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Amharic

Amharic (   or  ; አማርኛ, ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other populations residing in major cities and towns in Ethiopia.

The language serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government, and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia's federal regions. As of 2020, it has over 33,700,000 mother-tongue speakers and more than 25,100,000 second language speakers in 2019, making the total number of speakers over 58,800,000. Amharic is the largest, most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and the second most spoken mother-tongue in Ethiopia (after Oromo). Amharic is also the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic).

Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script. The segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units is called an abugida (አቡጊዳ). The graphemes are called fidäl (ፊደል), which means "script", "alphabet", "letter", or "character".

There is no universally agreed-upon Romanization of Amharic into Latin script. The Amharic examples in the sections below use one system that is common among linguists specializing in Ethiopian Semitic languages.

Background
Amharic has been the official working language of Ethiopia, language of the courts, the language of trade and everyday communications and of the military since the late 12th century. The Amhara nobles supported the Zagwe prince Lalibela in his power struggle against his brothers which led him to make Amharic Lessana Negus as well as fill the Amhara nobles in the top positions of his Kingdom. The appellation of "language of the king" ("Lǝssanä nägaśi," የነጋሢ ቋንቋ "Yä-nägaśi qʷanqʷa") and its use in the royal court are otherwise traced to the Amhara Emperor Yekuno Amlak. It is one of the official languages of Ethiopia, together with other regions like Oromo, Somali, Afar, and Tigrinya. Amharic is an Afro-Asiatic language of the Southwest Semitic group and is related to Geʽez, or Ethiopic, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church; Amharic is written in a slightly modified form of the alphabet used for writing the Geʽez language. There are 34 basic characters, each of which has seven forms depending on which vowel is to be pronounced in the syllable. There are also 49 "wa" letters, which form compound sounds involving "w." All together, the alphabet has some 280 letters. Until 2020 Amharic was the sole official language of Ethiopia. The 2007 census reported that Amharic was spoken by 21.6 million native speakers in Ethiopia. More recent sources state the number of first-language speakers in 2018 as nearly 32 million, with another 25 million second-language speakers in Ethiopia. Additionally, 3 million emigrants outside of Ethiopia speak the language. Most of the Ethiopian Jewish communities in Ethiopia and Israel speak Amharic. Furthermore, Amharic is considered a holy language by the Rastafari religion and is widely used among its followers worldwide.

Linguistic development theory
Early Afro-Asiatic populations speaking proto-Semitic, proto-Cushitic and proto-Omotic languages would have diverged by the fourth or fifth millennium BC. Shortly afterwards, the proto-Cushitic and proto-Omotic groups would have settled in the Ethiopian highlands, with the proto-Semitic speakers crossing the Sinai Peninsula into Asia Minor. A later return movement of peoples from South Arabia would have introduced the Semitic languages to Ethiopia. Based on archaeological evidence, the presence of Semitic speakers in the territory date to some time before 500 BC. Linguistic analysis suggests the presence of Semitic languages in Ethiopia as early as 2000 BC. Levine indicates that by the end of that millennium, the core inhabitants of Greater Ethiopia would have consisted of dark-skinned agropastoralists speaking Afro-Asiatic languages of the Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic branches.

Other scholars such as Messay Kebede and Daniel E. Alemu argue that migration across the Red Sea was defined by reciprocal exchange, if it even occurred at all, and that Ethio-Semitic-speaking ethnic groups should not be characterized as foreign invaders.

Amharic is a South Ethio-Semitic language, along with Gurage, Argobba, Harari, and others. Due to the social stratification of the time, the Cushitic Agaw adopted the South Ethio-Semitic language and eventually absorbed the Semitic population. Amharic thus developed with a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic superstratum. The northernmost South Ethio-Semitic speakers, or the proto-Amhara, remained in constant contact with their North Ethio-Semitic neighbors, evidenced by linguistic analysis and oral traditions. A 7th century southward shift of the center of gravity of the Kingdom of Aksum and the ensuing integration and Christianization of the proto-Amhara also resulted in a high prevalence of Geʽez sourced lexicon in Amharic. Some time after the 9th century AD, Amharic diverged from its closest relative, Argobba, probably due to religious differences as the Argobba adopted Islam.

In 1983, Lionel Bender proposed that Amharic may have been constructed as a pidgin as early as the 4th century AD to enable communication between Aksumite soldiers speaking Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic languages, but this hypothesis has not garnered widespread acceptance. The preservation in Old Amharic of VSO word order and gutturals typical of Semitic languages, Cushitic influences shared with other Ethio-Semitic languages (especially those of the Southern branch), and the number of geographically distinct Cushitic languages that have influenced Amharic at different points in time (e.g. Oromo influence beginning in the 16th century) support a natural evolution of Amharic from a Proto-Ethio-Semitic language with considerable Cushitic influences (similar to Gurage, Tigrinya, etc.).

Phonology
The Amharic ejective consonants correspond to the Proto-Semitic "emphatic consonants." In the Ethiopianist tradition they are often transcribed with a dot below the letter.

The notation of central vowels in the Ethiopianist tradition is shown in angled brackets.

Allophones
The voiced bilabial plosive /b/ is phonetically realized as a voiced labial approximant [β̞] medially between sonorants in non-geminated form. The fricative ejective // is heard as a fricative ejective [], but is mostly heard as the affricate sound []. The rhotic consonant is realized as a trill when geminated and a tap otherwise. The closed central unrounded vowel $⟨ə⟩$ /ɨ/ and mid-central vowel $⟨ä⟩$ /ə/ are generally fronted to [ ɪ] and [ ɛ], respectively, following palatal consonants, and generally retracted and rounded to [ ʊ] and [ ɔ], respectively, following labialized velar consonants.

Writing system
The Amharic script is an abugida, and the graphemes of the Amharic writing system are called. It is derived from a modification of the Ge'ez script. Each character represents a consonant+vowel sequence, but the basic shape of each character is determined by the consonant, which is modified for the vowel. Some consonant phonemes are written by more than one series of characters:, , , and (the last one has four distinct letter forms). This is because these fidäl originally represented distinct sounds, but phonological changes merged them. The citation form for each series is the consonant+ä form, i.e. the first column of the fidäl. The Amharic script is included in Unicode, and glyphs are included in fonts available with major operating systems.

Gemination
As in most other Ethiopian Semitic languages, gemination is contrastive in Amharic. That is, consonant length can distinguish words from one another; for example, 'he said',  'there is';  'he hits',  'he will be hit'. Gemination is not indicated in Amharic orthography, but Amharic readers typically do not find this to be a problem. This property of the writing system is analogous to the vowels of Arabic and Hebrew or the tones of many Bantu languages, which are not normally indicated in writing. Ethiopian novelist Haddis Alemayehu, who was an advocate of Amharic orthography reform, indicated gemination in his novel Love to the Grave by placing a dot above the characters whose consonants were geminated, but this practice is rare.

Punctuation
Punctuation includes the following:

 * ፠ section mark
 * ፡ word separator
 * ። full stop (period)
 * ፣ comma
 * ፤ semicolon
 * ፥ colon
 * ፦ preface colon (introduces speech from a descriptive prefix)
 * ፧ question mark
 * ፨ paragraph separator

Grammar

 * Simple Amharic sentences

One may construct simple Amharic sentences by using a subject and a predicate. Here are a few simple sentences:

Personal pronouns
Amharic grammar distinguishes person, number, and often gender. This includes personal pronouns such as English I, Amharic እኔ '; English she, Amharic እሷ '. As in other Semitic languages, the same distinctions appear in three other places in their grammar.

All Amharic verbs agree with their subjects; that is, the person, number, and (in the second- and third-person singular) gender of the subject of the verb are marked by suffixes or prefixes on the verb. Because the affixes that signal subject agreement vary greatly with the particular verb tense/aspect/mood, they are normally not considered to be pronouns and are discussed elsewhere in this article under verb conjugation. Amharic verbs often have additional morphology that indicates the person, number, and (second- and third-person singular) gender of the object of the verb.
 * Subject–verb agreement
 * Object pronoun suffixes

While morphemes such as -at in this example are sometimes described as signaling object agreement, analogous to subject agreement, they are more often thought of as object pronoun suffixes because, unlike the markers of subject agreement, they do not vary significantly with the tense/aspect/mood of the verb. For arguments of the verb other than the subject or the object, there are two separate sets of related suffixes, one with a benefactive meaning (to, for), the other with an adversative or locative meaning (against, to the detriment of, on, at).

Morphemes such as -llat and -bbat in these examples will be referred to in this article as prepositional object pronoun suffixes because they correspond to prepositional phrases such as for her and on her, to distinguish them from the direct object pronoun suffixes such as -at 'her'. Amharic has a further set of morphemes that are suffixed to nouns, signaling possession: ቤት bet 'house', ቤቴ bete, my house, ቤቷ; betwa, her house.
 * Possessive suffixes

In each of these four aspects of the grammar, independent pronouns, subject–verb agreement, object pronoun suffixes, and possessive suffixes, Amharic distinguishes eight combinations of person, number, and gender. For first person, there is a two-way distinction between singular (I) and plural (we), whereas for second and third persons, there is a distinction between singular and plural and within the singular a further distinction between masculine and feminine (you m. sg., you f. sg., you pl., he, she, they).

Amharic is a pro-drop language: neutral sentences in which no element is emphasized normally omit independent pronouns: ኢትዮጵያዊ ነው ' 'he's Ethiopian', ጋበዝኳት ' 'I invited her'. The Amharic words that translate he, I, and her do not appear in these sentences as independent words. However, in such cases, the person, number, and (second- or third-person singular) gender of the subject and object are marked on the verb. When the subject or object in such sentences is emphasized, an independent pronoun is used: እሱ ኢትዮጵያዊ ነው ' 'he's Ethiopian', እኔ ጋበዝኳት ' 'I invited her', እሷን ጋበዝኳት ' 'I invited her.

The table below shows alternatives for many of the forms. The choice depends on what precedes the form in question, usually whether this is a vowel or a consonant, for example, for the first-person singular possessive suffix, አገሬ ' 'my country', ገላዬ ' 'my body'.

Within second- and third-person singular, there are two additional polite independent pronouns, for reference to people to whom the speaker wishes to show respect. This usage is an example of the so-called T–V distinction that is made in many languages. The polite pronouns in Amharic are እርስዎ ǝrswo 'you (sg. polite)'. and እሳቸው ǝssaččäw 's/he (polite)'. Although these forms are singular semantically—they refer to one person—they correspond to third-person plural elsewhere in the grammar, as is common in other T–V systems. For the possessive pronouns, however, the polite 2nd person has the special suffix -wo 'your sg. pol.'

For possessive pronouns (mine, yours, etc.), Amharic adds the independent pronouns to the preposition ' 'of': የኔ ' 'mine', ያንተ ' 'yours m. sg.', ያንቺ 'yours f. sg.', የሷ ' 'hers', etc.

Reflexive pronouns
For reflexive pronouns ('myself', 'yourself', etc.), Amharic adds the possessive suffixes to the noun ራስ ras 'head': ራሴ rase 'myself', ራሷ raswa 'herself', etc.

Demonstrative pronouns
Like English, Amharic makes a two-way distinction between near ('this, these') and far ('that, those') demonstrative expressions (pronouns, adjectives, adverbs). Besides number, Amharic – unlike English – also distinguishes between the masculine and the feminine genders in the singular. There are also separate demonstratives for formal reference, comparable to the formal personal pronouns: እኚህ ǝññih 'this, these (formal)' and እኒያ ǝnniya 'that, those (formal)'.

The singular pronouns have combining forms beginning with zz instead of y when they follow a preposition: ስለዚህ sǝläzzih 'because of this; therefore', እንደዚያ ǝndäzziya 'like that'. The plural demonstratives, like the second and third person plural personal pronouns, are formed by adding the plural prefix እነ ǝnnä- to the singular masculine forms.

Nouns
Amharic nouns can be primary or derived. A noun like ' 'foot, leg' is primary, and a noun like ' 'pedestrian' is a derived noun.

Gender
Amharic nouns can have a masculine or feminine gender. There are several ways to express gender. An example is the old suffix -t for femininity. This suffix is no longer productive and is limited to certain patterns and some isolated nouns. Nouns and adjectives ending in -awi usually take the suffix -t to form the feminine form, e.g. ityop̣p̣ya-(a)wi 'Ethiopian (m.)' vs. ityop̣p̣ya-wi-t 'Ethiopian (f.)'; sämay-awi 'heavenly (m.)' vs. sämay-awi-t 'heavenly (f.)'. This suffix also occurs in nouns and adjective based on the pattern ', e.g. ' 'king' vs. ' 'queen' and ' 'holy (m.)' vs.  'holy (f.)'.

Some nouns and adjectives take a feminine marker -it: ' 'child, boy' vs. ' 'girl'; bäg 'sheep, ram' vs. bäg-it 'ewe'; ' 'senior, elder (m.)' vs. ' 'old woman'; ṭoṭa 'monkey' vs. ṭoṭ-it 'monkey (f.)'. Some nouns have this feminine marker without having a masculine opposite, e.g.  'spider', azur-it 'whirlpool, eddy'. There are, however, also nouns having this -it suffix that are treated as masculine: säraw-it 'army', nägar-it 'big drum'.

The feminine gender is not only used to indicate biological gender, but may also be used to express smallness, e.g. bet-it-u 'the little house' (lit. house- FEM - DEF ). The feminine marker can also serve to express tenderness or sympathy.

Specifiers
Amharic has special words that can be used to indicate the gender of people and animals. For people, wänd is used for masculinity and set for femininity, e.g. wänd lǝǧ 'boy', set lǝǧ 'girl'; wänd hakim 'physician, doctor (m.)', set hakim 'physician, doctor (f.)'.

For animals, the words täbat, awra, or wänd (less usual) can be used to indicate masculine gender, and  or set to indicate feminine gender. Examples: täbat ṭǝǧǧa 'calf (m.)'; awra doro 'cock (rooster)'; set doro 'hen'.

Plural
The plural suffix  is used to express plurality of nouns. Some morphophonological alternations occur depending on the final consonant or vowel. For nouns ending in a consonant, plain ' is used: bet 'house' becomes ' 'houses'. For nouns ending in a back vowel (-a, -o, -u), the suffix takes the form ', e.g. ' 'dog', ' 'dogs'; käbäro 'drum', ' 'drums'. Nouns that end in a front vowel pluralize using ' or ', e.g. ' 'scholar', ' or  'scholars'. Another possibility for nouns ending in a vowel is to delete the vowel and use plain ', as in ' 'dogs'.

Besides using the normal external plural (-očč), nouns and adjectives can be pluralized by way of reduplicating one of the radicals. For example, wäyzäro 'lady' can take the normal plural, yielding ', but ' 'ladies' is also found (Leslau 1995:173).

Some kinship-terms have two plural forms with a slightly different meaning. For example, ' 'brother' can be pluralized as ' 'brothers' but also as  'brothers of each other'. Likewise, ' 'sister' can be pluralized as ' ('sisters'), but also as  'sisters of each other'.

In compound words, the plural marker is suffixed to the second noun: ' 'church' (lit. house of Christian) becomes ' 'churches'.

Archaic forms
Amsalu Aklilu has pointed out that Amharic has inherited a large number of old plural forms directly from Classical Ethiopic (Ge'ez) (Amharic: gǝ'ǝz) (Leslau 1995:172). There are basically two archaic pluralising strategies, called external and internal plural. The external plural consists of adding the suffix -an (usually masculine) or -at (usually feminine) to the singular form. The internal plural employs vowel quality or apophony to pluralize words, similar to English man vs. men and goose vs. geese. Sometimes combinations of the two systems are found. The archaic plural forms are sometimes used to form new plurals, but this is only considered grammatical in more established cases.

 * Examples of the external plural: ' 'teacher', '; ' 'wise person', '; ' 'priest', '; qal 'word', .
 * Examples of the internal plural: ' 'virgin', '; hagär 'land', .
 * Examples of combined systems: ' 'king', '; ' 'star', '; ' 'book', '.

Definiteness
If a noun is definite or specified, this is expressed by a suffix, the article, which is -u or -w for masculine singular nouns and -wa, -itwa or -ätwa for feminine singular nouns. For example:

In singular forms, this article distinguishes between the male and female gender; in plural forms this distinction is absent, and all definites are marked with -u, e.g. bet-očč-u 'houses', gäräd-očč-u 'maids'. As in the plural, morphophonological alternations occur depending on the final consonant or vowel.

Accusative
Amharic has an accusative marker, -(ə)n. Its use is related to the definiteness of the object, thus Amharic shows differential object marking. In general, if the object is definite, possessed, or a proper noun, the accusative must be used, but if the direct object is not determined, the accusative marker is generally not used. (Leslau 1995: pp. 181–182 ff.).

The accusative suffix is usually placed after the first word of the noun phrase:

Nominalization
Amharic has various ways to derive nouns from other words or other nouns. One way of nominalizing consists of a form of vowel agreement (similar vowels on similar places) inside the three-radical structures typical of Semitic languages. For example: There are also several nominalising suffixes.
 * CəCäC: – ' 'wisdom'; ' 'sickness'
 * CəCCaC-e: – ' 'obesity'; ' 'cruelty'
 * CəCC-ät: – ' 'moistness'; ' 'knowledge';  'fatness'.
 * ': – 'relation'; ' 'Christianity'; ' 'laziness'; ' 'priesthood'.
 * -e, suffixed to place name X, yields 'a person from X': goǧǧam-e 'someone from Gojjam'.
 * ' and ' serve to express profession, or some relationship with the base noun: ' 'pedestrian' (from ' 'foot');  'gate-keeper' (from bärr 'gate').
 * ' and ' – '-ness'; ' 'Ethiopianness'; ' 'nearness' (from  'near').

Conjugation
As in other Semitic languages, Amharic verbs use a combination of prefixes and suffixes to indicate the subject, distinguishing three persons, two numbers, and (in the second and third persons singular) two genders.

Gerund
Along with the infinitive and the present participle, the gerund is one of three non-finite verb forms. The infinitive is a nominalized verb, the present participle expresses incomplete action, and the gerund expresses completed action, e.g.  bälto wädä gäbäya hedä 'Ali, having eaten lunch, went to the market'. There are several usages of the gerund depending on its morpho-syntactic features.

Verbal use
The gerund functions as the head of a subordinate clause (see the example above). There may be more than one gerund in one sentence. The gerund is used to form the following tense forms:
 * present perfect     'He has said'.
 * past perfect        'He had said'.
 * possible perfect    'He (probably) has said'.

Adverbial use
The gerund can be used as an adverb: alfo alfo  'Sometimes he laughs'. (From ማለፍ 'to pass')

Adjectives
Adjectives are words or constructions used to qualify nouns. Adjectives in Amharic can be formed in several ways: they can be based on nominal patterns, or derived from nouns, verbs and other parts of speech. Adjectives can be nominalized by way of suffixing the nominal article (see Nouns above). Amharic has few primary adjectives. Some examples are ' 'kind, generous', ' 'mute, dumb, silent',  'yellow'.

Nominal patterns

 * CäCCaC – ' 'heavy'; ' 'generous'
 * CäC(C)iC – ' 'fine, subtle'; ' 'new'
 * CäC(C)aCa – ' 'broken'; ' 'bent, wrinkled'
 * CəC(C)əC – ' 'intelligent, smart';  '' 'hidden'
 * CəC(C)uC – ' 'worthy, dignified'; ' 'black';  'holy'

Denominalizing suffixes

 * -äñña – ' 'powerful' (from hayl 'power'); ' 'true' (from  'truth')
 * -täñña –  'secular' (from aläm 'world')
 * -awi – ' 'intelligent' (from ' 'heart'); ' 'earthly' (from ' 'earth'); haymanot-awi 'religious' (from haymanot 'religion')

Prefix yä

 * yä-kätäma 'urban' (lit. 'from the city'); ' 'Christian' (lit. 'of Christianity'); ' 'wrong' (lit. 'of falsehood').

Adjective noun complex
The adjective and the noun together are called the 'adjective noun complex'. In Amharic, the adjective precedes the noun, with the verb last; e.g. ' 'a bad master'; ' (lit. big house he-built) 'he built a big house'.

If the adjective noun complex is definite, the definite article is suffixed to the adjective and not to the noun, e.g.  (lit. big- def house) 'the big house'. In a possessive construction, the adjective takes the definite article, and the noun takes the pronominal possessive suffix, e.g.  (lit. big- def house-my) "my big house".

When enumerating adjectives using ' 'and', both adjectives take the definite article: ' (lit. pretty- def -and intelligent- def girl came) "the pretty and intelligent girl came". In the case of an indefinite plural adjective noun complex, the noun is plural and the adjective may be used in singular or in plural form. Thus, 'diligent students' can be rendered ' (lit. diligent student- PLUR ) or ' (lit. diligent- PLUR student- PLUR ).

Dialects
Not much has been published about Amharic dialect differences. All dialects are mutually intelligible, but certain minor variations are noted.

Jewish Amharic
The Beta Israel who today live mostly in Israel speak a dialect of Amharic called Jewish Amharic (Hebrew:אמהרית מעוברת). It replaced many Christian phrases with Jewish ones. One example is the replacing the phrase "It is good that Mary had pardoned you" with "It is good that god has relieved you peacefully", these phrases are used to congratulate a mother on successful childbirth. Another example is calling a type of Grasshopper "Moses's horses" instead of "Mary's horses". This variety also contains influence from Modern Hebrew due to the large Beta Israel presence in Israel. Currently Jewish Amharic is declining as the Beta Israel gradually abandon Amharic in favor of Hebrew.

Literature
The oldest surviving examples of written Amharic date back to the reigns of the 14th century Emperor of Ethiopia Amda Seyon I and his successors, who commissioned a number of poems known as "የወታደሮች መዝሙር" (Soldier songs) glorifying them and their troops. There is a growing body of literature in Amharic in many genres. This literature includes government proclamations and records, educational books, religious material, novels, poetry, proverb collections, dictionaries (monolingual and bilingual), technical manuals, medical topics, etc. The Bible was first translated into Amharic by Abu Rumi in the early 19th century, but other translations of the Bible into Amharic have been done since. The most famous Amharic novel is Fiqir Iske Meqabir (transliterated various ways) by Haddis Alemayehu (1909–2003), translated into English by Sisay Ayenew with the title Love unto Crypt, published in 2005 (ISBN 978-1-4184-9182-6).

Rastafari movement
The word Rastafari comes from Ras Täfäri, the pre-regnal title of Haile Selassie, composed of the Amharic words Ras (literally "Head", an Ethiopian title equivalent to duke) and Haile Selassie's pre-regnal name, Tafari.

Many Rastafarians learn Amharic as a second language, as they consider it to be sacred. After Haile Selassie's 1966 visit to Jamaica, study circles in Amharic were organized in Jamaica as part of the ongoing exploration of Pan-African identity and culture. Various reggae artists in the 1970s, including Ras Michael, Lincoln Thompson and Misty in Roots, have sung in Amharic, thus bringing the language to a wider audience. The Abyssinians, a reggae group, have also used Amharic, most notably in the song "Satta Massagana". The title was believed to mean "give thanks"; however, this phrase means "he thanked" or "he praised", as ' means "he gave", and ' "thanks" or "praise". The correct way to say "give thanks" in Amharic is one word, misgana. The word "satta" has become a common expression in the Rastafari dialect of English, Iyaric, meaning "to sit down and partake".

Software
Amharic is supported on most major Linux distributions, including Fedora and Ubuntu.

The Amharic script is included in Unicode, in the Ethiopic block (U+1200 – U+137F). Nyala font is included on Windows 7 (see YouTube video) and Vista (Amharic Language Interface Pack) to display and edit using the Amharic Script. In February 2010, Microsoft released its Windows Vista operating system in Amharic, enabling Amharic speakers to use its operating system in their language.

Google added Amharic to its Language Tools which allows typing Amharic Script online without an Amharic Keyboard. Since 2004 Wikipedia has had an Amharic language Wiki that uses Ethiopic script.

Grammar

 * Ludolf, Hiob (1698). Grammatica Linguæ Amharicæ. Frankfort.
 * [rewritten version of 'A modern grammar of spoken Amharic', 1941]
 * Afevork Ghevre Jesus (1911). Il verbo amarico. Roma.
 * Amsalu Aklilu & Demissie Manahlot (1990). T'iru ye'Amarinnya Dirset 'Indet Yale New! (An Amharic grammar, in Amharic)
 * Anbessa Teferra and Grover Hudson (2007). Essentials of Amharic. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
 * Appleyard, David (1994). Colloquial Amharic. Routledge ISBN 0-415-10003-8
 * Baye Yimam (2007). Amharic Grammar. Second Edition. Addis Ababa University. Ethiopia.
 * Bender, M. Lionel. (1974) "Phoneme frequencies in Amharic". Journal of Ethiopian Studies 12.1:19–24
 * Bender, M. Lionel and Hailu Fulass (1978). Amharic verb morphology. (Committee on Ethiopian Studies, monograph 7.) East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University.
 * Bennet, M. E. (1978). Stratificational Approaches to Amharic Phonology. PhD thesis, Ann Arbor: Michigan State University.
 * Cohen, Marcel (1936). Traité de langue amharique. Paris: Institut d'Ethnographie.
 * Cohen, Marcel (1939). Nouvelles études d'éthiopien merdional. Paris: Champion.
 * Dawkins, C. H. (¹1960, ²1969). The Fundamentals of Amharic. Addis Ababa.
 * Kapeliuk, Olga (1988). Nominalization in Amharic. Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-515-04512-0
 * Kapeliuk, Olga (1994). Syntax of the noun in Amharic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-03406-8.
 * Łykowska, Laura (1998). Gramatyka jezyka amharskiego Wydawnictwo Akademickie Dialog. ISBN 83-86483-60-1
 * Leslau, Wolf (1995). Reference Grammar of Amharic. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-447-03372-X
 * Praetorius, Franz (1879). Die amharische Sprache. Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses.
 * Leslau, Wolf (1995). Reference Grammar of Amharic. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-447-03372-X
 * Praetorius, Franz (1879). Die amharische Sprache. Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses.

Dictionaries

 * Abbadie, Antoine d' (1881). Dictionnaire de la langue amariñña. Actes de la Société philologique, t. 10. Paris.
 * Amsalu Aklilu (1973). English-Amharic dictionary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-572264-7
 * Baeteman, J.-É. (1929). Dictionnaire amarigna-français. Diré-Daoua
 * Gankin, É. B. (1969). Amxarsko-russkij slovar'. Pod redaktsiej Kassa Gäbrä Heywät. Moskva: Izdatel'stvo 'Sovetskaja Éntsiklopedija'.
 * Guidi, I. (1901). Vocabolario amarico-italiano. Roma.
 * Guidi, I. (1940). Supplemento al Vocabolario amarico-italiano. (compilato con il concorso di Francesco Gallina ed Enrico Cerulli) Roma.
 * Kane, Thomas L. (1990). Amharic–English Dictionary. (2 vols.) Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-02871-8
 * Leslau, Wolf (1976). Concise Amharic Dictionary. (Reissue edition: 1996) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20501-4
 * Täsämma Habtä Mikael Gəṣṣəw (1953 Ethiopian calendar). Käsate Bərhan Täsämma. Yä-Amarəñña mäzgäbä qalat. Addis Ababa: Artistic.
 * Täsämma Habtä Mikael Gəṣṣəw (1953 Ethiopian calendar). Käsate Bərhan Täsämma. Yä-Amarəñña mäzgäbä qalat. Addis Ababa: Artistic.

title: Amharic


text:
Hubert Selby Jr.

Hubert "Cubby" Selby Jr. (July 23, 1928 – April 26, 2004) was an American writer. Two of his novels, Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) and Requiem for a Dream (1978), explore worlds in the New York area and were adapted as films, both of which he appeared in.

His first novel was prosecuted for obscenity in the United Kingdom and banned in Italy, prompting defences from many leading authors such as Anthony Burgess. He influenced multiple generations of writers. For more than 20 years, he taught creative writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he lived full-time after 1983.

Early life and education
Hubert Selby was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York City, to Adalin and Hubert Selby Sr., a merchant seaman and former coal miner from Kentucky. Selby and his wife Adalin had settled in Bay Ridge. Hubert attended public schools, including the competitive Stuyvesant High School.

Selby Jr. dropped out of school at the age of 15 to work in the city docks before becoming a merchant seaman in 1947.

Having been diagnosed with tuberculosis, he was taken off the ship in Bremen, Germany, and sent back to the United States. For the next three and a half years, Selby was in and out of the U.S. Public Health Hospital (part of a system of hospitals originally established to care for merchant seamen) in New York for treatment.

Selby went through an experimental drug treatment, streptomycin, that later caused some severe complications. During an operation, surgeons removed several of Selby's ribs to reach his lungs. One of his lungs collapsed, and doctors removed part of the other.

Becoming a writer
For the next ten years, Selby was mostly bedridden; he was frequently hospitalized with a variety of lung-related ailments. The doctors offered a bleak prognosis, suggesting he was unlikely to survive long because he "just didn't have enough lung capacity". Gilbert Sorrentino, a childhood friend who had become a writer, encouraged Selby to write fiction. Unable to have regular work because of his health, Selby decided, "I know the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer."

He later wrote: "I was sitting at home and had a profound experience. I experienced, in all of my Being, that someday I was going to die, and it wouldn't be like it had been happening, almost dying but somehow staying alive, but I would just die! And two things would happen right before I died: I would regret my entire life; I would want to live it over again. This terrified me. The thought that I would live my entire life, look at it and realize I blew it forced me to do something with my life."

With no formal training, Selby used a raw language to portray the bleak and violent world that was part of his youth. He said, "I write, in part, by ear. I hear, as well as feel and see, what I am writing. I have always been enamoured with the music of the speech in New York."

Little concerned with proper grammar, punctuation, or diction, Selby used unorthodox techniques in most of his works. He indented his paragraphs with alternating lengths, often by simply dropping down one line when finished with a paragraph. Like Jack Kerouac in his "spontaneous prose", Selby often completed his writing in a fast, stream-of-consciousness style. He replaced apostrophes with forward slashes, which were closer on the typewriter, to avoid interrupting his flow of writing.

Early works
Selby started working on his first short story, "The Queen Is Dead," in 1958. At the time, he had a succession of day jobs, but he wrote every night. During the day, he worked as a secretary, a gas station attendant, and a freelance copywriter. The short story developed slowly for the next six years before he published it.

In 1961, his short story "Tralala" was published in the literary journal The Provincetown Review. It also appeared in Black Mountain Review and New Directions. It portrays the seedy life (ridden with violence, theft and mediocre con-artistry) and the gang rape of a prostitute. The journal editor was arrested for selling pornographic literature to a minor. The journal was used as evidence in an obscenity trial, but the case was later dismissed on appeal.

On 24 October 1964, Selby married Judith Lumino, but the marriage soon fell apart. As he continued to write, his longtime friend LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka), the poet and playwright, encouraged him to contact Sterling Lord, then Kerouac's agent. Selby combined "Tralala", "The Queen Is Dead" and four other loosely linked short stories as part of his first novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964). The novel was accepted and published by Grove Press, which had already published works by William S. Burroughs. In November 1964, New York Times literary critic Eliot Fremont-Smith described the novel as "a brutal book," concluding that it "is not a book one 'recommends'--except perhaps to writers. From them, those who wish to read it, it deserves attention."

The novel was praised by many, including the poet Allen Ginsberg, who predicted that it would "explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years." In 1967, the novel was prosecuted for obscenity in the United Kingdom. The British writer Anthony Burgess was among a number of writers who appeared as witnesses in its defense. The jury's conviction was later reversed on appeal. The novel was banned in Italy.

Although he wrote all his work while sober, Selby continued to battle drug addiction. In 1967 he was arrested for heroin possession and served two months in the Los Angeles County jail. After his release, he moved from New York to Los Angeles to try to escape his addictions and finally kicked the habit. He stayed clean of illicit drugs but continued to battle alcohol abuse for the next two years. Also that year, Selby met his future wife, Suzanne Victoria Shaw, at a bar in West Hollywood. The couple moved in together two days after they met. They married in 1969, after Selby and his second wife, Judith, had finalized their divorce. For the next decade, Suzanne and Selby traveled back and forth between their home in Southern California and the East Coast, settling permanently in the Los Angeles area in 1983. They had two children, daughter Rachel and son William.

Life after Last Exit to Brooklyn
In 1971, Selby published his second novel, The Room, which received positive reviews. It featured a criminally insane man, locked in a room in a prison, who reminisces about his disturbing past. Selby described The Room as "the most disturbing book ever written."

Selby continued to write short fiction, as well as screenplays and teleplays at his apartment in West Hollywood. His work was published in many magazines, including Black Mountain Review, Evergreen Review, Provincetown Review, Kulchur, New Directions Annual, Yugen, Swank and Open City.

In the 1980s, Selby met punk rock singer Henry Rollins, who had long admired the writer's works and publicly championed them. Rollins helped broaden Selby's readership, and also arranged recording sessions and reading tours for Selby. Rollins issued original recordings through his own 2.13.61 publications, and distributed Selby's other works.

For the last 20 years of his life, Selby also taught creative writing as an adjunct professor in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California.

A film adaptation of Last Exit to Brooklyn, directed by Uli Edel, was made in 1989. Selby appeared in Brooklyn in a brief cameo as a taxi driver. Requiem for a Dream (1978) was adapted as a film of the same name released in 2000. He had a small role as a prison guard taunting Marlon Wayans, suffering through forced labor while withdrawing.

Death and legacy
Selby spent the last month of his life in and out of the hospital and died at his home in Highland Park, Los Angeles, on April 26, 2004, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Although he was in pain, he refused morphine on his deathbed.

The New York Times published his obituary the day after his death. In 1999, a French movie director Ludovic Cantais made a documentary about Hubert Selby Jr, "Hubert Selby Jr, a couple of things" broadcast on many European channels. Selby was the subject of the 2005 documentary, Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow

In popular culture

 * In 1972, David Bowie said that two novels influenced him greatly: Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn. According to an article in the New York Times published in 1973, Bowie had "confessed that he had formed a desperate identification with" the latter novel.
 * Selby's first work, "The Queen Is Dead" (appearing as a chapter in Last Exit to Brooklyn), inspired the name of an album by Manchester alternative rock group The Smiths.
 * In the book Was This Man a Genius? by Julie Hecht, the comedian Andy Kaufman is quoted saying that his favourite book is The Demon by Hubert Selby (p. 159).
 * Last Exit to Brooklyn inspired the name of Sting's first band, Last Exit.
 * The Manic Street Preachers song, "Of Walking Abortion", from the album The Holy Bible, begins with a quote from Selby: "I knew that someday I was gonna die. And I knew that before I died, two things would happen to me, that number one: I would regret my entire life; and number two: I would want to live my life over again."
 * British band Alt-J composed a song entitled "Fitzpleasure", inspired by the short story "Tralala" from Last Exit to Brooklyn.
 * In the Nicolas Winding Refn film Bleeder, a character enters a book store asking for a Hubert Selby Jr. work.
 * Nicolas Winding Refn dedicated his film Pusher II to Selby, Jr.
 * The block of East 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues in Manhattan (where Selby lived in 1964 with his second wife, Judith, and her son, James) is mentioned at Chapter 23 of Tom Robbins's 1976 novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, being described specifically as the place where "Hubert Selby, Jr., wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn."

Fiction

 * Last Exit to Brooklyn (novel, 1964)
 * The Room (novel, 1971)
 * The Demon (novel, 1976)
 * Requiem for a Dream (novel, 1978)
 * Song of the Silent Snow (short stories, 1986)
 * The Willow Tree (novel, 1998)
 * Waiting Period (novel, 2002)

Spoken word

 * Our Fathers Who Aren't in Heaven – Compilation by Henry Rollins. 2xCD set (1990)
 * Live in Europe 1989 – Spoken word with Henry Rollins. CD. (1995)
 * Blue Eyes and Exit Wounds – Spoken word with Nick Tosches. CD. (1998)

Filmography

 * Jour et Nuit – Screenwriter. France / Switzerland (1986)
 * Last Exit to Brooklyn – Writer and actor. United States/Germany (1989)
 * Scotch and Milk – Actor (Cubby). United States (1998)
 * Requiem for a Dream – Screenwriter and actor. United States (2000)
 * Fear X – Screenwriter. Denmark / United Kingdom / Canada (2003)

Documentaries

 * Memories, Dreams & Addictions. Interview with Ellen Burstyn. Special feature on Requiem for a Dream – Director's Cut DVD release. (2001)
 * Hubert Selby Jr.: 2 Ou 3 Choses... (A Couple of Things About Hubert Selby Jr.) by Ludovic Cantais, France (2000)
 * Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow (2005)

Unfinished and unpublished
At least one work-in-progress remained unfinished and unpublished at the time of Selby's death: The Seeds of Pain and the Seeds of Love. Excerpts from this work are heard on the Live in Europe 1989 CD.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Hubert Selby Jr.


text:
User:Lightsoutfilms

My Homepage has all the details: www.lightsoutfilms.com

Recently Edited or Added:
 * Lullaby - a novel by Chuck Palahniuk
 * Fight Club - edited book description and reformated page
 * Peter Bogdanovich - added a movie, Sopranos info.
 * Nirvana (band) - cleaned up text, professor style.

title: User:Lightsoutfilms


text:
User talk:Banshee~enwiki

Hello there Banshee, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you ever need editing help visit How does one edit a page and experiment at Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. BTW, nice work on the firearm articles. Cheers! --maveric149

Another Wikipedian has some copyright concerns that need your attention over at Talk:Beloit College. Power to the Wiki! --mav

It has been a few hours now and you haven't responded so the text in Beloit College was replaced with a 'possible copyright violation' notice. Please read the notice. Hasta! --mav --- Well and good; not worth the trouble to correct my errors, glad other people cought them. No more of those in the future. - Any idea when rifles first became used? User:hfastedge --- Nobody knows for certain, but it's probably safe to say they were used earlier than we'd imagine. I'd guess sometime around the 15th century, probably in Germany. Just a guess; too lazy to go check out the facts at the minute. The first rifles were probably not made intentionally for the purpose of stabilizing the projectile, but were the products of the manufacturing processes and/or desires to reduce the effects of fouling from the black powder on the firing process.

Mosin-Nagant
I know it's been a while since you did anything with it, but as orginal contributor I thought I might inform you that I did a bit of work on Mosin-Nagant. I'm wondering about your inputs on my edit. Zytsef 11:07, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Banshee. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Banshee~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

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title: User talk:Banshee~enwiki


text:
User:JeanetteMartin/Pupilos De Chavelo

The Pupilos De Chavelo was a very special basketball team in Puerto Rico.

The Pupilos played in the Villa Turabo basketball tournament in Caguas in 1986.

Pupilos De Chavelo members included Wikipedia.com user:AntonioMartin, Libertario Sauri, Alfredo Rivera, William Luciano, Luis Soto, Avidair Champagne and Kikito Rivas. Antonio's brother, José, was the team's official mascot

Los Pupilos De Chavelo was nicknamed like that after their sponsor, a sports store in Arecibo.

The team was selected as a wide favorite to win the tournament, but, as in with any team filled with good basketball players and popular guys, a lot of things worked against that goal. While they all became best friends during the tournament's duration, they became cocky after 3 straight pre-tournament and 4 straight tournament wins. Sauri, nicknamed Liber, became a member after the second tournament game, a 60-59 overtime win over their rivals Yellow Team.

After a 58-54 win over the Mundo Dulces team, trouble could be perceived, and Antonio told this to their coach, a nice person nicknamed Papo. Nobody listened to Antonio and the team quickly lost 2 in a row, the first coming against Centro Dulces by a score of 79-76.

After the second loss, Papo ordered a team practice, what would be their first practice in about a month. He said that anyone who would attend the practice would get good playing time. As it was raining, Antonio and William were the only ones to attend, and Papo and his assistant Ricky came and told them the practice was being called off.

Then came the rematch against the Yellow Team. It was a classic, and Antonio and William got their promised playing time. It was a classic marred by controversy, as, when the game's referee called a 3rd foul on Liber, Liber went berzerk, accusing the referee of favoriing the other team. While this could have been the case, the truth is both of Libers previous fouls that day had been, at the least, dubious. Antonio was standing next to Liber and he tried to hold Liber off after the referee also called a technical on him for protesting, but Liber was strong and he took off his jersey, slammed it against the floor and took off after being ejected. Liber and Antonio had founded an incredible friendship bond between them, and Liber later called Antonio to apologize. Antonio was not mad at him, however.

After that foul, both teams went back and forth, until with 9 seconds, Antonio was fouled with the game tied at 78 apiece. It was a 1 on 1 free throw situation, and Antonio missed his free throw, so the Yellow team got the ball, made a lay-up and won the game.

Two more losses made the team that was supposed to be the tournament champion at 4-5, but that was enough to make the playoffs. In game 3 of the playoffs, Antonio tried to save the ball from going out of bounds, and ended up making a spectacular shot from the out of bounds corner, one which helped the Chavelos win the game 65-62 and the series 2 games to 1.

With that, they were set to meet the Yellow team in the finals. They took game one, but then lost 3 in a row, including a game 2 that was a spectacle of bad officiating. For the Chavelos, only Antonio, Kikito and William were able to finish that game on court. They still only lost by 3 points. The Chavelos fought back from the 3 to 1 deficit to force a 7th game, where they lost, 91 to 85.

They werent champions, but those Chavelos sure proved to be warriors.

title: User:JeanetteMartin/Pupilos De Chavelo


text:
Fran Ulmer

Frances Ann "Fran" Ulmer (born February 1, 1947) is an American administrator and Democratic politician from the U.S. state of Alaska. She served as the seventh lieutenant governor of Alaska from 1994 to 2002 under Governor Tony Knowles, becoming the first woman elected to statewide office in Alaska, and lost the 2002 gubernatorial election against Republican Frank Murkowski. In 2007 she became the Chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), before serving as Chair of the United States Arctic Research Commission between 2011 and 2020, appointed by President Barack Obama.

Early life
Frances Ann "Fran" Ulmer was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in Horicon, Wisconsin. Her parents owned a furniture store and a funeral home in the area. Her education included a bachelor's degree with a double major in economics and political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a Juris Doctor cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School. In 2018, Fran was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Alaska Anchorage. In 1977, she married attorney Bill Council. They had two children. They were married until his death in 2013.

Alaska politics
Ulmer first began working in Alaska in 1973 as a lawyer at the Legislative Affairs Agency in Juneau, Alaska. Ulmer worked as a legislative assistant for Jay Hammond, the Republican governor of Alaska from 1975 through 1977. He appointed her Director of Policy Development and Planning that year, a role she held until 1981. She served on Juneau's Planning and Zoning Commission from 1981 to 1983.

She served as mayor of Juneau from 1983 to 1985 and was in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1987 to 1994 as a Democrat, where she sponsored and won approval of legislation concerning criminal justice, education, public administration, health, and transportation. From 1993 to 1994 she served as the house minority leader.

In 1994 she won the open primary for the nomination for lieutenant governor. She was elected to two four-year terms on the Democratic ticket, along with Governor Tony Knowles. In that post, she became a nationally recognized leader in election reform and making government more efficient and accessible through telecommunications. During her tenure, Alaska became the first state to replace the punched card system with a statewide optical scanning ballot counting system.

Alaska gubernatorial election, 2002
In 2002, she won the nomination of the Democratic party for the office of governor. She lost the election to the Republican candidate, U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski.

Post electoral career
In 2003, Fran was a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics in Cambridge, MA. In 2004, she accepted a teaching job at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She served as the Director of the Institute of Economic and Social Research (ISER) at UAA. In March 2007, University of Alaska system President Mark R. Hamilton appointed Ulmer interim chancellor for the University of Alaska Anchorage. In April 2008, she accepted the position of chancellor on a permanent basis. As chancellor, she was responsible for governing UAA and its eight satellite facilities in Southcentral Alaska. On January 22, 2010, she announced her intent to resign from the Chancellor's position at UAA, effective 2011.

At the national level, Ulmer served as a member of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission for ten years, on the Federal Communications Commission’s State and Local Advisory Committee, the Federal Elections Commission's State Advisory Committee, and as co-chair of the Aspen Institute's Arctic Climate Change Commission.

In June 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Ulmer to the seven-member National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. The commission was charged with investigating the causes of the explosion and oil spill and recommending changes to prevent future disasters. She served on the boards of The Nature Conservancy, First National Bank Alaska, the CIRI Foundation, Commonwealth North, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and she chaired the global board of The Nature Conservancy (2019-2022). She currently serves on the National Parks Conservation Association Board and the Alaska Trustees of The Nature Conservancy.

In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Ulmer as chair of the US Arctic Research Commission. In July 2014, Ulmer was appointed a special advisor to John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, on arctic issues. She endorsed the building of more icebreakers to allow the United States Coast Guard to better research the arctic. On July 28, 2020, President Trump appointed Jon Harrison to serve as the Chair of the Arctic Research Commission. On November 10, 2020, Randy "Church" Kee, a retired major general of the United States Air Force, was appointed to the position previously assigned to Ulmer.

In 2018 she was a Visiting Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Earth System Science in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences and in 2019, she joined Harvard’s Belfer Center Arctic Initiative as a Senior Fellow, serving until 2023.

In 2021 she was appointed as one of the additional campaign co-chairs for former Independent governor Bill Walker's gubernatorial campaign.

title: Fran Ulmer


text:
Lullaby

A lullaby, or a cradle song, is a soothing song or piece of music that is usually played for (or sung to) children (for adults see music and sleep). The purposes of lullabies vary. In some societies, they are used to pass down cultural knowledge or tradition. In addition, lullabies are often used for the developing of communication skills, indication of emotional intent, maintenance of infants' undivided attention, modulation of infants' arousal, and regulation of behavior. Perhaps one of the most important uses of lullabies is as a sleep aid for infants. As a result, the music is often simple and repetitive. Lullabies can be found in many countries, and have existed since ancient times.

Etymology
The term 'lullaby' derives from the Middle English lullen ("to lull") and by[e] (in the sense of "near"); it was first recorded circa 1560.

A folk etymology derives lullaby from "Lilith-Abi" (Hebrew for "Lilith, begone"). In the Jewish tradition, Lilith was a demon who was believed to steal children's souls in the night. To guard against Lilith, Jewish mothers would hang four amulets on nursery walls with the inscription "Lilith – abei" ["Lilith – begone"].

Characteristics
Lullabies tend to share exaggerated melodic tendencies, including simple pitch contours, large pitch ranges, and generally higher pitch. These clarify and convey heightened emotions, usually of love or affection. When there is harmony, infants almost always prefer consonant intervals over dissonant intervals. Furthermore, if there is a sequence of dissonant intervals in a song, an infant will usually lose interest and it becomes very difficult to regain its attention. To reflect this, most lullabies contain primarily consonant intervals. Tonally, most lullabies are simple, often merely alternating tonic and dominant harmonies.

In addition to pitch tendencies, lullabies share several structural similarities. The most frequent tendencies are intermittent repetitions and long pauses between sections. This dilutes the rate of material and appeals to infants' slower capacity for processing music.

Rhythmically, there are shared patterns. Lullabies are usually in triple meter or 6/8 time, giving them a "characteristic swinging or rocking motion." This mimics the movement a baby experiences in the womb as a mother moves. In addition, infants' preference for rhythm shares a strong connection with what they hear when they are bounced, and even their own body movements. The tempos of lullabies tend to be generally slow, and the utterances are short. Again, this aids in the infant's processing of the song.

Lullabies almost never have instrumental accompaniments. Infants have shown a strong preference for unaccompanied lullabies over accompanied lullabies. Again, this appeals to infants' more limited ability to process information.

Lullabies are often used for their soothing nature, even for non-infants. One study found lullabies to be the most successful type of music or sound for relieving stress and improving the overall psychological health of pregnant women.

These characteristics tend to be consistent across cultures. It was found that adults of various cultural backgrounds could recognize and identify lullabies without knowing the cultural context of the song. Infants have shown a strong preferences for songs with these qualities.

Cross-cultural prevalence
Lullabies are often used to pass down or strengthen the cultural roles and practices. In an observation of the setting of lullabies in Albanian culture, lullabies tended to be paired with the rocking of the child in a cradle. This is reflected in the swinging rhythmicity of the music. In addition to serving as a cultural symbol of the infant's familial status, the cradle's presence during the singing of lullabies helps the infant associate lullabies with falling asleep and waking up. Kogan and Gintsburg, in a study of the mainly preliterate, non-media-exposed people on the island of Socotra, found that lullabies in this culture shared many of the features of lullabies in the western and oriental tradition: the repetition of 'nonsense syllables', the creation of a warm affective space, and the allusions to ancient customs and beliefs. On the other hand, these lullabies lacked the 'counting elements' found in other traditions, and defined safety as a spiritual space, while danger was conceptualised as both physical and spiritual.

Therapeutic value
Studies conducted by Dr. Jeffery Perlman, chief of newborn medicine at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital's Komansky Center for Children's Health, find that gentle music therapy not only slows down the heart rate of prematurely delivered infants but also helps them feed and sleep better. This helps them gain weight and speeds their recovery. A study published in May 2013 in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics under the aegis of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City found that the type of music matters. Therapeutically designed "live" music – and lullabies sung in person – can influence cardiac and respiratory function. Another study published in February 2011 in Arts in Psychotherapy by Jayne M. Standley of the National Institute for Infant and Child Medical Music Therapy at Florida State University suggests that babies who receive this kind of therapy leave the hospital sooner.

Additional research by Jayne M. Standley has demonstrated that the physiological responses of prematurely delivered infants undergoing intensive care can be regulated by listening to gentle lullabies through headphones. In addition to slowing heart and respiration rates, lullabies have been associated with increased oxygen saturation levels and the possible prevention of potentially life-threatening episodes of apnea and bradycardia. Gentle music can also provide stimulation for premature infants to behave in ways that boost their development and keep them alive. Lullabies can serve as a low-risk source of stimulation and reinforcement for increasing nipple sucking (feeding) rates, providing infants with the nutrition they require for growth and development. Lullabies are thus associated with encouraging the rapid development of the neurological system and with a shorter length of hospitalization.

More recent research has shown that lullabies sung live can have beneficial effects on physiological functioning and development in premature infants. The live element of a slow, repetitive entrained rhythm can regulate sucking behavior. Infants have a natural tendency to entrain to the sounds that surround them. Beat perception begins during fetal development in the womb and infants are born with an innate musical preference. The element of live breathing sounds can regulate infant heart rate, quiet-alert states, and sleep. Live lullabies can also enhance parent-child bonding, thus decreasing parental stress associated with the intensive care. In short, live lullabies sung by music therapists induce relaxation, rest, comfort, and optimal growth and development. "Hush, Little Baby" has been observed cross-culturally and is known to have a natural capacity for soothing and energizing infants, as well as nurturing caregiving bonds.

Many lullabies, regardless of the meaning of their words, possess a peaceful hypnotic quality. Others are mournful or dark, like a lament. The Gaelic lullaby "Ba, Ba, Mo Leanabh Beag" was written in 1848 during the potato famine, which caused much hardship in the Scottish Highlands. The song mentions soft potatoes, the mother's situation, and her fears for her child. In the 1920s, poet Federico García Lorca studied Spanish lullabies and noted the "poetic character" and "depth of sadness" of many of them. Lorca's theory was that a large part of the function of the lullaby is to help a mother vocalize her worries and concerns. In short, they also serve as therapy for the mother.

Combined with lament, lullaby can have "restorative resounding" properties for hospice inpatients and their families. Lullabies typically soothe people through the awake/sleep transition, and similarly can soothe people through the life/death transition. Music therapists have called these tunes "lullaments", that which sustain the spirit, support psychological structure, and enable resilience during times of vulnerability to the effects of adversity. Lullaments are music-contextualized expressions of attachment and detachment, sadness/tears and happiness/laughter, privilege and loss, nurturance and grief, deterioration, stasis and moving forward.

Many Christmas carols are designed as lullabies for the infant Jesus, the most famous of them being "Silent Night".

Mother–infant interaction
Infants exhibit a natural preference for infant-directed over non-infant-directed lullabies and their own mothers' voice over that of another female.

Much research has been generated on the role of lullabies in nurturing caregiving bonds between mother and child. Mothers who sing lullabies to their infants engage in a bonding activity that actually alters the underlying neural structure of the infant brain such that the infant becomes "tuned" into music and its association with parental affiliation. In one Taiwanese study of Kangaroo Care, a technique practiced on newborn infants in which a mother holds her child tightly against her chest, it was demonstrated that infant–mother dyads who listened to their choice of lullaby were associated with more quiet sleep states and less occurrence of crying by the infant and were also associated with significantly lower maternal anxiety, than those dyads who did not listen to lullabies. The therapeutic effect of lullabies can thus have a strong impact on calming anxieties and nurturing bonds, which is especially important with premature and fragile infants.

In classical music
Lullabies written by established classical composers are often given the form-name berceuse, which is French for lullaby, or cradle song. The most famous lullaby is the one by Johannes Brahms ("Wiegenlied", 1868). While there has been no confirmation, there are many strong arguments that Brahms suffered from a sleep disorder known as sleep apnea. It is speculated (based on lullabies' utility as a sleep aid) that this was part of his inspiration for composing "Wiegenlied."

Chopin's "Berceuse" is a composition for solo piano. Other famous examples of the genre include Maurice Ravel's Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré for violin and piano; the Berceuse élégiaque by Ferruccio Busoni; the "Berceuse" from the opera Jocelyn by Benjamin Godard; the "Berceuse" by Igor Stravinsky which is featured in the Firebird ballet, and Lullaby for String Quartet by George Gershwin. The English composer Nicholas Maw's orchestral nocturne, The World in the Evening, is subtitled "lullaby for large orchestra". German composer's Paul Graener last movement of his suite From The Realm of Pan is entitled "Pan sings the world a lullaby".

Brazil
"Dorme neném" (Sleep Little Baby) is sung all over the country and includes a reference to "Cuca", a folk character very feared by children.

Colombia
"Duérmete niño, duérmete ya, que si no viene el coco y te comerá" (Go to sleep child, go to sleep now, otherwise the boogie man will come and eat you) is a cradle song sung by parents to advise children to go to sleep soon.

India
In Hindi and in many Indian languages, the lullaby is called "Lori". Mostly, lullabies are sung in folk languages. Lullabies have been also an integral part of Indian cinema. Many lullabies were written and composed in the fifties, such as:

 * "Aaja Ri Aa Nindiya Tu Aa" – Do Bigha Zamin (1953 film)
 * "Main Gaoon Tu Chhup Ho Jaa" – Do Aankhen Barah Haath (1957 film)
 * "So Jaa Re Lalna Jhulao Tohe Palna" – Journey Beyond Three Seas (1957 film)

In the Malayalam language, there is a rich collection of traditional lullabies, known as "tharaattu Pattu". One of the most famous is "Omanathinkal Kidavo", written and composed by poet lyricist Iravi Varman Thampi who is widely known as Irayimman Thampi. This lullaby was written for the queen of Travancore to sing to her son young prince Swathi Thirunal, who later became the king and a famous musician (composed many Keerthanas in a Raga Dheerasankarabharanam commonly known as Sankarabharanam).

In the Odia language, a lullaby is called a Nanabaya gita. A book in the same name by Nanda Kishore bal that was published in two volumes in 1934 is a major compilation of the known lullabies in the language.

In Telugu language, a lullaby is called a "Jola" or "Jola pata". A famous Telugu lullaby is "jo achuthaa nanda jo jo mukunda".

In the Tamil language, a lullaby is called a thaalattu (thal means "tongue"). A melodious sound is created by frequent movement of the tongue at the beginning of the song.

In the Marathi language, a lullaby is called a angai geet. Soothing words and music helps baby calm down and help them sleep.

Philippines
In the Philippines, the song is known as the oyayi. The province of Batangas has a very specialized form of lullaby known as the huluna. Though only composed of simple words, it is notable for being very difficult to sing, due to the lengthy melismas. Like many traditional songs from Spain, it is full of fioriture yet unlike many of the western type songs, it has no time signature. Sa Ugoy ng Duyan is a popular Filipino lullaby song composed by Lucio San Pedro with lyrics by Levi Celerio in 1948.

Vietnam
In Vietnamese, lullabies are called "bài hát ru". One famous Vietnamese lullaby is the song, "Ầu ơ ví dầu". Vietnamese lullabies are hard to sing because of their extended melismas. The lullabies usually include pastoral scenes of villages, bamboo bridges, rice fields, farming, and meals made by a mother. They usually have a melancholy tone.

China

 * The "Northeastern Cradle Song" is from northern China.
 * Cantonese cradle song "Yuet Kwong Kwong" (月光光), literally Moonlight, prevails in Guangdong.

Indonesia
"Nina Bobo" is from Indonesia.

Japan
The "Edo Lullaby", "Itsuki Lullaby", "Chūgoku Region Lullaby", "Shimabara Lullaby" and "Takeda Lullaby" are from Japan.

Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, the lullaby is termed "Ghum-Parrani-Gaan" (song to make sleep). Examples of Bangla lullabies are "Ghum-Parrani Maashi, Pishi" and "Baash baganer mathar upor".

Iran
"Laay laay, laay, laay, gol-e laaleh" is one of the most famous and oldest Persian lullabies which comes from the Gorgan region in North-Eastern Iran.

Czech
"Spi, Janíčku, spi" ("Sleep, Johny, sleep") – This playful lullaby was collected in Moravia by František Sušil (1804–1868), a priest and an activist of Czech national revival. He collected songs in Moravia and Silesia as well as in Slavic villages in Austria. This lullaby uses a specific name of the child, Janíček, a familiar form of the very common male name Jan. Nonsense is employed here, as the boy is promised not only a green and a red apple but also a blue one if he falls asleep.

"Ukolébavka" ("Lullaby") – This lullaby was published in 1633 in The Informatorium of the School of Infancy by Johann Amos Comenius (1592–1670). The book is likely to be the first treatise on the development and educating infants and children up to six in the family. Comenius stressed among other things the necessity of sensory and emotional stimuli at an early age. Thus, he included for mothers and nurses the Czech text and the score of the originally German lullaby by 16th century preacher Mathesius.

"Hajej, můj andílku" ("Sleep, My Little Angel") – This is one of the most melodious Czech lullabies, first collected by Karel Jaromír Erben (1811–1870), Czech romantic writer, poet and collector of Czech folk songs and fairy tales. The text refers specifically to the mother rocking her baby.

"Halí, dítě" ("Hullee, baby") – This lullaby was collected by František Bartoš (1837–1906), pedagogue and ethnographer who collected Moravian songs. The second line says the carer will leave after the child falls asleep, but in the third line we learn that only to the garden in the valley to pick raspberries.

"Halaj, belaj, malučký" ("Sleep, Sleep, Little One") – This lullaby is from the east of Moravia, where the dialect is influenced by the Slovak language, and also folk songs are similar to the Slovak ones from across the border. A boy is promised the essential food for infants, kašička, a smooth mixture made of milk and flour.

Danish
"Elefantens vuggevise" ("The Elephant's Lullaby") – This lullaby is considered one of the most popular lullabies in Denmark. Using exotic animals as theme, the lyrics are simple and easily understood by a child. It was made politically correct in the 1990s: The word negerdreng (Negro boy) was changed to kokosnød (coconut). The song was written in 1948 by the Danish writer and poet Harald H. Lund with music composed by writer-musician Mogens Jermiin Nissen (1906–72).

"Godnatsang" ("Goodnight Song") – This is a popular lullaby that was composed (lyrics and music) by Sigurd Barrett (born 1967), pianist, composer and host of a children's TV programme in Denmark, and fellow musician Steen Nikolaj Hansen. Sigurd usually sings this song at the end of his children's show. This lullaby has sleeping time as theme: The day is over and we must sleep and rest so we will be fresh again in the morning.

"Mues sang få Hansemand" ("Mother's Song to Little Hans") – This lullaby originated from south Jutland and is very old (year of composition is unknown). It is not well known in Denmark. This may, in part, be due to the fact that it was written in Jutlandic dialect. The lyrics were written by Marie Thulesen (1878–1924) with music by the Danish musician Oluf Ring (1884–1946).

"Jeg vil tælle stjernerne" ("I Will Count the Stars") – This lullaby was written in 1951 by the Danish poet and writer Halfdan Rasmussen (1915–2002). Rasmussen had written numerous rhymes and jingles, some of which are still being used in Danish beginner classes in public schools (e.g. the picture book "Halfdans ABC"). This lullaby's music was composed by Hans Dalgaard (1919–81). The song is a simple story of a child who tries to count the stars with his/her fingers and toes.

Dutch
"Slaap kindje slaap" – The text is mostly chosen for its rhyme. Sleep, little child, sleep. Outside a sheep is walking. A sheep with white feet, it drinks its milk so sweet.

"Maantje tuurt, maantje gluurt" – Older Dutch lullaby. Look the moon peeps and spies through the window. Have the children already gone to bed? Yes moon, they're lying in bed. Good, tomorrow will be a new day of playing and learning.

English
Many medieval English verses associated with the birth of Jesus take the form of a lullaby, including "Lullay, my liking, my dere son, my sweting" and may be versions of contemporary lullabies. However, most of those used today date from the seventeenth century onwards. Some of the best known English-language lullabies originate from the US, notably "Bye, baby Bunting" and "Hush, Little Baby".

German
"Der Mond ist aufgegangen" ("The moon has risen"), "Guten Abend, gute Nacht" ("Good evening, good night"), "Weißt du, wie viel Sternlein stehen" ("Do you know how many stars there are?") and "Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf" ("Sleep, dear child, sleep") became widely known in the 18th and 19th century and still are.

Hungarian
The Hungarian words for "lullaby" are altatódal, altató, and bölcsődal. Another, now archaic and little-used word is csucsujgató. In Hungary, lullabies did not develop into an independent genre, and most folk lullabies are from before the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin (honfoglalás). Relatively little foreign impact can be seen in them, but many changes came from their use in schools. A discernable subtype are Mária-énekek, Christmas lullabies sung in the name of Mary, mother of Jesus. Most cradle-songs use ringatószavak that are meaningless, archaic, or come from baby talk, as well as many terms of endearment such as baba, bogárka, csibe, angyal, kedves, rózsabimbó, some of which they share with love songs. They usually have only one verse and short lines.

Irish

 * The Kildare Poems (mid-14th century), among the earliest English language literature in Ireland, include the lullaby Lollai, Lollai, litil child.
 * "I've Found My Bonny Babe a Nest" was published in 1901 by Charles Villiers Stanford; it is believed to be much older.
 * "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That's an Irish Lullaby)" is a famous fictional Irish lullaby, written in 1913 by the Irish-American composer James Royce Shannon.
 * "Whisht Wee Bairn" ('be quiet, small child') is an Ulster Scots lullaby.
 * "Seoithín Seothó" (Hushaby, Hush; also spelled Seó hín seó, Shoheen Sho) is a noted Irish language lullaby.
 * In 1999, Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin produced an album of Irish lullabies (in English and Irish), entitled An Irish Lullaby.

Russian
"Cossack Lullaby" is a cradle song which Russian writer and poet Mikhail Lermontov transcribed from a Terek Cossack woman's singing in Ossetia in the 19th century.

Scottish
There are many lullabies in Scottish song tradition, with well-known examples in Scottish Gaelic, Scots and English. They include songs which express emotions other than affection for the child – notably "Griogal Cridhe", which commemorates the beheading of Gregor Roy MacGregor by his father-in-law, Campbell of Glenlyon and brother-in-law in 1570 and "Hishie Ba" which may refer to a gang assault. A number of traditional lullabies also express social issues and this has been continued in modern lullaby writing in Scotland, notably Jim MacLean's "Smile in Your Sleep" (also known as "Hush, Hush, Time to Be Sleeping"), Matt McGinn's "Miner's Lullaby" (also known as "Coorie Doon") and Karine Polwart's "Baleerie Baloo". Christina Stewart's kist o dreams project provides a resource of over 30 Scottish lullabies, ranging from Doric Scots of the North East, to Northern Isles dialect of Shetland, Scottish Gaelic and English language examples.

Ukrainian
Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon (The Dream Passes by the Window) is from Ukraine.

Welsh
The oldest known Welsh-language lullaby is "Dinogad's Smock" (Peis Dinogat; Pais Dinogad). Although the lullaby is preserved in the 13th century Book of Aneirin, its unusual linguistics suggest the original lullaby may have been composed in Common Brittonic a language spoken across the island of Britain until the 6th century AD. The lullaby also gives an insight into the Gododdin a Celtic culture of northern England and southern Scotland, as well as linguistic evidence for features of the extinct Cumbric language. It has also been used to provide evidence of the fauna of central Britain during this period and the late survival of the Eurasian Lynx in Britain.

Another traditional Welsh lullaby "Suo Gân" gained popularity in the late twentieth century. Although the earliest prints date from around 1800, new arrangements of the lullaby have been performed and recorded by artists from around the world as well as featuring in Hollywood films (Empire of the Sun), anime (Black Butler) and computer games (The Maid of Sker). Suo Gân's distinctive tune has also been repurposed for several Christian hymns.

Australia
"Curly Headed Babby" (also known as "Lula Lula Lula Lula Bye Bye") was composed by George H. Clutsam in 1897. It was made famous through a recording by Paul Robeson.

New Zealand
"Hine E Hine" is a Māori lullaby written by Te Rangi Pai in 1907.

title: Lullaby


text:
Talk:Lists of Jews

Are the Jews a religious group?
Is there a similar list about christian, muslim and hindi people? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.224.176.181 (talk • contribs) 22:38, 27 November 2005.
 * There is a misunderstanding here, Jewish is not just a religion it is an ethnicity too, and yes there are many lists for other ethnicities such as African Americans etc. Arniep 23:02, 27 November 2005 (UTC) (But unlike African Americans, Jews are not differentiated by how they look--but by their religion or identification with history. So many people who are descended from Jews do not identify with the religion or history--or are even "anti-semitic". So can they be classified as Jews, if they don't see themselves as Jews? No. So adding them to a list of Jews is a somewhat like the Nazis classifying every person who has a bit of what they called "Jewish blood" (of course nonesense) as Jewish! If anything this page is an attempt at guessing the religious beliefs or traditions of famous personalities!)
 * There are lists for EVERY major American ethnicity. If there weren't before than there sure are now, I've spent the last few months adding any absent ones. There are also lists and categories for all religions.Vulturell 23:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Jews as an ethnicity are long extinct, all trace their ancestry to Europe, and no relation to ancient kingdom of israel. 2A00:23CC:B589:EF01:5CC0:E2C2:7804:9E62 (talk) 02:57, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Arniep and Vulturel. Reminds me, I created from scratch a list of persons from a similar ethnicity, the Druze. The list is in Dutch: Lijst_van_bekende_Druzen (I see that someone vandalised it). I will see if I can find time to translate it to English. 22:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't Forget Hefner's GF: Barbie Benton (Born Barbara Kline)
It is incompatible with law of many countries to have a list of people.--Nixer 18:59, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Which law? In which countries? And have you noticed the message at the top that previous attempts to delete this have failed? JFW | T@lk  08:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

 * It's probably pointless to say this, but I agree that these lists should be deleted. I find them deeply problematic, ranging from there being no agreed or consistent definition; to identifying people as Jews who may not see themselves as Jews and who no one else may see as a Jew either; and then there's the issue that for some of the names on these lists, the only online sources are Stormfront, Islamist sites and Wikipedia mirrors, which I think should make us question what we're doing. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Having a few LIMITED lists of VERY famous Jews is interesting and acceptable when restricted to such individuals as people of Jewish ancestry that had won Nobel Prizes. But over the past year, these lists and categories of Jews have gotten crazily out of hand, and may even pose a danger to living (allegedly "Jewish") people on them when put into the wrong hands. The vast majority of Wikipedia lists and categories of Jews are not of any encyclopedic or of scholarly value and on the whole the total project of collecting names of Jews seems like a violation of No original research. Finally, and here is one of the great dangers posed by these lists and categories of Jews, is that Wikipedia is not and should not appear to be in the same "line of business" of the abominable Jew Watch hate site. IZAK 04:08, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, EVERY SINGLE ONE of the many ethnicity-based lists here would be a violation of No original research, but of course no one here would ever care to bring up any similar concerns on List of Italian Americans or List of Norwegian-Americans. Same old, same old. Vulturell 04:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Vulturell: Jews are different. They are both a religion and an "ethnicity" (compare the Jew and Judaism articles), and they have been the victims of ongoings persecutions for most of their history (or do you deny that?). You do seem to denigrate ("Same old, same old" are your words) and deliberately ignore the fact that, unfortunately, historically Jews have been victims of genocidal Anti-Semitism as in the Holocaust when being identified as a Jew, no matter how remotely, could result in a death sentence (or do you wish to ignore and belittle that as well?) That is why Jew Watch is so obnoxious and dangerous. This matter is of particular concern to any people who are alive and find themslves on lists or categories that they may not want to be on. There are some pretty nasty debates going on about similar and related issues right now on Wikipedia concerning people who do not wish to have articles about them published on Wikipedia, so I wouldn't poo-poo it so quickly if I were you. IZAK 06:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, of course part of my point is we have many religion-based lists too, etc. etc. i.e. List_of_Catholic_American_Actors, etc. etc. So, your point here was, that basically we should delete the List of Jews and keep every other ethnicity and religion based list? Not a valid point. Armenians were slaughtered in the millions about a hundred years ago, no one is complaining about List of Armenians. Oh, and for the lovva, don't follow the cliche and go around reverting every one of my edits (well, every one that had to do with this subject matter, as per usual). Anyway, frankly, I'm not going to get involved in this discussion again. I am in sincere doubt that there is anything we could possibly say to each other that we both don't already know. Counter-productive. Thank you for your vote on the Somerhalder hoax, btw, I can't believe it was on here for three months without anyone noticing. I guess people were too busy debating this endless topic. Vulturell 06:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I find this list useful in the scholarly sense. I think this list exist for many other groups so a list for outstanding Jewish individuals is not exceptional. Jews are overly paranoid about everything even though they run all major institutions from banks, universities, to political parties. To all my Jewish friends: don't be so paranoid and people won't hate you.

Excessive Categorization
1) Fact: From previous discussions we have seen that some people do not want others to view a list of Jews. 2) Assuming that if I was that person who did not want people to view such list of Jews, I might find it strategic to break up the list into excessive categories. This way my audience couldn't view a SIMPLE LIST OF JEWS. 3) So I believe we must also make a list of Jews categorized by ALPHABETICAL ORDER RATHER THAN, OR IN ADDITION TO, CATEGORIZATION BY PROFESSION. Why should we unecessarily force readers to know an attribute about the Jew (like profession) and subsequently FORCE THEM TO ISOLATE ALL OTHER JEWS?

PLEASE MAKE NECESSARY CHANGES

Delete these lists
We should delete this because this is ovious racism. It is incompatible with law of many countries.--Nixer 18:59, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Which law? In which countries? And have you noticed the message at the top that previous attempts to delete this have failed? JFW | T@lk  08:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

 * It's probably pointless to say this, but I agree that these lists should be deleted. I find them deeply problematic, ranging from there being no agreed or consistent definition; to identifying people as Jews who may not see themselves as Jews and who no one else may see as a Jew either; and then there's the issue that for some of the names on these lists, the only online sources are Stormfront, Islamist sites and Wikipedia mirrors, which I think should make us question what we're doing. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Having a few LIMITED lists of VERY famous Jews is interesting and acceptable when restricted to such individuals as people of Jewish ancestry that had won Nobel Prizes. But over the past year, these lists and categories of Jews have gotten crazily out of hand, and may even pose a danger to living (allegedly "Jewish") people on them when put into the wrong hands. The vast majority of Wikipedia lists and categories of Jews are not of any encyclopedic or of scholarly value and on the whole the total project of collecting names of Jews seems like a violation of No original research. Finally, and here is one of the great dangers posed by these lists and categories of Jews, is that Wikipedia is not and should not appear to be in the same "line of business" of the abominable Jew Watch hate site. IZAK 04:08, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, EVERY SINGLE ONE of the many ethnicity-based lists here would be a violation of No original research, but of course no one here would ever care to bring up any similar concerns on List of Italian Americans or List of Norwegian-Americans. Same old, same old. Vulturell 04:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Vulturell: Jews are different. They are both a religion and an "ethnicity" (compare the Jew and Judaism articles), and they have been the victims of ongoings persecutions for most of their history (or do you deny that?). You do seem to denigrate ("Same old, same old" are your words) and deliberately ignore the fact that, unfortunately, historically Jews have been victims of genocidal Anti-Semitism as in the Holocaust when being identified as a Jew, no matter how remotely, could result in a death sentence (or do you wish to ignore and belittle that as well?) That is why Jew Watch is so obnoxious and dangerous. This matter is of particular concern to any people who are alive and find themslves on lists or categories that they may not want to be on. There are some pretty nasty debates going on about similar and related issues right now on Wikipedia concerning people who do not wish to have articles about them published on Wikipedia, so I wouldn't poo-poo it so quickly if I were you. IZAK 06:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, of course part of my point is we have many religion-based lists too, etc. etc. i.e. List_of_Catholic_American_Actors, etc. etc. So, your point here was, that basically we should delete the List of Jews and keep every other ethnicity and religion based list? Not a valid point. Armenians were slaughtered in the millions about a hundred years ago, no one is complaining about List of Armenians. Oh, and for the lovva, don't follow the cliche and go around reverting every one of my edits (well, every one that had to do with this subject matter, as per usual). Anyway, frankly, I'm not going to get involved in this discussion again. I am in sincere doubt that there is anything we could possibly say to each other that we both don't already know. Counter-productive. Thank you for your vote on the Somerhalder hoax, btw, I can't believe it was on here for three months without anyone noticing. I guess people were too busy debating this endless topic. Vulturell 06:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Trouble
For anyone seriously working on this page - please check out Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession. User:IZAK is rallying to mass-delete these lists, so feel free to vote if you've worked on them and want them kept (or even if you haven't worked on them and want them kept). Vulturell 20:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Ive noticed these lists don't include (in)famous criminals, perverts, traitors, etc. Bugsy Segal of the Jewish Mafia for example. I haven't looked to see if there are lists of famous terrorists of various races, religions or nationalities. But all these bad guys should be included according to our neutrality & balance & "due weight" rules. Fourtildas 06:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand this comment. Bugsy Siegel and others are on List of Jewish-American mobsters. The trouble with a list of terrorists is that you'd never get consensus on who is a terrorist.--20.138.246.89 10:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

where are the famous jews in economics? that's probably a big missing subpoint? Or are you afraid to take it into the listing?

My revert
I just reverted Sheynhertz-Unbayg's edit by mistake, so I reverted myself, without commenting on whether I think the edits were good or bad, because I've no idea. Sorry for any confusion. SlimVirgin (talk) 10:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Salam/Sholom
Guys, i need help: Articles for deletion/Muslim politicians

Articles for deletion/Muslim athletes

Lets stop this anti-list deletion trend, before all lists are consumed.

Peace!

--Striver 04:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

If you're so against the "anti-list deletion trend" why do you keep on nominating this page for deletion, without any warranted reason? I suggest basing your wikipedia actions on what you actually think should or shouldn't be included, not your quest of veangance after someone nominated Lists of Muslims for deletion. Yid613 08:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It is perfectly legal to AFD a article witout supporting its deletion. Or did you just made up a new rule? I have even AFD my own new articles that i knew where controversial, just to get it overwith. AFD is a disscussion, and i want that disscution to involve this article as well. user CltFn wanted this SPECIFIC article deleted and so did even the nominator it self, for a while! Dont delet tags in mid afd, that is a violation. --Striver 11:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Further, that AFD does, due the the choice of the nominator, include several lists from several different beliefs--Striver 11:19, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Umm, an article being "controversial" does not mean that there are grounds for deletion. I suggest you read up on wikipedia policy again. Yid613 18:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

This article has been nominated for deletion as retribution for another AfD nomination. This is in violation of Wikipedia guideline don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Weregerbil 13:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Jewish American Linguists
How is this list RELEVANT to this index? It belongs in the List of Jewish Americans index. This an index for non-nation-tied Jewish lists - thats for List of Jews by country. Same theory goes behind the Israeli list - it is inappropriate here, especially considering not all Israeli are Jewish.

The following is to help User:Newport understand the changes that have been made. Wikipedia lists are usually indexes. In the case of Jewish lists, there are two separate indexes:

 * List of Jews by country
 * List of Jews (by occupation)

List of Jewish American linguists ..I'm not sure how anyone can confuse this... belongs quite clearly in List of Jewish Americans, which is part of List of Jews by country.

While the Israeli list is totally inappropriate here because not all Israelis are Jews. It would be the equivalent of adding a List of Brooklynites to List of Jews. Put the Israeli list in another index - most clearly: List of Israelis.

72.144.183.163 15:54, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

 * What Wikipedia policy or even statement in this article requires it to be just a List of Jews by occupation? This list is a guidepost to people exploring lists of Jews.  Will the deletions make the list more useful?  If anyone can show that they do, then by all means let's make the deletions.--Newport 11:33, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Why does "List of Jewish American linguists" get to be here but not "List of Jewish American architects." Why are you so pointlessly stubborn about this? What harm does it do to put "List of Jewish American linguists" in its rightful place: List of Jewish Americans? I have no idea why you keep re-miscategorizing it.

Also from what I looked at, list of fictitious Jews has the whole List of Jewish superheroes inside of it.....hence the redirect. Why are you continuously making two different pages for the same material?

 * If anyone think the List of Jewish American architects should be here, please add it. The linguists is a side issue; other entries are repeatedly being deleted for unexplained reasons.  The issue is whether these deletions make the article more useful; I have seen no evidence for that contention. --Newport 11:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Category
I noticed that this list was up for deletion almost a year ago. While my personal view point thinks that listing people by religion or birth place is moot point for an encyclopaedia, i feel that a list like this can be a useful "tool" while navigating wikipedia. The problem is, wikipedia is not supposed to be a collection of lists. Wouldn't this list be much better as a category? Same with list of christians, catholics, italian americans etc. I mean, honestly, is this list really necessary when we have categories? Masterhatch 20:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone really say that this article List of Jewish American historians wouldn't be better off as a category? Doesn't this article List of Jewish historians and this category cancel each other out? Aren't they redundant? Masterhatch 20:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

What? Who deleted the article on jewish porn actors and actresses?

adding a list
List of High Priests of Israel is a list of Jews, should it be added? Jon513 11:46, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * ✅. -- -- -- 23:36, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Lists of people by nationality
This article includes lists of people by nationality. e.g. List of British Jews.--Runcorn 20:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Lists of Jews...LOL!
hahahaha, sorry, i'm not a racist, but i find this list pretty funny XD
 * Wait'll you see the next article, Lists of people who find lists of Jews funny.Gzuckier 14:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Come on, Gzuckier. Lots of Jews (and Gentiles) get nervous when long lists of Jews start to get drawn up. I'm sure you can figure out why--though that's not a reason for eliminating such a list, of course.

LIST OF JEWS??? Give me a break!

Jewish Nobel Laureates
Why has the list of Jewish Nobel Laureates been deleted? Phtran72 00:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

 * I second that - why has that list been deleted? Is it unreasonable for me to want to find out accomplishments of people from my religious/ethnic group?:: Monitorer 10:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

 * It appears that the list of Jewish Nobel Laureates was deleted during a mass deletion of lists of Christian/Muslim/Atheist/Humanist/Hindu Nobel Laureates. Reasons given were that Nobel prizes are not awarded on the basis of religion, and that there is no obvious connection between a Laureate's work and her religion.  My objections are, firstly, Jews are more an ethnicity than a religious grouping.  And, secondly, it is precisely because of the assumption that there is no connection between being Jewish and winning Nobel prizes that the List of Jewish Nobel Laureates should be kept, since it completely shatters that assumption.  If being Jewish is not a factor in winning Nobel Prizes, then why do Jews make up 20-25% of Nobel Laureates despite being just 0.2% of the world's population?  (I hope I'm remembering those numbers correctly.)  This is a very interesting fact that should be documented, as it is the focus of much debate and scholarship. Phtran72 12:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not sure what was happening in 2007, but I restored the wikilink to List of Jewish Nobel laureates.  Blue Rasberry  00:47, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Jewish Jewelers
Hey I think its a great idea to add a section dedicated to Jewish Jewelers. There are many prominent Jewish Jewelers out there; enough to make a whole sction about. Im new to wikipedia but I think someone with more knowledge can create this.Levi Seigel (talk) 02:27, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Lol. Wouldn't hurt to have one I suppose. They make quality jewelry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.109.147.100 (talk) 05:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

AfD
I've nominated List of former Jews, List of former Christians, and List of former Muslims together for deletion: Articles for deletion/List of former Jews.Kitfoxxe (talk) 17:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Video Games Designers/Producers etc.

 * Ken Levine (2K Boston)
 * Jason Rubine (Naughty Dog)
 * Irving Bromberg (SEGA)
 * Michael Kogan (Taito)
 * Jordan Weisman
 * Jordan Mechner
 * Ken Silverman
 * Ralph H. Baer
 * Doug Lowenstein —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.49.249.248 (talk) 23:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Req: Move
Does anyone else think this article should be moved to "List of Notable Jews". Seeing a link to "List of Jews" was a little strange for me (i'm sorry if this has been discussed before, I didn't see any other topics that IMMIEDIETLY looked like they were regarding the name). 30daysinAKK (talk) 02:51, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You miss the point. It would be redundant in terms of Wikipedia policies to add the word "Notable". The list is automatically understood to be of notable Jews only because non-notable personalities and subjects are not considered for inclusion and are deleted on Wikipedia. IZAK (talk) 06:39, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Aint these lists kind of racist?
I know this has been pointed out (many times) before, but why a list of e.g. Hispanic baseball players would be pointless and kind of racist, but these are not? Can't see any difference... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.148.214.126 (talk • contribs) 12:15, 9 December 2013
 * I tend to agree. Beyond that, they're useless lists.  Toddst1 (talk) 14:12, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No. Wikipedia has the exact same pages for Lists of Muslims, List of Hindus, and others, and there are even some lists of Hisanics as well. So there's also this one, and nothing is racist about it whatsoever, and, of course, it's only your own opinion which thinks the page is pointless. Keep in mind that any person can be a Jew either by convertion, religion, or just ethnicity. -Shalom11111 (talk) 19:16, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I see: WP:OSE. Toddst1 (talk) 00:24, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think these lists are important because they help us take care of orphaned articles. So, if the subject of the orphaned article is a Jew, just add his name to the appropriate list of Jews; if he's a Muslim, add him to the list of Muslims, and so on. -- -- -- 07:58, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * P.S. I also don't see why they would be considered racist. -- -- -- 08:00, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

title: Talk:Lists of Jews