encounters.
Recent decades have witnessed widespread, comprehensive reform programs, but the concept has undergone major changes. The eastern European countries and China originally followed the Soviet model, with different modifications in the individual countries. A few other countries have continued to follow that model, with major emphasis on “land to the tiller,” cooperation, collective ownership, large-scale operation, and mechanization, and with economic development as the common denominator. In capitalist-oriented reforms, private ownership, family farming, and dual tenures have remained basic objectives with the aim of promoting democracy, equality, stability, and development. Under the influence and with the guidance of the United Nations, nonsocialist reforms of the 1950s were equated with community development and emphasized institutional and rural self-help in addition to land redistribution. In the 1960s the emphasis shifted to agricultural productivity and economic development by means of large-scale operation, new technology, and cooperation. The 1970s witnessed the advent of “integrated rural development” as the focus of reform and as a way of combining productive activities with improvements in the social and physical infrastructure. The integrated approach, however, soon proved to be unmanageable, and the emphasis shifted to the “target” group as the focus of reform. The most recent conception of reform has been to satisfy “basic needs,” with or without land distribution, although no policymaker in the capitalist countries would openly question the idea of land redistribution or the creation of small family farms. These experiments with the concept of reform have been accompanied by attempts to broaden the concept to incorporate women as equal beneficiaries of reform in their own right. The results have been mixed.
The Japanese reform came immediately after World War II at the insistence of the Allied Occupation Army. The reform was designed to fit the uniquely high literacy rate and advanced industrial level of the country. Although the Meiji government had formally abolished feudalism and declared the land to be the property of the peasants, usurpation of land by the rich and by moneylenders had created classes of perpetual tenants and absentee landlords. In 1943, 66 percent of the land was operated by tenants against rent in kind that averaged 48 percent of the farmers’ product, while population pressure resulted in fragmentation of holdings. The social class structure was closely tied to tenure, the owners in each village being at the top of the structure. Conflict between landlords and peasants was widespread.
After the war, the crisis was revived by food shortages, the breakdown of the urban economy, and the return of absentee landlords to the land. The Occupation Army insisted on reform, presumably to democratize the society and rehabilitate the economy. The reform law of 1946 established a ceiling on individual holdings and provided for expropriation and resale of excess land to the tenants against long-term payments. The government compensated the landlords in cash and bonds redeemable in 30 years. Tenants were protected by contract, and rents were reduced to a maximum of 25 percent of the product. The redistributed land was made inalienable, though this restriction was relaxed four years later. The program also provided for marketing and credit cooperatives. An important supplementary measure was the Local Autonomy Law of 1947, which decentralized the power structure and put village affairs in the hands of the villagers.
Within two years tenancy declined by more than 80 percent. Rent control and land distribution helped to equalize incomes in the villages and rehabilitate the sociopolitical status of the peasants. Crop yields per unit of land increased, but despite improved techniques the output per worker declined. In general the reform seemed to realize the objectives of the reformers and the peasants, although smallness of scale, low per capita incomes, underemployment, and insufficient mechanization have persisted. Even black market rents developed. These problems were tolerable because their effects were mitigated by the upsurge of the urban economy and the ability of the Japanese farmer to supplement the family income from nonagricultural employment. Even so, the farmers continue to depend on government subsidy to stay in farming.
The Egyptian reform of 1952 followed the revolution that overthrew the monarchy and brought young middle-class leaders to the helm. Though affecting only about 12 percent of the arable land, it was applied thoroughly and touched all aspects of rural life. Egypt had two main forms of tenure: private ownership and waqf, or land held in trust and dedicated to charitable or educational purposes. Waqf land was inalienable, but private land was subject to speculation and concentration. In 1950, 1 percent of the owners had more than 20 percent of the private land, and 7 percent had more than two-thirds. The operating unit was small, with 77 percent of all the holdings occupying less than one acre each. Tenancy was widespread and rents were exorbitant. The peasants were exploited by middlemen who sublet the land to tenants, mediated between them and the market, and extended credit at high rates of interest.
The revolutionary reformers aimed at abolishing feudalism, recruiting peasant support, promoting economic development, and bringing the villagers back into the stream of national life. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1952 put a ceiling on individual holdings at 200 faddāns (one faddān = 1.038 acres), later reduced to 100 faddāns, with special allowance for male children. The excess land was expropriated and distributed to the peasants in parcels not exceeding five faddāns. Compensation was given in bonds, while land recipients had to repay in annual installments. The new owners were obligated to join cooperatives for production, marketing, and credit. Tenancy conditions were also regulated, with contract replacing traditional terms; rent could not exceed 50 percent of the product, nor could a tenant hold more than 50 acres, to avoid subletting. An interesting feature of the reform was the special attention given to college graduates by allowing them up to 20-faddān parcels.
The reform was enforced quickly and had a great impact on the morale of the peasants. The economic effects, however, were minor since agriculture was intensive and land yield high. Producer cooperatives served only to offset the impact of distribution on the scale of operation. Some increases in yield have been claimed, but the evidence is still inconclusive. Furthermore, little capital was redirected into productive investment since the compensation bonds were not negotiable. Peasant savings remained limited, income increments being spent mostly on consumption. Finally, underemployment in agriculture has remained widespread. The defects of the agrarian structure continue to prevail, and relatively large ownerships exist, while certain groups in Egypt are calling for reversal of the reform.
The social and political effects, however, were far reaching. Redistribution and regulation of rent raised the incomes of small owners and tenants. Cooperatives replaced the middleman and captured his share for the farmer. The peasant gained social status and enjoyed a higher level of political participation, mostly in support of the revolutionary regime. These effects, however, can be easily exaggerated. The peasants became dependent on the cooperatives whether they liked them or not. Great differences in landholding continued to exist, and peasant incomes remained low. Black market rents appeared. The example of Egypt suggests that successful reform in densely populated countries requires an upsurge in the industrial sector to relieve population pressure and permit technical advance and higher productivity in agriculture.
The model of Japan’s reform has been attempted in Southeast Asia, especially in Taiwan, South Korea, and the former South Vietnam, all influenced by American experts and by the anticommunism of their respective governments. The objectives were to sustain the political order, raise living standards, and promote some degree of economic development. The reforms began with regulation of tenancy, restriction of rent, and the institution of written contract for leases, following which tenants were to be transformed into owners. Taiwan’s reform was implemented between 1949 and 1953, in three stages. First, rents, which had sometimes reached 70 percent of the product, were reduced to 37.5 percent. Next, tenant-farmed public land was sold to the tenants. Finally, tenant-farmed private land was bought by the government and resold to the tenants.
The Vietnamese reform was introduced in 1955. Rents were reduced to a maximum of 25 percent of the product. A ceiling of 247 acres (100 hectares) was put on individual holdings, however, and only the excess land was subject to redistribution in parcels of 7.4 to 12.4 acres (3 to 5 hectares) to the tenants. The collapse of the South Vietnamese regime and the unification of South and North Vietnam ended that reform and replaced it with the socialist model of North Vietnam.
The reform in Taiwan, as in South Vietnam prior to unification, was supplemented by other measures described as community development, such as adult education, credit facilities, improved technology, and other social services. Though land consolidation was attempted, the scale of operation was little affected. The main effect seems to have been the regulation of tenancy and the redistribution of rent incomes. An innovation of Taiwan’s reform was the partial compensation of landlords with industrial shares in public enterprises, which helped them and helped industry.
Taiwan’s reform has been hailed as a major success, in both economic and political terms. Some observers, however, are unwilling to reach such a conclusion until restrictions are removed and the peasants have a free choice of tenure and farm organization.
South Korea’s land reform (under the Land Reform Law of June 1949) roughly followed the Japanese model by removing tenancy, creating small ownerships, implementing the law thoroughly and promptly, and depending heavily on nonagricultural (basically industrial) employment to absorb labour and supplement rural income. Like the Japanese and Taiwanese reforms, Korea’s successful reform was generously supported by foreign aid.
The Philippines introduced a reform program in 1963, which aimed primarily at replacing share tenancy with lease contracts and eventually with ownership, and at revitalizing agriculture through extension services. By the mid-1980s the program had given titles to about 400,000 tenants and secure leases to another 600,000, but the economic viability of the new units has been uncertain because of their small scale and the lack of supplementary facilities. The main effects initially were seed improvement, greater use of fertilizers, and an increase in contractual tenancy. To combat the negative effects of small-scale farming, the Philippine government has resorted to what it calls the “compact farm,” which is a voluntary grouping of small farms to be operated under one management as one consolidated farm. The problem of surplus labour, however, remains to be solved.
Various other reforms have been introduced in Southeast Asia, but the only innovative program has been that of Malaysia. The program in Malaysia has been highly organized and development oriented. It tries to promote social and economic objectives by emphasizing the production of rubber and palm oil for export and gradually transforming the landless into hereditary tenants on newly reclaimed and settled plantations. A typical plantation covers 4,500 to 5,000 acres (1,800 to 2,000 hectares) of jungle land and absorbs about 400 families. The land is cleared and planted by contract, and a village is constructed, with all the necessary services, before the settlers arrive. Each house has a quarter of an acre for a household garden. Cropland is divided in blocks of 120 to 200 acres (48 to 80 hectares), to be worked by a team of 15 to 25 people until the plants have matured. Upon maturation, each settler receives a share by lottery and a lease title for 99 years. This tenure arrangement precludes alienation, subdivision, or subleasing; it thus protects the tenant farmer and sidesteps the Islamic laws of inheritance, which tend toward fragmentation of the land.
The settler is responsible for the cost of clearing and planting, but the government pays the administrative costs. The settler is guaranteed supplementary employment to earn subsistence income pending maturity of the plants, and cultivation is guided by experts. The rate of settlement is determined by the overall economic plan. It is clear that landholding has become tied to cultivation; fragmentation and diseconomies of scale have been avoided, and cultivation has become a rational economic operation. The Malaysian program has much in common with the cooperative settlements of Israel and the Gezira Scheme in Sudan.
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3767ed890a05263c0f0517843af83c45 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/land-use | Land use | Land use
…the largest issues in global land use. Estimates of deforestation traditionally are based on the area of forest cleared for human use, including removal of the trees for wood products and for croplands and grazing lands. In the practice of clear-cutting, all the trees are removed from the land, which…
There are a number of ways in which changes in land use can influence climate. The most direct influence is through the alteration of Earth’s albedo, or surface reflectance. For example, the replacement of forest by cropland and pasture in the middle latitudes…
Neighbours injured by adjoining land uses may sue in nuisance in the Anglo-American countries. Similar actions exist in the civil-law countries. Throughout the West, landowners may agree to allow others to use their land in ways that would otherwise be actionable, and such agreements may be made to bind…
…use of property, particularly of land, was developed in the 20th century. The effect of such regulatory law is to protect the property interests of those members of the community whose property would be adversely affected by the land use proscribed by the regulation. Thus, if an environmental law prohibits…
The previous section focused on the right to possession of property. This section focuses on the privilege of use of property—the extent to which the law allows an owner or possessor of property to use the property and how an owner…
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74d3426b8bc987924e3deb6646e64874 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/land-warfare | Land warfare | Land warfare
…article discusses the tactics of land warfare. For treatment of tactics on sea, see naval warfare, and for tactics in air combat, see air warfare.
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9f0e4da79c830f319293b52094d089ba | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Land-Without-Evil | Land-Without-Evil | Land-Without-Evil
…trek, in search of the Land-Without-Evil, which was believed to be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. In 1910, another Apapocuva group attempted to reach the Land-Without-Evil by dancing feverishly for days, in the hope of becoming light enough to fly over the Atlantic Ocean. The present wide dispersal of Apapocuva…
…a distant paradise called the Land Without Evils. Probably the messianic tradition of the Guaraní dates from before the coming of the whites, but it seems to have undergone great expansion since then.
…pilgrimages, seeking to find the Land Without Evil. The very existence of the Land Without Evil offered the Guaraní hope, security, and courage in the face of the hunger, sickness, and death that followed the Spanish conquest. As these eschatological groups succumbed to failure, they concluded that, on their paths…
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ea8a06435fee2635525752684464e943 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/landlord | Landlord and tenant | Landlord and tenant
Landlord and tenant, also called Lessor And Lessee, the parties to the leasing of real estate, whose relationship is bound by contract. The landlord, or lessor, as owner or possessor of a property—whether corporeal, such as lands or buildings, or incorporeal, such as rights of common or of way—agrees through a lease, an agreement for a lease, or other instrument to allow another person, the tenant, or lessee, to enjoy the exclusive possession and use of the property for a specified period, usually upon payment of a rent. Generally speaking, any person may grant or take a lease, though there are several common-law and statutory qualifications and exceptions (notably with regard to minors, aliens, felons, the legally insane, et al.). Also, generally speaking, any owner of an interest in property may grant a valid tenancy for any estate equal to or less than his own; thus, a person who has merely a tenancy himself may grant a subtenancy for any period equal to or shorter than his own tenancy.
The principal forms of tenancy are as follows: (1) A “lease for a fixed period” may be granted for any certain period, whether as short as a week or less or for as long as several hundred years. Tenancies for a fixed period end automatically with the expiration of the period. (2) A “periodic tenancy”—granted yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, or for some other period—continues indefinitely until ended by a notice to quit given by either landlord or tenant. A certain required period of prior notice is governed by law and mutual consent. (3) A “tenancy at will” endures at the will of both landlord and tenant. Such tenancies are comparatively rare but are sometimes used to meet temporary necessities. If no rent is agreed upon, the landlord is entitled to compensation for use and occupation. (4) A “tenancy in sufferance” is one in which a tenant came into possession by a lawful means but “holds over,” or remains in occupation, after his estate is ended; the tenant is considered a “tenant at sufferance” and not a trespasser. A tenancy in sufferance, like a tenancy at will, is readily converted into a periodic tenancy; and the tenant is similarly liable to pay compensation for use and occupation. Under certain circumstances, he may be subject to penalties, such as double rent.
A lease or tenancy may come to an end by expiration of the fixed term for which it was granted, by expiration of notice to quit, or by forfeiture. It is usual to insert in a lease an express provision for forfeiture of the lease if the tenant fails to pay the rent or breaks any of his covenants. If a right of forfeiture arises, it lies with the landlord to decide whether or not to enforce it. In most cases, he is required to serve on the tenant a notice specifying the breach, requiring it to be remedied, if possible, and requiring compensation, if desired. The ancient remedy of distress whereby the landlord might enter, seize, and retain personal property in the possession of the tenant until arrears of rent were paid is still available in some jurisdictions, though in a considerable number it has been abolished, leaving only the ordinary legal processes for the collection of a debt and the summary procedure for ejection of the tenant.
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0467123d65d3693c90c60b7c3e81b103 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Landsgemeinden | Landsgemeinden | Landsgemeinden
…their ancient democratic assemblies (Landsgemeinden), in which all citizens of full age meet annually for the purpose of legislation, taxation, and the election of an annual administrative council and of the members of the cantonal supreme court. In the remaining cantons the legislature (Kantonsrat, Grosser Rat, or Grand Conseil)…
…and the meeting of the Landsgemeinde (or open-air cantonal “parliament”—actually a cantonal legislative meeting of all concerned citizens, a nearly unique manifestation of “pure democracy”). Pastoral occupations, embroidery, and the manufacture of textiles are the principal economic activities. The population is German speaking and Roman Catholic. Pop. (2007 est.) 5,706.
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a3db72e6c935fc0d9f8b339308d7f04f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/landskap | Landskap | Landskap
Landskap, traditional subdivision (province) of Sweden. The 25 landskap (provinces) developed during the pre-Viking and Viking eras and were independent political units with their own laws, judges, and councils. The division was based on geographical and cultural characteristics with which many people continue to identify. Although they no longer have any political or administrative significance, their names remain in common use and appear in official tabulations of data. The landskap overlap and occasionally coincide with the 26 län (counties) that came into being during the later European Middle Ages. The län were established in their modern form in the 17th and early 18th centuries, although through some consolidation their number was reduced to 21 by the end of the 20th century. Län still serve as Sweden’s main administrative subdivisions.
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3cbfccb4db86a9e477d9a3443f20f950 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/language-acquisition | Language acquisition | Language acquisition
In regard to the production of speech sounds, all typical humans are physiologically alike. It has been shown repeatedly that children learn the language of those who bring them up from infancy. These are often the biological parents, but one’s first language is…
The ability to speak was regarded by Descartes as the single most important distinction between humans and other animals, and many modern linguists, most notably Noam Chomsky, have agreed that language is a uniquely human characteristic. Once again, of course, there are problems…
…the child experiences the greatest language growth; words and other symbols become a way to represent both the outside world and inner feelings. At this stage the child’s adjustments depend on learning by trial and error, but he also manages things by intuition. He begins to integrate symbolization and elementary…
One of the topics most central to psycholinguistic research is the acquisition of language by children. The term acquisition is preferred to “learning,” because “learning” tends to be used by psychologists in a narrowly technical sense, and many psycholinguists believe that…
The capacity for language usually emerges in infants soon after the first birthday, and they make enormous progress in this area during their second year. Language is a symbolic form of communication that involves, on the one hand, the comprehension of words and sentences…
The most frequent speech disorders are those that disturb the child’s acquisition or learning of language. Studies of large numbers of children with developmental language disorders have shown that at least two chief classes of these disorders may be distinguished: general language disability…
…his innovative technique of foreign-language instruction (the Michel Thomas Method) and for his glamorous clients, who included Grace Kelly, Alfred Hitchcock, Barbra Streisand, and Woody Allen. Thomas promised to teach his clients the basic elements of a new language in only a few days (for a substantial fee) by…
Observation of children learning to read and write an alphabetic orthography suggests that children pass through some of the same stages in interpreting the code that the writing system itself passed through in the course of its development. The youngest child’s hypothesis about writing is that words must…
…which the script can be acquired, and expressive power refers to the script’s resources for unambiguously expressing the full range of meanings available in the oral language. These two dimensions are inversely related to each other. Simple restricted scripts are readily learned. Pictographic signs such as those used in “environmental…
…was a better way of teaching Latin than by the inefficient and pedantic methods then in use; he advocated “nature’s way,” that is, learning about things and not about grammar. To this end he wrote Janua Linguarum Reserata, a textbook that described useful facts about the world in both Latin…
…on the teaching of foreign languages. “You learn a foreign language,” he said, “as you learn your mother-language.” The pupil is confronted with a foreign language; he learns a text in the language almost by heart, compares it with a text in his own native language, and then tries gradually…
…be the associationistic account of language learning. Even assuming one-trial acquisition, it was held that such individually learned associations could not account for all combinations of words people use; there are simply too many. They suggested that learning a language requires some general organizing structure on which words are hung.…
…frequently been observed that children acquire both concepts and language with amazing facility and speed, despite the paucity or even absence of meaningful evidence and instruction in their early years. The inference to the conclusion that much of what they acquire must be innate is known as the argument from…
…considerations underlying the theory of language offered by the American linguist Noam Chomsky, who holds that the learning of language is far too rapid and too universal to be attributed entirely to an empirical process of conditioning. The basic strength of empiricism consists in its recognition that human concepts and…
Prabhakara’s theory of language learning follows these contentions: the child learns the meanings of sentences by observing the elders issuing orders like “Bring the cow” and the juniors obeying them, and he learns the meaning of words subsequently by a close observation of the insertion (avapa) and extraction (uddhara)…
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001f67a1bf82afea294eb7fbf3f32020 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Language-by-Bloomfield | Language | Language
…version with the new title Language; this book dominated the field for the next 30 years. In it Bloomfield explicitly adopted a behaviouristic approach to the study of language, eschewing in the name of scientific objectivity all reference to mental or conceptual categories. Of particular consequence was his adoption of…
In his textbook Language (1933), he had himself adopted a behaviouristic theory of meaning, defining the meaning of a linguistic form as “the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response which it calls forth in the hearer.” Furthermore, he subscribed, in principle at least, to…
), American linguist whose book Language (1933) was one of the most important general treatments of linguistic science in the first half of the 20th century and almost alone determined the subsequent course of linguistics in the United States.
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e9b2548424bf3574c74d0c277abed578 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/language-game | Language game | Language game
…of language in the various language games developed within different human activities and forms of life; and it was suggested that religious belief has its own autonomous validity, not subject to verificationist or scientific or other extraneous criteria. Statements about God and eternal life do not make true-or-false factual claims…
…imagining what he called “language games.” Language games, for Wittgenstein, are concrete social activities that crucially involve the use of specific forms of language. By describing the countless variety of language games—the countless ways in which language is actually used in human interaction—Wittgenstein meant to show that “the speaking…
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05657b04065955bcaa95cd109e6ed054 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Language-in-Action | Language in Action | Language in Action
His first book, Language in Action (1941), was a popular treatment of the semantic theories of Alfred Korzybski and was followed by years of teaching, writing, and lecturing in that field.
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3002e267510419e75a5edf724a5ab8c9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/language-isolate | Language isolate | Language isolate
…some 10 language families (including language isolates) that are native to Mesoamerica. The term “Mesoamerica” refers to a culture area originally defined by a number of culture traits shared among the pre-Columbian cultures of the geographical region that extends from the Pánuco River in northern Mexico to the Lempa River…
The language families (including language isolates) that make up the Mesoamerican linguistic area are Aztecan (Nahuan, a branch of Uto-Aztecan), Cuitlatec, Huave, Mayan, Mixe-Zoquean, Otomanguean, Tarascan, Tequistlatecan, Totonacan, and Xinkan. The languages of Mesoamerica share several structural features—some shared by all the languages of the area and by some…
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34a1519788e4e2e0da6cc25746400a80 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Language-Truth-and-Logic | Language, Truth, and Logic | Language, Truth, and Logic
Having secured a fellowship at the college of Christ Church, Ayer spent part of 1933 in Vienna, where he attended meetings of the Vienna Circle, a group of mostly German and Austrian philosophers and scientists who were just then beginning to…
Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic (1936) and developed by Charles Stevenson in Ethics and Language (1945).
Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic (1936) provided an excellent introduction to the views of the group. Interest in logical positivism began to wane in the 1950s, and by 1970 it had ceased to exist as a distinct philosophical movement.
…in his widely read work Language, Truth and Logic (1936). Its main tenets have struck sympathetic chords among many analytic philosophers and are still important today, even if sometimes in repudiation.
Ayer (1910–89) in his manifesto Language, Truth and Logic (1936), became influential in British philosophy. According to the logical positivists, every true sentence is either a logical truth or a statement of fact. Moral judgments, however, do not fit comfortably into either category. They cannot be logical truths, for these…
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