title: Georgian scripts

text: From the 9th century, Nuskhuri script started becoming dominant, and the role of Asomtavruli was reduced. However, epigraphic monuments of the 10th to 18th centuries continued to be written in Asomtavruli script. Asomtavruli in this later period became more decorative. In the majority of 9th-century Georgian manuscripts which were written in Nuskhuri script, Asomtavruli was used for titles and the first letters of chapters. However, some manuscripts written completely in Asomtavruli can be found until the 11th century.


title: Georgian scripts

text: In early Asomtavruli, the letters are of equal height. Georgian historian and philologist Pavle Ingorokva believes that the direction of Asomtavruli, like that of Greek, was initially boustrophedon, though the direction of the earliest surviving texts is from left to the right.


title: Georgian scripts

text: In most Asomtavruli letters, straight lines are horizontal or vertical and meet at right angles. The only letter with acute angles is (ჯ "jani"). There have been various attempts to explain this exception. Georgian linguist and art historian Helen Machavariani believes "jani" derives from a monogram of Christ, composed of the (ი "ini") and (ქ "kani"). According to Georgian scholar Ramaz Pataridze, the cross-like shape of letter "jani" indicates the end of the alphabet, and has the same function as the similarly shaped Phoenician letter taw (), Greek chi (Χ), and Latin X, though these letters do not have that function in Phoenician, Greek, or Latin.


title: Georgian scripts

text: From the 7th century, the forms of some letters began to change. The equal height of the letters was abandoned, with letters acquiring ascenders and descenders.


title: Georgian scripts

text: In Nuskhuri manuscripts, Asomtavruli are used for titles and illuminated capitals. The latter were used at the beginnings of paragraphs which started new sections of text. In the early stages of the development of Nuskhuri texts, Asomtavruli letters were not elaborate and were distinguished principally by size and sometimes by being written in cinnabar ink. Later, from the 10th century, the letters were illuminated. The style of Asomtavruli capitals can be used to identify the era of a text. For example, in the Georgian manuscripts of the Byzantine era, when the styles of the Byzantine Empire influenced Kingdom of Georgia, capitals were illuminated with images of birds and other animals.


title: Georgian scripts

text: From the 11th-century "limb-flowery", "limb-arrowy" and "limb-spotty" decorative forms of Asomtavruli are developed. The first two are found in 11th- and 12th-century monuments, whereas the third one is used until the 18th century.


title: Georgian scripts

text: The "Curly" decorative form of Asomtavruli is also used where the letters are wattled or intermingled on each other, or the smaller letters are written inside other letters. It was mostly used for the headlines of the manuscripts or the books, although there are complete inscriptions which were written in the Asomtavruli "Curly" form only.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Nuskhuri (; ) is the second Georgian script. The name comes from (), meaning "inventory" or "schedule". Nuskhuri was soon augmented with Asomtavruli illuminated capitals in religious manuscripts. The combination is called Khutsuri (, "clerical", from ( "cleric"), and it was principally used in hagiography.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Nuskhuri first appeared in the 9th century as a graphic variant of Asomtavruli. The oldest inscription is found in the Ateni Sioni Church and dates to 835 AD. The oldest surviving Nuskhuri manuscripts date to 864 AD. Nuskhuri becomes dominant over Asomtavruli from the 10th century.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Nuskhuri letters vary in height, with ascenders and descenders, and are slanted to the right. Letters have an angular shape, with a noticeable tendency to simplify the shapes they had in Asomtavruli. This enabled faster writing of manuscripts.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Asomtavruli is used intensively in iconography, murals, and exterior design, especially in stone engravings. Georgian linguist Akaki Shanidze made an attempt in the 1950s to introduce Asomtavruli into the Mkhedruli script as capital letters to begin sentences, as in the Latin script, but it did not catch on. Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri are officially used by the Georgian Orthodox Church alongside Mkhedruli. Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia called on people to use all three Georgian scripts.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mkhedruli (; ) is the third and current Georgian script. Mkhedruli, literally meaning "cavalry" or "military", derives from () meaning "horseman", "knight", "warrior" and "cavalier".


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mkhedruli is bicameral, with capital letters that are called Mkhedruli Mtavruli () or simply Mtavruli (; ). Nowadays, Mkhedruli Mtavruli is only used in all-caps text in titles or to emphasize a word, though in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was occasionally used, as in Latin and Cyrillic scripts, to capitalize proper nouns or the first word of a sentence. Contemporary Georgian script does not recognize capital letters and their usage has become decorative.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mkhedruli first appears in the 10th century. The oldest Mkhedruli inscription is found in Ateni Sioni Church dating back to 982 AD. The second oldest Mkhedruli-written text is found in the 11th-century royal charters of King Bagrat IV of Georgia. Mkhedruli was mostly used then in the Kingdom of Georgia for the royal charters, historical documents, manuscripts and inscriptions. Mkhedruli was used for non-religious purposes only and represented the "civil", "royal" and "secular" script.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mkhedruli became more and more dominant over the two other scripts, though Khutsuri (Nuskhuri with Asomtavruli) was used until the 19th century. Mkhedruli became the universal writing Georgian system outside of the Church in the 19th century with the establishment and development of printed Georgian fonts.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mkhedruli inscriptions of the 10th and 11th centuries are characterized in rounding of angular shapes of Nuskhuri letters and making the complete outlines in all of its letters. Mkhedruli letters are written in the four-linear system, similar to Nuskhuri.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mkhedruli becomes more round and free in writing. It breaks the strict frame of the previous two alphabets, Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri. Mkhedruli letters begin to get coupled and more free calligraphy develops.


title: Georgian scripts

text: The Society for the Spreading of Literacy among Georgians, founded by Prince Ilia Chavchavadze in 1879, discarded five letters from the Georgian alphabet that had become redundant:


title: Georgian scripts

text: All but ჵ ("hoe") continue to be used in the Svan alphabet; ჲ ("hie") is used in the Mingrelian and Laz alphabets as well, for the y-sound . Several others were used for Abkhaz and Ossetian in the short time they were written in Mkhedruli script.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mkhedruli has been adapted to languages besides Georgian. Some of these alphabets retained letters obsolete in Georgian, while others required additional letters:


title: Georgian scripts

text: ზ, ო, and ხ ("zeni, oni, khani") are almost always written without the small tick at the end, while the handwritten form of ჯ ("jani") often uses a vertical line, (sometimes with a taller ascender, or with a diagonal cross bar); even when it is written at a diagonal, the cross-bar is generally shorter than in print.


title: Georgian scripts

text: There is individual and stylistic variation in many of the letters. For example, the top circle of ზ ("zeni") and the top stroke of რ ("rae") may go in the other direction than shown in the chart (that is, counter-clockwise starting at 3 o'clock, and upwards – see the external-link section for videos of people writing).


title: Georgian scripts

text: Asomtavruli is often highly stylized and writers readily formed ligatures, intertwined letters, and placed letters within letters or other such monograms.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Nuskhuri, like Asomtavruli, is also often highly stylized. Writers readily formed ligatures and abbreviations for "nomina sacra", including diacritics called "karagma", which resemble "titla". Because writing materials such as vellum were scarce and therefore precious, abbreviating was a practical measure widespread in manuscripts and hagiography by the 11th century.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mkhedruli, in the 11th to 17th centuries also came to employ digraphs to the point that they were obligatory, requiring adherence to a complex system.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Georgian scripts come in only a single typeface, though word processors can apply automatic ("fake") oblique and bold formatting to Georgian text. Traditionally, Asomtavruli was used for chapter or section titles, where Latin script might use bold or italic type.


title: Georgian scripts

text: In Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri punctuation, various combinations of dots were used as word dividers and to separate phrases, clauses, and paragraphs. In monumental inscriptions and manuscripts of 5th to 10th centuries, these were written as dashes, like −, = and =−. In the 10th century, clusters of one (·), two (:), three (჻) and six (჻჻) dots (later sometimes small circles) were introduced by Ephrem Mtsire to indicate increasing breaks in the text. One dot indicated a "minor stop" (presumably a simple word break), two dots marked or separated "special words", three dots for a "bigger stop" (such as the appositive name and title "the sovereign Alexander", below, or the title of the Gospel of Matthew, above), and six dots were to indicate the end of the sentence. Starting in the 11th century, marks resembling the apostrophe and comma came into use. An apostrophe was used to mark an interrogative word, and a comma appeared at the end of an interrogative sentence. From the 12th century on, these were replaced with the semicolon (the Greek question mark). In the 18th century, Patriarch Anton I of Georgia reformed the system again, with commas, single dots, and double dots used to mark "complete", "incomplete", and "final" sentences, respectively. For the most part, Georgian today uses the punctuation as in international usage of the Latin script.


title: Georgian scripts

text: This table lists the three scripts in parallel columns, including the letters that are now obsolete in all alphabets (shown with a blue background), obsolete in Georgian but still used in other alphabets (green background), or additional letters in languages other than Georgian (pink background). The "national" transliteration is the system used by the Georgian government, whereas "Laz" is the Latin Laz alphabet used in Turkey. The table also shows the traditional numeric values of the letters.


title: Georgian scripts

text: The first Georgian script was included in Unicode Standard in October 1991 with the release of version 1.0. In creating the Georgian Unicode block, important roles were played by German Jost Gippert, a linguist of Kartvelian studies, and American-Irish linguist and script-encoder Michael Everson, who created the Georgian Unicode for the Macintosh systems. Significant contributions were also made by Anton Dumbadze and Irakli Garibashvili (not to be mistaken with the Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili).


title: Georgian scripts

text: Georgian "Mkhedruli" script received an official status for being Georgia's internationalized domain name script for (.გე).


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mtavruli letters were added in Unicode version 11.0 in June 2018. They are capital letters with similar letterforms to Mkhedruli, but with descenders shifted above the baseline, with a wider central oval, and with the top slightly higher than the ascender height. Before this addition, font creators included Mtavruli in various ways. Some fonts came in pairs, of which one had lowercase letters and the other uppercase; some Unicode fonts placed Mtavruli letterforms in the Asomtavruli range (U+10A0-U+10CF) or in the Private Use Area, and some ASCII-based ones mapped them to the ASCII capital letters.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Georgian characters are found in three Unicode blocks. The first block (U+10A0–U+10FF) is simply called Georgian. Mkhedruli (modern Georgian) occupies the U+10D0–U+10FF range (shown in the bottom half of the first table below) and Asomtavruli occupies the U+10A0–U+10CF range (shown in the top half of the same table). The second block is the Georgian Supplement (U+2D00–U+2D2F), and it contains Nuskhuri. Mtavruli capitals are included in the Georgian Extended block (U+1C90–U+1CBF).


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mtavruli is defined as the upper case, but not title case, of Mkhedruli, and Asomtavruli as the upper case and title case of Nuskhuri.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Mac OS Georgian is an unofficial character encoding created by Michael Everson for Georgian on classic Mac OS. It is an extended ASCII encoding, using the 128 code points from 0x80 through 0xFF to represent the characters of the Asomtavruli and Mkhedruli scripts plus a number of widely-used symbols not included in 7-bit ASCII.


title: Georgian scripts

text: Below is the standard Georgian-language keyboard layout, the traditional layout of manual typewriters.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The first group of Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil in 1908. Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan. Since the 1980s, a return migration has emerged of Japanese Brazilians to Japan. More recently, a trend of interracial marriage has taken hold among Brazilians of Japanese descent, with the racial intermarriage rate approximated at 50% and increasing.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Between the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, coffee was the main export product of Brazil. At first, Brazilian farmers used African slave labour in the coffee plantations, but in 1850, the slave trade was abolished in Brazil. To solve the labour shortage, the Brazilian elite decided to attract European immigrants to work on the coffee plantations. This was also consistent with the government's push towards "whitening" the country. The hope was that through procreation the large African and Native American groups would be eliminated or reduced. The government and farmers offered to pay European immigrants' passage. The plan encouraged millions of Europeans, most of them Italians, to migrate to Brazil. However, once in Brazil, the immigrants received very low salaries and worked in poor conditions, including long working hours and frequent ill-treatment by their bosses. Because of this, in 1902, Italy enacted "Decree Prinetti", prohibiting subsidized emigration to Brazil.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The end of feudalism in Japan generated great poverty in the rural population, so many Japanese began to emigrate in search of better living conditions. By the 1930s, Japanese industrialisation had significantly boosted the population. However, prospects for Japanese people to migrate to other countries were limited. The US had banned non-white immigration from some parts of the world on the basis that they would not integrate into society; this Exclusion Clause, of the 1924 Immigration Act, specifically targeted the Japanese. At the same time in Australia, the White Australia Policy prevented the immigration of non-whites to Australia.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In 1907, the Brazilian and the Japanese governments signed a treaty permitting Japanese migration to Brazil. This was due in part to the decrease in the Italian immigration to Brazil and a new labour shortage on the coffee plantations. Also, Japanese immigration to the United States had been barred by the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907. The first Japanese immigrants (781 people – mostly farmers) came to Brazil in 1908 on the "Kasato Maru". About half of these immigrants came from southern Okinawa. They travelled from the Japanese port of Kobe via the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Many of them became owners of coffee plantations.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In the first seven years, 3,434 more Japanese families (14,983 people) arrived. The beginning of World War I in 1914 started a boom in Japanese migration to Brazil; such that between 1917 and 1940 over 164,000 Japanese came to Brazil, 75% of them going to São Paulo, where most of the coffee plantations were located.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The vast majority of Japanese immigrants intended to work a few years in Brazil, make some money, and go home. However, "getting rich quick" was a dream that was almost impossible to achieve. This was exacerbated by the fact that it was obligatory for Japanese immigrants to Brazil prior to the Second World War to emigrate in familial units. Because multiple persons necessitated monetary support in these familial units, Japanese immigrants found it nearly impossible to return home to Japan even years after emigrating to Brazil. The immigrants were paid a very low salary and worked long hours of exhausting work. Also, everything that the immigrants consumed had to be purchased from the landowner (see truck system). Soon, their debts became very significant.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The land owners in Brazil still had a slavery mentality. Immigrants, although employees, had to confront the rigidity and lack of labour laws. Indebted and subjected to hours of exhaustive work, often suffering physical violence, the immigrants saw the as an alternative to escape the situation. Suicide, "yonige" (to escape at night), and strikes were some of the attitudes taken by many Japanese because of the exploitation on coffee farms.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The barrier of language, religion, dietary habits, clothing, lifestyles and differences in climate entailed a culture shock. Many immigrants tried to return to Japan but were prevented by Brazilian farmers, who required them to comply with the contract and work with the coffee. Even when they were free of their contractual obligations on Brazil’s coffee plantations, it was often impossible for immigrants to return home due to their meager earnings. Many Japanese immigrants purchased land in rural Brazil instead, having been forced to invest what little capital they had into land in order to someday make enough to return to Japan. As independent farmers, Japanese immigrants formed communities that were ethnically-isolated from the rest of Brazilian society. The immigrants who settled and formed these communities referred to themselves as "shokumin" and their settlements as "shokuminchi".


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: On 1 August 1908, "The New York Times" remarked that relations between Brazil and Japan at the time were "not extremely cordial", because of "the attitude of Brazil toward the immigration of Japanese labourers."


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Japanese children born in Brazil were educated in schools founded by the Japanese community. Most only learned to speak the Japanese language and lived within the Japanese community in rural areas. Over the years, many Japanese managed to buy their own land and became small farmers. They started to plant strawberries, tea and rice. Only 6% of children were the result of interracial relationships. Immigrants rarely accepted marriage with a non-Japanese person.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: By the 1930s, Brazilians complained that the independent Japanese communities had formed "quistos raciais", or “racial cysts”, and were unwilling to further integrate the Japanese Brazilians into Brazilian society. The Japanese government, via the Japanese consulate in São Paulo, was directly involved with the education of Japanese children in Brazil. Japanese education in Brazil was modeled after education systems in Japan, and schools in Japanese communities in Brazil received funding directly from the Japanese government. By 1933, there were 140,000-150,000 Japanese Brazilians, which was by far the largest Japanese population in any Latin American country.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: With Brazil under the leadership of Getúlio Vargas and the Empire of Japan involved on the Axis side in World War II, Japanese Brazilians became more isolated from their mother country. Japanese leaders and diplomats in Brazil left for Japan after Brazil severed all relations with Japan on 29 January 1942, leading Japanese Brazilians to fend for themselves in an increasingly-hostile country. Vargas’s regime instituted several measures that targeted the Japanese population in Brazil, including the loss of freedom to travel within Brazil, censorship of Japanese newspapers (even those printed in Portuguese), and imprisonment if Japanese Brazilians were caught speaking Japanese in public. Japanese Brazilians became divided amongst themselves, and some even turned to performing terrorist acts on Japanese farmers who were employed by Brazilian farmers. By 1947, however, following the end of World War II, tensions between Brazilians and their Japanese population had cooled considerably. Japanese-language newspapers returned to publication and Japanese-language education was reinstituted among the Japanese Brazilian population. World War II had left Japanese Brazilians isolated from their mother country, censored by the Brazilian government, and facing internal conflicts within their own populations, but, for the most part, life returned to normal following the end of the war.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: On 28 July 1921, representatives Andrade Bezerra and Cincinato Braga proposed a law whose Article 1 provided: "The immigration of individuals from the black race to Brazil is prohibited." On 22 October 1923, representative Fidélis Reis produced another bill on the entry of immigrants, whose fifth article was as follows: "The entry of settlers from the black race into Brazil is prohibited. For Asian [immigrants] there will be allowed each year a number equal to 5% of those residing in the country..."


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Some years before World War II, the government of President Getúlio Vargas initiated a process of forced assimilation of people of immigrant origin in Brazil. The Constitution of 1934 had a legal provision about the subject: ""The concentration of immigrants anywhere in the country is prohibited, the law should govern the selection, location and assimilation of the alien"". The assimilationist project affected mainly


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In the government's conception, the non-White population of Brazil should disappear within the dominant class of Portuguese Brazilian origin. This way, the mixed-race population should be "whitened" through selective mixing, then a preference for European immigration. In consequence, the non-white population would, gradually, achieve a desirable White phenotype. The government focused on Italians, Jews, and Japanese. The formation of "ethnic cysts" among immigrants of non-Portuguese origin prevented the realization of the whitening project of the Brazilian population. The government, then, started to act on these communities of foreign origin to force them to integrate into a "Brazilian culture" with Portuguese roots. It was the dominant idea of a unification of all the inhabitants of Brazil under a single "national spirit". During World War II, Brazil severed relations with Japan. Japanese newspapers and teaching the Japanese language in schools were banned, leaving Portuguese as the only option for Japanese descendants. Newspapers in Italian or German were also advised to cease production, as Italy and Germany were Japan's allies in the war. In 1939, research of Estrada de Ferro Noroeste do Brasil, from São Paulo, showed that 87.7% of Japanese Brazilians read newspapers in the Japanese language, a high figure for a country with many illiterate people like Brazil at the time.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The Japanese appeared as undesirable immigrants within the "whitening" and assimilationist policy of the Brazilian government. Oliveira Viana, a Brazilian jurist, historian and sociologist described the Japanese immigrants as follows: "They (Japanese) are like sulfur: insoluble". The Brazilian magazine "O Malho" in its edition of 5 December 1908 issued a charge of Japanese immigrants with the following legend: "The government of São Paulo is stubborn. After the failure of the first Japanese immigration, it contracted 3,000 yellow people. It insists on giving Brazil a race diametrically opposite to ours". In 1941, the Brazilian Minister of Justice, Francisco Campos, defended the ban on admission of 400 Japanese immigrants in São Paulo and wrote: "their despicable standard of living is a brutal competition with the country’s worker; their selfishness, their bad faith, their refractory character, make them a huge ethnic and cultural cyst located in the richest regions of Brazil".


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The Japanese Brazilian community was strongly marked by restrictive measures when Brazil declared war against Japan in August 1942. Japanese Brazilians could not travel the country without safe conduct issued by the police; over 200 Japanese schools were closed and radio equipment was seized to prevent transmissions on short wave from Japan. The goods of Japanese companies were confiscated and several companies of Japanese origin had interventions, including the newly founded Banco América do Sul. Japanese Brazilians were prohibited from driving motor vehicles (even if they were taxi drivers), buses or trucks on their property. The drivers employed by Japanese had to have permission from the police. Thousands of Japanese immigrants were arrested or expelled from Brazil on suspicion of espionage. There were many anonymous denunciations of "activities against national security" arising from disagreements between neighbors, recovery of debts and even fights between children. Japanese Brazilians were arrested for "suspicious activity" when they were in artistic meetings or picnics. On 10 July 1943, approximately 10,000 Japanese and German and Italian immigrants who lived in Santos had 24 hours to close their homes and businesses and move away from the Brazilian coast. The police acted without any notice. About 90% of people displaced were Japanese. To reside in Baixada Santista, the Japanese had to have a safe conduct. In 1942, the Japanese community who introduced the cultivation of pepper in Tomé-Açu, in Pará, was virtually turned into a "concentration camp". This time, the Brazilian ambassador in Washington, D.C., Carlos Martins Pereira e Sousa, encouraged the government of Brazil to transfer all the Japanese Brazilians to "internment camps" without the need for legal support, in the same manner as was done with the Japanese residents in the United States. No single suspicion of activities of Japanese against "national security" was confirmed.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: During the National Constituent Assembly of 1946, the representative of Rio de Janeiro Miguel Couto Filho proposed Amendments to the Constitution as follows: "It is prohibited the entry of Japanese immigrants of any age and any origin in the country". In the final vote, a tie with 99 votes in favour and 99 against. Senator Fernando de Melo Viana, who chaired the session of the Constituent Assembly, had the casting vote and rejected the constitutional amendment. By only one vote, the immigration of Japanese people to Brazil was not prohibited by the Brazilian Constitution of 1946.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The Japanese immigrants appeared to the Brazilian government as undesirable and non-assimilable immigrants. As Asian, they did not contribute to the "whitening" process of the Brazilian people as desired by the ruling Brazilian elite. In this process of forced assimilation the Japanese, more than any other immigrant group, suffered the ethno-cultural persecution imposed during this period.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: For decades, Japanese Brazilians were seen as a non-assimilable people. The immigrants were treated only as a reserve of cheap labour that should be used on coffee plantations and that Brazil should avoid absorbing their cultural influences. This widespread conception that the Japanese were negative for Brazil was changed in the following decades. The Japanese were able to overcome the difficulties along the years and drastically improve their lives through hard work and education; this was also facilitated by the involvement of the Japanese government in the process of migration. The image of hard working agriculturists that came to help develop the country and agriculture helped erase the lack of trust of the local population and create a positive image of the Japanese. In the 1970s, Japan became one of the richest countries of the world, synonymous with modernity and progress. In the same period, Japanese Brazilians achieved a great cultural and economic success, probably the immigrant group that most rapidly achieved progress in Brazil. Due to the powerful Japanese economy and due to the rapid enrichment of the Nisei, in the last decades Brazilians of Japanese descent achieved a social prestige in Brazil that largely contrasts with the aggression with which the early immigrants were treated in the country.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: As of 2008, many Japanese Brazilians belong to the third generation (sansei), who make up 41.33% of the community. First generation (issei) are 12.51%, second generation (nisei) are 30.85% and fourth generation (yonsei) 12.95%.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: A more recent phenomenon in Brazil is intermarriages between Japanese Brazilians and non-ethnic Japanese. Though people of Japanese descent make up only 0.8% of the country's population, they are the largest Japanese community outside Japan, with over 1.4 million people. In areas with large numbers of Japanese, such as São Paulo and Paraná, since the 1970s, large numbers of Japanese descendants started to marry into other ethnic groups. Jeffrey Lesser's work has shown the complexities of integration both during the Vargas era, and more recently during the dictatorship (1964–1984)


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Nowadays, among the 1.4 million Brazilians of Japanese descent, 28% have some non-Japanese ancestry. This number reaches only 6% among children of Japanese immigrants, but 61% among great-grandchildren of Japanese immigrants.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Immigrants, as well as most Japanese, were mostly followers of Shinto and Buddhism. In the Japanese communities in Brazil, there was a strong effort by Brazilian priests to proselytize the Japanese. More recently, intermarriage with Catholics also contributed to the growth of Catholicism in the community. Currently, 60% of Japanese-Brazilians are Roman Catholics and 25% are adherents of a Japanese religion.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The Japanese immigration to Brazil, in particular the immigration of the judoka Mitsuyo Maeda, resulted in the development of one of the most effective modern martial arts, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Japanese immigrants also brought sumo wrestling to Brazil, with the first tournament in the country organized in 1914. The country has a growing number of amateur sumo wrestlers, with the only purpose-built sumo arena outside Japan located in São Paulo. Brazil also produced (as of January 2022) sixteen professional wrestlers, with the most successful being Kaisei Ichirō.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The knowledge of the Japanese and Portuguese languages reflects the integration of the Japanese in Brazil over several generations. Although first generation immigrants will often not learn Portuguese well or not use it frequently, most second generation are bilingual. The third generation, however, are most likely monolingual in Portuguese or speak, along with Portuguese, non-fluent Japanese.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: A study conducted in the Japanese Brazilian communities of Aliança and Fukuhaku, both in the state of São Paulo, released information on the language spoken by these people. Before coming to Brazil, 12.2% of the first generation interviewed from Aliança reported they had studied the Portuguese language in Japan, and 26.8% said to have used it once on arrival in Brazil. Many of the Japanese immigrants took classes of Portuguese and learned about the history of Brazil before migrating to the country. In Fukuhaku only 7.7% of the people reported they had studied Portuguese in Japan, but 38.5% said they had contact with Portuguese once on arrival in Brazil. All the immigrants reported they spoke exclusively Japanese at home in the first years in Brazil. However, in 2003, the figure dropped to 58.5% in Aliança and 33.3% in Fukuhaku. This probably reflects that through contact with the younger generations of the family, who speak mostly Portuguese, many immigrants also began to speak Portuguese at home.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The first Brazilian-born generation, the Nisei, alternate between the use of Portuguese and Japanese. Regarding the use of Japanese at home, 64.3% of Nisei informants from Aliança and 41.5% from Fukuhaku used Japanese when they were children. In comparison, only 14.3% of the third generation, Sansei, reported to speak Japanese at home when they were children. It reflects that the second generation was mostly educated by their Japanese parents using the Japanese language. On the other hand, the third generation did not have much contact with their grandparent's language, and most of them speak the national language of Brazil, Portuguese, as their mother tongue.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Japanese Brazilians usually speak Japanese more often when they live along with a first generation relative. Those who do not live with a Japanese-born relative usually speak Portuguese more often. Japanese spoken in Brazil is usually a mix of different Japanese dialects, since the Japanese community in Brazil came from all regions of Japan, influenced by the Portuguese language. The high numbers of Brazilian immigrants returning from Japan will probably produce more Japanese speakers in Brazil.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In 2008, IBGE published a book about the Japanese diaspora and it estimated that, as of 2000 there were 70,932 Japanese-born immigrants living in Brazil (compared to the 158,087 found in 1970). Of the Japanese, 51,445 lived in São Paulo. Most of the immigrants were over 60 years old, because the Japanese immigration to Brazil has ended since the mid-20th century.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: According to the IBGE, as of 2000, there were 1,435,490 people of Japanese descent in Brazil. The Japanese immigration was concentrated to São Paulo and, still in 2000, 48% of Japanese Brazilians lived in this state. There were 693,495 people of Japanese origin in São Paulo, followed by Paraná with 143,588. More recently, Brazilians of Japanese descent are making presence in places that used to have a small population of this group. For example: in 1960, there were 532 Japanese Brazilians in Bahia, while in 2000 they were 78,449, or 0.6% of the state's population. Northern Brazil (excluding Pará) saw its Japanese population increase from 2,341 in 1960 (0.2% of the total population) to 54,161 (0.8%) in 2000. During the same period, in Central-Western Brazil they increased from 3,583 to 66,119 (0.7% of the population). However, the overall Japanese population in Brazil is shrinking, secondary to a decreased birth rate and an aging population; return immigration to Japan, as well as intermarriage with other races and dilution of ethnic identity.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: For the whole Brazil, with over 1.4 million people of Japanese descent, the largest percentages were found in the states of São Paulo (1.9% of Japanese descent), Paraná (1.5%) and Mato Grosso do Sul (1.4%). The smallest percentages were found in Roraima and Alagoas (with only 8 Japanese). The percentage of Brazilians with Japanese roots largely increased among children and teenagers. In 1991, 0.6% of Brazilians between 0 and 14 years old were of Japanese descent. In 2000, they were 4%, as a result of the returning of Dekasegis (Brazilians of Japanese descent who work in Japan) to Brazil.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: A 2008 census revealed details about the population of Japanese origin from the city of Maringá in Paraná, making it possible to have a profile of the Japanese-Brazilian population.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Of the 12,478 people of Japanese origin living in Maringá, 6.61% were Issei (born in Japan); 35.45% were Nisei (children of Japanese); 37.72% were Sansei (grandchildren) and 13.79% were Yonsei (great-grandchildren).


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Most were Roman Catholics (32% of Sansei, 27% of Nisei, 10% of Yonsei and 2% of Issei). Protestant religions were the second most followed (6% of Nisei, 6% of Sansei, 2% of Yonsei and 1% of Issei) and next was Buddhism (5% of Nisei, 3% of Issei, 2% of Sansei and 1% of Yonsei).


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: 47% can understand, read and write in Japanese. 31% of the second generation and 16% of the third generation can speak Japanese.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: During the 1980s, the Japanese economic situation improved and achieved stability. Many Japanese Brazilians went to Japan as contract workers due to economic and political problems in Brazil, and they were termed "Dekasegi". Working visas were offered to Brazilian Dekasegis in 1990, encouraging more immigration from Brazil.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In 1990, the Japanese government authorized the legal entry of Japanese and their descendants until the third generation in Japan. At that time, Japan was receiving a large number of illegal immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, and Thailand. The legislation of 1990 was intended to select immigrants who entered Japan, giving a clear preference for Japanese descendants from South America, especially Brazil. These people were lured to Japan to work in areas that the Japanese refused (the so-called "three K": "Kitsui", "Kitanai" and "Kiken" – hard, dirty and dangerous). Many Japanese Brazilians began to immigrate. The influx of Japanese descendants from Brazil to Japan was and continues to be large: there are over 300,000 Brazilians living in Japan today, mainly as workers in factories.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Because of their Japanese ancestry, the Japanese Government believed that Brazilians would be more easily integrated into Japanese society. In fact, this easy integration did not happen, since Japanese Brazilians and their children born in Japan are treated as foreigners by native Japanese. This apparent contradiction between being and seeming causes conflicts of adaptation for the migrants and their acceptance by the natives.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: They also constitute the largest number of Portuguese speakers in Asia, greater than those of formerly Portuguese East Timor, Macau and Goa combined. Likewise, Brazil, alongside the Japanese American population of the United States, maintains its status as home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Cities and prefectures with the most Brazilians in Japan are: Hamamatsu, Aichi, Shizuoka, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Gunma. Brazilians in Japan are usually educated. However, they are employed in the Japanese automotive and electronics factories. Most Brazilians go to Japan attracted by the recruiting agencies (legal or illegal) in conjunction with the factories. Many Brazilians are subjected to hours of exhausting work, earning a small salary by Japanese standards. Nevertheless, in 2002, Brazilians living in Japan sent US$2.5 billion to Brazil.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Due to the financial crisis of 2007–2010, many Brazilians returned from Japan to Brazil. From January 2011 to March, it is estimated that 20,000 Brazilian immigrants left Japan.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In Japan, many Japanese Brazilians suffer prejudice because they do not know how to speak Japanese fluently. Despite their Japanese appearance, Brazilians in Japan are culturally Brazilians, usually only speaking Portuguese, and are treated as foreigners.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The children of "Dekasegi" Brazilians encounter difficulties in Japanese schools. Thousands of Brazilian children are out of school in Japan.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The Brazilian influence in Japan is growing. Tokyo has the largest carnival parade outside of Brazil itself. Portuguese is the third most spoken foreign language in Japan, after Chinese and Korean, and is among the most studied languages by students in the country. In Oizumi, it is estimated that 15% of the population speak Portuguese as their native language. Japan has two newspapers in the Portuguese language, besides radio and television stations spoken in that language. The Brazilian fashion and Bossa Nova music are also popular among Japanese. In 2005, there were an estimated 302,000 Brazilian nationals in Japan, of whom 25,000 also hold Japanese citizenship.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In 2008, many celebrations took place in Japan and Brazil to remember the centenary of Japanese immigration. Prince Naruhito of Japan arrived in Brazil on 17 June to participate in the celebrations. He visited Brasília, São Paulo, Paraná, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. Throughout his stay in Brazil, the Prince was received by a crowd of Japanese immigrants and their descendants. He broke the protocol of the Japanese Monarchy, which prohibits physical contact with people, and greeted the Brazilian people. In the São Paulo sambódromo, the Prince spoke to 50,000 people and in Paraná to 75,000. He also visited the University of São Paulo, where people of Japanese descent make up 14% of the 80,000 students. Naruhito, the crown prince of Japan, gave a speech in Portuguese.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In São Paulo there are two Japanese publications, the "São Paulo Shimbun" and the "Nikkey Shimbun". The former was established in 1946 and the latter was established in 1998. The latter has a Portuguese edition, the "Jornal Nippak", and both publications have Portuguese websites. The "Jornal Paulista", established in 1947, and the "Diário Nippak", established in 1949, are the predecessors of the "Nikkey Shimbun".


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The "Nambei", published in 1916, was Brazil's first Japanese newspaper. In 1933 90% of East Asian-origin Brazilians read Japanese publications, including 20 periodicals, 15 magazines, and five newspapers. The increase of the number of publications was due to Japanese immigration to Brazil. The government banned publication of Japanese newspapers during World War II.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Tatiane Matheus of "Estadão" stated that in the pre-World War II period the "Nippak Shimbun", established in 1916; the "Burajiru Jiho", established in 1917; and two newspapers established in 1932, the "Nippon Shimbun" and the "Seishu Shino", were the most influential Japanese newspapers. All were published in São Paulo.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Japanese international day schools in Brazil include the Escola Japonesa de São Paulo ("São Paulo Japanese School"), the Associação Civil de Divulgação Cultural e Educacional Japonesa do Rio de Janeiro in the Cosme Velho neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, and the Escola Japonesa de Manaus. The Escola Japonesa de Belo Horizonte (ベロ・オリゾンテ日本人学校), and Japanese schools in Belém and Vitória previously existed; all three closed, and their certifications by the Japanese education ministry (MEXT) were revoked on March 29, 2002 (Heisei 14).


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: There are also supplementary schools teaching the Japanese language and culture. As of 2003, in southern Brazil there are hundreds of Japanese supplementary schools. The Japan Foundation in São Paulo's coordinator of projects in 2003 stated that São Paulo State has about 500 supplementary schools. Around 33% of the Japanese supplementary schools in southeastern Brazil are in the city of São Paulo. As of 2003 almost all of the directors of the São Paulo schools were women.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: MEXT recognizes one part-time Japanese school (hoshu jugyo ko or hoshuko), the Escola Suplementar Japonesa Curitiba in Curitiba. MEXT-approved hoshukos in Porto Alegre and Salvador have closed.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: The Taisho School, Brazil's first Japanese language school, opened in 1915 in São Paulo. In some areas full-time Japanese schools opened because no local schools existed in the vicinity of the Japanese settlements. In 1932 over 10,000 Nikkei Brazilian children attended almost 200 Japanese supplementary schools in São Paulo. By 1938 Brazil had a total of 600 Japanese schools.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In 1970, 22,000 students, taught by 400 teachers, attended 350 supplementary Japanese schools. In 1992 there were 319 supplementary Japanese language schools in Brazil with a total of 18,782 students, 10,050 of them being female and 8,732 of them being male. Of the schools, 111 were in São Paulo State and 54 were in Paraná State. At the time, the São Paulo Metropolitan Area had 95 Japanese schools, and the schools in the city limits of São Paulo had 6,916 students.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: In the 1980s, São Paulo Japanese supplementary schools were larger than those in other communities. In general, during that decade a Brazilian supplementary Japanese school had one or two teachers responsible for around 60 students.


title: Japanese Brazilians

text: Hiromi Shibata, a PhD student at the University of São Paulo, wrote the dissertation "As escolas japonesas paulistas (1915–1945)", published in 1997. Jeff Lesser, author of "Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil", wrote that the author "suggests" that the Japanese schools in São Paulo "were as much an affirmation of Nipo-Brazilian identity as they were of Japanese nationalism."


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Lance Taylor (born on April 17, 1957), also known as Afrika Bambaataa (), is an American DJ, rapper, and producer from the South Bronx, New York. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of hip hop culture. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the originators of breakbeat DJing.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Through his co-opting of the street gang the Black Spades into the music and culture-oriented Universal Zulu Nation, he has helped spread hip hop culture throughout the world.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In May 2016, Bambaataa left his position as head of The Zulu Nation due to multiple allegations of child sexual abuse dating as far back as the 1970s.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Born Lance Taylor to Jamaican and Barbadian immigrants, Bambaataa grew up in the Bronx River Projects, with an activist mother and uncle. As a child, he was exposed to the black liberation movement and witnessed debates between his mother and uncle regarding the conflicting ideologies in the movement. He was exposed to his mother's extensive and eclectic record collection. Gangs in the area became the law, clearing their turf of drug dealers, assisting with community health programs and both fighting and partying to keep members and turf.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Bambaataa was a member of the Black Spades. He quickly rose to the position of warlord of one of the divisions. As warlord, it was his job to build ranks and expand the turf of the young Spades. He was not afraid to cross turfs to forge relationships with other gang members, and with other gangs. As a result, the Spades became the biggest gang in the city in terms of both membership and turf.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: After Bambaataa won an essay contest that earned him a trip to Africa, his worldview shifted. He had seen the movie "Zulu" and was impressed with the solidarity exhibited by the Zulu in that film. During his trip to Africa, the communities he visited inspired him to create one in his own neighborhood. He changed his name to Afrika Bambaataa Aasim, adopting the name of the Zulu chief Bhambatha, who led an armed rebellion against unfair economic practices in early 20th-century South Africa. He told people that his name was Zulu for "affectionate leader". Bambaataa formed The "Bronx River Organization" as an alternative to the Black Spades.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Due to the oft nebulous timeline of hip-hop origins, there are conflicting accounts of when Bambaataa began hosting parties. Some suggest he began as early as 1970, predating noted "father of hip hop" Kool Herc, while others contend he began after Herc in 1976, in fact, attending and drawing inspiration from Kool Herc parties. He vowed to use hip-hop to draw angry kids out of gangs and form the Universal Zulu Nation.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Robert Keith Wiggins, a.k.a. "Cowboy" of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, is credited with naming hip-hop. The term became a common phrase used by MCs as part of a scat-inspired style of rhyming. Writer Steven Hager claims that the first time "hip-hop" was used in print was in his "Village Voice" article where he was quoting Bambaataa, who had called the culture "hip-hop" in an interview. That said, the words "hip hop" do appear in the 1979 track "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In 1982, Bambaataa and his followers – a group of dancers, artists, and DJs – went outside the United States on the first hip-hop tour. He saw that the hip hop tours would be the key to help expand hip hop and his Universal Zulu Nation. In addition it would help promote the values of hip hop that he believed are based on peace, unity, love, and having fun. He brought peace to the gangs; many artists and gang members say that "hip hop saved a lot of lives". His influence inspired many overseas artists like the French rapper MC Solaar.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: He was a popular DJ in The South Bronx rap scene and became known not only as Afrika Bambaataa but also as the "Master of Records". He established two rap crews: the Jazzy 5 including MCs Master Ice, Mr. Freeze, Master Bee, Master D.E.E, and AJ Les, and the second crew referred to as Soulsonic Force including Mr. Biggs, Pow Wow and Emcee G.L.O.B.E.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In 1982, Bambaataa, who was inspired by Kraftwerk's futuristic electronic music, debuted at The Roxy a test cassette of EBN-OZN's ground breaking, 12-inch white rap/spoken word "AEIOU Sometimes Y". It was the first commercially released American single ever made on a computer, a Fairlight CMI, ushering in the era of music computer sampling. In that same year, Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force stopped performing with a live band, and began to use only technology. Bambaataa credited the pioneering Japanese electropop group Yellow Magic Orchestra, whose work he sampled, as an inspiration.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: He also borrowed a keyboard hook from German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk and was provided the electronic Roland TR-808 "beat-box" by producer Arthur Baker and synthesizer player John Robie. That resulted in "Planet Rock", which went to gold status and generated an entire school of "electro-boogie" rap and dance music. Bambaataa formed his own label to release the Time Zone Compilation. He created "turntablism" as its own subgenre and the ratification of "electronica" as an industry-certified trend in the late 1990s.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In the late 1970s, Bambaataa formed what became known as the Universal Zulu Nation, a group of socially and politically aware rappers, B-boys, graffiti artists and other people involved in hip hop culture. By 1977, inspired by DJ Kool Herc and DJ Dee, and after Disco King Mario loaned him his first equipment, Bambaataa began organizing block parties all around The South Bronx. He even faced his long-time friend, Disco King Mario in a DJ battle. He then began performing at Adlai E. Stevenson High School and formed the Bronx River Organization, then later simply "The Organization".


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Bambaataa had deejayed with his own sound system at The Bronx River Houses' Community Center, with Mr. Biggs, Queen Kenya, and Cowboy, who accompanied him in performances in the community. Because of his prior status in the Black Spades, he already had an established Army party crowd drawn from former members of the gang. Hip hop culture was spreading through the streets via house parties, block parties, gym dances and mix tapes.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: About a year later Bambaataa reformed the group, calling it the Zulu Nation (inspired by his wide studies on African history at the time). Specifically, Bambaataa watched the 1964 film "Zulu", which sparked the name for the group. Five b-boys (break dancers) joined him, whom he called the Zulu Kings, and later formed the Zulu Queens, and the Shaka Zulu Kings and Queens. As he continued deejaying, more DJs, rappers, b-boys, b-girls, graffiti writers, and artists followed him, and he took them under his wing and made them all members of his Zulu Nation.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: He was also the founder of the Soulsonic Force, which originally consisted of approximately 20 Zulu Nation members: Mr. Biggs, Queen Kenya, DJ Cowboy Soulsonic Force (#2), Pow Wow, G.L.0.B.E. (creator of the "MC popping" rap style), DJ Jazzy Jay, Cosmic Force, Queen Lisa Lee, Prince Ikey C, Ice Ice (#1), Chubby Chub; Jazzy Five-DJ Jazzy Jay, Mr. Freeze, Master D.E.E., Kool DJ Red Alert, Sundance, Ice Ice (#2), Charlie Choo, Master Bee, Busy Bee Starski, Akbar (Lil Starski), and Raheim. The personnel for the Soulsonic Force were groups within groups with whom he would perform and make records.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In 1980, Bambaataa's groups made "Death Mix", their first recording with Paul Winley Records. According to Bambaata, this was an unauthorized release. Winley recorded two versions of Soulsonic Force's landmark single, "Zulu Nation Throwdown", with authorization from the musicians. Disappointed with the results of the single, Bambaataa left the company. The arranger credit on these recordings is correctly attributed to Harlem Underground Band leader, Kevin Donovan. This led to the false assumption that Bambaataa's real name was Kevin Donovan, which was widely accepted by the hip hop community until recently, following sexual abuse allegations, when Bronx River residents spoke out and revealed in oral testimonies that Bambaataa's real name was in fact Lance Taylor.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: The Zulu Nation was the first hip-hop organization, with an official birth date of November 12, 1977. Bambaataa's plan with the Universal Zulu Nation was to build a movement out of the creativity of a new generation of outcast youths with an authentic, liberating worldview.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In 1981, hip hop artist Fab Five Freddy was putting together music packages in the largely white downtown Manhattan new wave clubs, and invited Bambaataa to perform at one of them, the Mudd Club. It was the first time Bambaataa had performed before a predominantly white crowd. Attendance for his parties downtown became so large that he had to move to larger venues, first to the Ritz, in a show organized by hip hop pioneer, Michael Holman, with Malcolm McLaren's group Bow Wow Wow, then to the Peppermint Lounge, The Jefferson, Negril, Danceteria and the Roxy.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: "Planet Rock", a popular single produced by Arthur Baker and the keyboardist John Robie, came out that June under the name Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force. The song borrowed musical motifs from German electronic music, funk, and rock. Different elements and musical styles were used together. The song became an immediate hit and stormed the music charts worldwide. The song melded the main melody from Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" with electronic beats based on their track "Numbers" as well as portions from records by Babe Ruth and Captain Sky, thus creating a new style of music altogether, electro funk.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Afrika Bambaataa was booked on the first ever European hip hop tour presented by Europe One and Fnac France. Along with himself were rapper and graffiti artist Rammellzee, Zulu Nation DJ Grand Mixer DXT (formerly Grand Mixer D.St), B-boy and B-girl crews the Rock Steady Crew, and the Double Dutch Girls, as well as legendary graffiti artists Fab 5 Freddy, PHASE 2, Futura 2000, and Dondi.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Bambaataa's second release around 1983 was "Looking for the Perfect Beat", then later, "Renegades of Funk", both with the same Soulsonic Force. He began working with producer Bill Laswell at Jean Karakos's Celluloid Records, where he developed and placed two groups on the label: Time Zone and Shango. Bambaataa recorded "Wildstyle" with Time Zone, and he recorded a collaboration with punk rocker John Lydon and Time Zone in 1984, titled "World Destruction". Shango's album, "Shango Funk Theology", was released by the label in 1984.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In 1984, Bambaataa and other hip hop celebrities appeared in the movie "Beat Street". He also made a landmark recording with James Brown, titled "Unity". It was billed in music industry circles as "the Godfather of Soul meets the Godfather of Hip Hop".


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Around October 1985, Bambaataa and other music stars worked on the anti-apartheid album "Sun City" with Little Steven Van Zandt, Joey Ramone, Run–D.M.C., Lou Reed, U2, and others. During 1988, he recorded "Afrika Bambaataa and Family" for Capitol Records, titled The Light, featuring Nona Hendryx, UB40, Boy George, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and Yellowman. He had recorded a few other works with Family three years earlier, one titled "Funk You" in 1985, and the other titled "Beware (The Funk Is Everywhere)" in 1986. In 1986 he discovered an artist in Atlanta. (Through MC SHY D) by the name of Kenya Miler a.k.a. MC Harmony (Known producer now as Kenya Fame Flames Miller), that was later signed to Criminal Records and Arthur Baker.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: The group was Harmony and LG. The first single, 1987's "Dance To The Drums/No Joke", was produced by Bambaataa and Baker with musicians Keith LeBlanc and Doug Wimbish. Bambaataa was involved in the Stop the Violence Movement, and with other hip hop artists recorded "Self Destruction", a 12" single which hit number one on the Hot Rap Singles Chart in March 1989. The single went gold and raised $400,000 for the National Urban League to be used for community anti-violence education programs.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In 1990, Bambaataa made "Life" magazine's "Most Important Americans of the 20th Century" issue. He was also involved in the anti-apartheid work "Hip Hop Artists Against Apartheid" for Warlock Records. He teamed with the Jungle Brothers to record the album "Return to Planet Rock (The Second Coming)".


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Gee Street Records, Bambaataa and John Baker organized a concert at Wembley Stadium in London in 1990 for the African National Congress (ANC), in honor of Nelson Mandela's release from prison. The concert brought together performances by British and American rappers, and also introduced both Nelson and Winnie Mandela and the ANC to hip hop audiences. In relation to the event, the recording Ndodemnyama (Free South Africa) helped raise approximately $30,000 for the ANC.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: From the mid-1990s, Bambaataa returned to his electro roots. In 1998, he produced a remix of "Planet Rock" combining electro and house music elements, called "Planet Rock '98", which is regarded as an early example of the electro house genre. In 2000, Rage Against the Machine covered his song "Renegades of Funk" for their album, "Renegades". The same year, he collaborated with Leftfield on the song "Afrika Shox", the first single from Leftfield's "Rhythm and Stealth". "Afrika Shox" also appeared on the soundtrack to "Vanilla Sky".


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In 2004, he collaborated with WestBam, a group that was named after him, on the 2004 album "Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light" which also featured Gary Numan. In 2006, he was featured on the British singer Jamelia's album "Walk with Me" on a song called "Do Me Right", and on Mekon's album "Some Thing Came Up", on the track "D-Funktional". He performed the lyrics on the track "Is There Anybody Out There" by the Bassheads. As an actor, he has played a variety of voice-over character roles on "Kung Faux".


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: Bambaataa was a judge for the 6th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers. On September 27, 2007, it was announced that Afrika Bambaataa was one of the nine nominees for the 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions. On December 22, 2007, he made a surprise appearance performing at the "First Annual Tribute Fit For the King of King Records, Mr. Dynamite James Brown" in Covington, Kentucky.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: On August 14, 2012, Bambaataa was given a three-year appointment as a visiting scholar at Cornell University. The appointment was made in collaboration between Cornell University Library's Hip Hop Collection, the largest collection of historical hip hop music in North America, and the university's department of Music. His archives, including his vinyl collection, original audio and video recordings, manuscripts, books, and papers arrived at the Cornell University Hip Hop Collection in December 2013.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In April 2016, Bronx political activist Ronald "Bee-Stinger" Savage accused Bambaataa of molesting him in 1980, when Savage was 15. Following Savage's allegations, three more men accused Bambaataa of sexual abuse. Bambaataa issued a statement to "Rolling Stone" denying the allegations. In early May 2016, the Universal Zulu Nation disassociated themselves from Bambaataa as part of an organizational restructuring that saw the group removing "all accused parties and those accused of covering up the current allegations of child molestation" from their current roles in the organization.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: On May 6 that year, Bambaataa left his position as head of The Zulu Nation. Then, a month later, The Universal Zulu Nation issued an open letter apologizing to the people alleging Bambaataa had sexually abused them while expressing responsibility for the organization's "poor response". The letter was signed by nearly three-dozen members of the Zulu Nation, including leaders from as far as New Zealand.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: In October 2016, "Vice" published an investigative article titled "Afrika Bambaataa Allegedly Molested Young Men For Decades" and reported stories from the alleged victims and witnesses. The article stated the accusers "claim that these accounts of alleged abuse have been common knowledge in the Bronx River community and beyond since the early 1980s, including among many of Bambaataa's closest friends and Zulu soldiers." In a March 2021 interview, Melle Mel would not respond to whether the molestation allegations were known.


title: Afrika Bambaataa

text: No charges have been brought against Afrika Bambaataa to date. In October 2021 Bambaataa was sued by an anonymous man who alleged that between 1991 and 1995 Bambaataa engaged in repeated sexual abuse with him when he was a minor and also sex trafficked him to other adult men.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: The Player is a 1992 American satirical black comedy film directed by Robert Altman and written by Michael Tolkin, based on his own 1988 novel of the same name. The film stars Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Brion James and Cynthia Stevenson, and is the story of a Hollywood film studio executive who kills an aspiring screenwriter he believes is sending him death threats.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: "The Player" has many film references and Hollywood in-jokes, with 65 celebrities making cameo appearances in the film. Altman once stated that the film "is a very mild satire," offending no one. The film received three nominations at the 65th Academy Awards: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing. The film also won two Golden Globes, Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical and Best Actor – Comedy or Musical for Robbins.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: Griffin Mill is a Hollywood studio executive dating story editor Bonnie Sherow. He hears story pitches from screenwriters and decides which have the potential to be made into films, green-lighting only 12 out of 50,000 submissions every year. His job is threatened when up-and-coming story executive Larry Levy begins working at the studio. Mill has also been receiving death threat postcards, assumed to be from a screenwriter whose pitch he rejected.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: Mill surmises that the disgruntled writer is David Kahane, and Kahane's girlfriend June Gudmundsdottir tells him that Kahane is at the Rialto Theater in Pasadena, at a screening of "Bicycle Thieves". Mill pretends to recognize Kahane in the lobby, and offers him a scriptwriting deal, hoping this will stop the threats. The two go to a nearby bar where Kahane gets intoxicated and rebuffs Mill's offer, calling him a liar and continuing to goad him about his job security at the studio. In the bar's parking lot, the two men fight. Mill goes too far and drowns Kahane in a shallow pool of water while screaming, “Keep it to yourself!” Mill then stages the crime to make it look like a botched robbery.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: The next day, after Mill is late for and distracted at a meeting, studio chief of security Walter Stuckel confronts him about the murder and says that the police know that he was the last one to see Kahane alive. At the end of their conversation Mill receives a fax from his stalker. Thus, Mill has killed the wrong man, and the stalker apparently knows this. Mill attends Kahane's funeral and gets into conversation with Gudmundsdottir. Detectives Avery and DeLongpre suspect Mill is guilty of murder.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: Mill receives a postcard from the stalker suggesting that they meet at a hotel bar. While Mill is waiting, he is cornered by two screenwriters, Tom Oakley and Andy Sivella, who pitch "Habeas Corpus", a legal drama featuring no major stars and with a depressing ending. Because Mill is not alone, his stalker does not appear. After leaving the bar, Mill receives a fax in his car, advising him to look under his raincoat. He discovers a live rattlesnake in a box and, terrified, bludgeons it with his umbrella.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: Mill tells Gudmundsdottir that his near-death experience made him realize he has feelings for her. Apprehensive that Larry Levy continues encroaching on his job, Mill invites the two writers to pitch "Habeas Corpus" to him, convincing Levy that the movie will be an Oscar contender. Mill's plan is to let Levy shepherd the film through production and have it flop. Mill will step in at the last moment, suggesting some changes to salvage the film's box office, letting him reclaim his position at the studio. Having persuaded Sherow to leave for New York on studio business, Mill takes Gudmundsdottir to a Hollywood awards banquet and their relationship blossoms.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: After Sherow confronts Mill about his relationship with Gudmundsdottir, Mill coldly severs their relationship in front of two writers. Mill takes Gudmundsdottir to an isolated Desert Hot Springs resort and spa. In the middle of Mill and Gudmundsdottir making love, Mill confesses his role in Kahane's murder, and Gudmundsdottir responds by saying she loves him. Mill's attorney informs him that studio head Joel Levison has been fired, and that the Pasadena police want Mill to participate in a lineup. An eyewitness has come forward, but she fails to identify Mill.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: One year later, studio power players are watching the end of "Habeas Corpus" with a new, tacked-on, upbeat Hollywood ending and famous actors in the lead roles. Mill's plan to save the movie has worked and he is head of the studio. Gudmundsdottir is now Mill's wife and pregnant with his child. Sherow objects to the film's new ending and is fired by Levy. Mill rebuffs her when she appeals her termination to him. Mill receives a pitch over the phone from Levy and a man who reveals himself as the postcard writer. The man pitches an idea about a studio executive who kills a writer and gets away with murder. Impressed, Mill gives the writer a deal, if he can guarantee a happy ending in which the executive lives happily with the writer's widow. The writer's title for the film is "The Player".


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: Altman had troubles with the Hollywood studio system in the 1970s after a number of studio films ("McCabe & Mrs. Miller", "The Long Goodbye") lost money or had trouble finding audiences despite the critical praise and cult adulation they received. Altman continued to work outside the studios in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, often doing small budget projects or filmed plays to keep his career alive. Chevy Chase was interested in playing the role of Griffin Mill, but Warner Bros didn't want Chase to star in the film.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: Although it was distributed by Fine Line Features rather than a major studio (FLF was a division of New Line Cinema), "The Player" was Altman's comeback to making films in Hollywood. It ushered in a new period of filmmaking for him, and he continued on to an adaptation of Raymond Carver's short stories, "Short Cuts" (1993).


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: The opening sequence shot lasts 7 minutes and 47 seconds without an edit. Fifteen takes were required to shoot this scene, but, according to the slate at the beginning of the shot, the tenth take was used in the final edit.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: Altman was praised for the sex scene in which Robbins and Scacchi were filmed from the neck up. Scacchi later claimed that Altman had wanted a nude scene, but that it was her refusal which led to the final form.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: The editing of "The Player" by Geraldine Peroni was honored by a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. In 2004, Tony Sloman wrote an appreciation of the film's editing:


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 98% based on 65 reviews, with an average rating of 8.80/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Bitingly cynical without succumbing to bitterness, "The Player" is one of the all-time great Hollywood satires — and an ensemble-driven highlight of the Altman oeuvre." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 86 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film a full four stars out of four and called it "a smart movie, and a funny one. It is also absolutely of its time. After the savings and loan scandals, after Michael Milken, after junk bonds and stolen pension funds, here is a movie that uses Hollywood as a metaphor for the avarice of the 1980s. It is the movie "The Bonfire of the Vanities" wanted to be." Gene Siskel also gave the film a perfect four-star grade and wrote, "If you knew nothing and cared nothing about the movie business, you can still appreciate "The Player" as a ripping good thriller, too." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" wrote, "Robert Altman has not really been away. Yet his new Hollywood satire titled 'The Player' is so entertaining, so flip and so genially irreverent that it seems to announce the return of the great gregarious film maker whose "Nashville" remains one of the classics of the 1970's.


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: Todd McCarthy of "Variety" wrote, "Mercilessly satiric yet good-natured, this enormously entertaining slam dunk represents a remarkable American come-back for eternal maverick Robert Altman." Terrence Rafferty of "The New Yorker" called it "a brilliant dark comedy about the death of American filmmaking," adding, "In this picture Altman is doing one of his specialties: exploring an odd American subculture—revealing its distinctive textures and explicating the peculiar principles of social intercourse which keep it functioning. But when his idiosyncratic style of anthropological realism is applied to the tight community of Hollywood 'players' it has an almost hallucinatory effect." Peter Rainer of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that "Altman has made a movie that's supremely deft and pleasurable. As if to taunt his detractors, he even 'tells a story' this time, and he does a better job of it than the hacks who have been getting work when he couldn't."


title: The Player (1992 film)

text: In 2015, "Entertainment Weekly"s 25th anniversary year, it named "The Player" in its list of the 25 best movies since the magazine's beginnings. Rolling Stone listed "The Player" as one of the best movies of the 90's.


title: Asur (web series)

text: Asur is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller web series, produced by Tanveer Bookwala of Ding Entertainment for the video on demand platform Voot. The series stars Arshad Warsi, Barun Sobti, Sharib Hashmi and Amey Wagh. The series is set in the context of a modern day serial killer having religious ties. Arshad Warsi made his OTT debut through this series.


title: Asur (web series)

text: Set in the backdrop of the mystical city of Varanasi, Asur follows Nikhil Nair, a forensic-expert-turned-teacher, who returns to his roots at the Central Bureau of Investigation, and along with his former mentor Dhananjay Rajpoot, finds himself caught in a cat-and-mouse game with a brutal serial killer. What follows is a blend of suspense, mythology and the murders of some people totally unrelated.


title: Asur (web series)

text: The whole team of a serial killer has been committing various murders on a regular basis, and despite the best efforts of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team it has not been possible to stop these killings.


title: Asur (web series)

text: This has not yet been fully disclosed Who is the mastermind of the murder, it may be known in Season 2.


title: Superstition

text: A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, amulets, astrology, fortune telling, spirits, and certain paranormal entities, particularly the belief that future events can be foretold by specific (apparently) unrelated prior events.


title: Superstition

text: Also, the word "superstition" is often used to refer to a religion not practiced by the majority of a given society regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains alleged superstitions or to all religions by the antireligious.


title: Superstition

text: Definitions of the term vary, but commonly describe superstitions as irrational beliefs at odds with scientific knowledge of the world. Stuart Vyse proposes that a superstition's "presumed mechanism of action is inconsistent with our understanding of the physical world", with Jane Risen adding these beliefs are not merely scientifically wrong, but impossible. Similarly, Lysann Damisch defines superstition as "irrational beliefs that an object, action, or circumstance that is not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome",


title: Superstition

text: Dale Martin, says they "presuppose an erroneous understanding about cause and effect, that have been rejected by modern science." The "Oxford English Dictionary" describes them as "irrational, unfounded", Merriam Webster, as "a false conception about causation or belief or practice", the Cambridge Dictionary "sans grounding in human reason or scientific knowledge". This notion of superstitious practices are not causally related to the outcomes.


title: Superstition

text: Both Vyse and Martin argue what is considered superstitious varies across cultures and time. For Vyse, "if a culture has not yet adopted science as its standard, then what we consider magic or superstition is more accurately the local science or religion." Dale points out that superstitions are often considered as out of place in modern times influenced by modern science and its notions of what is rational or irrational, surviving as remnants of older popular beliefs and practices.


title: Superstition

text: Vyse proposes that in addition to being irrational and culturally-dependant, superstitions have to be instrumental: an actual effect is expected by the person holding a belief, such as increased odds of winning a prize. This distinction excludes practices where participants merely expect to be entertained.


title: Superstition

text: Religious practices that differ from commonly accepted religions in a given culture are sometimes called superstitious; similarly, new practices brought into an established religious community can also be labeled as superstitious in an attempt to exclude them. Similarly, an excessive display of devoutness has often been labelled as superstitious behavior.


title: Superstition

text: In antiquity, the Latin term "superstitio", like its equivalent Greek "deisidaimonia", came to be associated with exaggerated ritual and a credulous attitude towards prophecies. Greek and Roman polytheists, who modeled their relations with the gods on political and social terms, scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious master. Such fear of the gods was what the Romans meant by "superstition" (Veyne 1987, p. 211). Diderot's "Encyclopédie" defines superstition as "any excess of religion in general", and links it specifically with paganism.


title: Superstition

text: In his "Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church", Martin Luther (who called the papacy "that fountain and source of all superstitions") accuses the popes of superstition:


title: Superstition

text: For there was scarce another of the celebrated bishoprics that had so few learned pontiffs; only in violence, intrigue, and superstition has it hitherto surpassed the rest. For the men who occupied the Roman See a thousand years ago differ so vastly from those who have since come into power, that one is compelled to refuse the name of Roman pontiff either to the former or to the latter.


title: Superstition

text: The current "Catechism of the Catholic Church" considers superstition sinful in the sense that it denotes "a perverse excess of religion", as a demonstrated lack of trust in divine providence (¶ 2110), and a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments.


title: Superstition

text: Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. "" (¶ 2111)


title: Superstition

text: Dieter Harmening's book "Superstitio" categorizes superstitions in three categories of magic, divination and observances, he further divides observances category in 'signs' and 'time'. Time sub category constitutes temporal prognostics like observances of various days related like dog days, Egyptian days, year prognosis and lunaries, where as signs category constitutes signs like particular animal behaviors, like the call of birds or neighing of horses or sighting of comets, or dreams. According to László Sándor Chardonnens the signs subcategory usually needs an observer who might help in interpreting the signs and such observer does not need necessarily to be an active participant of the observation. According to Chardonnens, category of Divination participant need to go beyond mere observation and need to be active participant in given action. Examples of Divination superstitions are judicial astrology, necromancy, haruspex, lot-casting, geomancy, aeromancy and prophecy. Chardonnens says superstions belonging to magic category are exceedingly hermetical and ritualistic and its examples are witchcraft, potions, incantations, amulets etc. Chardonnens says Observation category needs an observer, divination category needs participant to tell what is to be observed, where as magic requires a participant who must follow a protocol to influence the future, and that these three types of superstition need increasing stages of participation and knowledge.


title: Superstition

text: Chardonnens defines "prognostication" as that component of superstition which, expects knowledge of the future on systematic application of given ritual and order, and moves to classify saying, Prognostication appear to occupy a place somewhere between observation and divination, of which due to the primacy of temporal prognostics, the observation of times is represented most frequently.


title: Superstition

text: Chardonnens classifies prophecy under topic of divination; examples being the prophets of the Old Testament, biblical typological allegory, the fifteen signs before Judgement Day, and the many prophecies expressed by saints.; Chardonnens further points out that since many aspects of religious experience are tied up with prophecy, church condones the same. Chardonnens says, one could differentiate between those kinds of prophecy which are (1) inspired by God or Satan and their minions; (2) “gecyndelic”; and (3) “wiglung” examples —lacking divine or infernal inspiration and not “gecyndelic” either. But practically, however, most, if not all, words relating to prophecy ought to be interpreted as inspired.


title: Superstition

text: Identifying something as "superstition" is generally pejorative. Items referred to as such in common parlance are commonly referred to as folk belief in folkloristics.


title: Superstition

text: According to László Sándor Chardonnens, OED definitions pass value judgement and attribution to "fear and ignorance", do not do enough justice to elaborate systems of superstitions. Chardonnens says the religious element in OED denotations are not understood as system of observance and testifies to a belief in higher power on part of the compiler of the dictionary.


title: Superstition

text: Webster's "The Encyclopedia of Superstitions" points out that, many superstitions are related with religion, people have been carrying individual subjective perceptions vis a vis superstitions against one another, people of one belief are likely to call people of another belief superstitious; Constantine regarded paganism as a superstition; Tacitus on other hand regarded Christianity as pernicious superstition; Saul of Tarsus and Martin Luther perceived any thing that was not centered on Christ to be superstitious. According to Dale, difference of opinion on what constitutes 'superstition' get apparent when one moves form one culture to another culture.


title: Superstition

text: While the formation of the Latin word is clear, from the verb "super-stare", "to stand over, stand upon; survive", its original intended sense is less clear. It can be interpreted as "‘standing over a thing in amazement or awe", but other possibilities have been suggested, e.g. the sense of "excess", i.e. over scrupulousness or over-ceremoniousness in the performing of religious rites, or else the "survival" of old, irrational religious habits.


title: Superstition

text: The earliest known use as a noun is found in Plautus, Ennius and later by Pliny, with the meaning of "art of divination". From its use in the Classical Latin of Livy and Ovid, it is used in the pejorative sense that it holds today, of an excessive fear of the gods or unreasonable religious belief; as opposed to "religio", the proper, reasonable awe of the gods. Cicero derived the term from "superstitiosi", lit. those who are "left over", i.e. "survivors", "descendants", connecting it with excessive anxiety of parents in hoping that their children would survive them to perform their necessary funerary rites.


title: Superstition

text: According to Michael David Bailey, it was with Pliny's usage that Magic came close to superstition; and charges of being superstitious were first leveled by Roman authorities on its Christian subjects. In turn, early Christian writers pronounced all Roman and Pagan cults to be superstitious worshiping false Gods, fallen angels and demons and it is with Christian usage almost all forms of magic started being described as forms of superstition.


title: Superstition

text: In 1948, behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner published an article in the "Journal of Experimental Psychology", in which he described his pigeons exhibiting what appeared to be superstitious behaviour. One pigeon was making turns in its cage, another would swing its head in a pendulum motion, while others also displayed a variety of other behaviours. Because these behaviors were all done ritualistically in an attempt to receive food from a dispenser, even though the dispenser had already been programmed to release food at set time intervals regardless of the pigeons' actions, Skinner believed that the pigeons were trying to influence their feeding schedule by performing these actions. He then extended this as a proposition regarding the nature of superstitious behavior in humans.


title: Superstition

text: Skinner's theory regarding superstition being the nature of the pigeons' behaviour has been challenged by other psychologists such as Staddon and Simmelhag, who theorised an alternative explanation for the pigeons' behaviour.


title: Superstition

text: Despite challenges to Skinner's interpretation of the root of his pigeons' superstitious behaviour, his conception of the reinforcement schedule has been used to explain superstitious behaviour in humans. Originally, in Skinner's animal research, "some pigeons responded up to 10,000 times without reinforcement when they had originally been conditioned on an "intermittent reinforcement" basis." Compared to the other reinforcement schedules (e.g., fixed ratio, fixed interval), these behaviours were also the most resistant to extinction. This is called the "partial reinforcement effect", and this has been used to explain superstitious behaviour in humans. To be more precise, this effect means that, whenever an individual performs an action expecting a reinforcement, and none seems forthcoming, it actually creates a sense of persistence within the individual.


title: Superstition

text: From a simpler perspective, natural selection will tend to reinforce a tendency to generate weak associations or heuristics that are overgeneralized. If there is a strong survival advantage to making correct associations, then this will outweigh the negatives of making many incorrect, "superstitious" associations. It has also been argued that there may be connections between OCD and superstition.


title: Superstition

text: A recent theory by Jane Risen proposes that superstitions are intuitions that people acknowledge to be wrong, but acquiesce to rather than correct when they arise as the intuitive assessment of a situation. Her theory draws on dual-process models of reasoning. In this view, superstitions are the output of "System 1" reasoning that are not corrected even when caught by "System 2".


title: Superstition

text: People seem to believe that superstitions influence events by changing the likelihood of currently possible outcomes rather than by creating new possible outcomes. In sporting events, for example, a lucky ritual or object is thought to increase the chance that an athlete will perform at the peak of their ability, rather than increasing their overall ability at that sport.


title: Superstition

text: Psychologist Stuart Vyse has pointed out that until about 2010, "[m]ost researchers assumed superstitions were irrational and focused their attentions on discovering why people were superstitious." Vyse went on to describe studies that looked at the relationship between performance and superstitious rituals. Preliminary work has indicated that such rituals can reduce stress and thereby improve performance, but, Vyse has said, "...not because they are superstitious but because they are rituals... So there is no real magic, but there is a bit of calming magic in performing a ritualistic sequence before attempting a high-pressure activity... Any old ritual will do."


title: Superstition

text: People tend to attribute events to supernatural causes (in psychological jargon, "external causes") most often under two circumstances.


title: Superstition

text: According to consumer behavior analytics of John C. Mowen et al., superstitions are employed as a heuristic tool hence those influence a variety of consumer behaviors. John C. Mowen et al. says, after taking into account for a set of antecedents, trait superstitions are predictive of a wide variety of consumer beliefs, like beliefs in astrology or in common negative superstitions (e.g., fear of black cats). Additionally, a general proneness to be superstitious leads to enduring temperament to gamble, participation in promotional games, investments in stocks, forwarding of superstitious e‐mails, keeping good‐luck charms, and exhibit sport fanship etc.


title: Superstition

text: Ancient Greek historian Polybius in his "Histories" uses the word "superstition" explaining that in ancient Rome that belief maintained the cohesion of the empire, operating as an "instrumentum regni".


title: Superstition

text: In the classical era, the existence of gods was actively debated both among philosophers and theologians, and opposition to superstition arose consequently. The poem ', written by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius further developed the opposition to superstition. Cicero's work ' also had a great influence on the development of the modern concept of superstition as well as the word itself. Where Cicero distinguished ' and ', Lucretius used only the word '. Cicero, for whom ' meant “excessive fear of the gods” wrote that “"" ”, which means that only superstition, and not religion, should be abolished. The Roman Empire also made laws condemning those who excited excessive religious fear in others.


title: Superstition

text: During the Middle Ages, the idea of God's influence on the world's events went mostly undisputed. Trials by ordeal were quite frequent, even though Frederick II (11941250) was the first king who explicitly outlawed trials by ordeal as they were considered “irrational”.


title: Superstition

text: The rediscovery of lost classical works (The Renaissance) and scientific advancement led to a steadily increasing disbelief in superstition. A new, more rationalistic lens was beginning to see use in exegesis. Opposition to superstition was central to the Age of Enlightenment. The first philosopher who dared to criticize superstition publicly and in a written form was Baruch Spinoza, who was a key figure in the Age of Enlightenment.


title: Superstition

text: Most superstitions arose over the course of centuries and are rooted in regional and historical circumstances, such as religious beliefs or the natural environment. For instance, geckos are believed to be of medicinal value in many Asian countries, including China.


title: Superstition

text: In China, Feng shui is a belief system that different places have negative effects, e.g. that a room in the northwest corner of a house is "very bad". Similarly, the number 8 is a "lucky number" in China, so that it is more common than any other number in the Chinese housing market.


title: Superstition

text: There are many different animals around the world that have been tied to superstitions. People in the West are familiar with the omen of a black cat crossing one’s path. Locomotive engineers believe a hare crossing one’s path is bad luck. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) is targeted by motorists in regions of Brazil who don’t want the creature to cross in front of them and give them bad luck.


title: Superstition

text: Certain numbers hold significance for particular cultures and communities. It is common for buildings to omit certain floors on their elevator panels and there are specific terms for people with severe aversions to specific numbers. Triskaidekaphobia, for example, is the fear of the number 13.


title: Superstition

text: There are many objects tied to superstitions. During the Great Depression, it was common for people to carry a rabbit’s foot around with them. During the Coronavirus epidemic, people in parts of Indonesia made "tetek melek," a traditional homemade mask made of coconut palm fronds, which was hung in doorways to keep occupants safe.


title: Superstition

text: According to superstitions breaking a mirror is said to bring seven years of bad luck. From ancient Roman to Northern India, mirrors have been handled with care, or sometimes avoided all together.


title: Superstition

text: Horseshoes have long been considered lucky. Opinion is divided as to which way up the horseshoe ought to be nailed. Some say the ends should point up, so that the horseshoe catches the luck, and that the ends pointing down allow the good luck to be lost; others say they should point down, so that the luck is poured upon those entering the home.


title: Superstition

text: Superstitious sailors believe that nailing a horseshoe to the mast will help their vessel avoid storms.


title: Superstition

text: In China yarrow and tortoiseshell are considered lucky and brooms have a number of superstitions attached to them. It is considered bad luck to use a broom within three days of the new year as this will sweep away good luck.


title: Superstition

text: Common actions in the West include not walking under a ladder, touching wood, throwing salt over one’s shoulder, or not opening an umbrella inside. In China wearing certain colours is believed to bring luck.


title: Superstition

text: "Break a leg" is a typical English idiom used in the context of theatre or other performing arts to wish a performer "good luck". An ironic or non-literal saying of uncertain origin (a dead metaphor), "break a leg" is commonly said to actors and musicians before they go on stage to perform or before an audition. In English (though it may originate in German), the expression was likely first used in this context in the United States in the 1930s or possibly 1920s, originally documented without specifically theatrical associations. Among professional dancers, the traditional saying is not "break a leg", but the French word ""merde"".


title: Superstition

text: Some superstitious actions have practical origins. Opening an umbrella inside in eighteenth-century London was a physical hazard, as umbrellas then were metal-spoked, clumsy spring mechanisms and a “veritable hazard to open indoors.”


title: Superstition

text: Another superstition with practical origins is the action of blowing briefly left and right before crossing rail tracks for safe travels as the person engaging in the action looks both ways.


title: Transportation Security Administration

text: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has authority over the security of transportation systems within, and connecting to the United States. It was created as a response to the September 11 attacks to improve airport security procedures and consolidate air travel security under a dedicated federal administrative law enforcement agency.


title: Transportation Security Administration

text: The TSA develops broad policies to protect the U.S. transportation system, including highways, railroads, buses, mass transit systems, ports, pipelines, and intermodal freight facilities. It fulfills this mission in conjunction with other federal agencies and state partners. However, the TSA's primary focus is on airport security and the prevention of aircraft hijacking. It is responsible for screening passengers and baggage at more than 450 U.S. airports, employing screening officers in airports, armed Federal Air Marshals on planes, mobile teams of dog handlers, and explosives specialists.


title: Transportation Security Administration

text: Previously part of the Department of Transportation, the TSA became part of DHS in March 2003. It is currently led by Administrator David Pekoske and is headquartered in Springfield, Virginia. As of the fiscal year 2020, the TSA operated on a budget of approximately $7.68 billion and employed over 47,000 Transportation Security Officers, Behavior Detection Officers, Transportation Security Specialists, Federal Air Marshals, and other security personnel.


title: Transportation Security Administration

text: The TSA has screening processes and regulations related to passengers and carry-on luggage, including identification requirements, pat-downs, full-body scanners, electronic device restrictions, and explosives screening. The agency has faced criticism and controversy throughout its history for the effectiveness of said procedures, as well as baggage theft, data security, and allegations of prejudicial treatment towards certain ethnic groups.


title: Transportation Security Administration

text: The TSA was created largely in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which revealed weaknesses in existing airport security procedures. At the time, a myriad of private security companies managed air travel security under contract to individual airlines or groups of airlines that used a given airport or terminal facility. Proponents of placing the government in charge of airport security, including Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, argued that only a single federal agency could best protect passenger aviation.