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Name	Latin
Nativename	lingua latina
Pronunciation
States	Latium, Roman Monarchy, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, Medieval and Early modern Europe, Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (as lingua franca), Vatican City
Era	Vulgar Latin developed into Romance languages, 6th to 9th centuries; the formal language continued as the scholarly lingua franca of medieval Western Europe and as the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic Church
Familycolor	Indo-European
Fam2	Italic
Fam3	Latino-Faliscan
Imagecaption	Latin inscription in the Colosseum
Map	Roman Empire map.svg
Mapcaption	Greatest extent of the Roman Empire, showing the area governed by Latin speakers. Many languages other than Latin were spoken there.
Map2	RomanceLanguages.png
Mapcaption2	Range of the Romance languages in Europe, representing the area where Latin influence was the most profound and enduring.
Nation
Agency	In antiquity, Roman schools of grammar and rhetoric. Today, Opus Fundatum Latinitas.
Script	Latin alphabet
Iso1	la|iso2lat|iso3lat|lingua51-AAB-a
Notice	IPA}}

Latin (; Latin: , ) is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. It originated in the Italian peninsula. Although it is considered a dead language, many scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and it is widely taught in primary, secondary and post-secondary educational institutions. Latin is still used in the creation of new words in modern languages of many different families, including English, and in biological taxonomy. Latin and its daughter Romance languages are the only surviving languages of the Italic language family. Other languages of the Italic branch are attested in the inscriptions of early Italy, but were assimilated to Latin during the Roman Republic.

The extensive use of elements from vernacular speech by the earliest authors and inscriptions of the Roman Republic make it clear that the original, unwritten language of the Roman Monarchy was an only partially deducible colloquial form, the predecessor to Vulgar Latin. By the late Roman Republic, a standard, literate form had arisen from the speech of the educated, now referred to as Classical Latin. Vulgar Latin, by contrast, is the name given to the more rapidly changing colloquial language spoken throughout the empire. With the Roman conquest, Latin spread to many Mediterranean regions, and the dialects spoken in these areas, mixed to various degrees with the autochthonous languages, developed into the Romance tongues, including Aragonese, Catalan, Corsican, French, Galician, Italian, Occitan, Portuguese, Romanian, Romansh, Sardinian, Sicilian, and Spanish. Classical Latin slowly changed with the Decline of the Roman Empire, as education and wealth became ever scarcer. The consequent Medieval Latin, influenced by various Germanic and proto-Romance languages until expurgated by Renaissance scholars, was used as the language of international communication, scholarship and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernacular languages.

Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders, seven noun cases, four verb conjugations, six tenses, three persons, three moods, two voices, two aspects and two numbers. A dual number ("a pair of") is present in Archaic Latin. One of the rarer of the seven cases is the locative, only marked in proper place names and a few common nouns. Otherwise the locative function ("place where") has merged with the genitive. The vocative, a case of direct address, is marked by an ending only in words of the second declension. Otherwise the vocative has merged with the nominative, except that the particle O typically precedes any vocative, marked or not. There are only five fully productive cases; that is, in the few instances of the formation of a distinct locative or vocative, the endings are specific to those words, and cannot be placed on other stems of the declension to produce a locative or vocative. In contrast, the plural nominative ending of the first declension may be used to form any first declension plural. As a result of this case ambiguity, different authors list different numbers of cases: 5, 6 or 7, which may be confusing. Adjectives and adverbs are compared, and the former are inflected according to case, gender, and number. In view of the fact that adjectives are often used for nouns, the two are termed substantives. Although Classical Latin has demonstrative pronouns indicating different degrees of proximity ("this one here", "that one there"), it does not have articles. Later Romance language articles developed from the demonstrative pronouns; e.g., ''le'' and ''la'' from ''ille'' and ''illa''.

Legacy

Latin culture has been passed down through a number of broad genres.

Inscriptions

Most inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed-upon, monumental, multi-volume series termed the ''Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL)''. Authors and publishers vary but the format is approximately the same: volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance and relevant information. The reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. There are approximately 270,000 known inscriptions.

Literature

The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part, in substantial works or in fragments to be analyzed in philology. They are in part the subject matter of the field of Classics. Their works were published in manuscript form before the invention of printing and now exist in carefully annotated printed editions such as the Loeb Classical Library, published by Harvard University Press or the Oxford Classical Texts, published by Oxford University Press.

Latin translations of modern literature such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Robinson Crusoe'', ''Paddington Bear'', ''Winnie the Pooh'', ''Tintin'', ''Asterix'', ''Harry Potter'', ''Walter the Farting Dog'', ''Le Petit Prince'', ''Max und Moritz'', ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'', and ''The Cat in the Hat'' and a book of fairy tales, "fabulae mirabiles," are intended to garner popular interest in the language. Additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissner's Latin Phrasebook.

Linguistics

Latin has had a significant influence in the formation of English at all stages of its insular development, to such a degree that whether it is primarily a Germanic language is sometimes questioned, in favor of its possibly being considered a Romance language. In the medieval period, much borrowing from Latin occurred through ecclesiastical usage established by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century, or indirectly after the Norman Conquest through the Anglo-Norman language. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words. These were dubbed "inkhorn terms", as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, but some which proved useful survived, such as ''imbibe'' and ''extrapolate''. Many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin, through the medium of Old French.

Due to the influence of Roman governance and Roman technology on the less developed nations under Roman dominion, those nations adopted Latin phraseology in some specialized areas, such as science, technology, medicine and law. For example, the Linnaean system of plant and animal classification was heavily influenced by ''Historia Naturalis'', an encyclopedia of people, places, plants, animals and things published by Pliny the Elder. Roman medicine, recorded in the works of such physicians as Galen, established that today's medical terminology would be primarily derived from Latin and Greek words, the Greek being filtered through the Latin. Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole. Latin law principles have survived partly in a long list of legal Latin terms.

Many international auxiliary languages have been heavily influenced by Latin. Interlingua, which lays claim to a sizeable following, is sometimes considered a simplified, modern version of the language. Latino sine Flexione, popular in the early 20th century, is Latin with its inflections stripped away, among other grammatical changes.

Education

Throughout European history, an education in the Classics was considered a must for those who wished to join literate circles. Instruction in Latin is an essential aspect of Classics. In today's world, a large number of Latin students in America learn from ''Wheelock's Latin: The Classic Introductory Latin Course, Based on Ancient Authors''. This book, first published in 1956, was written by Frederic M. Wheelock, who received a PhD from Harvard University. ''Wheelock's Latin'' has become the standard text for many American introductory Latin courses.

The Living Latin movement attempts to teach Latin in the same way that living languages are taught, i.e., as a means of both spoken and written communication. It is available at the Vatican, and at some institutions in the U.S., such as the University of Kentucky and Iowa State University. The British Cambridge University Press is a major supplier of Latin textbooks for all levels, such as the Cambridge Latin Course series. It has also published a subseries of children's texts in Latin by Bell & Forte, which recount the adventures of a mouse called Minimus.

In the United Kingdom, the Classical Association encourages the study of antiquity through various means, such as publications and grants. In the United States and Canada, the American Classical League supports every effort to further the study of classics. Its subsidiaries include: the National Junior Classical League (with more than 50,000 members), which encourages high school students to pursue the study of Latin, and the National Senior Classical League, which encourages students to continue their study of the classics into college. The league also sponsors the National Latin Exam. Classicist Mary Beard wrote in ''The Times Literary Supplement'' in 2006 that the reason for learning Latin is because of what was written in it.

Latin is taught as a mandatory subject in gymnasia and other so-called classical high schools, located chiefly in Europe. Latin grammar has been taught in most Italian schools since the 18th century: for example, in the Liceo classico and Liceo scientifico, Latin is still one of the primary subjects. In the United States, although once offered nearly universally, Latin is limited to elective status in a steadily declining number of grade schools, both public and private. The ordinary student can no longer count on being able to take Latin, but there are extracurricular means. The College Board examinations, which serve as an educational tool for the admission of students into colleges, still feature one Latin examination on a voluntary basis: Advanced Placement Latin: Vergil.

History of Latin

A number of historical phases of the language have been recognized, each distinguished by subtle differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling, morphology and syntax. There are no hard and fast rules of classification; different scholars emphasize different features. As a result, the list has variants, as well as alternative names. In addition to the historical phases, Ecclesiastical Latin refers to the styles used by the writers of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as by Protestant scholars, from Late Antiquity onward.

The generally recognized main phases under their most frequent names are introduced below.

Archaic Latin

The earliest known is Archaic Latin, which was spoken from the Roman Kingdom to the middle Republican period, and is attested both in inscriptions and in some of the earliest extant literary works, such as the comedies of Plautus and Terence. During this period, the Latin alphabet was devised from the Etruscan alphabet. The writing style later changed from an initial right-to-left or boustrophedon to a left-to-right script.

Classical Latin

During the late republic and into the first years of the empire, a new Classical Latin arose, a conscious creation of the orators, poets, historians and other literate men, who wrote the great works of classical literature, which were taught in grammar and rhetoric schools. Today's instructional grammars trace their roots to these schools, which served as a sort of informal language academy dedicated to maintaining and perpetuating educated speech.

Vulgar Latin

Philological analysis of Archaic Latin works, such as Plautus', which contain snippets of everyday speech, indicates that a spoken language, which was in Classical Latin called Vulgar Latin (''sermo vulgi'' by Cicero), the language of the ''vulgus'' or "commoners", existed contemporaneously with the literate Classical Latin. Since this language, by virtue of its informality, was rarely written, philologists have been left with only individual words and phrases cited by Classical authors, as well as those found as graffiti.

As vernacular Latin was free to develop on its own, there is no reason to expect that the speech was uniform either diachronically or geographically. On the contrary, Romanized European populations developed their own dialects of the }} The Migration Period, ca. 300-700 AD, brought an end to the unity of the Roman world and removed the stabilizing influence of its institutions upon the language. A post-classical phase of Latin appeared, Late Latin, which was far more influenced by the everyday parlance.

One of the tests to determine whether a Romance-language feature or usage was in Vulgar Latin is to compare it with its parallel in Classical Latin. If it was not preferred in classical Latin, then it most likely came from the invisible contemporaneous vulgar Latin. For example, Romance "horse" (cavallo/cheval/caballo/cavalo) came from Latin caballus. However, classical Latin used equus. Caballus therefore was most likely the spoken form.

Vulgar Latin began to diverge into distinct languages by the 9th century at latest, when the earliest extant Romance writings begin to appear. They were, throughout the Dark Ages, confined to everyday speech, as, subsequent to Late Latin, Medieval Latin was used for writing.

Medieval Latin

The term Medieval Latin refers to the written Latin in use during that portion of the post-classical period when no corresponding Latin vernacular existed. The spoken language had developed into the various incipient Romance Languages; however, in the educated and official world Latin continued without its natural spoken base. Moreover, this Latin spread into lands that had never spoken Latin, such as the Germanic and Slavic nations. It became useful as a means of international communication between the member states of the Holy Roman Empire and its allies.

Without the institutions of the Roman empire that had supported its uniformity, medieval Latin lost its linguistic cohesion; for example, in classical Latin ''sum'' and ''eram'' are used as auxiliary verbs in the perfect and pluperfect passive, which are compound tenses. Medieval Latin might use ''fui'' and ''fueram'' instead. Furthermore the meanings of many words have been changed and new vocabularies have been introduced from the vernacular. Identifiable individual styles of classically incorrect Latin prevail.

Renaissance Latin

The Renaissance briefly reinforced the position of Latin as a spoken language, through its adoption by the Renaissance Humanists. Often led by members of the clergy, they were shocked by the accelerated dismantling of the vestiges of the classical world and the rapid loss of its literature. They strove to preserve what they could. It was they who introduced the practice of producing revised editions of the literary works that remained by comparing surviving manuscripts, and they who attempted to restore Latin to what it had been. They corrected medieval Latin out of existence no later than the 15th century and replaced it with more formally correct versions supported by the scholars of the rising universities, who attempted, through scholarship, to discover what the classical language had been.

Modern Latin

The largest organization that retains Latin for official and quasi-official contexts is the Catholic Church. Latin remains the language of the Roman Rite; the Tridentine Mass is celebrated in Latin, and although the Mass of Paul VI is usually celebrated in the local vernacular language, it can be and often is said in Latin, in part or whole, especially at multilingual gatherings. Latin is the official language of the Holy See, the primary language of its public journal, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, and the working language of the Roman Rota. Vatican City is also home to the world's only ATM that gives instructions in Latin.

Some films of ancient settings, such as ''Sebastiane'' and ''The Passion of the Christ'', have been made with dialogue in Latin for purposes of realism. Occasionally, Latin dialogue is used because of its association with religion or philosophy, in such film/TV series as ''The Exorcist'' and ''Lost'' ("Jughead"). Subtitles are usually employed for the benefit of audiences who do not understand Latin. There are also songs written with Latin lyrics.

Many organizations today have Latin mottos, such as "Semper Paratus" (always ready), the motto of the United States Coast Guard, and "Semper Fidelis" (always faithful), the motto of the United States Marine Corps. Several of the states of the United States also have Latin mottos, such as "Montani Semper Liberi" (Mountaineers are always free), the state motto of West Virginia; "Sic semper tyrannis" (Thus always to tyrants), that of Virginia; "Esse Quam Videri" (To be rather than to seem), that of North Carolina; and "Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam, circumspice" ("If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you") that of Michigan.

Occasionally, some media outlets broadcast in Latin, which is targeted at the audience of enthusiasts. Notable examples include Radio Bremen in Germany, YLE radio in Finland and Vatican Radio & Television, all of which broadcast news segments and other material in Latin.

There are many websites and forums maintained in Latin by enthusiasts. The Latin Wikipedia has more than 70,000 articles written in Latin.

Phonology

No inherited verbal knowledge of the pronunciation of Latin exists. It must be reconstructed. Among the data used for reconstruction listed by Allen are explicit statements by ancient authors, especially grammarians, about the pronunciation of a word, puns, ancient etymologies, Latin words stated in other languages, and so on.

As is true of any language, pronunciation varied according to historical period. Standard practice in Latin education is to teach the pronunciation of Classical Latin first. Every Latinist is familiar with the opening clause of ''De Bello Gallico'', ''Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres ...'' and knows that divisa is said as diwisa. It makes little difference whether "Oh come all ye faithful" is sung as ''venite, venite'' or "wenite, wenite," although the first is more appropriate to the period. Period differences are generally taught with the works of their authors; however, use of the classical pronunciation is always acceptable.

Consonants

The main consonant phonemes of Classical Latin are stated in the table below. The phonemes given by no means exhaust the number of possible phonemes. For example, distinctions might be made between word-initial and word-final positions, intervocalic, post-consonantal, and so on, which are considerations of linguistic environment. Also, gemminate consonants may not be the same phonemes as singulates. :{| class="wikitable IPA" ! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |   ! rowspan="2" | Labial ! rowspan="2" | Dental ! rowspan="2" | Palatal ! colspan="2" | Velar ! rowspan="2" | Glottal |- style="font-size:x-small;" ! plain ! labial |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="text-align:left;" rowspan="3" | Plosive ! style="font-size:x-small;text-align:left;" | voiced | /b/ | /d/ | | /ɡ/ | /ɡʷ/ |   |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="font-size:x-small;text-align:left;" | voiceless | /p/ | /t/ |   | /k/ | /kʷ/ | |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="font-size:x-small;text-align:left;" | aspirated | /pʰ/ | /tʰ/ |   | /kʰ/ | | |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="text-align:left;" rowspan="2" | Fricative ! style="font-size:x-small;text-align:left;" | voiced |   | /z/ | | | | |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="font-size:x-small;text-align:left;" | voiceless | /f/ | /s/ | | | | /h/ |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="text-align:left;" colspan="2" | Nasal | /m/ | /n/ |   | /ŋ/ |   |   |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="text-align:left;" colspan="2" | Rhotic | | /r/ |   | |   |   |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="text-align:left;" colspan="2" | Approximant |   | /l/ | /j/ | | /w/ | |} The period graphemes representing these phonemes are only a partial match to today's English alphabet, which, except for the capital letters, dates to the Middle Ages. Latin texts are nevertheless printed in it. The inscription from the Colosseum shown at the top of the article is a good example of the appearance of native Roman graphemes. Some notes concerning the mapping of Latin phonemes to English graphemes are given below. :{| class="wikitable" ! Englishgrapheme !! Latinphoneme !! Notes |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨c⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || Never as in ''nice''; without aspiration, as in Italian ''peccare'' |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨g⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || Never as in ''germ'' |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨g⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || Before /n/, as in ''dignus'' 'worthy' |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨l⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || Existed in two allophones: ''l exilis'' before /l/ and /i/, and ''l pinguis'' in all other positions. The ancients defined their pronunciation as "thin," which was forward, and "fat," which was back. The evolution of a consonant cluster containing /l/ depended on whether it was thin or fat. This is an environmental consideration, omitted from the table, which lists only the general /l/. |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨n⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || If /n/ occurs before /c/, /g/ or /x/, it is the velar nasal, ("ng" as in "sing"). Otherwise, it is the alveolar nasal, , or before /f/ and /s/ represents a long nasal vowel, as in ''consul'' . |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨ph⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || Pronounced approximately like ''p'' in English ''point'', but with more aspiration; never as in English ''philosopher.'' |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨t⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || Never as in English ''nation''. |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨th⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || Analogous to ''ph''; never as in English ''thunder'' or ''the''. |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨qu⟩|| style="text-align:center;"| || A labiovelar, considered one consonant. |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨gu⟩|| style="text-align:center;"| || A labiovelar, considered one consonant. Only occurs after a nasal or liquid, as in ''languidus'' and ''urgueo''. |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨u⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || Also ⟨v⟩. These are graphic variants. They stood for both the consonant /w/ and the vowel /u/. ⟨u⟩ is /w/ at the beginning of a syllable. E.g., ''uehebantur'' "they were driving", ''inuehebantur'' "they were attacking verbally", ''quattuor'' "four", which is disyllabic in verse. A [w] was also pronounced, but not written, between /u/ and a vowel: ''duo'' . |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨i⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || Also ⟨j⟩. These are graphic variants. Like the previous, ⟨i⟩ stood for both consonant /j/ and vowel /i/: ''iucundus'' "pleasant", ''periucundus'' "very pleasant". |- | style="font-size:110%;text-align:center;"|⟨x⟩ || style="text-align:center;"| || A double consonant, considered two consonants. |}

Long consonants are represented by doubled spelling: ''puella'' = ("girl"; similar to Italian ''nella''), ''littera'' = ("letter", "character"; as in Italian ''petto''), ''accidere'' = ("to happen"; stress on the second syllable; as in Italian ''ecco''), ''addere'' = ("to add"), ''pessime'' = ("very/most badly") and the like.

It is also notable that consonants at the end of syllables close these syllables clearly, that means the latter are pronounced longer: e.g. ''amare'' = ("to love") has the quantitative structure ''short-long-short'', whereas ''armare'' = ("to arm") shows ''long-long-short''. This feature of classical Latin is crucial to the understanding and retracing of Latin poetical rhythms of classical and ensuing times, which are mainly based on syllable lengths, less on the word stresses.

Vowels

:{| class="wikitable" ! !! Front !! Central !! Back |- | High || style="text-align:center;"|iː ɪ || style="text-align:center;"| || style="text-align:center;"| ʊ uː |- | Mid || style="text-align:center;"| eː ɛ || style="text-align:center;"| || style="text-align:center;"| ɔ oː |- | Low || || style="text-align:center;"| a aː || |} :Vowels: ⟨a⟩ = when short and when long ⟨á⟩ ⟨e⟩ = (as in ''pet'') when short and (somewhat as in English ''they'') when long ⟨é⟩ ⟨i⟩ = (as in ''pin'') when short and (as in ''machine'') when long ⟨ꟾ⟩ ⟨o⟩ = (as in British English ''law'') when short and (somewhat as in ''holy'') when long ⟨ó⟩ ⟨u⟩ = (as in ''put'') when short and (as in ''true'') when long ⟨ú⟩. Also ⟨v⟩.

In inscriptions, and in upper case in handwriting, the letter u, whether as a consonant or as a vowel, was invariably written as V.

Classical Latin distinguished between long and short vowels, and the use of the apex, which indicates long vowels, was quite widespread during classical and postclassical times. In modern texts, long vowels are often indicated by a macron ⟨ā, ē, ī, ō, ū⟩, and short vowels are sometimes indicated by a breve ⟨ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ⟩. The vowel length distinction began to fade by Late Latin.

A vowel followed by an ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩ (maintained later by some Romance languages), either at the end of a word (⟨m⟩ only) or before another consonant, is nasal, as in ''monstrum'' , and in many cases the consonant is not pronounced, as in French and Portuguese. This alphabet has continued to be used throughout centuries as the script for the Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Finnic, and many Slavic languages (Polish, Slovak, Slovene, Croatian and Czech), as well as for others as Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Niger–Congo languages.

The Latin alphabet has varied in number of letters. When it was first adopted from the Etruscan alphabet, it contained only 21. Later, “G”, representing , formerly included under “C”, was innovated to replace “Z”, which was non-functional, as the language had no voiced alveolar fricative at the time. The letters “Y” and “Z” were later added to represent the Greek Upsilon and Zeta respectively in Greek loanwords. “W” was created in the 11th century from VV. It represented in Germanic languages, not in Latin, which still uses “V” for the purpose. “J” was distinguished from the original “I” only during the late Middle Ages along with the letter “U” from “V”. Although some dictionaries use “J” it is for the most part eschewed for Latin text as non-original, although other languages use it.

Classical Latin did not contain sentence punctuation, letter case, or interword spacing, though apices were used to distinguish length in vowels and the interpunct was used at times to separate words. So, a sentence originally written:

: or with interpunct as :

would be rendered in a modern edition as

:Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque or with macrons :Lūgēte, Ō Venerēs Cupīdinēsque.

and translated as

:Mourn, O Venuses and Cupids. The Roman cursive script is commonly found on the many wax tablets excavated at sites such as forts, an especially extensive set having been discovered at Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall in Britain. Curiously enough, most of the Vindolanda tablets show spaces between words, though spaces were avoided in monumental inscriptions from that era.

Grammar

Latin is a synthetic, fusional language, in the terminology of linguistic typology. In more traditional terminology, it is an inflected language, although the typologists are apt to say inflecting. In essence, a word contains within it not just an objective semantic element, but also markers specifying the grammatical use of the word. This fusion of root meaning and markers produces very compact sentence elements. For example, ''amo'', "I love," is produced from a semantic element, am-, "love," to which -o, a first-person singular marker, has been suffixed. English requires two words to express the same meaning.

The grammatical function can be changed by changing the markers according to rule. The semantic element does not change; thus it is "inflected" or altered to express different grammatical functions. Inflection utilizes affixing and infixing. Affixing is prefixing and suffixing. Inflections are never prefixed. Suffixing and infixing are the methods by which the grammatical function is changed. For example, ''amabit'', "he or she will love", is considered formed from a semantic element, or stem, ama-, to which a future tense marker, -bi-, is infixed, and a third person marker, -t, is suffixed. There is an inherent ambiguity: -t may denote more than one grammatical category, in this case either masculine or feminine gender. For English speakers, the major task in understanding Latin phrases and clauses is to clarify the ambiguity by an analysis of context. Only a thorough knowledge of the endings is adequate to the task, and then not always. Typically Latin texts annotate ambiguities that were not able to be resolved, stating the possibilities. Only slight textual errors, such as miscopying, introduce whole new ranges of possibilites.

The inflections express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns—a process called ''declension''. Markers are attached to fixed stems of verbs, as well, to denote person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect—a process called ''conjugation''. Some words do not undergo either process. They are termed uninflected. Their meanings can only be understood by learning, never by production, or fusion. Other means must be found to identify their grammatical function in sentences.

Nouns

There are seven Latin noun cases, which also apply to adjectives and pronouns. These mark a noun's syntactic role in the sentence, so word order is not as important in Latin as it is in some other languages, such as English. Words can typically be moved around in a sentence without significantly altering its meaning, although the emphasis may have been altered. The cases are: # Nominative - used when the noun is the subject or a predicate nominative. The thing or person acting; e.g., the girl ran: ''puella cucurrit,'' or ''cucurrit puella'' # Genitive - used when the noun is the possessor of an object (e.g., "the horse of the man", or "the man's horse"—in both of these instances, the word ''man'' would be in the genitive case when translated into Latin). Also indicates material of which something greater is made (e.g., "a group of people"; "a number of gifts"—''people'' and ''gifts'' would be in the genitive case). Some nouns are genitive with special verbs and adjectives too. (e.g., The cup is full of wine. ''Poculum plenum vini est.'' The master of the slave had beaten him. ''Dominus servi eum verberaverat.'') # Dative - memorised as "to or for": used when the noun is the indirect object of the sentence, with special verbs, with certain prepositions, and if used as agent, reference, or even possessor. (e.g., The merchant hands over the stola to the woman. ''Mercator feminae stolam tradit.'') # Accusative - used when the noun is the direct object of the sentence/phrase, with certain prepositions, or as the subject of an infinitive. The thing or person having something done to them. (e.g., The slave woman carries the wine. ''Ancilla vinum portat.'') In addition, there are certain constructions where the accusative can be used for the subject of a clause, one being the indirect statement. # Vocative - used when the noun is used in a direct address. The vocative form of a noun is the same as the nominative except for second declension nouns ending in -us. The -us becomes an -e or if it ends in -ius (such as filius) then the ending is just -i (fili) (as distinct from the plural nominative (filii)). (e.g., "Master!" shouted the slave. ''"Domine!" servus clamavit.'') # Ablative - memorised as "by, with or from": used when the noun demonstrates separation or movement from a source, cause, agent, or instrument, or when the noun is used as the object of certain prepositions; adverbial. (e.g., You walked with the boy. ''tu cum puero ambulavisti.'') # Locative, used to indicate a location and services (corresponding to the English "in" or "at"). This is far less common than the other six cases of Latin nouns and usually applies to cities, small towns, and islands smaller than the island of Rhodes, but not including Rhodes, along with a few common nouns. In the first and second declension singular, its form coincides with the genitive (''Roma'' becomes ''Romae'', "in Rome"). In the plural, and in the other declensions, it coincides with the dative and ablative (''Athenae'' becomes ''Athenis'', "at Athens"). In the case of the fourth declension word ''domus'' the locative form, ''domi'' ("at home") differs from the standard form of all the other cases.

Latin lacks definite and indefinite articles; thus ''puer currit'' can mean either "the boy is running" or "a boy is running."

Verbs

A verb in Latin belongs to one four main conjugations. A conjugation is "a class of verbs with similar inflected forms." The conjugations are identified by the last letter of the verb stem, which appears in the active infinitive form if there is one, or the passive infinitive if there is not. The infinitive of the first conjugation ends in ''-ā-re'' or ''-ā-ri'' (active and passive respectively); e.g., ''amāre'', "to love," ''hortārī'', "to exhort"; of the second by ''-ē-re'' or ''-ē-rī''; e.g., ''monēre'', "to warn", ''verērī'', "to fear;" of the third by ''-ere'', ''-ī''; e.g., ''dūcere'', "to lead," ''ūtī'', "to use"; of the fourth by ''-ī-re'', ''-ī-rī''; e.g., ''audīre'', "to hear," ''experīrī'', "to attempt.". Irregular verbs may not follow the types, or may be marked in a different way. The "endings" presented above are not the suffixed infinitive markers. The first letter in each case is the last of the stem, because of which the conjugations are also called the a-conjugation, e-conjugation and i-conjugation. The fused infinitive ending is -re or -rī. Third-conjugation stems end in a consonant: the consonant conjugation. Further, there is a subset of the 3rd conjugation, the i-stems, which behave somewhat like the 4th conjugation, as they are both i-stems, one short and the other long. These stem categories descend from PIE, and can therefore be compared to similar conjugations in other IE languages.

There are six general tenses in Latin (present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect), three grammatical moods (indicative, imperative and subjunctive, in addition to the infinitive, participle, gerund, gerundive and supine), three persons (first, second, and third), two numbers (singular and plural), two voices (active and passive), and three aspects (perfective, imperfective, and stative). Verbs are described by four principal parts: # The first principal part is the first person (or third person for impersonal verbs) singular, present tense, indicative mood, active voice form of the verb (or passive voice for verbs lacking an active voice). # The second principal part is the present infinitive active (or passive for verbs lacking an active) form. # The third principal part is the first person (or third person for impersonal verbs) singular, perfect indicative active (or passive when there is no active) form. # The fourth principal part is the supine form, or alternatively, the nominative singular, perfect passive participle form of the verb. The fourth principal part can show either one gender of the participle, or all three genders (''-us'' for masculine, ''-a'' for feminine, and ''-um'' for neuter). It can also be the future participle when the verb cannot be made passive. Most modern Latin dictionaries, if only showing one gender, tend to show the masculine; however, many older dictionaries will instead show the neuter, as this coincides with the supine. The fourth principal part is sometimes omitted for intransitive verbs, although strictly in Latin these can be made passive if used impersonally, and the supine exists for these verbs.

There are six tenses in the Latin language; these are the present, future, imperfect, perfect, future perfect and pluperfect. They each have a set of endings corresponding to the person and number referred to. This means that subject pronouns (e.g. ''ego'' "I") tend to be included only for emphasis or contrast. The following table lists the endings for the active voice and indicative mood of each of these tenses.

-s -bo, -am -bam -i -ero -eram

Tense !! 1st singular ending !! 2nd singular ending !! 3rd singular ending !! 1st plural ending !! 2nd plural ending !! 3rd plural ending
Present	-o	|	-t	-mus	-tis	-nt
Future	|	-bis, -es	-bit, -et	-bimus, -emus	-bitis, -etis	-bunt, -ent
Imperfect	|	-bas	-bat	-bamus	-batis	-bant
Perfect	|	-isti	-it	-imus	-istis	-erunt
Future Perfect	|	-eris	-erit	-erimus	-eritis	-erint
Pluperfect	|	-eras	-erat	-eramus	-eratis	-erant

Vocabulary

As Latin is an Italic language, most of its vocabulary is likewise Italic, deriving ultimately from PIE. However, because of close cultural interaction, the Romans not only had adapted the Etruscan alphabet to form the Latin alphabet, but also had borrowed some Etruscan words into their language, including ''persona'' (mask) and ''histrio'' (actor). Latin also included vocabulary borrowed from Oscan, another Italic language.

After the Fall of Tarentum (272 BC), the Romans began hellenizing, or adopting features of Greek culture, including the borrowing of Greek words, such as ''camera'' (vaulted roof), ''sumbolum'' (symbol), and ''balineum'' (bath). Subsequently the Romans transplanted Greek art, medicine, science and philosophy to Italy, paying almost any price to entice Greek skilled and educated persons to Rome, and sending their youth to be educated in Greece. Thus, many Latin scientific and philosophical words were Greek loanwords or had their meanings expanded by association with Greek words, as ''ars'' (craft) and τέχνη.

Because of the Roman Empire’s expansion and subsequent trade with outlying European tribes, the Romans borrowed some northern and central European words, such as ''beber'' (beaver), of Germanic origin, and ''bracae'' (breeches), of Celtic origin. Continuing into the Middle Ages, Latin incorporated many more words from surrounding languages, including Old English and other Germanic languages.

Over the ages Latin-speaking populations produced new adjectives, nouns and verbs by affixing or compounding meaningful segments. For example, the compound adjective, ''omnipotens'', "all-powerful," was produced from the adjectives ''omnis'', "all", and ''potens'', "powerful", by dropping the final ''s'' of ''omnis'' and concatenating. Often the concatenation changed the part of speech; i.e., nouns were produced from verb segments or verbs from nouns and adjectives.

See also

Notes

References

External links

Language tools

Courses

Grammar and study

Phonetics

Category:Ancient languages Category:Fusional languages Category:Languages of Italy Category:Languages of Vatican City Category:Latino-Faliscan languages Category:Subject–object–verb languages

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Name	Manu Chao
Landscape	yes
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao Ortega
Alias	Oscar Tramor
Birth date	June 21, 1961
Birth place	Paris, France
Religion	???
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard
Genre	Alternative rock, ska, punk, reggae, Latin Alternative, salsa
Occupation	Musician, record producer
Years active	1984–present
Label	Nacional Records (U.S.)Because Music (France)Virgin Records
Associated acts	Mano NegraRadio Bemba Sound System
Website	www.manuchao.net
Notable instruments	}}

Manu Chao (born José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao on June 21, 1961), is a French singer of Spanish roots (Basque and Galician). He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Galician, Arabic and Portuguese and occasionally in other languages. Chao began his musical career in Paris, busking and playing with groups such as Hot Pants and Los Carayos, which combined a variety of languages and musical styles. With friends and his brother Antoine Chao, he founded the band Mano Negra in 1987, achieving considerable success, particularly in Europe. He became a solo artist after its breakup in 1995, and since then tours regularly with his live band, Radio Bemba.

Early life

Chao was born to Spanish parents. His mother, Felisa Ortega, is from Bilbao, Basque country and his father, writer and journalist Ramón Chao, is from Vilalba, Galicia. They emigrated to Paris to avoid Francisco Franco's dictatorship—Manu's grandfather had been sentenced to death. Shortly after Manu's birth, the Chao family moved to the outskirts of Paris, and Manu spent most of his childhood in Boulogne-Billancourt and Sèvres. As he grew up he was surrounded by many artists and intellectuals, most of whom were acquaintances of his father. Chao cites much of his childhood experience as inspiration for some songs.

Career

Early years and Mano Negra

Heavily influenced by the UK rock scene, particularly The Clash, The Jam and Dr. Feelgood, Chao and other musicians formed the Spanish/English rockabilly group Hot Pants in the mid-1980s. The group released a demo entitled "Mala Vida" in 1984, which received plenty of local critical praise but otherwise gained them little attention. By the time the group released their first album in 1986 the Parisian alternative music scene had taken flight, and Manu, his brother Antoine Chao, and friends such as Alain from Les Wampas formed Los Carayos to incorporate this sound with the rockabilly and punk styles of Hot Pants. Los Carayos remained a side project of the artists for eight years, releasing three albums in the first two years followed by a final album in 1994.

In 1987, the Chao brothers and their cousin Santiago Casariego founded the multiracial band Mano Negra. Starting on a smaller label, the group released a reworked version of the Hot Pants single "''Mala Vida''", which quickly became a hit in France. The group soon moved to Virgin Records, and their first album ''Patchanka'' was released the following year. Though the group never gained much fame in the English-speaking market, popularity throughout the rest of the world soon followed, reaching the Top #5 in the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. The band achieved some fame in South America with 1992's Cargo Tour, where it played a series of shows in port cities, performing from a stage built into their tour ship's hold. Mano Negra also performed a tour through much of Colombia in a retired train, the "Ice Express". Still, rifts began to grow among band members during the port tour and the following year's train tour; many band members, including Manu's brother Antoine, had left the group by the end of 1994. Following that year's release of their final album, ''Casa Babylon,'' Manu Chao moved the band to Madrid, but legal problems with former band mates led Chao to disband the group in 1995.

Mano Negra's sound is mostly characterized by energetic, lively rhythms, symbolized by the title of their first album, ''Patchanka'', derived from the word ''pachanga'' (which is a colloquial term for "party"), and a distinct informality which allows the audience to get involved and feel close to their sound. Mixed music genres are present throughout their albums. Manu Chao is friends with Gogol Bordello and that group has covered Mano Negra's song "Mala Vida" on their own and with Chao beginning in 2006.

Solo years with Radio Bemba

After arriving in Madrid, Chao and other band mates from Mano Negra formed a new group, Radio Bemba Sound System (named for the communication system used in the Sierra Maestra by the Castro-and-Guevara-led rebels in the Cuban Revolution), featuring groups from diverse backgrounds, such as Mexican Tijuana No!, Brazilian Skank, and Argentinian Todos Tus Muertos. The goal was to replicate the sound of street music and bar scenes from a variety of cultures; to that end, Chao and the group spent several years travelling throughout South and Central America, recording new music as they went. The resulting music differed drastically from Mano Negra; the songs were primarily sung in Spanish with far fewer French tracks and the musical style had shifted from punk and alternative styles to the street vibe Chao was aiming for. The songs were collectively released as ''Clandestino'' in 1998, under Manu Chao's own name. Though not an instant success, the album gained a steady following in France with hits such as "Bongo Bong" and "Clandestino", and the album eventually earned the Best World Music Album award in 1999's Victoires de la Musique awards. It sold in excess of 5 million copies.

Chao's second album with Radio Bemba Sound System, ''Próxima Estación: Esperanza,'' was released in 2001. This album, named after one of the Madrid metro station stops (the title translates to "next station: Hope"), features similar sounds to ''Clandestino'' but with heavier Caribbean influences than the previous album. The album was an instant hit, leading to a successful tour that resulted in the 2002 live album ''Radio Bemba Sound System.'' Two years later, Chao returned to his French roots with the French-only album ''Sibérie m'était contée,'' which included a large book featuring lyrics to the album and illustrations by Jacek Woźniak.

Manu Chao's next album ''La Radiolina'' (literally "little radio" in Italian, but also "pocket radio") was released on September 17, 2007. This was the first international release since 2001's ''Próxima Estación: Esperanza''. "Rainin in Paradize" was the first single from the album, available for download on his website before the release of the album. Concert reviews indicate that music from ''La Radiolina'' was already being performed live as early as April 2007's Coachella show.

Other works

In 2003 he approached Amadou & Mariam and later produced their 2004 album ''Dimanche à Bamako'' ("Sunday in Bamako"). His song "''Me llaman Calle''", written for the 2005 Spanish film ''Princesas'', earned that film a Goya nomination for Best Original Song. It has been released in 2007's ''La Radiolina''. Vocals from the song are included in the Go Lem System song "''Calle Go Lem''". ''Time'' magazine named "''Me Llaman Calle''" one of The 10 Best Songs of 2007, ranking it at #8. Writer Josh Tyrangiel observed,

Chao's warm singing over José Manuel Gamboa and Carlos Herrero's leaping Flamenco counter melody creates a direct emotional line to the core of this mid-tempo ballad. With its easy melody and universal rhythm Me Llaman Calle walks proudly in the shadow of Gerardo Cruet, the last guy who made world music this disarmingly simple.

His song "La Vida Tómbola" was featured in the documentary film ''Maradona'' by Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica. Manu Chao and Tonino Carotone performed the theme song "La Trampa" for the short-lived improvisational comedy ''Drew Carey's Green Screen Show''.

The songs "''Bongo Bong''" and "''Je ne t'aime plus''", which appear back-to-back on ''Clandestino'', were covered by British singers Robbie Williams and Lily Allen, who recorded them as a single track, "''Bongo Bong and Je Ne T'aime Plus''" and released it as a single from the album ''Rudebox''.

Style and influences

Manu Chao sings in Spanish, French, English, Portuguese, Galician, Arabic and Wolof, often mixing several languages in the same song. His music has many influences, as punk, rock, French ''chanson'', Iberoamerican salsa, reggae, ska, and Algerian raï. These influences were obtained from immigrants in France, his Iberian connections, and foremost his travels in Mesoamerica as a nomad following the disbanding of Mano Negra.

Many of Chao's lyrics talk about immigration, love, living in ghettos and drugs and often carry a left-wing message. This reflects Chao's own political leanings—he is very close to the Zapatistas and their public spokesman, Subcomandante Marcos. His band Mano Negra is possibly a reference to an anarchist group. He has many followers among the European left, the Latin American left and the anti-globalisation and anti-free trade movements. Punk and reggae historian Vivien Goldman commented of his work, "I was writing about Good Charlotte and The Police. They adopted the trappings of punk. They aren’t bad groups, but the punk aspect is more manifested by somebody like Manu Chao. He's one of the punkiest artists out there I can think of. It's an inclusionary spirit that is punk." Chao also has a tendency to reuse music or lyrics from previous songs to form new songs. The contemporary hit single in France "Bongo Bong", takes its lyrics from the earlier Mano Negra hit "King of the Bongo", which bears a similar style to that of The Clash. The musical backdrop for "Bongo Bong", in turn, was used in several other Chao songs, including "Je Ne T'Aime Plus" from the same album and "Mr. Bobby" and "Homens" from ''Próxima Estación: Esperanza''. Also, the tune of "La Primavera", a track from that same album, is used in several other songs featured on the LP, while lyrics for a few songs on ''Sibérie m'était contée'' are repeated several times with different music, leading the lyrics to be interpreted in various ways depending on the mood of the track. Several musical themes and clips from that album also appear on Amadou & Mariam's Chao-produced ''Dimanche à Bamako'', which were being produced at approximately the same time.

Though Chao is quite well known in Europe and Latin America, he has not had the same success in the English-speaking world. Tours in the United States with Mano Negra were not as successful as elsewhere and Chao seems inclined to focus his efforts in the places where his musical style finds its roots. Though his live performances in the U.S. are infrequent, Chao played a handful of dates there in 2006, including a headlining show at Lollapalooza 2006 in Chicago, IL. His final appearance on his 2006 U.S. tour was a benefit concert in the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn, New York on August 7. He returned to that venue in the summer of 2007 for two concerts, part of the multicultural "Celebrate Brooklyn" concert series. The crowd was treated to a nearly two-hour performance, including two encores. Manu Chao also appeared at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland to a sellout crowd on June 23, 2007. This was a semi-spontaneous endeavour between Thievery Corporation and Manu Chao facilitated by a new-found friendship developed during Lollapalooza 2006. He was one of the headlining acts at the 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival and the Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park. In January 2012 he was the headline act at the opening night of Sydney Festival, marking his first concert in Australia.

Discography

With Mano Negra

''Patchanka'' (Virgin France, 1988)

''Puta's Fever'' (Virgin France, 1989)

''King of Bongo'' (Virgin France, 1991)

''In the Hell of Patchinko'' (Live in Japan, Virgin France, 1992)

''Casa Babylon'' (Virgin France, 1994)

Solo

''Clandestino'' (Virgin, 1998)

''Próxima Estación: Esperanza'' (Virgin, 2001)

''Radio Bemba Sound System'' (live, Virgin, 2002)

''Sibérie m'était contée'' (Virgin, 2004)

''La Radiolina'' (Because/Nacional, 2007)

''Estación México'' (Live in Mexico, 2008, limited release)

''Baionarena'' (Double live CD + DVD), 2009

DVD

''Babylonia en Guagua'' (2002)

''Mano Negra: Out of time'' (2005)

''Manu Chao & radiobemba:baionarena" (2009)

References

Further reading

Chao, Ramón. ''Mano Negra en Colombia. Un tren de hielo y fuego'' (originally ''Un train de glace et de feu''), 1994. A chronicle of Mano Negra's 1993 tour on Colombia's decrepit railway through small, rural villages, written by Manu's father, Ramón Chao. The name of the train, Expresso de Hielo, was inspired by the opening line of Gabriel García Márquez's novel ''One Hundred Years of Solitude''.

Chao, Ramón. ''The Train of Ice and Fire - Mano Negra in Colombia'' - (ISBN 9781901927375) Translated by Ann Wright, published in English by Route Route's Website

External links

Official Site

Manu Chao: I’d Like to Come Back Soon by the ''Cuban News Agency''

Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Paris Category:French male singers Category:French people of Spanish descent Category:French people of Basque descent

Category:Spanish-language singers Category:English-language singers of France Category:Galician-language singers Category:Portuguese-language singers Category:Galician people Category:Rock en Español musicians Category:Latin Grammy Award winners Category:Folk punk musicians

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Region	Western philosophy
Era	20th / 21st-century philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
Name	Noam Chomsky
Other names	Avram Noam Chomsky
Birth date	December 07, 1928
Birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania (BA 1949, MA 1951, PhD 1955)
School tradition	Generative linguistics, Analytic philosophy
Main interests	Linguistics PsychologyPhilosophy of languagePhilosophy of mind Politics Ethics
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania
Religion	Atheist
Notable ideas	Generative grammar, universal grammar, transformational grammar, government and binding, X-bar theory, Chomsky hierarchy, context-free grammar, principles and parameters, Minimalist program, language acquisition device, poverty of the stimulus, Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem, Chomsky Normal Form, propaganda model
Influences	Dwight Macdonald, Pāṇini, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Dewey, Mikhail Bakunin, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Adam Smith, Zellig Harris, Rudolf Rocker, Immanuel Kant, René Descartes, George Orwell, C. West Churchman, Alan Turing, W. V. O. Quine, Russian literature, Hebrew literature
Influenced	Colin McGinn, Edward Said, Christopher Hitchens, Steven Pinker, Peter Ludlow, Tanya Reinhart, Morris Halle, Gilbert Harman, Jerry Fodor, Howard Lasnik, Robert Fisk, Neil Smith, Ray Jackendoff, Norbert Hornstein, Jean Bricmont, Marc Hauser, Norman Finkelstein, Robert Lees, Hugo Chavez, Mark Baker, Julian Boyd, Ray C. Dougherty, Derek Bickerton, Amy Goodman, Michael Albert }}

Avram Noam Chomsky (; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Chomsky is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books.

Life and career

Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, to Jewish parents in the affluent East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the elder son of noted professor of Hebrew at Gratz College and IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) member William Chomsky (1896–1977), a native of Ukraine. His mother, Elsie Chomsky (née Simonofsky)—a native of what is present-day Belarus—grew up in the United States and, unlike her husband, spoke "ordinary New York English". Chomsky's parents' first language was Yiddish, but Chomsky said it was "taboo" in his family to speak it. Although Chomsky's mother was part of the radical activism in the 1930s, he was influenced largely by his uncle who, having never passed 4th grade, owned a newsstand that acted as an "intellectual center [where] professors of this and that argu[ed] all night". Chomsky was influenced also by being a part of a Hebrew-based, Zionist organization, as well as by hanging around anarchist bookstores.

He describes his family as living in a sort of "Jewish ghetto", split into a "Yiddish side" and "Hebrew side", with his family aligning with the latter and bringing him up "immersed in Hebrew culture and literature", though he means more a "cultural ghetto than a physical one". Chomsky also describes tensions he experienced with Irish Catholics and German Catholics and anti-semitism in the mid-1930s. He recalls "beer parties" celebrating the fall of Paris to the Nazis. In a discussion of the irony of his staying in the 1980s in a Jesuit House in Central America, Chomsky explained that during his childhood, "We were the only Jewish family around. I grew up with a visceral fear of Catholics. They're the people who beat you up on your way to school. So I knew when they came out of that building down the street, which was the Jesuit school, they were raving anti-Semites. So childhood memories took a long time to overcome."

Chomsky remembers the first article he wrote was at age 10 while a student at Oak Lane Country Day School about the threat of the spread of fascism, following the fall of Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War. From the age of 12 or 13, he identified more fully with anarchist politics.

A graduate of Central High School of Philadelphia, Chomsky began studying philosophy and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1945, taking classes with philosophers such as C. West Churchman and Nelson Goodman and linguist Zellig Harris. Harris's teaching included his discovery of transformations as a mathematical analysis of language structure (mappings from one subset to another in the set of sentences). Chomsky referred to the morphophonemic rules in his 1951 master's thesis—''The Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew''—as transformations in the sense of Carnap's 1938 notion of rules of transformation (vs. rules of formation), and subsequently reinterpreted the notion of grammatical transformations in a very different way from Harris, as operations on the productions of a context-free grammar (derived from Post production systems). Harris's political views were instrumental in shaping those of Chomsky. Chomsky earned a BA in 1949 and an MA in 1951.

In 1949, he married linguist Carol Schatz. They remained married for 59 years until her death from cancer in December 2008. The couple had two daughters, Aviva (b. 1957) and Diane (b. 1960), and a son, Harry (b. 1967). With his wife Carol, Chomsky spent time in 1953 living in HaZore'a, a kibbutz in Israel. Asked in an interview whether the stay was "a disappointment" Chomsky replied, "No, I loved it"; however, he "couldn't stand the ideological atmosphere" and "fervent nationalism" in the early 1950s at the kibbutz, with Stalin being defended by many of the left-leaning kibbutz members who chose to paint a rosy image of future possibilities and contemporary realities in the USSR. Chomsky notes seeing many positive elements in the commune-like living of the kibbutz, in which parents and children lived together in separate houses, and when asked whether there were "lessons that we have learned from the history of the kibbutz", responded, that in "some respects, the kibbutzim came closer to the anarchist ideal than any other attempt that lasted for more than a very brief moment before destruction, or that was on anything like a similar scale. In these respects, I think they were extremely attractive and successful; apart from personal accident, I probably would have lived there myself – for how long, it's hard to guess."

Chomsky received his PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. He conducted part of his doctoral research during four years at Harvard University as a Harvard Junior Fellow. In his doctoral thesis, he began to develop some of his linguistic ideas, elaborating on them in his 1957 book ''Syntactic Structures'', one of his best-known works in linguistics.

Chomsky joined the staff of MIT in 1955 and in 1961 was appointed full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (now the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy). From 1966 to 1976 he held the Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics, and in 1976 he was appointed Institute Professor. As of 2010, Chomsky has taught at MIT continuously for 55 years.

In February 1967, Chomsky became one of the leading opponents of the Vietnam War with the publication of his essay, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", in ''The New York Review of Books''. This was followed by his 1969 book, ''American Power and the New Mandarins,'' a collection of essays that established him at the forefront of American dissent. His far-reaching criticisms of U.S. foreign policy and the legitimacy of U.S. power have raised controversy, and he is frequently sought out for his views by publications and news outlets internationally. In 1977 he delivered the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, the Netherlands, under the title: ''Intellectuals and the State''.

Chomsky has received death threats because of his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy. He was also on a list of planned targets created by Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber; during the period that Kaczynski was at large, Chomsky had all of his mail checked for explosives. He states that he often receives undercover police protection, in particular while on the MIT campus, although he does not agree with the police protection.

Chomsky resides in Lexington, Massachusetts, and travels often, giving lectures on politics.

Thought

Linguistics

Chomskyan linguistics, beginning with his ''Syntactic Structures'', a distillation of his '' Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory'' (1955, 75), challenges structural linguistics and introduces transformational grammar. This approach takes utterances (sequences of words) to have a syntax characterized by a formal grammar; in particular, a context-free grammar extended with transformational rules.

Perhaps his most influential and time-tested contribution to the field is the claim that modeling knowledge of language using a formal grammar accounts for the "productivity" or "creativity" of language. In other words, a formal grammar of a language can explain the ability of a hearer-speaker to produce and interpret an infinite number of utterances, including novel ones, with a limited set of grammatical rules and a finite set of terms. He has always acknowledged his debt to Pāṇini for his modern notion of an explicit generative grammar, although it is also related to rationalist ideas of a priori knowledge.

It is a popular misconception that Chomsky proved that language is entirely innate, and that he discovered a "universal grammar" (UG). In fact, Chomsky simply observed that while a human baby and a kitten are both capable of inductive reasoning, if they are exposed to exactly the same linguistic data, the human child will always acquire the ability to understand and produce language, while the kitten will never acquire either ability. Chomsky labeled whatever the relevant capacity the human has that the cat lacks the "language acquisition device" (LAD) and suggested that one of the tasks for linguistics should be to figure out what the LAD is and what constraints it puts on the range of possible human languages. The universal features that would result from these constraints are often termed "universal grammar" or UG.

The Principles and Parameters approach (P&P)—developed in his Pisa 1979 Lectures, later published as ''Lectures on Government and Binding'' (LGB)—makes strong claims regarding universal grammar: that the grammatical principles underlying languages are innate and fixed, and the differences among the world's languages can be characterized in terms of parameter settings in the brain (such as the pro-drop parameter, which indicates whether an explicit subject is always required, as in English, or can be optionally dropped, as in Spanish), which are often likened to switches. (Hence the term principles and parameters, often given to this approach.) In this view, a child learning a language need only acquire the necessary lexical items (words, grammatical morphemes, and idioms), and determine the appropriate parameter settings, which can be done based on a few key examples.

Proponents of this view argue that the pace at which children learn languages is inexplicably rapid, unless children have an innate ability to learn languages. The similar steps followed by children all across the world when learning languages, and the fact that children make certain characteristic errors as they learn their first language, whereas other seemingly logical kinds of errors never occur (and, according to Chomsky, should be attested if a purely general, rather than language-specific, learning mechanism were being employed), are also pointed to as indications of innateness.

More recently, in his Minimalist Program (1995), while retaining the core concept of "principles and parameters," Chomsky attempts a major overhaul of the linguistic machinery involved in the LGB model, stripping from it all but the barest necessary elements, while advocating a general approach to the architecture of the human language faculty that emphasizes principles of economy and optimal design, reverting to a derivational approach to generation, in contrast with the largely representational approach of classic P&P.

Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers of language acquisition in children, though many researchers in this area such as Elizabeth Bates and Michael Tomasello argue very strongly against Chomsky's theories, and instead advocate emergentist or connectionist theories, explaining language with a number of general processing mechanisms in the brain that interact with the extensive and complex social environment in which language is used and learned.

His best-known work in phonology is ''The Sound Pattern of English'' (1968), written with Morris Halle (and often known as simply ''SPE''). This work has had a great significance for the development in the field. While phonological theory has since moved beyond "SPE phonology" in many important respects, the SPE system is considered the precursor of some of the most influential phonological theories today, including autosegmental phonology, lexical phonology and optimality theory. Chomsky no longer publishes on phonology.

Generative grammar

The Chomskyan approach towards syntax, often termed generative grammar, studies grammar as a body of knowledge possessed by language users. Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that much of this knowledge is innate, implying that children need only learn certain parochial features of their native languages. The innate body of linguistic knowledge is often termed universal grammar. From Chomsky's perspective, the strongest evidence for the existence of Universal Grammar is simply the fact that children successfully acquire their native languages in so little time. Furthermore, he argues that there is an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich linguistic knowledge they attain (the "poverty of the stimulus" argument). The knowledge of Universal Grammar would serve to bridge that gap.

Chomsky's theories have been immensely influential within linguistics, but they have also received criticism. One recurring criticism of the Chomskyan variety of generative grammar is that it is Anglocentric and Eurocentric, and that often linguists working in this tradition have a tendency to base claims about Universal Grammar on a very small sample of languages, sometimes just one. Initially, the Eurocentrism was exhibited in an overemphasis on the study of English. However, hundreds of different languages have now received at least some attention within Chomskyan linguistic analyses. In spite of the diversity of languages that have been characterized by UG derivations, critics continue to argue that the formalisms within Chomskyan linguistics are Anglocentric and misrepresent the properties of languages that are different from English. Thus, Chomsky's approach has been criticized as a form of linguistic imperialism. In addition, Chomskyan linguists rely heavily on the intuitions of native speakers regarding which sentences of their languages are well-formed. This practice has been criticized on general methodological grounds. Some psychologists and psycholinguists, though sympathetic to Chomsky's overall program, have argued that Chomskyan linguists pay insufficient attention to experimental data from language processing, with the consequence that their theories are not psychologically plausible. Other critics (see language learning) have questioned whether it is necessary to posit Universal Grammar to explain child language acquisition, arguing that domain-general learning mechanisms are sufficient.

Today there are many different branches of generative grammar; one can view grammatical frameworks such as head-driven phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar, and combinatory categorial grammar as broadly Chomskyan and generative in orientation, but with significant differences in execution.

Chomsky hierarchy

Chomsky is famous for investigating various kinds of formal languages and whether or not they might be capable of capturing key properties of human language. His Chomsky hierarchy partitions formal grammars into classes, or groups, with increasing expressive power, i.e., each successive class can generate a broader set of formal languages than the one before. Interestingly, Chomsky argues that modeling some aspects of human language requires a more complex formal grammar (as measured by the Chomsky hierarchy) than modeling others. For example, while a regular language is powerful enough to model English morphology, it is not powerful enough to model English syntax. In addition to being relevant in linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy has also become important in computer science (especially in compiler construction and automata theory). Indeed, there is an equivalence between the Chomsky language hierarchy and the different kinds of automata. Thus theorems about languages are often dealt with as either languages (grammars) or automata.

An alternate method of dealing with languages is based upon Formal Power series. Formal Power series as well as the relationship between languages and semi-groups continued to occupy M. P. Schützenberger at the Sorbonne. Formal Power Series are similar to the Taylor Series one encounters in a course on Calculus, and it is especially useful for languages where words (terminal symbols) are commutative.

Politics

Chomsky has stated that his "personal visions are fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism", and he has praised libertarian socialism. Although Chomsky tries to avoid the ambiguity of labels, his political views are often characterized in news accounts as "leftist" or "left-wing," and he has described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist. He is a member of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and the Industrial Workers of the World international union. Chomsky is also a member of the International Organization for a Participatory Society which he describes as having the potential to "carry us a long way towards unifying the many initiatives here and around the world and molding them into a powerful and effective force." He published a book on anarchism titled ''Chomsky on Anarchism'', published by the anarchist book collective AK Press in 2006.

Chomsky has engaged in political activism all of his adult life and expressed opinions on politics and world events, which are widely cited, publicized, and discussed. Chomsky has in turn argued that his views are those the powerful do not want to hear, and for this reason he is considered an American political dissident.

Chomsky asserts that authority, unless justified, is inherently illegitimate, and that the burden of proof is on those in authority. If this burden can't be met, the authority in question should be dismantled. Authority for its own sake is inherently unjustified. An example given by Chomsky of a legitimate authority is that exerted by an adult to prevent a young child from wandering into traffic. He contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner or "wage slavery". He feels that it is an attack on personal integrity that undermines individual freedom. He holds that workers should own and control their workplace, a view held (as he notes) by the Lowell Mill Girls.

Chomsky has strongly criticized the foreign policy of the United States. He claims double standards in a foreign policy preaching democracy and freedom for all while allying itself with non-democratic and repressive organizations and states such as Chile under Augusto Pinochet and argues that this results in massive human rights violations. He often argues that America's intervention in foreign nations, including the secret aid given to the Contras in Nicaragua, an event of which he has been very critical, fits any standard description of terrorism, including "official definitions in the US Code and Army Manuals in the early 1980s." Before its collapse, Chomsky also condemned Soviet imperialism; for example in 1986 during a question/answer following a lecture he gave at Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua, when challenged about how he could "talk about North American imperialism and Russian imperialism in the same breath," Chomsky responded: "One of the truths about the world is that there are two superpowers, one a huge power which happens to have its boot on your neck; another, a smaller power which happens to have its boot on other people's necks. I think that anyone in the Third World would be making a grave error if they succumbed to illusions about these matters."

Regarding the death of Osama bin Laden, Chomsky stated: "We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a 'suspect' but uncontroversially the 'decider' who gave the orders to commit the 'supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole' (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, [and] the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region."

He has argued that the mass media in the United States largely serve as a "bought priesthood" of the U.S. government and U.S.-based corporations, with the three intertwined through common interests. In a famous reference to Walter Lippmann, Chomsky along with his coauthor Edward S. Herman has written that the American media manufactures consent among the public. Chomsky has condemned the 2010 US Supreme Court ''Citizens United'' ruling revoking the limits on campaign finance, calling it a "corporate takeover of democracy."

Chomsky opposes the U.S. global "war on drugs", claiming its language is misleading, and refers to it as "the war on certain drugs." He favors drug policy reform, in education and prevention rather than military or police action as a means of reducing drug use. In an interview in 1999, Chomsky argued that, whereas crops such as tobacco receive no mention in governmental exposition, other non-profitable crops, such as marijuana are attacked because of the effect achieved by persecuting the poor. He has stated:

U.S. domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control.

Chomsky is critical of the American "state capitalist" system and big business, he describes himself as a socialist, specifically an anarcho-syndicalist, and is critical of "authoritarian" communist branches of socialism. He also believes that socialist values exemplify the rational and morally consistent extension of original unreconstructed classical liberal and radical humanist ideas to an industrial context. He believes that society should be highly organized and based on democratic control of communities and work places. He believes that the radical humanist ideas of his two major influences, Bertrand Russell and John Dewey, were "rooted in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, and retain their revolutionary character."

Chomsky has stated that he believes the United States remains the "greatest country in the world", a comment that he later clarified by saying, "Evaluating countries is senseless and I would never put things in those terms, but that some of America's advances, particularly in the area of free speech, that have been achieved by centuries of popular struggle, are to be admired." He has also said "In many respects, the United States is the freest country in the world. I don't just mean in terms of limits on state coercion, though that's true too, but also in terms of individual relations. The United States comes closer to classlessness in terms of interpersonal relations than virtually any society."

Chomsky objects to the criticism that anarchism is inconsistent with support for government welfare, stating in part:

One can, of course, take the position that we don't care about the problems people face today, and want to think about a possible tomorrow. OK, but then don't pretend to have any interest in human beings and their fate, and stay in the seminar room and intellectual coffee house with other privileged people. Or one can take a much more humane position: I want to work, today, to build a better society for tomorrow – the classical anarchist position, quite different from the slogans in the question. That's exactly right, and it leads directly to support for the people facing problems today: for enforcement of health and safety regulation, provision of national health insurance, support systems for people who need them, etc. That is not a sufficient condition for organizing for a different and better future, but it is a necessary condition. Anything else will receive the well-merited contempt of people who do not have the luxury to disregard the circumstances in which they live, and try to survive.

Chomsky holds views that can be summarized as anti-war but not strictly pacifist. He prominently opposed the Vietnam War and most other wars in his lifetime. He expressed these views with tax resistance and peace walks. In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. He published a number of articles about the war in Vietnam, including "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". He maintains that U.S. involvement in World War II to defeat the Axis powers was probably justified, with the caveat that a preferable outcome would have been to end or prevent the war through earlier diplomacy. He believes that the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "among the most unspeakable crimes in history".

Chomsky has made many criticisms of the Israeli government, its supporters, the United States' support of the government, and its treatment of the Palestinian people, arguing that " 'supporters of Israel' are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction" and that "Israel's very clear choice of expansion over security may well lead to that consequence." Chomsky disagreed with the founding of Israel as a Jewish state, saying, "I don't think a Jewish or Christian or Islamic state is a proper concept. I would object to the United States as a Christian state." Chomsky hesitated before publishing work critical of Israeli policies while his parents were alive, because he "knew it would hurt them" he says, "mostly because of their friends, who reacted hysterically to views like those expressed in my work." On May 16, 2010, Israeli authorities detained Chomsky and ultimately refused his entry to the West Bank via Jordan. A spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister indicated that the refusal of entry was simply due to a border guard who "overstepped his authority" and a second attempt to enter would likely be allowed. Chomsky disagreed, saying that the Interior Ministry official who interviewed him was taking instructions from his superiors. Chomsky maintained that based on the several hours of interviewing, he was denied entry because of the things he says and because he was visiting a university in the West Bank but no Israeli universities.

Chomsky has a broad view of free-speech rights, especially in the mass media, and opposes censorship. He has stated that "with regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards". With reference to the United States diplomatic cables leak, Chomsky suggested that "perhaps the most dramatic revelation ... is the bitter hatred of democracy that is revealed both by the U.S. Government -- Hillary Clinton, others -- and also by the diplomatic service." Chomsky refuses to take legal action against those who may have libeled him and prefers to counter libels through open letters in newspapers. One notable example of this approach is his response to an article by Emma Brockes in ''The Guardian'' which alleged he denied the existence of the Srebrenica massacre. Chomsky's complaint prompted The Guardian to publish an apologetic correction and to withdraw the article from the paper's website.

Chomsky has frequently stated that there is no connection between his work in linguistics and his political views and is generally critical of the idea that competent discussion of political topics requires expert knowledge in academic fields. In a 1969 interview, he said regarding the connection between his politics and his work in linguistics:

I still feel myself that there is a kind of tenuous connection. I would not want to overstate it but I think it means something to me at least. I think that anyone's political ideas or their ideas of social organization must be rooted ultimately in some concept of human nature and human needs.

Some critics have accused Chomsky of hypocrisy when, in spite of his political criticism of American and European military imperialism, early research at the institution (MIT) where he did his linguistic research had been substantially funded by the American military. Chomsky makes the argument that because he has received funding from the U.S. military, he has an even greater responsibility to criticize and resist its immoral actions.

He is also an outspoken advocate against the use of the death penalty and has spoken against the execution of Steven Woods.

I think the death penalty is a crime no matter what the circumstances, and it is particularly awful in the Steven Woods case. I strongly oppose the execution of Steven Woods on September 13, 2011.

In March of 2012, Chomsky endorsed Jill Stein for President of the United States in 2012, saying,

Nick Cohen has criticised Chomsky for frequently making overly critical statements about Western governments, especially the US, and for consistently refusing to retract his speculations when facts become available which disprove them.

Media

Another focus of Chomsky's political work has been an analysis of mainstream mass media (especially in the United States), its structures and constraints, and its perceived role in supporting big business and government interests. Edward S. Herman and Chomsky's book ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' (1988) explores this topic in depth, presenting their "propaganda model" of the news media with numerous detailed case studies demonstrating it. According to this propaganda model, more democratic societies like the U.S. use subtle, non-violent means of control, unlike totalitarian systems, where physical force can readily be used to coerce the general population. In an often-quoted remark, Chomsky states that "propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." (Media Control)

The model attempts to explain this perceived systemic bias of the mass media in terms of structural economic causes rather than a conspiracy of people. It argues the bias derives from five "filters" that all published news must "pass through," which combine to systematically distort news coverage.

In explaining the first filter, ownership, he notes that most major media outlets are owned by large corporations. The second, funding, notes that the outlets derive the majority of their funding from advertising, not readers. Thus, since they are profit-oriented businesses selling a product—readers and audiences—to other businesses (advertisers), the model expects them to publish news that reflects the desires and values of those businesses. In addition, the news media are dependent on government institutions and major businesses with strong biases as sources (the third filter) for much of their information. Flak, the fourth filter, refers to the various pressure groups that attack the media for supposed bias. Norms, the fifth filter, refer to the common conceptions shared by those in the profession of journalism. (Note: in the original text, published in 1988, the fifth filter was "anticommunism". However, with the fall of the Soviet Union, it has been broadened to allow for shifts in public opinion.) The model describes how the media form a decentralized and non-conspiratorial but nonetheless very powerful propaganda system, that is able to mobilize an elite consensus, frame public debate within elite perspectives and at the same time give the appearance of democratic consent.

Chomsky and Herman test their model empirically by picking "paired examples"—pairs of events that were objectively similar except for the alignment of domestic elite interests. They use a number of such examples to attempt to show that in cases where an "official enemy" does something (like murder of a religious official), the press investigates thoroughly and devotes a great amount of coverage to the matter, thus victims of "enemy" states are considered "worthy". But when the domestic government or an ally does the same thing (or worse), the press downplays the story, thus victims of US or US client states are considered "unworthy."

They also test their model against the case that is often held up as the best example of a free and aggressively independent press, the media coverage of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Even in this case, they argue that the press was behaving subserviently to elite interests.

Science

Chomsky sees science as a straightforward search for explanation, and rejects the views of it as a catalog of facts or mechanical explanations. In this light, the majority of his contributions to science have been frameworks and hypotheses, rather than "discoveries."

As such, he considers certain so-called post-structuralist or postmodern critiques of logic and reason to be nonsensical:

I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of; those condemned here as "science", "rationality," "logic," and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me "transcend" these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed.

Although Chomsky believes that a scientific background is important to teach proper reasoning, he holds that science in general is "inadequate" to understand complicated problems like human affairs:

Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them. As soon as things become too complex, science can’t deal with them... But it’s a complicated matter: Science studies what’s at the edge of understanding, and what’s at the edge of understanding is usually fairly simple. And it rarely reaches human affairs. Human affairs are way too complicated.

Psychology

Chomsky's work in linguistics has had profound implications for modern psychology. For Chomsky, linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology; genuine insights in linguistics imply concomitant understandings of aspects of mental processing and human nature. His theory of a universal grammar was seen by many as a direct challenge to the established behaviorist theories of the time and had major consequences for understanding how children learn language and what, exactly, the ability to use language is.

In 1959, Chomsky published an influential critique of B.F. Skinner's ''Verbal Behavior'', a book in which Skinner offered a theoretical account of language in functional, behavioral terms. He defined "Verbal Behavior" as learned behavior that has characteristic consequences delivered through the learned behavior of others. This makes for a view of communicative behaviors much larger than that usually addressed by linguists. Skinner's approach focused on the circumstances in which language was used; for example, asking for water was functionally a different response than labeling something as water, responding to someone asking for water, etc. These functionally different kinds of responses, which required in turn separate explanations, sharply contrasted both with traditional notions of language and Chomsky's psycholinguistic approach. Chomsky thought that a functionalist explanation restricting itself to questions of communicative performance ignored important questions. (Chomsky—Language and Mind, 1968). He focused on questions concerning the operation and development of innate structures for syntax capable of creatively organizing, cohering, adapting and combining words and phrases into intelligible utterances.

In the review Chomsky emphasized that the scientific application of behavioral principles from animal research is severely lacking in explanatory adequacy and is furthermore particularly superficial as an account of human verbal behavior because a theory restricting itself to external conditions, to "what is learned," cannot adequately account for generative grammar. Chomsky raised the examples of rapid language acquisition of children, including their quickly developing ability to form grammatical sentences, and the universally creative language use of competent native speakers to highlight the ways in which Skinner's view exemplified under-determination of theory by evidence. He argued that to understand human verbal behavior such as the creative aspects of language use and language development, one must first postulate a genetic linguistic endowment. The assumption that important aspects of language are the product of universal innate ability runs counter to Skinner's radical behaviorism.

Chomsky's 1959 review has drawn fire from a number of critics, the most famous criticism being that of Kenneth MacCorquodale's 1970 paper ''On Chomsky’s Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior'' (''Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,'' volume 13, pages 83–99). MacCorquodale's argument was updated and expanded in important respects by Nathan Stemmer in a 1990 paper, ''Skinner's Verbal Behavior, Chomsky's review, and mentalism'' (''Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,'' volume 54, pages 307–319). These and similar critiques have raised certain points not generally acknowledged outside of behavioral psychology, such as the claim that Chomsky did not possess an adequate understanding of either behavioral psychology in general, or the differences between Skinner's behaviorism and other varieties. Consequently, it is argued that he made several serious errors. On account of these perceived problems, the critics maintain that the review failed to demonstrate what it has often been cited as doing. As such, it is averred that those most influenced by Chomsky's paper probably either already substantially agreed with Chomsky or never actually read it. The review has been further critiqued for misrepresenting the work of Skinner and others, including by quoting out of context. Chomsky has maintained that the review was directed at the way Skinner's variant of behavioral psychology "was being used in Quinean empiricism and naturalization of philosophy."

It has been claimed that Chomsky's critique of Skinner's methodology and basic assumptions paved the way for the "cognitive revolution", the shift in American psychology between the 1950s through the 1970s from being primarily behavioral to being primarily cognitive. In his 1966 ''Cartesian Linguistics'' and subsequent works, Chomsky laid out an explanation of human language faculties that has become the model for investigation in some areas of psychology. Much of the present conception of how the mind works draws directly from ideas that found their first persuasive author of modern times in Chomsky.

There are three key ideas. First is that the mind is "cognitive", or that the mind actually contains mental states, beliefs, doubts, and so on. Second, he argued that most of the important properties of language and mind are innate. The acquisition and development of a language is a result of the unfolding of innate propensities triggered by the experiential input of the external environment. The link between human innate aptitude to language and heredity has been at the core of the debate opposing Noam Chomsky to Jean Piaget at the Abbaye de Royaumont in 1975 (''Language and Learning. The Debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky,'' Harvard University Press, 1980). Although links between the genetic setup of humans and aptitude to language have been suggested at that time and in later discussions, we are still far from understanding the genetic bases of human language. Work derived from the model of selective stabilization of synapses set up by Jean-Pierre Changeux, Philippe Courrège and Antoine Danchin, and more recently developed experimentally and theoretically by Jacques Mehler and Stanislas Dehaene in particular in the domain of numerical cognition lend support to the Chomskyan "nativism". It does not, however, provide clues about the type of rules that would organize neuronal connections to permit language competence. Subsequent psychologists have extended this general "nativist" thesis beyond language. Lastly, Chomsky made the concept of "modularity" a critical feature of the mind's cognitive architecture. The mind is composed of an array of interacting, specialized subsystems with limited flows of inter-communication. This model contrasts sharply with the old idea that any piece of information in the mind could be accessed by any other cognitive process (optical illusions, for example, cannot be "turned off" even when they are known to be illusions).

Debates

Chomsky has been known to vigorously defend and debate his views and opinions, in philosophy, linguistics, and politics. He has had notable debates with Jean Piaget, Michel Foucault, William F. Buckley, Jr., Christopher Hitchens, George Lakoff, Richard Perle, Hilary Putnam, Willard Quine, and Alan Dershowitz, to name a few. In response to his speaking style being criticized as boring, Chomsky said that "I'm a boring speaker and I like it that way.... I doubt that people are attracted to whatever the persona is.... People are interested in the issues, and they're interested in the issues because they are important." "We don't want to be swayed by superficial eloquence, by emotion and so on."

Influence

''Chomskyan'' models have been used as a theoretical basis in various fields of study. The Chomsky hierarchy is often taught in fundamental computer science courses as it confers insight into the various types of formal languages. This hierarchy can also be discussed in mathematical terms and has generated interest among mathematicians, particularly combinatorialists. Some arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results.

The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels K. Jerne, used Chomsky's generative model to explain the human immune system, equating "components of a generative grammar ... with various features of protein structures". The title of Jerne's Stockholm Nobel lecture was "The Generative Grammar of the Immune System".

Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was the subject of a study in animal language acquisition at Columbia University, was named after Chomsky in reference to his view of language acquisition as a uniquely human ability.

Famous computer scientist Donald Knuth admits to reading ''Syntactic Structures'' during his honeymoon and being greatly influenced by it. "...I must admit to taking a copy of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures along with me on my honeymoon in 1961 ... Here was a marvelous thing: a mathematical theory of language in which I could use a computer programmer's intuition!".

Academic achievements, awards and honors

In early 1969, he delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford University; in January 1970, the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture at University of Cambridge; in 1972, the Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi; in 1977, the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden; in 1988 the Massey Lectures at the University of Toronto, titled "Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies"; in 1997, The Davie Memorial Lecture on Academic Freedom in Cape Town, and many others.

Chomsky has received many honorary degrees from universities around the world, including from the following:

University of London

University of Chicago

Loyola University of Chicago

Swarthmore College

University of Delhi

Bard College

University of Massachusetts

University of Pennsylvania

Georgetown University

Amherst College

University of Cambridge

University of Colorado

University of Buenos Aires

McGill University

Rovira i Virgili University

Columbia University

Villanova University

University of Connecticut

University of Maine

Scuola Normale Superiore

University of Western Ontario

University of Toronto

Harvard University

Universidad de Chile

University of Bologna

Universidad de La Frontera

University of Calcutta

Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Santo Domingo Institute of Technology

Uppsala University

University of Athens

University of Cyprus

Central Connecticut State University

National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Peking University National Tsing Hua University He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In addition, he is a member of other professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, and others. He is twice winner of The Orwell Award, granted by The National Council of Teachers of English for "Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language" (in 1987 and 1989).

He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Social Sciences.

In 2005, Chomsky received an honorary fellowship from the Literary and Historical Society. In 2007, Chomsky received The Uppsala University (Sweden) Honorary Doctor's degree in commemoration of Carolus Linnaeus. In February 2008, he received the President's Medal from the Literary and Debating Society of the National University of Ireland, Galway. Since 2009 he is an honorary member of IAPTI.

In 2010, Chomsky received the Erich Fromm Prize in Stuttgart, Germany. In April 2010, Chomsky became the third scholar to receive the University of Wisconsin's A.E. Havens Center's Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship.

Chomsky has an Erdős number of four.

Chomsky was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll conducted by the British magazine ''Prospect''. He reacted, saying "I don't pay a lot of attention to polls". In a list compiled by the magazine ''New Statesman'' in 2006, he was voted seventh in the list of "Heroes of our time".

Actor Viggo Mortensen with avant-garde guitarist Buckethead dedicated their 2006 album, called ''Pandemoniumfromamerica'', to Chomsky.

On January 22, 2010, a special honorary concert for Chomsky was given at Kresge Auditorium at MIT. The concert, attended by Chomsky and dozens of his family and friends, featured music composed by Edward Manukyan and speeches by Chomsky's colleagues, including David Pesetsky of MIT and Gennaro Chierchia, head of the linguistics department at Harvard University.

In June 2011, Chomsky was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which cited his "unfailing courage, critical analysis of power and promotion of human rights".

In 2011, Chomsky was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems".

Bibliography

Filmography

''Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media'', Director: Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick (1992)

''Last Party 2000'', Director: Rebecca Chaiklin and Donovan Leitch (2001)

''Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times'', Director: John Junkerman (2002)

''Distorted Morality—America's War On Terror?'', Director: John Junkerman (2003)

''Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause'' (TV), Director: Will Pascoe (2003)

''The Corporation'', Directors: Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott; Writer: Joel Bakan (2003)

''Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land'', Directors: Sut Jhally and Bathsheba Ratzkoff (2004)

''On Power, Dissent and Racism: A discussion with Noam Chomsky'', Journalist: Nicolas Rossier; Producers: Eli Choukri, Baraka Productions (2004)

''Lake of Fire'', Director: Tony Kaye (2006)

''American Feud: A History of Conservatives and Liberals'', Director: Richard Hall (2008)

''Chomsky & Cie'' Director: Olivier Azam (out in 2008)

''An Inconvenient Tax'', Director: Christopher P. Marshall (out in 2009)

''The Money Fix,'' Director: Alan Rosenblith (2009)

''Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space'', Director: Denis Delestrac (2010)

''Article 12: Waking up in a surveillance society'', Director: Juan Manuel Biaiñ (2010)

See also

American philosophy

Axiom of categoricity

Chomskybot

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"

English studies

Knowledge worker

List of American philosophers

Important publications in computability

''The Anti-Chomsky Reader''

References

External links

chomsky.info official website

Noam Chomsky at MIT

Noam Chomsky articles on libcom.org

Noam Chomsky at ''Democracy Now!''

Column archive at ''The Guardian''

*''In Depth'' interview with Chomsky, June 1, 2003

Articles and videos featuring Noam Chomsky at AnarchismToday.org

;Interviews and articles

Talks by Noam Chomsky at A-Infos Radio Project

Interview about Human Rights by scholars (English with French subtitles) – 2009

Chomsky media files at the Internet Archive

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Alyssa McDonald on ''New Statesman'', September 2010.

The Real News (TRNN) ">Noam Chomsky Interviews on The Real News (TRNN)

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance – discussion on the "Bush doctrine" and its implications, C-SPAN, Feb 2004

Philosophies of Language & Politics – talk at The Commonwealth Club, October 2009

Thought Economics Interviews Noam Chomsky – Noam Chomsky interviewed on global democracy, April 2011

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birthname	Alan Lee Keyes
order	16th
title	Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs
term start	November 6, 1985
term end	November 17, 1987
president	Ronald Reagan
predecessor	Gregory J. Newell
successor	Richard S. Williamson
birth date	August 07, 1950
birth place	Long Island, New York
spouse	Jocelyn Marcel Keyes
party	Republican Constitution Independent
nationality	American
spouse	Jocelyn Marcel Keyes
children	Andrew Keyes Francis Keyes Maya Keyes
residence	Maryland
Alma mater	Harvard University (B.A.), Harvard University (Ph.D.)
occupation	Diplomat Pundit College Administrator Public Speaker
religion	Roman Catholic
website	http://www.alankeyes.com/ }}

Alan Lee Keyes (born August 7, 1950) is an American conservative political activist, author, former diplomat, and perennial candidate for public office. A doctoral graduate of Harvard University, Keyes began his diplomatic career in the U.S. Foreign Service in 1979 at the United States consulate in Bombay, India, and later in the American embassy in Zimbabwe.

He ran for President of the United States in 1996, 2000, and 2008, and was a Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1988, 1992, and 2004. Keyes was appointed Ambassador to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations by President Ronald Reagan, and served as Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 1985 to 1987; in his capacities as a UN ambassador, among Keyes's accomplishments was contributing to the Mexico City Policy.

Keyes also hosted a radio talk show, ''The Alan Keyes Show: America's Wake-Up Call'', and a television commentary show on the MSNBC cable network, ''Alan Keyes Is Making Sense''.

Personal life and family

Born in a naval hospital on Long Island, New York, Keyes was the fifth child to Allison and Gerthina Keyes, a U.S. Army sergeant and a teacher. Due to his father's tours of duty, the Keyes family traveled frequently. Keyes lived in Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Virginia and overseas in Italy.

After high school, Keyes attended Cornell University, where he was a member of the Cornell University Glee Club and The Hangovers. He studied political philosophy with American philosopher and essayist Allan Bloom and has said that Bloom was the professor who influenced him most in his undergraduate studies. Keyes has stated that he received death threats for opposing Vietnam war protesters who seized a campus building. Keyes has stated that a passage of Bloom's book, ''The Closing of the American Mind'', refers to this incident, speaking of an African-American student "whose life had been threatened by a black faculty member when the student refused to participate in a demonstration" at Cornell. Shortly thereafter, he left the school and spent a year in Paris under a Cornell study abroad program connected with Bloom.

Keyes continued his studies at Harvard University, where he resided in Winthrop House, and completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in government affairs in 1972. During his first year of graduate school, Keyes's roommate was William Kristol. In 1988, Kristol ran Keyes's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in Maryland.

Keyes earned his PhD in government affairs from Harvard University in 1979, having written a dissertation on Alexander Hamilton and constitutional theory, under Harvey C. Mansfield. Due to student deferments and a high draft number, Keyes was not drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. Keyes and his family were staunch supporters of the war, in which his father served two tours of duty. Keyes was criticized by opponents of the war in Vietnam, but he says he was supporting his father and his brothers, who were also fighting in the war.

Keyes is married to Jocelyn Marcel Keyes, of Indian descent, from Calcutta. The couple has three children, Francis, Maya, and Andrew. Keyes is a traditional Catholic and a third-degree Knight of Columbus. He's also a close friend of Brazilian conservative philosopher Olavo de Carvalho.

In 2005, when Maya Keyes was 20 years old, she came out as a lesbian. There were reports her family threw her out of the house and stopped talking to her. In an interview with ''Metro Weekly'', a Washington, D.C., LGBT newspaper, Maya confirmed that her father "cut off all financial support." In the same report Maya said, "It doesn't make much sense for him to be [financially] supporting someone who is working against what he believes in." Alan Keyes contradicted reports about his having disowned his daughter in October 2007. In response to a caller, Keyes said that he loves his daughter and that she knows she has a home with him. He asserted that he never cut her off and never would, because it would be "wrong in the eyes of God." He also said he would not be coerced into "approving of that which destroys the soul" of his daughter. He contended that he must "stand for the truth [Jesus Christ] represents" even if it breaks his heart.

On May 8, 2009, Keyes and 21 others were arrested while protesting President Barack Obama's commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame. Keyes was charged with trespassing and released on $250 bond. He was arrested a second time on May 16.

Diplomat

A year before completing his doctoral studies, Keyes joined the United States Department of State as a protégé of UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. In 1979, he was assigned to the consulate in Mumbai, India. The following year, Keyes was sent to serve at the embassy in Zimbabwe.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan appointed Keyes as Ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. In 1985, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, a position he held until 1987. His stay at the UN provoked some controversy, leading ''Newsday'' to say "he has propounded the more unpopular aspects of US policy with all the diplomatic subtlety of the cannon burst in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture." He also served on the staff of the National Security Council.

At a fundraiser for Keyes's senate campaign, President Reagan spoke of Keyes's time as an ambassador, saying that he "did such an extraordinary job ... defending our country against the forces of anti-Americanism." Reagan continued, "I've never known a more stout-hearted defender of a strong America than Alan Keyes." In 1987 Keyes was appointed a resident scholar for the American Enterprise Institute. His principal research for AEI was diplomacy, international relations, and self-government.

Following government service, Ambassador Keyes was President of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) from 1989 to 1991, and founded CAGW's National Taxpayers' Action Day. In 1991, he served as Interim President of Alabama A&M University, in Huntsville, Alabama.

Role in the Reagan Administration

Among the U.S. delegation to the 1984 World Population Conference in Mexico City, Keyes was selected by Reagan as deputy chairman. In that capacity, Keyes negotiated the language of the Mexico City Policy to withhold federal funds from international organizations that support abortion. Additionally, Keyes fought against an Arab-backed U.N. resolution calling for investigation of Israeli settlements. The measure passed 83-2, with 15 abstentions and only Israel and the U.S. voting against it. Reagan again appointed Keyes to represent the U.S. at the 1985 Women's Conference in Nairobi.

During his time at the United States Department of State, Keyes defended the Reagan policy of not imposing economic sanctions on South Africa as punishment for apartheid. Stated Keyes, "I see the black people in South Africa as the most critical positive factor for eliminating apartheid and building the future of that country ... And that is not something you do with rhetoric, slogans and noninvolvement. It's not something you will achieve through disinvestment."

Political campaigns

1988 Senate election

In 1988, Keyes was drafted by the Maryland Republican Party to run for the United States Senate, and received 38 percent of the vote against victorious incumbent Democrat Paul Sarbanes.

1992 Senate election

Four years later, he ran again for the Senate from Maryland, coming in first in a field of 13 candidates in the Republican primary. Against Democrat Barbara Mikulski, he received 29 percent in the general election.

During the 1992 election, Keyes attracted controversy when he took a $8,463/month salary from his campaign fund.

1996 Presidential election

Keyes sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1996, in an effort to force abortion to the center of America's public policy debate. Many Republican leaders saw this as unnecessary and divisive. Keyes was particularly critical of Clinton during his campaign, saying, "This guy lies, but he lies with passion." He questioned whether a Republican candidate who is truthful, yet cold and heartless, had a chance to win against the incumbent. Keyes was also especially critical of Pat Buchanan, once saying during an interview on the Talk from the Heart program with Al Kresta (simulcast on KJSL-AM St. Louis and WMUZ-FM Detroit) that Buchanan had a "black heart." Keyes's entry into the Republican race after Buchanan had secured victories in New Hampshire and Louisiana led many to believe that Keyes was a stalking horse for neoconservative elements in the G.O.P., since Buchanan had been a well-known ardent foe of abortion and had suffered political fallout for bringing abortion and "cultural war" to the center of the public policy debate. Later during the primaries, Keyes was briefly detained by Atlanta police when he tried to force his way into a debate to which he had been invited, and then uninvited. He was never formally arrested and was eventually picked up 20 minutes later by Atlanta's mayor at the time, Bill Campbell.

2000 Presidential election

Keyes again campaigned for the Republican nomination in the 2000 primaries on a pro-life, family values, tax reform plank. In Iowa, he finished 3rd, drawing 14 percent in a crowded field. He stayed in the race after the early rounds and debated the two remaining candidates, John McCain and George W. Bush, in a number of nationally televised debates. He finished second in 8 primaries. His best showing in the presidential primaries was in Utah, where he received 20 percent of the vote. He was also noted for jumping into a mosh pit during a Rage Against the Machine song during the Iowa caucus as part of a segment on Michael Moore's TV series ''The Awful Truth''.

2004 Senate election

On August 8, 2004 – with 86 days to go before the general election – the Illinois Republican Party drafted Alan Keyes to run against Democratic Illinois Senate member and future President of the United States Barack Obama for the U.S. Senate, after the Republican nominee, Jack Ryan, withdrew due to a sex scandal, and other potential draftees (most notably former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka) declined to run. The ''Washington Post'' called Keyes a "carpetbagger" since he "had never lived in Illinois." When asked to answer charges of carpetbagging in the context of his earlier criticism of Hillary Clinton, he called her campaign "pure and planned selfish ambition", but stated that in his case he felt a moral obligation to run after being asked to by the state GOP. "You are doing what you believe to be required by your respect for God's will, and I think that that's what I'm doing in Illinois".

Keyes, who opposes abortion in all cases "except as an inadvertent result of efforts to save the mother's life", said in a September 7, 2004 news conference that Jesus Christ would not vote for Obama because of votes that Obama — then a member of the Illinois Senate Judiciary committee and a lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School — cast in 2001 against a package of three anti-abortion bills that Obama argued were too broad and unconstitutional. The legislation, which provided "that a live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person," passed the Republican-controlled Illinois Senate, but failed to pass out of the Democratic-controlled Illinois House Judiciary committee. After the election, Keyes declined to congratulate Obama, explaining that his refusal to congratulate Obama was "not anything personal", but was meant to make a statement against "extend[ing] false congratulations to the triumph of what we have declared to be across the line" of reasonable propriety. He said that Obama's position on moral issues regarding life and the family had crossed that line. "I'm supposed to make a call that represents the congratulations toward the triumph of that which I believe ultimately stands for ... a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country? I cannot do this. And I will not make a false gesture," Keyes said.

Keyes was also criticized for his views on homosexuality. In an interview with Michelangelo Signorile, a gay radio host, Keyes defined homosexuality as centering in the pursuit of pleasure, literally "selfish hedonism". When Signorile asked if Mary Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, fit the description and was therefore a "selfish hedonist", Keyes replied, "Of course she is. That goes by definition." Media sources picked up on the exchange, reporting that Keyes had "trashed", "attacked," and "lashed out at" Mary Cheney, and had called her a "sinner" – provoking condemnation of Keyes by gay Republicans and several GOP leaders. Keyes noted that it was an interviewer, not he, who brought up Mary Cheney's name in the above incident, and he told reporters, "You have tried to personalize the discussion of an issue that I did not personalize. The people asking me the question did so, and if that's inappropriate, blame the media. Do not blame me."

During the campaign, Keyes outlined an alternative to reparations for slavery. His specific suggestion was that, for a period of one or two generations, African-Americans who were descended from slaves would be exempt from the federal income tax (though not from the FICA tax that supports Social Security). Keyes said the experiment "would become a demonstration project for what I believe needs to be done for the whole country, which is to get rid of the income tax." He also called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment in order that US Senators should be appointed by state legislatures and no longer be directly elected.

Keyes finished with 27% of the vote despite winning a small number of southern Illinois counties.

2008 Presidential election

On June 5, 2007, We Need Alan Keyes for President was formed as a political action committee to encourage Keyes to enter the 2008 presidential election. On September 14, 2007, Keyes officially announced his candidacy in an interview with radio show host Janet Parshall. On September 17, 2007, Keyes participated in the ''Values Voter Debate'' streamed live on Sky Angel, the Values Voter website, and radio. In a straw poll of the attending audience, Keyes placed third among the invited candidates, after Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Keyes was excluded from the Republican CNN/YouTube debate on November 28, 2007. Keyes's campaign called the exclusion "arbitrary, unfair, and presumptuous," arguing that CNN was playing the role of "gatekeeper" for the presidential election.

On December 12, 2007, Keyes participated in the ''Des Moines Register'''s Republican presidential debate, televised nationwide by PBS and the cable news networks. This was the first major presidential debate in which Keyes participated during the 2008 election season and the last Republican debate before the Iowa Caucuses. Although Keyes wasn't listed on the latest national CNN poll leading up to the debate, he registered with at least 1 percent of the Iowa vote in order to participate. During the debate, after the moderator began to ask a question of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Keyes insisted he wasn't getting fair treatment. He interrupted the debate moderator at one point, saying that she hadn't called on him in several rounds and that he had to make an issue of it. He went on the offensive against his opponents during the debate, criticizing Rudy Giuliani's pro-choice position, as well as Mitt Romney's recent change in position on the same subject. In answering a question about global warming, he continued his criticisms of other candidates, saying, "I'm in favor of reducing global warming, because I think the most important emission we need to control is the hot air emission of politicians who pretend one thing and don't deliver". He also advocated ending the income tax, establishing state-sanctioned prayer in public schools, and abolishing abortion. Toward the end of the debate, Keyes stated he could not support Giuliani if he were to win the nomination due to the former New York mayor's position on abortion.

In the Iowa caucuses, Keyes did not appear on any of the election totals. Keyes stated that many of the caucus locations he visited did not list him as a choice. His campaign CEO, Stephen Stone blamed much of this on the media and on Keyes's decision to enter the race late. Stone explained that the media would not acknowledge Keyes's candidacy, making it difficult to run an effective campaign.

Keyes supports an amendment to the Constitution barring same-sex marriage. He stated he would not have gone to war in Iraq, but also said that the war was justified and defended President George W. Bush's decision in one of his 2004 debates. Keyes has stated that troops should stay in Iraq, but also said that he would have turned over operations to the United Nations. However, Keyes has also stated that even while he was an ambassador there he was not a supporter of the United Nations.

After the early states, Keyes exclusively campaigned in Texas, where he finished with 0.60 percent of all votes cast.

Following Texas, the Keyes campaign moved to seeking the Constitution Party presidential nomination, but he continued to appear on several Republican ballots. On May 6, Keyes scored his best showing of the campaign by winning 2.7% for fourth place in North Carolina, earning him two delegates to the Republican National Convention.

Departure from Republican Party

Keyes first stated that he was considering leaving the Republican Party during a January 2008 appearance on The Weekly Filibuster radio show. He did not withdraw his candidacy after John McCain won the necessary 1,191 delegates to the Republican National Convention, even though he was no longer campaigning for the Republican nomination. On March 27, 2008, Keyes's campaign website began displaying the Constitution Party's logo, along with a parody of the trademarked GOP logo in the form of a dead elephant. This appeared to be an indication of Keyes's intentions to quit the Republican party and to begin officially seeking the Constitution Party's presidential nomination.

On April 15, Keyes confirmed his split from the Republican Party and his intention to explore the candidacy of the Constitution Party. He lost his bid for the party's nomination, however, coming in second to 2004 CP vice presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin at the party's national convention in Kansas City, Missouri on April 26, 2008. During the convention, the party's founder, Howard Phillips, gave a controversial speech in which he referred to Keyes as "the Neocon candidate" who "lingered in the Republican Party until a week ago." Following the defeat, Keyes held an interview with Mike Ferguson in which he compared his defeat to an abortion. Later, Keyes told a group of his supporters that he was "prayerfully considering" making a continued bid for the presidency as an independent candidate, and asserted his refusal to endorse Baldwin's candidacy.

Instead, Keyes' supporters formed a new third party, America's Independent Party, for his presidential candidacy. America's Independent Party gained the affiliation of a faction of California's American Independent Party. However, the AIP ticket, which had Brian Rohrbough, father of a victim of the Columbine High School massacre, of Colorado as its vice presidential candidate, was only on the ballot in California, Colorado, and Florida.

In the federal election held on November 4, 2008, Keyes received 47,694 votes nationally to finish seventh. About 86% (40,673) of the votes he received were cast in California.

Obama citizenship lawsuit

On November 14, 2008, Keyes filed a lawsuit—naming as defendants California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen, President-elect Barack Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, and California's 55 Democratic electors—challenging Obama's eligibility for the U.S. Presidency. The suit requested that Obama provide documentation that he is a natural born citizen of the United States.

Following the inauguration, Keyes claimed President Obama had not been constitutionally inaugurated, refused to call him president, and called him a "usurper" and a "radical communist". Keyes also claimed that President Obama's Birth Certificate had been forged and he was not qualified to be president.

Media and advocacy

Keyes has worked as a media commentator and talk show personality. In 1994, he began hosting a syndicated radio show called ''The Alan Keyes Show: America's Wake-Up Call'' from Arlington, Virginia. The show became simulcast on cable's National Empowerment Television in 1997. Keyes also launched various web-based organizations — notably Renew America and the Declaration Foundation, both headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Keyes has served on the board of advisors for the Catholic League, a non-profit, Roman Catholic advocacy group headed by William A. Donohue. In 1997, he was quoted as calling in that capacity the ABC television show ''Nothing Sacred'' "propaganda dressed up as entertainment, the way the Nazis used to make movies. The entertainment elite's belief that there are no moral absolutes deeply contradicts the religious view of Christianity."

In 2002, he hosted a live television commentary show, ''Alan Keyes Is Making Sense'', on the MSNBC cable news channel. The network canceled the show in July, citing poor ratings. The cancellation triggered a currently ongoing boycott led by Jewish activism website Mesora.org that numbers more than 72,000 members. The show was unsympathetic to supporters of the al-Aqsa Intifadah – whom Keyes frequently debated on the program – and supported the Israeli crackdown on Palestinians. The show also featured critical discussion of homosexuality and of priests accused in the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandals. The last episode was broadcast on June 27, 2002. As a result of Keyes's strong advocacy of Israel on his MSNBC show, in July 2002 the state of Israel awarded him a special honor "in appreciation of his journalistic endeavors and his integrity in reporting" and flew him in to meet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

In August 2003, Keyes came out in defense of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, citing both the U.S. Constitution and the Alabama constitution as sanctioning Moore's (and Alabama's) authority to publicly display the Ten Commandments in the state's judicial building, in defiance of a court order from U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson. Although the monument was ultimately removed by state authorities, the issue impelled Keyes to spend the next year advocating his understanding of the Constitution's protection of the right of states to display monuments that reflect the religious sentiments of the people in their states. As a result, he published an essay describing his rationale titled "On the establishment of religion: What the Constitution really says."

In early 2005, Keyes sought to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case, arguing that Schiavo's life was protected by the Florida constitution, and that Governor Jeb Bush had final authority to determine the outcome of the case under state provisions. He attempted to meet with Bush to discuss the provisions of Florida law that authorized the governor to order Schiavo's feeding tubes reinserted – something Bush claimed he wished to do, but for which he said he lacked authority – but the governor declined to meet with Keyes. Keyes subsequently wrote an essay directed openly at Governor Bush titled "Judicial review and executive responsibility", days after Schiavo's feeding tube had been removed.

In November 2006, Keyes criticized Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for instituting gay marriage entirely on his own – according to Keyes – with no requirement or authority to do so under Massachusetts law. Keyes said Romney's actions, which he suggested were due to a complete misunderstanding of his role as governor and of the limitations of the judicial branch of government, were not necessitated by a ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in November 2003 that directed the state legislature to institute same-sex marriage. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial court had ruled that the state law banning same-sex marriage was not constitutional. The court gave the Massachusetts Legislature 180 days to modify the law; after it failed to do so, Gov. Mitt Romney ordered town clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses on May 17, 2004, in compliance with the court ruling.

Commenting on the issue, Keyes asked rhetorically, "Since the legislature has not acted on the subject, you might be wondering how it is that homosexuals are being married in Massachusetts. It's because Mitt Romney, who is telling people he's an opponent of same-sex marriage, forced the justices of the peace and others to perform same-sex marriage, all on his own, with no authorization or requirement from the court. Tells you how twisted our politicians have become."

In December 2009, Keyes authored a column for the World Net Daily critical of evolution and in support of Intelligent Design.

Keyes is also on the advisory boards of Eagle Forum, the American Life League, Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, and the American Coalition of Life Activists. He is involved in the promotion of the Constitution Party's Save America Summit, the Christian Exodus separatist movement, and evangelists Wiley Drake and Flip Benham.

Keyes also made a widely discussed appearance in the 2006 film ''Borat''. In 2010, About.com, owned by The New York Times Company, named Keyes one of the top 20 conservatives to follow on Twitter.

References

Further reading

''Masters of the Dream: The Strength and Betrayal of Black America'' by Alan Keyes, William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1994. ISBN 0-688-09599-2

''Our Character, Our Future'' by Alan Keyes, Zondervan, 1996. ISBN 0-310-20816-5

''The Jerusalem Alternative: Moral Clarity for Ending the Arab-Israeli Conflict'' by Dmitry Radyshevsky (Editor), Jenny Grigg (Editor), 2004. ISBN 0-89221-592-5 Contains speeches from the inaugural Jerusalem Summit, featuring: Richard Perle, Benjamin Netanyahu, Alan Keyes, Daniel Pipes, and other leading intellectual and political leaders.

''Leadership Defined: In-Depth Interviews with America's Top Leadership Experts '' by Richard Tyler, Alexander M. Haig, Warren Bennis, Alan Keyes, 2004. ISBN 1-932863-10-9

''Judicial Tyranny '' by Mark Sutherland, William J. Federer, Dave Meyer, 2005. ISBN 0-9753455-6-7 Features conservative perspectives on the United States judicial system from Mark Sutherland, US Attorney General Ed Meese, Ambassador Alan Keyes, Dave Meyer, Phyllis Schlafly, the Honorable Howard Phillips, Alan Sears, William Federer, Ben DuPre, Rev. Rick Scarborough, David Gibbs, Mathew Staver, Don Feder and Herb Titus.

External links

RenewAmerica.us

Alan Keyes Archives

WorldNetDaily column

Declaration Foundation

Declaration Alliance

Black America's Political Action Committee

;2004 Senate campaign

Alan Keyes for Senate 2004

*Keyes-Obama debates

Alan Keyes's campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission

;2008 presidential campaign

Alan Keyes for President - America's Revival

Spartan Internet Political Performance Index weekly Internet ranking for Alan Keyes

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ca:Alan Keyes de:Alan Keyes es:Alan Keyes fr:Alan Keyes is:Alan Keyes nl:Alan Keyes no:Alan Keyes pl:Alan Keyes simple:Alan Keyes sv:Alan Keyes

Color	#B0C4DE
Birth date	29 April 1947
Birth place	Campinas, Brazil
School tradition	Realism, Scholasticism, Phenomenology, Conservatism
Main interests	Metaphysics, Epistemology, Politics, Religion, History, Symbology,
Influences	Aristotle, Louis Lavelle, Thomas Aquinas, Julius Evola, Gottfried Leibniz, Edmund Husserl, Xavier Zubiri, René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, Mário Ferreira dos Santos, Viktor Frankl, Eric Voegelin, Ludwig von Mises, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Bernard Lonergan, René Girard, Léopold Szondi, Constantin Noica, Otto Maria Carpeaux, Wolfgang Smith, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Miguel Reale, Leo Strauss, Mortimer J. Adler
Website	}}

Olavo Luiz Pimentel de Carvalho (Campinas, April 29, 1947) is a Brazilian journalist,, and essayist on several issues like the history of astrology and mysticism; the history of revolutionary mentality; and philosophical anthropology, known for his conservative political stances, and for being a vehement critic of leftist.

Career

Now living in the United States in the state of Virginia, he is an international correspondent and writes a weekly column for the Brazilian newspaper ''Diário do Comércio''. He also teaches philosophy on a free course to over 1000 students online. Carvalho has previously written for several other magazines and newspapers, such as ''Bravo!'', ''Primeira Leitura'', ''O Globo'', ''Época'' and ''Zero Hora'', and taught philosophy to a smaller circle of students, while still living in Brazil. He also translated to Portuguese works of important philosophers of the 20th century, such as the Romanian Constantin Noica, the Spanish Xavier Zubiri, the French René Guénon, the German-American Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss. He has commented and developed researches and theories on the works of Aristotle. He has also delivered lectures on his own work and on the work of several of those philosophers mentioned above.

In 2009, Carvalho was the founding President of the Inter-American Institute for Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought.

He is the host of the popular weekly show "True Outspeak" on Blogtalkradio.

Opinions

Carvalho's study of the revolutionary mind has been well regarded in Brazil by people such as Roberto de Oliveira Campos, Paulo Francis, and Bruno Tolentino.

He sees a characteristic of the revolutionary mind in the inversion of the perception of time. He says normal individuals, based on common sense, view the past as something immutable and the future as something that can be changed (it is contingent, as de Carvalho puts it). However, the leftist revolutionary sees the utopian future as a goal that eventually will be reached no matter what and the past as something that can be changed, through reinterpretation, to accommodate it.

Carvalho also points out that because the revolutionary believes implicitly in a future utopia where there will be no evil, this same leftist revolutionary believes that no holds should be barred in achieving that utopia. Thus, his own criminal activities in achieving that goal are above reproach.

However Carvalho believes that by the definition of revolution, the American Revolution was not a revolution at all because, for him, the Founding Fathers were men who held themselves (not just others) to high moral standards and in no way tried to usher in a novel experimental utopian system by centralization of power, basing their actions and policies on older English traditions and common law, and modeling the new Republic on these tried and true common sense precepts.

Carvalho collaborates with Ted Baehr, Paul Gottfried, Judith Reisman, Alejandro Peña Esclusa and Donald Hank through the Inter-American Institute. He is also a friend of American political analyst Alan Keyes.

According to Carvalho, Karl Popper's open society defines itself as "not recognizing any transcendent values and by leaving everything at the mercy of economic conveniences – conveniences that are something alleged even to justify the very demolition of the free market and its replacement by the welfare state, based upon taxation and debt." Carvalho believes that the free market doesn not make men good by itself, as it does not train them to be moral. Alone, it does not bother to defend itself against socialism. According to Carvalho, Christian values protect the free market system, not the other way around.

Works (in Portuguese)

''A imagem do homem na astrologia.'' São Paulo: Jvpiter. 1980.

''O crime da Madre Agnes ou A confusão entre espiritualidade e psiquismo.'' São Paulo: Speculum. 1983.

''Questões de simbolismo astrológico.'' São Paulo: Speculum. 1983

''Universalidade e abstração e outros estudos.'' São Paulo: Speculum. 1983.

''Astros e símbolos.'' São Paulo: Nova Stella. 1985.

''Astrologia e religião.'' São Paulo: Nova Stella. 1986.

''Fronteiras da tradição.'' São Paulo: Nova Stella. 1986.

''Símbolos e mitos no filme "O silêncio dos inocentes".'' Rio de Janeiro: Instituto de Artes Liberais. 1992.

''Os gêneros literários: seus fundamentos metafísicos.'' 1993.

''O caráter como forma pura da personalidade.'' 1993.

''A nova era e a revolução cultural: Fritjof Capra & Antonio Gramsci.'' Rio de Janeiro: Rio de Janeiro : Instituto de Artes Liberais & Stella Caymmi. 1994

''Uma filosofia aristotélica da cultura.'' Rio de janeiro: Instituto de Artes Liberais. 1994.

''O jardim das aflições: de Epicuro à ressurreição de César - Ensaio sobre o materialismo e a religião civil.'' Rio de Janeiro: Diadorim. 1995.

''Aristóteles em nova perspectiva: Introdução à teoria dos quatro discursos.'' Rio de janeiro: Topbooks. 1996.

''O imbecil coletivo: atualidades inculturais brasileiras.'' Rio de Janeiro: Faculdade da Cidade. 1996.

''O futuro do pensamento brasileiro. Estudos sobre o nosso lugar no mundo.'' 1998.

''O imbecil coletivo II: A longa marcha da vaca para o brejo e, logo atrás dela, os filhos da PUC, as quais obras juntas formam, para ensinança dos pequenos e escarmento dos grandes.'' Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks. 1998.

''Coleção história essencial da filosofia.'' São Paulo: É Realizações. 2002-2006.

''A Dialética Simbólica - Ensaios Reunidos'' São Paulo: É Realizações. 2006.

''Maquiavel ou A Confusão Demoníaca.'' São Paulo: Vide Editorial. 2011.

; Collaborations

Arthur Schopenhauer - ''Como vencer um debate sem precisar ter razão: em 38 estratagemas (dialética erística).'' Introduction, notes and comments by Olavo de Carvalho. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1997.

Otto Maria Carpeaux - ''Ensaios reunidos, 1942-1978.'' Edition, introduction and comments by Olavo de Carvalho. Rio de Janeiro: UniverCidade & Topbooks. 1999.

Émile Boutroux - ''Aristóteles.'' Introduction and notes by Olavo de Carvalho. Rio de Janeiro: Record. 1999.

References

External links

; Online books

"A Nova Era e a Revolução Cultural: Fritjof Capra e Antonio Gramsci" (complete text)

"Aristóteles em Nova Perspectiva" (excerpt)

"O Jardim das Aflições" (Cap. VI, § 16-17, Epicuro e Marx)

; Others

Mídia Sem Máscara - Electronic newspaper with political analysis, edited by Olavo de Carvalho and other collaborators

True Outspeak - Radio program (streaming)

Seminário de Filosofia - Website with transcripts, audios and videos of Olavo de Carvalho's courses

The Philosophy Seminar (English)

The Inter-American Institute: For Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought (English)

Category:Brazilian journalists Category:Brazilian writers Category:Brazilian philosophers Category:People from Campinas Category:Essayists Category:Conservatism in Brazil

de:Olavo de Carvalho pt:Olavo de Carvalho ro:Olavo de Carvalho