text:
Salt lake

A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per litre). In some cases, salt lakes have a higher concentration of salt than sea water; such lakes can also be termed hypersaline lakes, and may also be pink lakes on account of their colour. An alkalic salt lake that has a high content of carbonate is sometimes termed a soda lake.

One saline lake classification differentiates between: Large saline lakes make up 44% of the volume and 23% of the area of lakes worldwide.
 * subsaline: 0.5–3‰ (0.05-0.3%)
 * hyposaline: 3–20‰ (0.3-2%)
 * mesosaline: 20–50‰ (2-5%)
 * hypersaline: greater than 50‰ (5%)

Properties
Salt lakes form when the water flowing into the lake, containing salt or minerals, cannot leave because the lake is endorheic (terminal). The water then evaporates, leaving behind any dissolved salts and thus increasing its salinity, making a salt lake an excellent place for salt production. High salinity can also lead to halophilic flora and fauna in and around the lake; sometimes, in fact, the result may be an absence or near absence of multicellular life in the salt lake.

If the amount of water flowing into a lake is less than the amount evaporated, the lake will eventually disappear and leave a dry lake (also called playa or salt flat).

Brine lakes consist of water that has reached salt saturation or near saturation (brine), and may also be heavily saturated with other materials.

Most brine lakes develop as a result of high evaporation rates in an arid climate with a lack of an outlet to the ocean. The high salt content in these bodies of water may come from minerals deposited from the surrounding land. Another source for the salt may be that the body of water was formerly connected to the ocean. While the water evaporates from the lake, the salt remains. Eventually, the body of water will become brine.

Because of the density of brine, swimmers are more buoyant in brine than in fresh or ordinary salt water. Examples of such brine lakes are the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake.

Bodies of brine may also form on the ocean floor at cold seeps. These are sometimes called brine lakes, but are more frequently referred to as brine pools. It is possible to observe waves on the surface of these bodies.

Man-made bodies of brine are created for edible salt production. These can be referred to as brine ponds.

Threats and global decline
Saline lakes are declining worldwide on every continent except Antarctica, mainly due to human causes, such as damming, diversions, and withdrawals. One of the largest factors causing this decline is agricultural irrigation. Among the most commonly cited examples is the Aral Sea, which has shrunk 90% in volume and 74% in area, which is mainly because of irrigation.

Another anthropogenic threat is climate change. Human-caused climate change is increasing temperature in many arid regions, drying soil, increasing evaporation, and reducing inflows to saline lakes.

Decline of saline lakes leads to many environmental problems, including human problems, such as toxic dust storms and air pollution, disrupted local water cycles, economic losses, loss of ecosystems, and more. It can even be more costly. For example, in the case of the decline of Owens Lake, dust stirred up from the dry lakebed has led to air quality higher than allowed by US-air quality standards. This has resulted in the city of Los Angeles spending $3.6 billion over the next 25 years to mitigate dust from the desiccated lakebed, which is more than the value of the diverted water.

Solutions to the decline of saline lakes can be multifaceted, and include water conservation and water budgeting, and mitigating climate change.

List
Note: Some of the following are also partly fresh and/or brackish water.

 * Aral Sea
 * Aralsor
 * Aydar Lake
 * Bakhtegan Lake
 * Caspian Sea
 * Chilika Lake
 * Chott el Djerid
 * Dabusun Lake
 * Dead Sea
 * Devil's Lake
 * Don Juan Pond
 * Garabogazköl
 * Goose Lake
 * Great Salt Lake
 * Grevelingen
 * Laguna Colorada
 * Laguna Verde
 * Lake Abert
 * Lake Alakol
 * Lake Assal
 * Lake Balkhash
 * Lake Barlee
 * Lake Baskunchak
 * Lake Bumbunga
 * Lake Enriquillo
 * Lake Elton
 * Lake Eyre
 * Lake Gairdner
 * Lake Hillier
 * Lake Karum
 * Lake Mackay
 * Lake Natron
 * Lake Paliastomi
 * Lake Pontchartrain
 * Lake Texoma
 * Lake Torrens
 * Lake Tuz
 * Lake Tyrrell
 * Lake Urmia
 * Lake Van
 * Lake Vanda
 * Larnaca Salt Lake
 * Little Manitou Lake
 * Lough Hyne
 * Lonar Lake
 * Maharloo Lake
 * Mar Chiquita Lake
 * Mono Lake
 * Nam Lake
 * Pangong Lake
 * Pulicat Lake
 * Qarhan Playa
 * Redberry Lake
 * Salton Sea
 * Sambhar Salt Lake
 * Sarygamysh Lake
 * Sawa Lake
 * Siling Lake
 * South Hulsan Lake
 * Sutton Salt Lake
 * Uvs Lake

title: Salt lake


text:
Talk:Classical language

Untitled
Objectives
 * Give an accurate understanding of classical languages
 * Give an up-to-date list of the number of classical languages — Preceding unsigned comment added by Avedeus (talk • contribs) 23:22, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Malayalam as a classical language?

 * Has not been officially declared yet
 * Will not be in the Antiquity category, there are only two ancient classical languages of India: Sanskrit and Tamil
 * During the Sangam era, there was little differentiation between Dravidian languages, much less Tamil and Malayalam.

Please discuss further. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Avedeus (talk • contribs) 23:22, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Tamil the only true classical and totally Indian language
Tamil is the first legally recognized Classical Language of India, as formally announced by the then President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament in 2004. The name ‘Tamil’ is an Anglicized version of the native name, the final letter usually transcribed as the lower ‘l’ or ‘zh’.

A few scholars have linked the origins of Tamil to that of Sanskrit; however, unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, the origins of Tamil are independent of Sanskrit. Tamil has the longest unbroken literary tradition amongst the 4 major Dravidian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam).
 * Origins:

Tamil tradition dates the oldest works to several millennia ago; the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have today are in inscriptions from the 3rd century BC, which are written in an adapted form of the Brahmi script (Mahadevan, 2003). Archaeological evidence obtained from inscriptions excavated in 2005 dates the language to around 1000 BC.

Tamil has had its share of borrowing words from other languages, notably that of Sanskrit words during the medieval period. This was, however, removed by many 20th century purists, notably Parithimaar Kalaignar and Maraimalai Adigal. This movement was called ‘thanith thamizh iyakkam’ (meaning, pure Tamil movement). Tamil, thus, in formal documents, public speeches and scientific discourses is largely free of Sanskrit loan words.

While other pre-Aryan languages were happily courting Sanskrit and Prakrit (600 BC-600AD), Old Tamil stood firm in its corner refusing to yield.

Tamil is the official language of the state of ‘Tamil Nadu’ in India. It is also widely spoken in other southern Indian states, the Union Territory of Pudhucherry, North east Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
 * Where Tamil is spoken:

Twently-two current dialects of ‘Tamil’ are listed in ‘The Ethnologue’ which include Adi Dravida, Aiyar, Aiyangar, Arava, Burgandi, Kasuva, Kongar, Korava, Korchi, Madrasi, Parikala, Pattapu Bhasha, Sri Lanka Tamil, Malaya Tamil, Burma Tamil, South Africa Tamil, Tigalu, Harijan, Sankethi, Hebbar, Tirunelveli and Madurai. Other known dialects are Kongu and Kumari. Although not a dialect, the Tamil spoken in Chennai (capital of Tamil Nadu) infuses English words and is called ‘Madras Bashai’.
 * Dialects of the Language and where they are Spoken:

One of the most notable literary and ethical treatises in the Indian languages, Thirukkural, is written by Thiruvalluvar. There is a general consensus among the historians and literary authorities that Thirukkural was written around 2000 years ago.
 * Thirukkural:

Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Laureate, notes that, “There hardly exists in the literature of the world a collection of maxims in which we find such lofty wisdom as in Thirukkural”

Dr. G. U. Pope, a Christian Missionary and Translator of Thirukkural in English writes, “The Kural is an integral painting of a civilization which is harmonious in itself and which possesses a clearly recognizable unity."

India’s father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, notes, “I wanted to learn Tamil, only to enable me to study Valluvar’s Thirukkural through his mother tongue itself…. It is a treasure of wisdom…”

Classical Hebrew terms like tuki and ahalat are close to the Tamil words tokai and akil respectively. Although English words like 'sandalwood' and 'rice' are borrowed from the Greek language, their origin, some claim, is in fact Tamil.
 * Interesting Facts about the Language:

Even the minutest of fractions have a place in ‘Tamil’ language. Some interesting examples include the term immi referred to the fraction of 1/320 x 1/7, one-seventh of this fraction termed as anu, one-eleventh of an anu as mummi and one ninth of a mummi as kuNam.

The Tamil speaking people in the state of ‘Tamil Nadu’ in India are very passionate about their language, and feel that if Hindi, the national language of India, enters their land, their classical language and ancient culture/tradition would be no more, citing cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad where the native language is rendered nearly auxiliary.
 * Tamil’s Love for the Language:

In an address in 1962, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, C N Annadurai, made the following statements opposing imposition of Hindi: "It is claimed that Hindi should be common language (in India) because it is spoken by the majority. Why should we then claim the tiger as our national animal instead of the rat which is so much more numerous? Or the peacock as our national bird when the crow is ubiquitous?”

Annadurai kept up the rhetoric in Parliament, saying, "Since every school in India teaches English, why can't it be our link language? Why do Tamils have to study English for communication with the world and Hindi for communication within India? Do we need a big door for the big dog and a small door for the small dog? I say, let the small dog use the big door too!"

The language issue still evokes strong passions among Tamils and the words of Annadurai are fondly remembered.

University of California, Berkeley, holds a ‘Tamil’ Conference annually. Its Chair in Tamil Studies, Prof. George L. Hart, writes, “To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own and not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature. Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these requirements. It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient literature is indescribably vast and rich.” —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.195.13.109 (talk) 07:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * On Why Tamil is a Classical Language:

 * However: 1) Linguists don't change their views as a result of political declarations by parliaments.  2) Please don't use any of the above as a basis for putting Tamil before Sanskrit on the list.  As has been discussed at extreme length in the archives, the views of scholars would have to change substantially before Tamil could be placed before Sanskrit on the list. AnonMoos (talk) 10:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That being said, Tamil grammar treatise, Tolkappiyam's oldest estimate is older than Panini's treatise on Sanskrit grammar. Furthermore, the classicist nature of Tamil, although recognised by political means, still has extensive support of linguists worldwide. --Avedeus (talk) 12:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

2017
Tamil was oldest surviving classical language. Oldest Tamil inscription dated 540 BCE. So Tamil was one of the ancient classical languages of the world.

Other dravidian languages came from Proto-dravidian. But one Language was closer to Proto-dravidian Language. So we can see Tamil was the Proto Dravidian Language.

Tholkappiyam was second Sangam literature. That was also used in third Sangam. Parun3247 (talk) 08:14, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Tamil has more specialities than Sanskrit. Oldest Tamili (Tamil Brahmi ) inscription founded in Porunthal near Palani. That was older than Ashokan brahmi, That was scientifically Proved. Parun3247 (talk) 08:17, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

 * Unfortunately, reputable scholarly sources date the beginning of Tamil literature more like 200 B.C. Since alphabetic writing was introduced to India through the northwest (Punjab etc.), I really don't know why Tamil would be expected to be the first language to be written. AnonMoos (talk) 22:43, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

2018
Oldest Sanskrit inscription dated 1st Century CE! But Sangam literatures like Purananooru dated 400 BCE! First of all Sanskrit ddon't have own script! Oldest Tamil Brahmi inscription found in porunthal and adhichanallur. Those are older than ashokan Brahmi! Ok we will prove that! Parun3247 (talk) 14:55, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

 * As discussed extensively in the talk page archives of this article, Brahmin priests of the 500 B.C. to early A.D. period didn't think that writing was important, and were sometimes actively opposed to writing down sacred scriptures, since they were worried it might undermine their oral culture. Sanskrit doesn't have an alphabet, since it was written with each of the regional alphabets in just about every region of India.  Tamil has an alphabet because it was spoken in one region... AnonMoos (talk) 05:20, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Where is German?
Why is German not listed as a classical language when it is just as old as Celtic and others, even in the formalized sense? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.0.209.200 (talk) 02:56, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

 * Old High German could qualify or come close to qualifying, I guess (not sure what the consensus of scholars is)... AnonMoos (talk) 20:37, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Heavily POV
I've re-edited it, and hope I don't get hate messages. Quite frankly, this list is becoming dumb. Most of the first couple of columns make at least some sense, but then it goes awry. Let us stick to the extremely sensible definition given at the top, and keep to a reasonable definition of 'ancient' - Icelandic (Old Norse still, really, at that stage) and Gaelic are pushing it, and Quechua, Nahuatl should not be there (Quechua was not even written except by the colonisers), and K'iche' and Tupi are just ridiculous. English and Ottoman Turkish should not be there either. This should be languages USUALLY regarded as having had a classical stage - and references, people! If you include them, Old High German should indeed be there, but this will just snowball - what about (gasp!) French, Early Modern Portuguese, Korean, Zulu, Maori, Cree, !Xoon... or every language once spoken by man. And please, don't politicise this - Tamil has every right to be there, and arguably Telugu and Kannada too... but Malayalam no, for the reasons given at the top, and let's not 'rank' languages beyond this based on some stupid North India-South India spat. And don't let this be a forum for people with some obsessively anti-colonial chip-on-the-shoulder axe to grind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harsimaja (talk • contribs) 03:26, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

2014

 * Yep, the list is pretty ridiculous and obviously driven by nationalist POV – everybody wants their language as a classical language on the list. Despite the "Classical" label in "Classical Gaelic", Old Irish fits the idea of classical language much better than "Classical Gaelic"/"Classical Irish" (terms not familiar to me from Celtology), and Classical Mongolian, although not an ancient language, is ignored completely...
 * A reasonable method would be to prune the list and require citations for entries: only languages and stages described as "classical" in a reliable source should be admitted. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:18, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

 * An anonymous IP has been adding a lot of entries over the past few months. There may be lax criteria, but there's a lack of single-topic nationalistic tendentious editing of the type which usually creates controversy on this article, so I've been letting them stay in.  See this diff to get some idea of the changes... AnonMoos (talk) 04:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

 * If you pay attention to the quite specific criteria at the beginning of the article – it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own, not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature –, Old Saxon definitely does not fit them, as it is almost a fragmentarily attested language (Trümmersprache); apart from the Heliand and Genesis, its monuments are small, consisting of short texts. It is best described as a "small corpus language" (Kleinkorpussprache). Old High German is better attested, but the corpus is still quite limited. Only Old English comes close to the definition, if we are generous. Really, if a language (or language stage) is never really referred to as "Classical [language]" in the first place, it's dubious, as a good rule of thumb. "Classical Hungarian" and "Classical Icelandic" are misleading, and I think these entries are BS, but Early Modern Spanish is sometimes referred to as "Classical Spanish" and associated with a "Golden Age", which makes it an arguable example (even if it is not exactly an ancient language); the same for Early Modern French, though these are so modern it's still a stretch. Not every non-contemporary language (or language stage) with a not entirely insignificant corpus is a classical language, unless you wish to declare pretty much every written and significantly standardised (nor tiny) language current in the 18th/19th century classical, which makes the term pretty meaningless – and, significantly, incompatible with the criteria mentioned in the article itself, which are nowhere near this lax. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The influence of petty nationalism can seen in the separate listing of Old East Slavic, Old Ruthenian, Old Bulgarian, Middle Bulgarian and Old Serbian. These are only slightly differing national standards ("redactions"). Church Slavonic in general, on the other hand, is a reasonable candidate for "classical" status. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:48, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

 * That said, I still think the list is of interest; certainly the listed languages can be said to fulfil analogous roles in their respective literary and cultural traditions to that played, for example, by Classical Greek in the Greek, of Classical Arabic in the Arabic, and of Classical Chinese in the Chinese tradition. Still, I don't feel comfortable dubbing them "classical languages". For example, Middle Scots plays an analogous role in the history of Scots too, but would anyone call Middle Scots a classical language? Hardly. And how can English have as many as three classical stages, including two separate medieval classical stages? The Old English corpus isn't all that large, and the Middle English one isn't either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:42, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

 * Probably a lot of them are literary norms rather than true classical languages. (For example, many Old English scribes who did not speak a West Saxon dialect nevertheless attempted to write in the West Saxon literary norm, which could be considered the quasi-"standard" form of Old English, or the closest thing to a standard which existed at that time.) Maybe if we had a Literary norm article, many could be moved over there...? -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

 * I think that to some extent this kind of languages do fulfil a role that could be called classical – Middle Scots is a "flowering" period following the formative Early Scots period and preceding the increasingly English-influenced Modern Scots period, and it is now looked towards as exemplary within the Scots tradition, so you could speak of "Classical Scots". However, it fits neither of the criteria set out by Hart, and neither do "Classical" Icelandic or "Classical" Catalan. I don't think that "literary norm" quite conveys the intended concept – Old Icelandic, Old Catalan, Old/Middle English and Middle Scots aren't particularly uniform at all (unlike Old Irish, for example, at least dialectally, though not so much in spelling). However, regrettably, I can't come up with anything better, either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:09, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

 * Old Icelandic was a variant of Old Norse, and could be considered plenty classical as the language of the sagas. "Literary norm" as linguists use it doesn't really mean rigid standardization in the sense of the modern French educational system, but rather a particular dialectal form (or inter-dialectal koine) which attracts speakers of other dialects when writing.  There's a lot of dialectal variation in the attested Old English literary corpus, but nevertheless, during a certain period "West Saxon had become a well-established literary dialect, and was used as something of a standard language" (A Campbell's "Old English Grammar", 1959).  In Middle English, after the early period a form of London-influenced-by-East-Midlands semi-koine gained increasing predominance, etc. etc. AnonMoos (talk) 07:24, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

2020
"Literary norm" was a redlink when the discussion above took place, but now it links to Linguistic norm. It might be a good idea to transfer languages which are not truly classical to that article... AnonMoos (talk) 22:40, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Languages of India, yet again
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages ISBN 0-521-56256-2 has a lot more scholarly credibility than popular newspaper accounts, or people like Devaneya Pavanar. It has articles on all languages with substantial (non-fragmentary) deciphered texts dating from before about 400 AD, and it does not include Telugu or Kannada (which it dates to the 6th century AD). It does include Tamil, but does not assign its codified literary tradition a date anywhere near what people like Devaneya Pavanar claim. Therefore, assigning pre-500 A.D. dates to Telugu or Kannada would be inappropriate, while placing Tamil before Sanskrit is pretty much pure nonsense (as discussed extensively in the archives of this talk page). AnonMoos (talk) 09:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

We created the classical languages of India redirect to take the political flak off this page. However, this is only going ot work if the ethnic bickerers can find this page, so it should be linked from here. "classical language" has become a political red herring in the RoI during the 2000s. This is a topic of Indian ethnic politics and should not interfere with the discussion of "classicity" as used in the various philologies.

We need a zero tolerance on edits concerning Indian politics on this page. The telltale sign is that an entire language will be declared "classical", while in the sense discussed here, "classical" will refer to a certain stage of a language, contrasting with a non-classical stage.

For example, in Indian politics "Tamil is a classical language", while in philology, "classical Tamil" is the language of the early centuries AD, while, it goes without saying, modern Tamil isn't any more "classical" than modern Italian is "classical" because it derives from Latin. --dab (³) 14:04, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

2013
we are not placing tamil's antiquity before sanskrit but there is no doubt about its classical status.I think work of Kamil Zvelebil a scholar of languages is enough for that.Rajasekar3eg (talk) 17:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

 * The first paragraph of the article is not the place to introduce strikingly extravagant claims which go against general linguistic knowledge ("Appalachian Elizabethan English" on steroids). AnonMoos (talk) 20:32, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Its not extravagant at all My linguistic area is in Tamil,Sanskrit,classical Chinese,Latin and epigraphy of Brahmi script .First of list the properties of classical language.then give your opinions.I went through archives its all of silly arguments who don't know anything about these languages.be systematic.your only reference is that encyclopedia which also mentions Tamil's antiquity.Its like arguing about IVS without knowing what is happening in mainstream and concluding by some articles.I never considered devaneya paavanar's work as I know its Fanaticism.As you seem somewhat logical in archive I am asking you give proper explanation of classical language and then argue.But there is no doubt in Tamil's continuity even now people can clearly understand what is in sangam poetry which is old Tamil(whose status you can see in Ethnologue http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=oty) which is not the case of modern Greek and Latin.One thing I don't understand is whether you doubt about Tamil's continuity or its classical status.In first paragraph only that point of dead language is coming that's why wrote it there.How can write somewhere where it won't be appropriate.Rajasekar3eg (talk) 03:51, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

 * I'm reading the pages in a book you used for the reference, it says nothing to support your sensationalist claim. Yes, it can be "the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past", but it's absolutely not what you wrote. For one thing, it specifically limits the area to India, because Greek is just as remarkable, and I've seen similarly unsupported claims of intelligibility. Languages change; Tamil, just like Greek, shows a number of ancient features, but, just like Greek, it changes with time. 178.94.24.207 (talk) 13:19, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

ok.I accept your point.Rajasekar3eg (talk) 14:00, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Rajasekar3eg -- Tamil has not been attested for "3000 years", but less than 2500 years, and it's implausible in the extreme that the ordinary spoken Tamil of today is exactly the same as the literary Tamil of our earliest records, because that's not how linguistic change works. Take the Icelandic language, for example -- on a remote island, a relatively small population with a traditionally high literacy rate has managed to partially preserve the language such that Icelandic speakers of today can still fairly easily read sagas written 800 or 900 years ago. But even in this very special case, the pronunciation of the Icelandic language of today is very different from the pronunciation of the language of 800 or 900 years ago, and the modern language is not really exactly the same as the language of the sagas. Since Tamil does not have the special stabilizing factors of Icelandic, and the time separating modern Tamil from earliest attested Tamil is more than twice as long as that separating modern Icelandic from saga-Icelandic, I find it extremely hard to believe that ordinary spoken Tamil has remained almost exactly the same over the whole long period... AnonMoos (talk) 12:53, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

 * P.S. A Wikipedia article is not allowed to use other Wikipedia articles as formal sources... AnonMoos (talk) 12:55, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I was looking for some information when I happened to browse through the talk page. It's funny to say the least. It seems more like an Indian article than otherwise. I had personally only heard of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Chinese (and sometimes Arabic) as classical languages. This article seems to bordering on the supernatural with so many 'classical languages' and now that I came over to this page, all I see is some sort of linguistic terrorism which explains the pathetic state of the article. '''p.s. Pali and Tamil seem to have exchanged positions since date cited for Pali is earlier but it is shown below Tamil. One of the two should be wrong.''' isoham (talk) 13:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

 * Not sure what you mean -- the "14:12, 27 August 2013" (now current) version of the article does not seem to be dominated by Indian languages. Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Arabic are some of the most prominent "externally classical" languages (i.e. having a broad geographic influence over a long period of time on many who are not native speakers of the language), but many other languages are "internally classical" (having a glorious historical tradition of literature etc.)... AnonMoos (talk) 22:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

 * Nevermind. But, I think my point of languages being out of order still stands. In the next subgroup more than one languages are out of order isoham (talk) 09:54, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

 * I really don't know when to date Pali as a quasi-standardized classical language used for the composition of significant texts, and the Pali article doesn't help too much... AnonMoos (talk) 19:25, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

 * But, what I said is - irrespective of whether we are able to date these languages accurately or not "at times the order of the languages is not the same as the date given for them. e.g. article says that
 * Classical Tamil (Sangam literature c. 2nd century BC to 2nd century AD, defined by Tolkappiyam)[4]
 * Classical Pali (Buddhist Canon used this language from c. 3rd or 2nd centuries BC)

 * But Pali is shown below Tamil. Similarly there are many other similar occurrences in the later period languages. Either the dates should be changed or the order should be changed" isoham (talk) 08:16, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

 * I really don't know or understand enough about the dating of Pali language and literature to feel confident about editing the Pali item in any way, sorry... AnonMoos (talk) 22:34, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Again, there has been rigorous vandalism on this page. A series of edits made by 'Sethu.swaminathan' who seems to be blocked already. I'm quite new to Wikipedia, but this looks extra-ordinary that a website followed worldwide is subject to such means. Meanwhile, I discovered an article more pathetic than this one - 'Agastya'. Almost everything therein is wrong. Should I undo the changes made by 'Sethu.swaminathan' or should this be brought to the notice of a Wikipedia administrator. p.s. both these articles look fit for thorough deletion to me. isoham (talk) 12:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

 * Whatever -- This article has been subject to attempted manipulations by people from India with sub-national nationalism motivations for years, but I don't think that they've shaped the article in any significant way. I'm sorry that the latest attempt was not too quickly reverted, but that's hardly grounds for deletion of the article, and if you nominate it for deletion, I will vigorously oppose. If you found it so offensive, why didn't you revert it yourself??  And article Agastya appears to be about religious legends, so I really don't see what it has in common with this one. AnonMoos (talk) 15:42, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

lol.."If you found it so offensive, why didn't you revert it yourself??". You'd've realised that I had in fact said I was new to Wikipedia and did not know the procedure of dealing with vandalism and had asked "Should I undo the changes made by 'Sethu.swaminathan' or should this be brought to the notice of a Wikipedia administrator". So, that answers your question of I not doing it myself. As regards deletion, that there exists a concept of 'nomination for deletion' that you talked of was not even known to me :P so you can forget about "opposing vigorously" and relax. Anyway, now that I know it's allowed, I'll make the changes. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by ISoham (talk o  contribs) 16:29, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Classical Kannada
I reverted the move of Kannada from the "Middle Ages" section to "Antiquity". The subject is well-defined, it belongs to the period when literary works were actively produced; languages ordered by the earliest inscriptions are in List of languages by first written accounts. I also removed the reference for its Indian classical status, it belongs to Classical languages of India and of no value here. 178.94.17.196 (talk) 14:32, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Now the same about Malayalam, for 202.79.203.43: The list of languages by their first written account is a separate article, here you mark the period when the language was actively used for literary works. I myself went to Malayalam article and found one literary work that may imply the beginning of literary tradition, since you all don't seem to grasp the goal here. 178.94.135.200 (talk) 12:40, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry attack on this article
Hopefully the sock-puppet attacks on this article will now cease, since the sockpuppeteer was found to be running about 50 Wikipedia accounts!. I've removed my perfunctory discussions (such as they were) with sockpuppet entities from this article talk page since they don't serve any real purpose now... AnonMoos (talk) 12:33, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Old Persian
As you see ,Old persian has not been used in this article. aramic has been used incorrectly instead of old persian. in ancient Iran we had 2 persian empires. Achaemenid (1'st persian empire) and Sasanid (2'd persian empire). their official language was old persian (Achaemenid) and middle persian (Sasanid) in order .So I corrected this mistake. --10:51, 21 October 2020 Amins69

 * In the Achaemenid empire, Old Persian was used as the language of certain royal inscriptions (the longest and most famous being the Behistun inscription), but Aramaic seems to have been used much more as a language of practical administration for the empire, especially in the areas west of Persia proper. AnonMoos (talk) 21:18, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Fixed Typo
To all the users, still the date the article is lacked two languages (Tamil and Persian) in classical studies section, I updated this. So please don't change the real content. Ram Dhaneesh (talk) 15:00, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

 * Unfortunately for you, you're confessing to vandalism, since you tampered with a quotation to make Edward Sapir say something which he in fact did NOT say in his 1921 book. I really don't understand what the purpose such quote falsification is thought by anybody to serve. AnonMoos (talk) 08:05, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

 * P.S. As has been discussed before, Tamil is an "internally" classical language (possessing a long glorious tradition of literature, etc), but is simply not an "externally" classical language (influencing a wide range of other languages over a wide range of time, as was the case with Latin, Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit, or Chinese). With respect to Persian, it's certainly true that in many medieval Muslim realms it was necessary for a gentleman to know Persian to be considered to be fully educated, but Persian was very much second behind Arabic, and was mainly learned in order to read poetry.  There are only a relatively few languages which have been heavily influenced by Persian... AnonMoos (talk) 04:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

tamil language
is sanskrit older than tamil 2409:4072:6E93:7D9B:980F:97A5:8816:BD4C (talk) 03:46, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

 * The question is almost meaningless in that form. However, if you ask "Are the earliest-surving Sanskrit texts older than the earliest-surviving Tamil texts?" and/or "Was there an attested standard literary form of Sanskrit before there was an attested standard literary form of Tamil?", then the short answer is "Yes"... AnonMoos (talk) 06:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Persian
The citation literally says "There are just five languages that have had an overwhelming significance as carriers of culture. They are classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, and Latin." but above it is written "Edward Sapir in his book Language would extend the list to include Chinese, Arabic, and Sanskrit:"

Why is Arabic included even it isn't mentioned in Edward Sapir's citation? Why is Persian not mentioned although it is mentioned in Sapir's citation? -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.233.35.210 (talk) 11:11, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

 * It was pure vandalism, of course (though I'm having difficulty figuring out when it was added -- the protection template confused things for the usual page watchers, I guess). For some reason the Sapir quote is a magnet for vandalistic quote falsifiers.  The text of Sapir's book is freely available on-line, by the way... AnonMoos (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

TYPO -- but it comes straight from Sapir's book
The indented ("blockquote"d) quotation that begins with"When we realize that an educated Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources, that to this day Siamese and Burmese and Cambodgian bear the unmistakable imprint of the Sanskrit and Pali that came in with Hindu Buddhism centuries ago, [...]"and has footnote number "[2]", at the end -- (at least, 'as of' the Latest revision as of 22:49, 22 June 2024 version of the article) -- contains a TYPO. (The letter "g" should not have been included in the word "Cambodgian".

However, after I managed to determine that there does not seem to be some accepted (or ... "other than erroneous") 'alternative spelling' of the word "Cambodian", having a "g" after the "d", and before going further to [perhaps] take steps to try to "fix" that mistake ... I did some checking ... e.g. at

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Language_An_Introduction_to_the_Study_of/6QRzEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%2B%22overwhelming+significance+as++carriers+of+culture%22&pg=PT117&printsec=frontcover

and -- it turns out, that -- the TYPO (typographical error) is actually present in the book ('Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech') by Edward Sapir. That is the book that is listed as a reliable source, in the footnote at the end of that long "quote".

I do not know what should be done. Perhaps an informative "note" to the reader (maybe by using an " " template instance?) should be included? (Maybe saying something like "The TYPO is present in the book by Edward Sapir that is the source for this quotation" -- ? --) Sometimes when someone is "quoting" a source that contains a TYPO, they include the word "(sic)" -- in parentheses -- after the TYPO.

For now, I am not changing that quote. I am just "reporting" [the TYPO in] it.

. Mike Schwartz (talk) 23:59, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

 * It's more likely that "Cambodgian" was within the acceptable range of spellings in 1922. At least that's what I always assumed when the issue came up in  editing the article in the past.  In any case, the "dg" is most definitely present in the book -- I have a physical paper copy of it reprinted long after 1922, and it's right there on page 194. AnonMoos (talk) 07:16, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I believe Cambodge is the standard French name for the country, fwiw. —Tamfang (talk) 08:29, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Classical language


text:
Ascort

The Ascort was an automobile manufactured by Continental Coachwork of Sydney, Australia from 1958 to 1960.

Designated as the Ascort-TSV-1300 G.T., it utilized a mildly modified Volkswagen chassis fitted with a four-seat coupé body which was based on that of the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia coupé, although significantly different in appearance. The body, which was constructed of fibreglass, had a prestressed double shell with a bonded-in light steel tubular frame, and was mounted on an 11-inch rubber seal. The 1.3-litre Volkswagen flat-4 engine was modified using Okrasa and Porsche components to produce 54 bhp at 4300 rpm. The vehicle's total weight was 1467 lb, 33% less than that of a standard Volkswagen Beetle sedan. The Ascort had a top speed of 96 mph and could accelerate from zero to 50 mph in 12.0 seconds.

19 cars were built before production was terminated. Although there were plans to offer the car with a 70 hp, 1500 cc engine, which would have given the car a top speed of well over 100 mph, this variant was never produced.

title: Ascort


text:
Inorganic ions

Inorganic ions in animals and plants are ions necessary for vital cellular activity. In body tissues, ions are also known as electrolytes, essential for the electrical activity needed to support muscle contractions and neuron activation. They contribute to osmotic pressure of body fluids as well as performing a number of other important functions. Below is a list of some of the most important ions for living things as well as examples of their functions:

 * Ca2+ – calcium ions are a component of bones and teeth. They also function as biological messengers, as do most of the ions listed below. (See Hypocalcaemia.)
 * Zn2+ - zinc ions are found in very small concentrations in the body, and their main purpose is that of an antioxidant; the zinc ions act as antioxidants both generally and for liver specific pro-oxidants. Zinc ions can also act as an antioxidant-like stabilizer for some macro-molecules which bind zinc ions with high affinity, especially in cysteine-rich binding sites. These binding sites use these zinc ions as a stabilizer to protein folds, making these protein motifs more rigid in structure. These structures include zinc fingers, and have several different conformations.
 * K+ – potassium ions' main function in animals is osmotic balance, particularly in the kidneys. (See Hypokalemia.)
 * Na+ – sodium ions have a similar role to potassium ions. (See Sodium deficiency.)
 * Mn2+- manganese ions are seen being used as stabilizer for varying protein configurations. However, manganese ion overexposure is linked to several neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease.
 * Mg2+ – magnesium ions are a component of chlorophyll. (See Magnesium deficiency (plants))
 * Cl− – inability to transport chloride ions in humans manifests itself as cystic fibrosis (CF)
 * Carbonate – the shells of sea creatures are calcium carbonate. In blood approximately 85% of carbon dioxide, is converted into aqueous carbonate ions (an acidic solution), allowing a greater rate of transportation.
 * Co2+- cobalt ions are present in the human body in amounts from 1 to 2 mg. Cobalt is observed in the heart, liver, kidney, and spleen, and considerably smaller quantities in the pancreas, brain, and serum. Cobalt is a necessary component of vitamin B12 and a fundamental coenzyme of cell mitosis. Cobalt is crucial for amino acid formation and some proteins to create myelin sheath in nerve cells. Cobalt also plays a role in creating neurotransmitters, which are vital for proper function within the organism.
 * Phosphate – adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is a common molecule which stores energy in an accessible form. Bone is calcium phosphate.
 * Fe2+/Fe3+ – as found in haemoglobin, the main oxygen carrying molecule has a central iron ion.
 * Nitrate – source of nitrogen in plants for the synthesis of proteins.

K+ channels
Potassium ion channels play a key role in maintaining the membrane's electric potential. These ion channels are present in many various biological systems. They frequently play a role in regulation of cellular level processes, many of these processes including muscle relaxation, hypertension, insulin secretion etc. Some examples of potassium ion channels within biological systems include KATP channels, BK channels, and ether-a-go-go potassium channels

Na+ channels
Sodium ion channels provide an integral service through the body, as they transmit depolarizing impulses at the cellular and intracellular level. This allows sodium ions to coordinate much more intensive processes such as movement and cognition. Sodium ion channels consist of various subunits, however, only the principle subunit is required for function. These sodium ion channels consist of four internally homologous domains, each of which containing six transmembrane segments and resembling a single subunit of a voltage-dependent potassium ion channel. The four domains fold together, forming a central pore. That central pore of the sodium ions dictates the selectivity of the channel: both ionic radius and ionic charge are key in channel selectivity.

Cl− channels
Chloride ion channels vary from many other ion channels due to being controlled by the anionic chloride ions. Chloride ion channels are pore-forming membrane proteins that allow the passive transport of chloride ions across biological membranes. Chloride ion channels involve both voltage-gated and ligand-gated mechanisms to transport the ions across cellular membranes. Chloride ion channels have been found to play crucial roles in the development of human diseases, for example, mutations in the genes encoding chloride ion channels lead to a variety of deleterious diseases in muscle, kidney, bone, and brain, including cystic fibrosis, osteoporosis, and epilepsy, and similarly their activation is supposed to be responsible for the progression of glioma in the brain and the growth of malaria-parasite in the red blood cells. Currently, chloride ion channels are not completely understood, and more research is necessary.

title: Inorganic ions


text:
Talk:Wu Chien-ch'üan

How about adding something about Ma Yueliang and Wu Yinghua who remained in Shanghai? :)

Edededed 06:13, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * They are mentioned in the main Tai Chi Chuan Wu style chapter, and I didn't want to completely reproduce here what is there. For that reason I wasn't at first going to mention Wu Kung-yi or Wu Ta-hsin here either, but included them to establish the current notability of the Chien-ch'uan TCC Association. I feel that all of them really eventually should have their own articles, with links to and from this one, too! So many teachers, so little time... Fire Star 23:01, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. One thing that bugs me a bit is the Wade-Giles vs. Pinyin thing... It seems to me that most publications use pinyin these days, so I would personally prefer everything changed to pinyin...  But then again, Taiwan and Hong Kong may be continuing to use the Wade-Giles system... Either way, it would be good to unify ALL the Chinese martial arts pages to one system of romanization, if possible.

Edededed 07:15, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I know what you mean. I really do not like either one, truth be told. So much of the literature on T'ai Chi is in W-G, though. I have an idea, maybe we could have a W-G and a pinyin article. It shouldn't be too difficult... Fire Star 02:25, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Wu Chien-ch'üan


text:
Ascot (1904 automobile)

The 1904 Ascot was an English automobile manufactured for one year only; its 3½hp engine was equipped with a "patented method for mechanically controlling valves, doing away with useless pinions and calves."

It had no connection with the 1914 Ascot or the 1928 Ascot car maker.

title: Ascot (1904 automobile)


text:
James J. LeBar

James J. LeBar (May 19, 1936 – February 21, 2008) was a Roman Catholic priest who was the chief exorcist of the Archdiocese of New York in the United States.

Early career
LeBar was ordained in 1962. He was assigned as chaplain to Hudson Valley Psychiatric Center in 1982 and served until his retirement there in 2005. Previously, he was a parochial vicar at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Poughkeepsie from 1980 to 1982; St. Stanislaus, Pleasant Valley from 1979 to 1980; St. Catherine Laboure, Lake Katrine from 1973 to 1979 and from 1965 to 1967; St. Joseph’s, Kingston from 1967 to 1973; St. Gregory Barbarigo, Garnerville in 1967; and St. John the Evangelist, White Plains from 1962 to 1965. He served briefly as administrator of St. Colman’s, East Kingston, and Holy Name of Jesus, Kingston.

He taught religion at John A. Coleman Catholic High School from 1966 to 1970. In the 1970s, LeBar was asked to become part of the Office of Communications of the Archdiocese of New York which at the time was dealing with the rise of groups they called "cults" and occult activity. In 1976, he was one of the priest advisors who supported the National Catholic Committee on Scouting's attendance with a Scout Service Corps at the 41st International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia and attended that event. He performed his first exorcisms in 1988 and 1989. In 1989, he published his book Cults, Sects, and the New Age. He counseled many former "cult members" and was a frequent speaker on this subject. He appeared as a guest on the Geraldo Rivera special Devil Worship Exposing Satan's Underground, which aired on October 22, 1988.

Exorcist of the Archdiocese of New York
He first came to prominence in 1991 when he took part in an exorcism in Palm Beach, Florida, broadcast on the television program 20/20. He was appointed the chief exorcist of New York in 1992, by Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor. On June 25, 1995, LeBar was one of the guests on the Geraldo Rivera television program exploring satanic ritual abuse.

When asked during an interview if he ever witnessed levitation during an exorcism, he said "I myself, have never seen a major levitation in the course of an exorcism. However, in one case in the preliminary investigation, I had a person who rose up above the pews of the church and was suspended there for a few minutes."

He told Spirit Daily at the time of the 25th anniversary release of the film The Exorcist that it "is about the most accurate portrayal of what can happen at an exorcism that I have ever seen."

Actress Winona Ryder spoke with LeBar about exorcisms in 1999 in order to prepare for her film role in the movie Lost Souls in which LeBar was one of the consultants. He allowed her to view some videotapes of exorcisms he had performed. Performance artist Linda Montano has done work related to LeBar posthumously.

In July 2002, LeBar addressed a conference of Roman Catholic exorcists in Rome. He lived and worked in New York State and was assigned as chaplain of the Hudson River Psychiatric Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, a post he has held for almost 20 years.

Death
LeBar died of heart failure on the morning of February 21, 2008 at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY. According to friends and colleagues, he was admitted to St. Francis and diagnosed with a bacterial infection which became septic. He was placed in intensive care and placed on a ventilator until he died of heart failure.

LeBar was buried from Regina Coeli Parish in Hyde Park, New York where he was in residence for nearly the last 25 years, especially while he served during most of that time as priest-chaplain to the Hudson Valley Psychiatric Center. His body lay in-state at the church, where visitation were held on Sunday, February 24 in the afternoon and evening; the Mass of Christian Burial was concelebrated with one of the auxiliary bishops of New York on Monday, February 25, at 10:00.

According to a colleague of LeBar: "For those of us who knew and worked with him, were served or mentored by him, we are trying with God’s grace to come to terms with this loss, both personally and for the Church in America. I have often remarked about Father’s disarmingly dry sense of humor—a hallmark of the same man who at times directly addressed and expelled demonic forces. A friend asked yesterday 'I wonder what Father LeBar will say when he sees God the Father?' I have no doubt that his sincere but usually witty response, along with his slight Bronx accent, will be something like 'Well—you do look better in person'".

Posthumous
On April 26, 2019 the Archdiocese of New York published an Update on the Sexual Abuse Crisis which included LeBar in its list of clergy who were not' found to have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor, but for whom "the IRCP’s independent administrators have determined that claims against them were eligible for compensation." The list notes that "A determination by the IRCP that a claim is eligible for compensation is not equivalent to a finding by a judge or jury that a clergy member is liable for sexual abuse of a minor under civil or criminal law."

title: James J. LeBar


text: Category:Traverse County, Minnesota

title: Category:Traverse County, Minnesota


text:
Chinese Canadian National Council

The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) (Conseil national des Canadiens chinois pour la justice sociale), known in the Chinese-Canadian community as Equal Rights Council (平權會), is an organization whose purpose is to promote equity, social justice, inclusive civic participation, and respect for diversity. The first CCNC in Ontario was founded in 1980.

In 1985, CCNCTO was founded. They continue to operate today, serving Chinese Canadian community members in the Greater Toronto Area.

In 2019, CCNC-SJ was founded to monitor racial discrimination in Canada and to help young Chinese Canadians learn about their cultural history.

Today, CCNCTO and CCNCSJ are completely separate organizations with different governance bodies, staff, membership and volunteers. They both continue to operate in the Greater Toronto Area.

History
The organization was created in 1980, after an incident in September 1979 when the CTV Television Network incorrectly represented Chinese Canadians in an investigative show called W5. In a feature called "Campus Giveaways", CTV used allegedly incorrect statistics to conclude that foreign students were eroding other Canadians' opportunities for a secondary education and benefitting from public universities funded by Canadian taxpayers. All Chinese university students were treated as foreign students, regardless of their real nationality. The show also made numerous racial remarks about the Chinese students. The incident and the resulting campaign were reported in the Canadian media.

In response, Chinese communities across Canada staged protests against CTV and forced the President of CTV to publicly apologize for the W5 feature. After the incident, Chinese who protested against CTV across Canada staged a meeting in Toronto. The meeting called for a stronger voice representing Chinese Canadians nationwide, thus the CCNC was formed. By 1980, the organization had developed nationwide presence with twenty-eight chapters. The United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society (S.U.C.C.E.S.S.) was accepted as a voting member in 1989.

Advocacy history
Since the formation of the CCNC, it has spoken out against racial discrimination against Chinese in Canada. The CCNC is also involved in controversial issues concerning Chinese in Canada, like forcing the Government of Canada to apologize and redress the head tax that Chinese had to paid from 1885 to 1923.

On November 28, 2005, the Toronto chapter of the CCNC (CCNCTO) was granted the William P. Hubbard Award for Race Relations by the Toronto city government, in recognition of the CCNC's advocacy for Head Tax redress.

In 2012, the CCNC-SJ criticized the Bank of Canada for removing an image of an Asian Canadian from a proposed design for the $100 banknote and condemned the bank for listening to 'racist comments and feedback from the focus group' of its bank note design. The Bank of Canada later apologized to the CCNC-SJ's executive director Victor Wong.

Today, CCNCTO and CCNC-SJ both continue to do advocacy work to advance the rights of Chinese Canadians.

title: Chinese Canadian National Council


text:
Interstate 279

Interstate 279 (I-279), locally referred to as Parkway North, is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway that lies entirely within Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Its southern end is at I-376 at the Fort Pitt Bridge in Pittsburgh, and the north end is in Franklin Park at I-79. It primarily serves at the main access route between Pittsburgh and its northern suburbs.

Route description

The southern terminus of I-279 is at I-376 in Downtown Pittsburgh. It runs concurrently with US Route 19 Truck (US 19 Truck) from its southern terminus to exit 4. (US 19 Truck continues on I-376 west.) I-279 crosses the Fort Duquesne Bridge over the Allegheny River, providing easy access to Heinz Field and PNC Park. I-579 intersects I-279 but is only accessible by southbound traffic; likewise, traffic from I-579 can only head northbound on I-279 by the I-279 Interchange. I-279 features two reversible high-occupancy vehicle lanes (HOV lanes), which begin in and near downtown and end at exit 5, an interchange with US 19. The road becomes more suburban and rural as it continues to head north. It has two additional interchanges, Bellevue/West View and Camp Horne Road. After Camp Horne Road, there are no exits until its terminus 5 mi later. The Interstate terminates at its parent, I-79. Like the interchange with I-579, this is also a partial interchange. Traffic on I-279 is only permitted to exit northbound on I-79, while only traffic heading southbound on I-79 can exit on to I-279 south.

The section from exit 1B to exit 2B is also known as the North Shore Expressway.

History

I-279 was first proposed in 1958 to run along what is now I-79 between the current I-376 in Carnegie and the current I-279 in Franklin Park. On October 2, 1972, its route was swapped with I-79, putting I-279 onto its current route, although only the downtown portion and the Fort Duquesne Bridge were built at the time.

In 1973, the designation was extended from downtown over Parkway West (what is now I-376) to I-79. This section became part of I-376 in 2009, and the I-279 signs were taken down there.

I-279 from Fort Duquesne Bridge to its current northern terminus in Franklin Park was approved on June 4, 1975, but constructed from 1985 to 1989, opening in its entirety with a Governor Bob Casey Sr. ribbon-cutting on September 16, 1989. From 1997 to 2003, various ramps, the Fort Pitt Bridge, and nearby tunnels were reconstructed. A direct connection from I-279 south to I-376 east was opened in 2002.

A tragedy occurred on the reversible HOV lanes in 1995 when a negligent highway worker failed to close the outbound gates, leading to a head-on collision that killed six. In 2006, to help prevent a repeat of this incident, automatic ""fast-acting" gates" were activated at the southern entrances to these HOV lanes in Downtown Pittsburgh.

Unearthed cemetery
During the last phases of construction of I-279 in 1987, a long-forgotten cemetery dating from the 19th century was unearthed near the site of the current I-279/I-579 split. Archeologists spent four months exhuming the graves for cultural studies at the Smithsonian Institution, putting the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) significantly behind schedule. It was determined that the graves belonged to Swiss and German immigrants that were members of a local church located next door to the cemetery in what was then Allegheny City, with 727 graves buried at the 0.5 acre site between 1833 and 1861. The graves were forgotten about by 1911 when the church did an addition to the building and had the foundation unintentionally go through about 15 graves, with the churchyard housing the cemetery later becoming a parking lot in 1950. Aside from a pair of stillborn twins, none of the graves were identified, and archeologists were unable to find any living descendants due to the obscurity of the cemetery. The remains were reburied with one marker at the church's current cemetery in the Troy Hill section of Pittsburgh in 2003 after the Smithsonian Institution finished studying them; the congregation itself disbanded in 1984 after PennDOT bought the church property via eminent domain for I-279 and only had 21 members at that point. Today, it is the largest number of 19th century graves (Native American graves notwithstanding) ever studied archeologically in the US.

title: Interstate 279


text:
Livingstone Falls

Livingstone Falls (French: Chutes Livingstone; Dutch: Livingstonewatervallen), named for British explorer David Livingstone, are a succession of enormous rapids on the lower course of the Congo River in west equatorial Africa, downstream from Malebo Pool in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Description
Livingstone Falls consist of a series of rapids dropping 900 ft in 220 mi. They start downstream of Malebo Pool and end in Matadi in Bas-Congo. The Congo River has the second largest flow rate in the world after the Amazon, which has no falls or rapids (except near its sources). The lowest rapids of Livingstone Falls, therefore, are the world's largest waterfall in terms of flow rate — provided one accepts these rapids as being a waterfall. An interesting aspect of the 220 mi Livingstone Falls is the width of the channel. The channel is very narrow: in several stretches the channel width is less than 300 metres and for the majority of the length the channel is less than 800 metres wide. This is an extraordinarily narrow channel since the river flow rate typically exceeds 42000 m3/s. Investigations in 2008 and 2009 showed that sections between the rapids may be as deep as 200 m. The powerful rapids separate fish populations from one another, causing new species to evolve in close proximity to one another.

History
Although he explored the upper Congo, Livingstone never travelled to this part of the river and the Falls were named in his honour by Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley described the falls as "..the wildest stretch of river that I have ever seen. Take a strip of sea blown over by a hurricane, four miles in length and half a mile in breadth, and a pretty accurate conception of its leaping waves may be obtained.  Some of the troughs were 100 yards in length, and from one to the other the mad river plunged.  There was first a rush down into the bottom of an immense trough, and then, by its sheer force, the enormous volume would lift itself upward steeply until, gathering itself into a ridge, it suddenly hurled itself 20 or 30 feet straight upward, before rolling down into another trough.  If I looked up or down along this angry scene, every interval of 50 or 100 yards of it was marked by wave-towers - their collapse into foam and spray, the mad clash of watery hills, bounding mounds and heaving billows, while the base of either bank, consisting of a long line of piled boulders of massive size, was buried in the tempestuous surf. The roar was tremendous and deafening. I can only compare it to the thunder of an express train through a rock tunnel."

Since the falls, which start with the Yellala Falls just above Matadi, are a barrier to navigation on the lower part of the river, the Matadi-Kinshasa Railway was constructed to by-pass them.

"Grand Inga" proposed hydroelectric project
Inga Falls on Congo River is a group of rapids in the latter portion of the Livingstone Falls, 177 mi after the Malebo Pool. The Congo falls about 96 metres within this set of cataracts. The mean annual flow rate at Inga Falls is about 42,000 cubic metres per second. Given this flow rate and the 96 metre fall, it is possible to calculate that the Inga Falls alone has a power potential of approximately 40 GW.

In 2014, Inga Falls was the site of two large hydro-electric power plants and is being considered for a much larger hydro-electric power generating station known as Grand Inga. The Grand Inga project, if completed, would be the largest hydro-electric power generating facility on Earth. The current project scope calls for the use of a flow rate 26,400 cubic metres per second at a net head of 150 metres; this is equivalent to a generating capacity of about 38.9 GW. This hydro-electric generator would be almost double the current world record holder, which is the Three Gorges facility at 22.5GW on the Yangtze River in China.

title: Livingstone Falls


text:
Vril

Vril: The Power of the Coming Race, originally published as The Coming Race, is a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, published anonymously in 1871. Some readers have believed the account of a superior subterranean master race and the energy-form called "Vril", at least in part; some theosophists, notably Helena Blavatsky, William Scott-Elliot, and Rudolf Steiner, accepted the book as based on occult truth, in part. One 1960 book, The Morning of the Magicians by Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels, suggested that a secret Vril Society existed in Weimar Berlin.

The name "Vril" may be based on the word virile, as has repeatedly been suggested.

History
The original (British edition) titled as The Coming Race was published anonymously in May 1871 by Blackwood and Sons of Edinburgh and London. (Blackwood published four more "editions" in 1871.) Anonymous American and Canadian editions were published in August 1871 as The Coming Race or The New Utopia , by Francis B. Felt & Co. in New York and by Copp, Clark & Co. in Toronto, respectively. Erewhon, which was published anonymously in March 1872, was initially assumed to be a sequel to Coming Race, which by then Bulwer-Lytton was known to have written. When it was revealed that Samuel Butler was the author of Erewhon in the 25 May 1872 issue of the Athenaeum, sales dropped by 90 percent.

Plot summary
A young, independent, wealthy traveller (the narrator) visits a friend, a mining engineer. They explore a natural chasm in a mine which has been exposed by an exploratory shaft. The narrator reaches the bottom of the chasm safely, but the rope breaks and his friend is killed. The narrator finds his way into a subterranean world occupied by beings who seem to resemble angels. He befriends the first being he meets, who guides him around a city that is reminiscent of ancient Egyptian architecture. The explorer meets his host's wife, two sons and daughter who learn to speak English by way of a makeshift dictionary during which the narrator unconsciously teaches them the language.

The hero discovers that these beings, who call themselves Vril-ya, have great telepathic and other parapsychological abilities, such as being able to transmit information, get rid of pain, and put others to sleep. The narrator is offended by the idea that the Vril-ya are better adapted to learn about him than he is to learn about them. Nevertheless, the guide (who turns out to be a magistrate) and his son Ta behave kindly towards him.

The narrator soon discovers that the Vril-ya are descendants of an antediluvian civilization called the Ana, who live in networks of caverns linked by tunnels. Originally surface dwellers, they fled underground thousands of years ago to escape a massive flood and gained greater power by facing and dominating the harsh conditions of the Earth. The place where the narrator descended houses 12,000 families, one of the largest groups. Their society is a technologically supported Utopia, chief among their tools being an "all-permeating fluid" called "Vril", a latent source of energy that the spiritually elevated hosts are able to master through training of their will, to a degree that depends on their hereditary constitution. This mastery gives them access to an extraordinary force that can be controlled at will. It is this fluid that the Vril-ya employ to communicate with the narrator. The powers of the Vril include the ability to heal, change, and destroy beings and things; the destructive powers in particular are immense, allowing a few young Vril-ya children to destroy entire cities if necessary.

Men (called An, pronounced "Arn") and women (called Gy, pronounced "Gee") have equal rights. The women are stronger and larger than the men. The women are also the pursuing party in romantic relationships. They marry for three years, after which the men choose whether to remain married, or be single. The female may then pursue a new husband. However, they seldom make the choice to remarry.

Their religion posits the existence of a superior being but does not dwell on his nature. The Vril-ya believe in the permanence of life, which according to them is not destroyed but merely changes form.

The narrator adopts the attire of his hosts and begins also to adopt their customs. The guide's daughter, Zee, falls in love with him and tells her father, who orders Taë to kill him with his staff. Eventually both Taë and Zee conspire against such a command, and Zee leads the narrator through the same chasm which he first descended. Returning to the surface, he warns that in time the Vril-ya will run out of habitable space underground and will claim the surface of the Earth, destroying mankind in the process, if necessary.

Vril in the novel
The uses of Vril in the novel amongst the Vril-ya vary from destruction to healing. According to Zee, the daughter of the narrator's host, Vril can be changed into the mightiest agency over all types of matter, both animate and inanimate. It can destroy like lightning or replenish life, heal, or cure. It is used to rend ways through solid matter. Its light is said to be steadier, softer and healthier than that from any flammable material. It can also be used as a power source for animating mechanisms. Vril can be harnessed by use of the Vril staff or mental concentration.

A Vril staff is an object in the shape of a wand or a staff which is used as a channel for Vril. The narrator describes it as hollow with "stops", "keys", or "springs" in which Vril can be altered, modified, or directed to either destroy or heal. The staff is about the size of a walking stick but can be lengthened or shortened according to the user's preferences. The appearance and function of the Vril staff differs according to gender, age, etc. Some staves are more potent for destruction; others, for healing. The staves of children are said to be much simpler than those of sages; in those of wives and mothers, the destructive part is removed while the healing aspects are emphasised.

Literary significance and reception
The book was quite popular in the late 19th century, and for a time the word "Vril" came to be associated with "life-giving elixirs". The best known use of "Vril" in this context is in the name of Bovril (a blend word of Bovine and Vril). There was even a Vril-ya Bazaar held at the Royal Albert Hall in London in March 1891. The same year a sequel named The Vril Staff: A Romance was published, written by an unknown author using the pseudonym XYZ.

It also had a strong influence on other contemporary authors. When H. G. Wells' novella The Time Machine was published in 1895, The Guardian wrote in its review: "The influence of the author of The Coming Race is still powerful, and no year passes without the appearance of stories which describe the manners and customs of peoples in imaginary worlds, sometimes in the stars above, sometimes in the heart of unknown continents in Australia or at the Pole, and sometimes below the waters under the earth. The latest effort in this class of fiction is The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells."

Recent research has shown that Bulwer-Lytton developed his ideas about "Vril" against the background of his long preoccupation with occult natural forces, which were widely discussed at that time, especially in relation to animal magnetism, or later, spiritualism. In his earlier novels Zanoni (1842) and A Strange Story (1862), Bulwer-Lytton had discussed electricity and other "material agents" as the possible natural causes for occult phenomena. In The Coming Race, those ideas are continued in the context of a satirical critique of contemporary philosophical, scientific, and political currents. In a letter to his friend John Forster, Bulwer-Lytton explained his motives:

"I did not mean Vril for mesmerism, but for electricity, developed into uses as yet only dimly guessed, and including whatever there may be genuine in mesmerism, which I hold to be a mere branch current of the one great fluid pervading all nature. I am by no means, however, wedded to Vril, if you can suggest anything else to carry out this meaning namely, that the coming race, though akin to us, has nevertheless acquired by hereditary transmission, etc., certain distinctions which make it a different species, and contains powers which we could not attain to through a slow growth of time; so that this race would not amalgamate with, but destroy us. [...]

Now, as some bodies are charged with electricity like the torpedo or electric eel, and never can communicate that power to other bodies, so I suppose the existence of a race charged with that electricity and having acquired the art to concentrate and direct it in a word, to be conductors of its lightnings. If you can suggest any other idea of carrying out that idea of a destroying race, I should be glad. Probably even the notion of Vril might be more cleared from mysticism or mesmerism by being simply defined to be electricity and conducted by those staves or rods, omitting all about mesmeric passes, etc."

Bulwer-Lytton has been regarded as an "initiate" or "adept" by esotericists, especially because of his Rosicrucian novel Zanoni (1842). However, there is no historical evidence that suggests that Bulwer-Lytton can be seen as an occultist, or that he was a member of any kind of esoteric association. Instead, it has been shown that Bulwer-Lytton has been "esotericized" since the 1870s. In 1870, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia appointed Bulwer-Lytton as its "Grand Patron". Although Bulwer-Lytton complained about this by letter in 1872, the claim was never revoked. Other claims, such as his supposed membership in the German Masonic lodge Zur aufgehenden Morgenröthe, have been proven wrong.

Those claims, as well as the recurrent esoteric topics in Bulwer-Lytton's works, convinced some commentators that the fictionalised Vril was based on a real magical force. Helena Blavatsky, the founder of theosophy, endorsed this view in her book Isis Unveiled (1877) and again in The Secret Doctrine (1888). In Blavatsky, the Vril power and its attainment by a superhuman elite are worked into a mystical doctrine of race. However, the character of the subterranean people was transformed. Instead of potential conquerors, they were benevolent (if mysterious) spiritual guides. Blavatsky's recurrent homage to Bulwer-Lytton and the Vril force has exerted a lasting influence on other esoteric authors.

When the theosophist William Scott-Elliot described life in Atlantis in, he mentioned Atlantean aircraft propelled by Vril-force. His books are still published by the Theosophical Society. Scott-Elliot's description of Atlantean aircraft has been identified as an early inspiration for authors who have related the Vril force to UFOs after World War II.

George Bernard Shaw read the book and was attracted to the idea of Vril, according to Michael Holroyd's biography of him.

French writer Jules Lermina included a Vril-powered flying machine in his 1910 novel L'Effrayante Aventure (Panic in Paris).

In his 2011 book of correspondences with David Woodard, Swiss writer Christian Kracht discusses his longstanding interest in Vril. David Bowie's 1971 song "Oh! You Pretty Things" makes reference to the novel.

Stage adaptation
A stage adaptation of the book was written by journalist David Christie Murray and magician Nevil Maskelyne. The production premiered at Saint George's Hall in London on 2 January 1905. Both Nevil Maskelyne and his father John Nevil Maskelyne collaborated on the special effects for the play. The play did not meet with success and closed after a run of eight weeks.

Willy Ley
Willy Ley was a German rocket engineer who had immigrated to the United States in 1937. In 1947, he published an article titled "Pseudoscience in Naziland" in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction. He wrote that the high popularity of irrational convictions in Germany at that time explained how Nazism could have fallen on such fertile ground. Among various pseudoscientific groups he mentions one that looked for the Vril: "The next group was literally founded upon a novel. That group which I think called itself 'Wahrheitsgesellschaft' – Society for Truth – and which was more or less localised in Berlin, devoted its spare time looking for Vril."

Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels
The existence of a Vril Society was alleged in 1960 by Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels. In their book The Morning of the Magicians, they claimed that the Vril-Society was a secret community of occultists in pre-Nazi Berlin that was a sort of inner circle of the Thule Society. They also thought that it was in close contact with the English group known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Vril information takes up about a tenth of the volume, the remainder of which details other esoteric speculations, but the authors fail to clearly explain whether this section is fact or fiction. Historians have shown that there has been no actual historical foundation for the claims of Pauwels and Bergier, and that the article of Willy Ley has only been a vague inspiration for their own ideas. Nevertheless, Pauwels and Bergier have influenced a whole new literary genre dealing with the alleged occult influences on Nazis which have often been related to the fictional Vril Society.

In his book Monsieur Gurdjieff, Louis Pauwels claimed that a Vril Society had been founded by General Karl Haushofer, a student of Russian magician and metaphysician Georges Gurdjieff.

Publications on the Vril Society in German
The book of Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels was published in German with the title: Aufbruch ins dritte Jahrtausend: von der Zukunft der phantastischen Vernunft (literally Departure into the Third Millennium: The Future of the Fantastic Reason) in 1969.

In his book Black Sun, Professor Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke refers to the research of the German author Peter Bahn. Bahn writes in his 1996 essay, "Das Geheimnis der Vril-Energie" ("The Secret of Vril Energy"), of his discovery of an obscure esoteric group calling itself the "Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft", which revealed itself in a rare 1930 publication ''Vril. Die Kosmische Urkraft'' (Vril, the cosmic elementary power) written by a member of this Berlin-based group, under the pseudonym "Johannes Täufer" (German: "John [the] Baptist"). Published by the influential astrological publisher, Otto Wilhelm Barth (whom Bahn believes was "Täufer"), the 60-page pamphlet says little of the group other than that it was founded in 1925 to study the uses of Vril energy. The German historian Julian Strube has argued that the historical existence of the "Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft" can be regarded as irrelevant to the post-war invention of the Vril Society, as Pauwels and Bergier have developed their ideas without any knowledge of that actual association. Strube has also shown that the Vril force has been irrelevant to the other members of the "Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft," who were supporters of the theories of the Austrian inventor Karl Schappeller (1875–1947).

Esoteric neo-Nazism
After World War II, a group referred to by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke as the Vienna Circle elaborated an esoteric neo-Nazism that contributed to the circulation of the Vril theme in a new context. In their writings, Vril is associated with Nazi UFOs and the Black Sun concept. Julian Strube wrote that a younger generation related to the Tempelhofgesellschaft, has continued the work of the Vienna Circle and exerts a continuous influence on the most common notions of Vril. Those notions are not only popular in neo-Nazi circles but also in movies or computer games, such as Iron Sky, Wolfenstein, and Call of Duty.

title: Vril


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User talk:Genstab

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. You might like to start by reading the tutorial and introducing yourself at the new users page. For ideas of what to put on your user page, see User page.

If you have any questions, you can ask at the help desk or on my talk page. Two useful tips are that you can sign your name using four tildes ( ~ ) and you can preview your changes before you save using the show preview button. You can regularly find new tips on the Community Portal. I look forward to reading your great articles and I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian. :) Angela. 06:27, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

turkish field marshals
Hi, when you listed that on Peer review, what exactly page were you referring to? If it is the list of Turkish field marshalls as the listing now says, then Peer review is not the appropriate place to list that. A list is never likely to be a featured article. It by definition can't have compelling prose. - Taxman 19:00, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

Major General
The Bundeswehr did alter the German Army general officer ranks from what had been used in WWII and before. They eliminated Generaloberst at the top and added Brigadegeneral at the bottom, probably to make their rank names correspond to those of the British and U.S. armies. The NVA continued to use Generalmajor as its one-star rank until reunification. Caerwine Caer’s whines 20:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:Genstab


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User:Helm/ToDo

 * Disambiguation for HA which means Home Automation and High Availability
 * Some descriptive words for international access code

title: User:Helm/ToDo


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User:Helm

Until I do a English page please refer to my German one. de:Benutzer:Helm

title: User:Helm


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mustafa Nusraty

Young person vanity. Ianb 06:30, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * POV article partially substantiated by a grand total of 7 google hits! Delete.  Spectatrix 06:46, 2004 Jul 26 (UTC)
 * What do you get when you hold vanity up to a mirror? delete - UtherSRG 11:47, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure you can call an article 'vanity' when it is describing someone as a 'noted loser'. Of no significance, Delete. Average Earthman 12:26, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: Oh, come on. He's a kindly goofball.  That's much better than most of the goofballs who write articles about themselves (and Lucky will be pleased to note that it starts with his birthday). Geogre 12:30, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Charming. Delete. Gamaliel 15:51, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Not very vain, but still very non-notable; delete. Everyking 18:10, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Shucks, the fact that he lists not only his birthday but the hospital itself is good enough for me to toss in a happy little delete! Remind me to list my birthday and hospital sometime.  It's so enlightening. :^) - Lucky 6.9 18:15, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)


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Fettuccine

Fettuccine is a type of pasta popular in Roman cuisine. It is descended from the extremely thin capelli d'angelo of the Renaissance, but is a flat, thick pasta traditionally made of egg and flour (usually one egg for every 100 g of flour). At about 1/4 inch, it is wider and thicker than, but similar to, the tagliatelle typical of Bologna, which are more common elsewhere in Italy and is often used as a synonym. Spinach fettuccine is made from spinach, flour, and eggs.

The terms fettucce and fettuccelle are often used as synonyms for this pasta, but the former term is more precisely used for wider (about 1/2 inch) and the latter for narrower (about 1/8 inch) forms of the same pasta.

Fettuccine is often classically eaten with sugo d'umido ('beef ragù') or ragù di pollo ('chicken ragù'). A famous dish made with fettuccine is fettuccine Alfredo, a simple dish of pasta, Parmesan cheese, and butter which was created and named at a restaurant in Rome in the early 20th century as a tableside "performance". It is popular in the United States, where it is made with cream, although almost unknown in Italy.

Fettuccine is traditionally made fresh (either at home or commercially), but dried fettuccine can also be bought in stores.

title: Fettuccine


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Dld (software)

Dld was a library package for the C programming language that performs dynamic link editing. Programs that use dld can add or remove compiled object code from a process anytime during its execution. Loading modules, searching libraries, resolving external references, and allocating storage for global and static data structures are all performed at run time.

Dld supported various Unix platforms, having originally been developed for the VAX, Sun-3 and SPARCstation architectures. Its authors contrast its functionality with the dynamic linking that was at the time of its construction available in operating systems such as SunOS 4, System V.4, HP-UX and VMS: all of these operating systems had shared libraries, but did not allow programs to load additional libraries after startup. Dld offered this functionality without requiring changes to the OS or toolchain.

Dld was a GNU package, but has been withdrawn because its functionality is available (through the  API) in modern Unix-like operating systems.

title: Dld (software)