Name	Latin
Nativename	Lingua Latina
Pronunciation
States	Roman Monarchy, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, Medieval and Early modern Europe, Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (as lingua franca), Vatican City
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. Latin was by no means confined to these regions, and Koine Greek, Coptic, Syriac, and other native languages dominated the eastern half.
Nation
Agency	In antiquity, Roman schools of grammar and rhetoric. Today, Opus Fundatum Latinitas.
Iso1	la|iso2lat|iso3lat|lingua51-AAB-a
Notice	IPA}}

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. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and many schools and universities continue to teach it. Latin is still used in the process of new word production in modern languages of many different families, including English. Latin and its daughter Romance languages are the only surviving branch of the Italic language family. Other branches of the Italic languages are attested in documents surviving from early Italy, but were assimilated 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, 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, six persons, three moods, two voices, two aspects and two numbers. A dual number is present in Archaic Latin. One of the rarer of the seven cases is the locative, only used with nouns that signify a location. The vocative, used in direct discourse, is identical to the nominative except for words of the second declension. Though various authors have proposed differing totals, there are only five fully productive cases. Adjectives and adverbs are compared, and the former are inflected according to case, gender, and number. Although Classical Latin has demonstrative pronouns indicating varying degree of proximity, it lacks articles. Later Romance language articles developed from the demonstrative pronouns; e.g., ''le'' and ''la'' from ''ille'' and ''illa''.

In terms of vocabulary, however, Latin tends to preserve the original forms of many Indo-European roots. Compared to other Indo-European languages of antiquity, such as Sanskrit and Ancient Greek, the word forms in the Classical era are far more reflective of their etyma. Languages such as Sanskrit, however, tend to be more conservative with regards to grammar.

Legacy

Latin's heritage has been passed down through these broad genres:

Inscriptions

Literature

Scientific and legal terms in modern languages

A centuries-long tradition of Classical education

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 by Harvard University Press or the Oxford Classical Texts by Oxford University Press.

Influence on English

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.

Classical education

Throughout European history, an education in the Classics was considered a must for those who wished to join literate circles. In today's world, a great deal of Latin students 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 introductory Latin courses.

Formal support for the study of Latin

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.

Latin is taught as a mandatory subject in gymnasium and other so-called classical high schools, located chiefly in Europe. 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, however, extracurricular means. The College Board examinations, which serve as an educational tool for the admission of students into colleges, still features one Latin examination on a voluntary basis: Advanced Placement Latin: Vergil.

Latin translations of modern literature

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.

Constructed languages based on Latin

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.

History

Latin has been divided into historical phases, each of which is distinguished by subtle differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling, morphology and syntax. In addition to the historical phases, Ecclesiastical Latin refers to the styles used by the writers of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as Protestant scholars, from Late Antiquity onward.

Archaic Latin

The earliest known form is Archaic Latin, which was spoken from ancient times up to the middle Republican period, and attested in several inscriptions, as well as some of the earliest extant literary works. During this period, the Latin alphabet was first introduced by Rome's Etruscan rulers. The writing style later changed from an initial right-to-left or boustrophedon to a left-to-right script. Archaic Latin is attested through thousands of inscriptions from the Roman Republic, and through the writings of early authors such as Plautus, whose comedies are the earliest substantial works written in Latin.

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 has from ancient times been called Vulgar Latin (''sermo vulgi'' by Cicero), the language of the ''vulgus'' or "commoner", existed alongside the literate Classical Latin. Since this language, by virtue of its informality, was rarely written, philologists have been left with 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. Just the opposite must have been true, as Romanized European populations developed their own dialects of the }} This is the situation that prevailed when 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 as to whether a given Latin feature or usage was in the spoken language is to compare its reflex in a Romance language with the equivalent formation in classical Latin. If it appeared in the Romance language but was not preferred in classical Latin, then it is most likely vulgar Latin. For example, the noun-case system is present in classical Latin, but not in the Romance languages, apart from remnants in Romanian. One might conclude that case endings throughout most of the Roman world were already vanishing in the spoken language, even while their use continued in literate circles. In addition, much Romance vocabulary arose in vulgar Latin, rather than classical. The following examples adhere to this formula: classical Latin/vulgar Latin/Italian/French/Spanish/Portuguese: ignis/focus/fuoco/feu/fuego/fogo, equus/caballus/cavallo/cheval/caballo/cavalo, loqui/parabolare/parlare/parler/hablar/falar (from fabulari). In each case, Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese use terms that are derived from vulgar Latin (although classical ''equa'' gave rise to Spanish ''yegua'' and Portuguese ''égua'', all meaning "mare"). Thus, we can deduce the everyday vocabulary of late Roman times.

The expansion of the Roman Empire spread Latin throughout Europe and N. Africa. Vulgar Latin already begun to diverge into distinct languages by the 9th century at the very latest, when the earliest extant Romance writings begin to appear. They were, throughout the Dark Ages, confined to everyday speech, as 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.

Cut loose from its corrective spoken base and severed from the vanished institutions of the Roman empire that had supported its uniformity, medieval Latin lost its linguistic cohesion; for example, ''suus'' ("his/her own"), ''sui'' ("his/her own") and ''eius'' ("his/her") are used almost interchangeably, a confusion not resolved until the Renaissance, in works such as the tract of Lorenzo Valla, ''De reciprocatione suus et sui.'' 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 vocabulary has been introduced from the vernacular.

While these minor changes are not enough to impair comprehension of the language, they introduce a certain flexibility not in it previously. The style of each individual author is characterized by his own uses of classically incorrect Latin to such a degree that one can identify him just by reading his Latin. In that sense medieval Latin is a collection of individual idioms united loosely by the main structures of the language. Some are more classical, others less so. The majority of these writers were influential members of the Christian church: bishops, monks, philosophers, etc.; however, the term "Ecclesiastical Latin" does not accurately apply. There was no uniform language of the church. Late Latin is sometimes classified as medieval, sometimes not. Certainly many of the individual Latins were influenced by the vernaculars of their authors.

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.

Phonology

Pronunciation of Latin by the Romans in ancient times has been reconstructed from a variety of data, such as the evolution of features of the Romance languages, the representation of Latin words in other languages, such as Greek, the metrical patterns of Latin poetry, and more. This reconstruction is known as ''(pronuntiatio) restituta'' "restored pronunciation" among Latin speakers of today and widely adopted for reasons of perceptibility. The table below lists the consonant phonemes of Classical Latin (1st century BC, beginning 1st century AD) :{| class="wikitable" ! 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 | |   |- 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 ɫ | j | | w | |}

Latin spelling of the Classical period seems to have been largely phonemic, with each letter corresponding to a specific phoneme in the language, save for some exceptions. In particular, all vowels varied in pronunciation depending upon their vowel length, the letter "n" represented either a dental nasal, a velar nasal, or lengthening and nasalization of the preceding vowel if an "f" or "s" follows, and the letters ''i'' and ''u'' represented either consonants or vowels depending on context. Although Classical Latin did not have a distinction between either ''i'' and ''j'' or ''u'' or ''v'', in later publications, ''i'' and ''u'' can represent solely the vowel form while ''j'' and ''v'' solely the consonant form.

Most of the letters are (after this reconstruction) pronounced the same as in English, but note the following:

:Consonants: c = (never as in ''nice''; without aspiration, as in Italian ''peccare'') g = (never as in ''germ'') i (j) (consonantal i) = (like English ''y'' in ''you'') The "i" is pronounced as a consonant if in the beginning of a root before a vowel or between two vowels(e.g. ''iucundus'' = /juː'cʊndʊs/ ~ ''yookundus'' ("pleasant"), ''periucundus'' = /peɾjuː'cʊndʊs/ ~ ''peRyookundus'' ("very pleasant")). n = or If ''n'' occurs before ''c'', ''g'' or ''x'' or directly after a ''g'', it is pronounced ("ng" as in "sing"). Otherwise, it is pronounced or before ''f'' or ''s'' represents a nasalization/prolongation of the preceding vowel(e.g. "consul" = /ko˝ːsʊl/). ph = (pronounced approximately like ''p'' in English ''point'', just with more aspiration; never as in English ''philosopher'')

r if beginning a syllable = (as in Spanish ''pero''); ''r'' if finishing a syllable and ''rr'' = (as in Spanish ''perro'') t = (never as in English ''nation''; without aspiration, as in Spanish ''tentar'') th = (analogous to ''ph''; never as in English ''thunder'' or ''the'') u (v) (consonantal u) = The ''u'' is pronounced as a consonant also if beginning a root and before a vowel or if placed between two vowels(e.g. ''uehebantur'' = /weheː'bantuɾ/ ("they were driving"), ''inuehebantur'' = /inweheː'bantuɾ/ ("they were attacking verbally"), ''amauere'' = /amaː'weːɾe/ ~ ''amaaweyRe''). x =

Long consonants are represented by doubled spelling: ''puella'' = /pu'elːa/ ("girl"; similar to Italian ''nella''), ''littera'' = /'lɪtːɛɾa/ ("letter", "character"; as in Italian ''petto''), ''accidere'' = /akːidɛɾɛ/ ("to happen"; stress on the second syllable; as in Italian ''ecco''), ''addere'' = /'adːɛɾɛ/ ("to add"), ''pessime'' = /'pesːimeː/ ("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'' = /a'maːɾɛ/ ("to love") has the quantitative structure ''short-long-short'', whereas ''armare'' = /ar'maːɾɛ/ ("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: a = when short and when long. e = (as in ''pet'') when short and (somewhat as in English ''they'') when long. i = (as in ''pin'') when short and (as in ''machine'') when long o = (as in British English ''law'') when short and (somewhat as in ''holy'') when long. u = (as in ''put'') when short and (as in true) when long.

A vowel followed by an ''m'' or ''n'' (maintained later by French and Portuguese), either at the end of a word or before another consonant, is nasal, as in ''monstrum'' . 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 punctuation, macrons (although apices were used to distinguish length in vowels), lowercase letters, or interword spacing (but the interpunct was used at times in Latin’s history). So, a sentence originally written as:

:LVGETEOVENERESCVPIDINESQVE

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: affixes (often suffixes, which usually encode more than one grammatical category) are attached to fixed stems to express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns—a process called ''declension''. Affixes are attached to fixed stems of verbs, as well, to denote person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect—a process called ''conjugation''.

Nouns

There are seven Latin noun cases. 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.

# 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'' # 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.'') # 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. # 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: 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.'') # Ablative: 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").

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

Verbs

Verbs in Latin are usually identified by four main conjugations, groups of verbs with similarly inflected forms. The first conjugation is typified by active infinitive forms ending in ''-āre'', the second by active infinitives ending in ''-ēre'', the third by active infinitives ending in ''-ere'', and the fourth by active infinitives ending in ''-īre''. However, there are exceptions to these rules. Further, there is a subset of the 3rd conjugation, the ''-iō'' verbs, which behave somewhat like the 4th conjugation. 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 a few aspects. 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. The fourth principal part is sometimes omitted for intransitive verbs, although strictly in Latin these can be made passive if used impersonally.

There are six tenses in the Latin language; these are present, future, future perfect, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect. The each have a set of endings corresponding to the person and number referred to. The endings assign the verb to these particular person and number to be translated as such even if there is no subject to accompany the verb. For instance, if you wanted to say "he walks in the field" you could (but you wouldn't have to) put in a personal pronoun to justify the pronoun "he" instead, you could write "ambulat," the word meaning to walk in the present tense, third person singular. These six tenses are described in greater detail below.

What follows is the six tenses with their six persons for first and second conjugations in active. This is the more common form. For the imperfect, present, and future tenses, the way in which you reach the finished word is by removing the -re ending from the second principal part of the verb being conjugated and placing at the end of the word the most appropriate ending given. For the other three tenses you do the same, except you remove the -i ending from the third principal part of the word being conjugated.

-eris -bo -o -bam -i -eram

Tense !! 1st singular ending !! 2nd singular ending !! 3rd singular ending !! 1st plural ending !! 2nd plural ending !! 3rd plural ending !!
Future Perfect	-ero	|	-erit	-erimus	-eritis	-erint
Future	|	-bis	-bit	-bimus	-bitis	-bunt
Present	|	-s	-t	-mus	-tis	-nt
Imperfect	|	-bas	-bat	-bamus	-batis	bant
Perfect	|	-isti	-it	-imus	-istis	-erunt
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) for 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 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.

Modern use

Latin lives in the form of Ecclesiastical Latin, used for laws and decrees issued by Hierarchs of the Catholic Church, and in the form of a sparse sprinkling of scientific or social articles written in it, as well as in numerous Latin clubs. Latin vocabulary is used in science, academia, and law. Classical Latin is taught in many schools often combined with Greek in the study of Classics, though its role has diminished since the early 20th century.

The Latin alphabet, together with its modern variants such as the English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and German alphabets, is the most widely used alphabet in the world. Terminology deriving from Latin words and concepts is widely used, among other fields, in philosophy, medicine, biology, and law, in terms and abbreviations such as ''subpoena duces tecum'', ''q.i.d.'' (''quater in die'': "four times a day"), and ''inter alia'' (among other things). These Latin terms are used in isolation, as technical terms. In scientific names for organisms, Latin is typically the language of choice, followed by Greek.

The largest organization that still uses Latin in official and quasi-official contexts is the Catholic Church (particularly in the Latin Rite). The Tridentine Mass uses Latin, although the Mass of Paul VI is usually said in the local vernacular language; however, it can be and often is said in Latin, particularly in the Vatican. Indeed, Latin is still the official standard language of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, and the Second Vatican Council merely authorized that the liturgical books be translated and optionally used in the vernacular languages. Latin is the official language of the Holy See. The Vatican City is also home to the only ATM where instructions are given in Latin.

Some films of relevant 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, and "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

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. Latin is taught in many schools and universities around the world as well.

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 50,000 articles written in Latin.

See also

Classical compound

Contemporary Latin

Greek and Latin roots in English

Hybrid word

Latin influence in English

Latin Mnemonics

Latin school

Medical terminology

Romanization (cultural)

Toponymy

Wikipedia:IPA for Latin

Lists:

List of Greek words with English derivatives

List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names

List of Latin abbreviations

List of Latin phrases

List of Latin words with English derivatives

List of Latinised names

List of legal Latin terms

Notes

References

External links

Language tools

[Latin Dictionary Headword Search], at Perseus Hopper, Tufts University. Searches Lewis & Short's ''A Latin Dictionary'' and Lewis's ''An Elementary Latin Dictionary''

[Perseus Word Study Tool], a morphological analysis of inflected Latin words

Latin Inflector by Alan Aversa. Analyze inflected words in Latin sentences.

Online conjugator of Latin verbs, by Verbix

Online interface to ''Words'' by William Whittaker. Accepts English words or Latin phrases

Latin Composition Tool by Marq Jefferson. Makes input of macrons much simpler, excellent for Latin scansion exercises and beginning students

Wiktionary's Latin appendices (has many word lists)

A new abridgment of Ainsworth's Dictionary, English and Latin, by J. Dymock (available also pdf file)

Courses

(a course in ecclesiastical Latin).

Grammar and study

Phonetics

Category:Ancient languages Category:Fusional languages Category:Languages of Italy Category:Languages of Vatican City Category:Latino-Faliscan languages Category:SOV languages

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name	Néstor Carlos Kirchner
nationality	Argentine
order2	Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations
term start2	4 May 2010
term end2	27 October 2010
predecessor2	''Position created''
successor2	María Emma Mejía Vélez
order1	54th President of Argentina
term start1	25 May 2003
term end1	10 December 2007
vicepresident1	Daniel Scioli
predecessor1	Eduardo Duhalde
successor1	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
order4	Governor of Santa Cruz
term4	10 December 1991 – 25 May 2003
vicegovernor4	Eduardo Arnold (1991–1999) Héctor Icazuriaga (1999–2003)
predecessor4	Ricardo del Val
successor4	Héctor Icazuriaga
order3	Deputy of Argentina For Buenos Aires Province
term start3	3 December 2009
term end3	27 October 2010
birth date	February 25, 1950
birth place	Río Gallegos, Santa Cruz, Argentina
death date	October 27, 2010
death place	El Calafate, Santa Cruz, Argentina
order5	Mayor of Río Gallegos
term start5	1987
term end5	1991
order6	First Gentleman of Argentina
term start6	10 December 2007
term end6	27 October 2010
preceded6	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
spouse	Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
party	Front for Victory, (Justicialist Party)
children	Máximo Kirchner Florencia Kirchner
profession	Lawyer
religion	Roman Catholicism
alma mater	National University of La Plata
signature	Néstor Kirchner Signature.svg }}

Néstor Carlos Kirchner (; 25 February 1950 27 October 2010) was an Argentine politician who served as the 54th President of Argentina from 25 May 2003 until 10 December 2007. Previously, he was Governor of Santa Cruz Province since 10 December 1991. He briefly served as Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and as a National Deputy of Argentina for Buenos Aires Province. Kirchner's four-year presidency was notable for presiding over a dramatic fall in poverty and unemployment, following the economic crisis of 2001.

A Justicialist, Kirchner was little-known internationally and even domestically before his election to the Presidency, which he won by default with only 22.2 percent of the vote in the first round, when former President Carlos Menem (24.4%) withdrew from the ballotage. Soon after taking office in May 2003, Kirchner surprised the world by standing down powerful military and police officials. Stressing the need to increase accountability and transparency in government, Kirchner overturned amnesty laws for military officers accused of torture and assassinations during the 1976–1983 "dirty war" under military rule.

On 28 October 2007, his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was elected to succeed him as President of Argentina. Thus, Kirchner then became the First Gentleman of Argentina. In 2009, he was elected a National Deputy for Buenos Aires Province. He was also designated Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations on 4 May 2010.

Kirchner, who had been operated on twice in 2010 for cardiovascular problems, died at his home in El Calafate, Santa Cruz Province, on 27 October 2010, after reportedly suffering a heart attack. For more than 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of people filed past Kirchner's body lying in state, in a state funeral at the Casa Rosada attended by several Argentine personalities and eight South American leaders. Starting October 29 afternoon, a massive popular procession accompanied Kirchner's remains from Casa Rosada to the metropolitan airport, and then from the airport of Río Gallegos to the cemetery.

Biography

Early life

Kirchner was born in Río Gallegos, in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz. His mother, María Juana Ostoić Dragnic, is of Croatian descent and his father, also named Néstor, a post office official, was of Swiss German descent. He received his primary and secondary education at local public schools, and his high-school diploma from the Argentine school ''Colegio Nacional República de Guatemala''. He was part of the third generation of the family living in Río Gallegos. He moved to La Plata to study law in 1969 at the National University of La Plata, joining the political student unions of peronist ideology located there. He was present at the Ezeiza massacre and promoted the return of Juan Domingo Perón to the country. He graduated as ''juris doctor'' in 1976 and met Cristina Fernández, marrying her six months later.

The armed conflicts between the Peronist factions such as Montoneros and the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance led them to leave the city and return to Río Gallegos. With his wife, also a lawyer and member of the Justicialist Party (PJ), he established a successful private practice.

After the downfall of the military dictatorship and restoration of democracy in 1983, Kirchner became a public officer in the provincial government. The following year, he was briefly president of the Río Gallegos social welfare fund, but was forced out by the governor because of a dispute over financial policy. The affair made him a local celebrity and laid the foundation for his career.

By 1986, Kirchner had developed sufficient political capital to be put forward as the PJ's candidate for mayor of Río Gallegos. He won the 1987 elections for this post by the very slim margin of about 100 votes. Fellow PJ member Ricardo del Val became governor, keeping Santa Cruz firmly within the hands of the PJ.

Kirchner's performance as mayor from 1987 to 1991 was satisfactory enough to the electorate and to the party to enable him to run for governor in 1991, where he won with 61% of the vote; by this time his wife was also a member of the provincial congress.

Governor of Santa Cruz

When Kirchner assumed the governorship, the province of Santa Cruz (pop. 197,000) contributed one percent to Argentina's gross national product, primarily through the production of raw materials (mostly oil), and was being battered by the then ongoing economic crisis, with high unemployment and a budget deficit equal to US$ 1.2 billion. He arranged for substantial investments to stimulate productivity, the labor market, and consumption. By eliminating unproductive expenditures and cutting back on tax exemptions for the key petroleum industry, Kirchner restored the financial balance of the province. Through his expansionist and social policies, Kirchner was credited with bringing a substantial measure of prosperity to Santa Cruz. The improved economic situation was achieved by a neo-Keynesian expansion of consumption and investment expenditure, in contrast to the neo-liberalism of the Menem Government. Subsequent studies showed that the province had a better distribution of wealth and lower levels of poverty, unemployment, and social unrest than most other provinces, second only to Buenos Aires.

In 1994 and 1998, Kirchner introduced amendments to the provincial constitution, to enable him to run for re-election indefinitely. As a member of the 1994 Constitutional Assembly organized by Menem and former president Raúl Alfonsín, Kirchner participated in the drafting of a new national constitution which allowed the president to be re-elected for a second four-year term.

In 1995, with his constitutional changes in place, Kirchner was easily re-elected to a second term as governor, with 66.5% of the votes. But by now, Kirchner was distancing himself from the charismatic and controversial Menem, who was also the nominal head of the PJ; this was made particularly apparent with the launch of ''Corriente Peronista'', an initiative supported by Kirchner to create an alternative space within the Justicialist Party, outside of Menem's influence.

In 1998, Menem's attempt to stand for re-election a second time, by means of an ad hoc interpretation of a constitutional clause, met with strong resistance among Peronist rank-and-file, who were finding themselves under increasing pressure due to the highly controversial policies of the Menem administration and its involvement in corruption scandals. Kirchner joined the camp of Menem's chief opponent within the PJ, the governor of Buenos Aires Province, Eduardo Duhalde.

Menem did not run, and the PJ nominated Duhalde, who was in turn defeated during the October 1999 elections by Buenos Aires Mayor Fernando de la Rúa, the Alliance candidate, and the party lost its majority in Congress. Although the Alianza also made headway in Santa Cruz, Kirchner managed to be re-elected to a third term as governor in May 1999 with 45.7% of the vote. De la Rúa's victory was in part a rejection of Menem's perceived flamboyance and corruption during his last term. De la Rúa instituted austerity measures and reforms to improve the economy; taxes were increased to reduce the deficit, the government bureaucracy was trimmed, and legal restrictions on union negotiations were eased.

These moves did not prevent a deepening of the Argentine economic crisis, however, and a crisis of confidence ensued by November 2001, as domestic depositors began a run on the banks, resulting in the highly unpopular ''corralito'', a limit, and subsequently a full ban, on withdrawals. These developments led to the December 2001 riots, and to President de la Rúa's resignation on December 21.

A series of interim presidents and renewed demonstrations ended with the appointment of Eduardo Duhalde as interim president in January 2002. Duhalde abolished the fixed exchange rate regime that had been in place since 1991, and the Argentine peso quickly devalued by more than two thirds of its value, diminishing middle-class savings and sinking the heavily import-dependent Argentine economy even deeper, but giving a significant profit boost to Argentinian exports. Amid strong public rejection of the entire political class, characterized by the pithy slogan ''que se vayan todos'' ("away with them all"), Duhalde brought elections forward by six months.

2003 presidential election

Even though Kirchner run for presidency with the support of Eduardo Duhalde, he was not the initial candidate chosen by the president. Trying to prevent a third term of Carlos Menem, he sought to promote a candidate that may defeat him, but Carlos Reutemann (governor of Santa Fe) did not accept and José Manuel de la Sota (governor of Córdoba) did not grow in the polls. He also tried with Mauricio Macri, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, Felipe Solá and Roberto Lavagna, to no avail. He initially resisted helping Kirchner, fearing that he may ignore Duhalde once in the presidency.

Kirchner's electoral promises included "returning to a republic of equals". After the first round of the election, Kirchner visited the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who received him enthusiastically. He also declared he was proud of his radical left-wing political past.

Although Menem, who was president from 1989 to 1999, won the first round of the election on April 27, 2003, he only got 24% of the valid votes — just 2% ahead of Kirchner. This was an empty victory, as Menem was viewed very negatively by much of the Argentine population and had virtually no chance of winning the runoff election. After days of speculation, during which polls forecast a massive victory for Kirchner with about a 30%–40% difference, Menem finally decided to stand down. This automatically made Kirchner president of Argentina, despite having secured only 22% of the votes in the election, the lowest percentage gained by the eventual winner of an Argentine presidential election. He was sworn in on May 25, 2003 to a four-year term of office.

President of Argentina

Kirchner came into office on the tail of a deep economic crisis. A country which had once equalled Europe in levels of prosperity and considered itself a bulwark of European culture in Latin America found itself deeply impoverished, with a depleted middle class and malnutrition appearing in the lower strata of society. The country was burdened with $178 billion in debt, the government strapped for cash. While associated to the clientelist and nearly feudal style of government of many provincial governors and the corruption of the PJ, Kirchner was comparatively unknown to the national public, and he showed himself as a newcomer who had arrived at the Casa Rosada without the usual whiff of scandal about him, trying not to make a point of the fact that he himself had seven times been on the same electoral ballot with Menem.

Shortly after coming into office, Kirchner made changes to the Argentine Supreme Court. He accused certain justices of extortion and pressured them to resign, while also fostering the impeachment of two others. In place of a majority of politically right-wing and religiously conservative justices, he appointed new ones who were ideologically closer to him, including two women (one of them an avowed atheist). Kirchner also retired dozens of generals, admirals, and brigadiers from the armed forces, a few of them with reputations tainted by the atrocities of the Dirty War. Kirchner kept the Duhalde administration's Minister of the Economy, Roberto Lavagna. Lavagna also declared that his first priority now was social problems. Argentina's default was the largest in financial history, and ironically it gave Kirchner and Lavagna significant bargaining power with the IMF, which loathes having bad debts on its books. During his first year of office, Kirchner achieved a difficult agreement to reschedule $84 billion in debts with international organizations, for three years. In the first half of 2005, the government launched a bond exchange to restructure approximately $81 billion of national public debt (an additional $20 billion in past defaulted interest was not recognized). Over 76% of the debt was tendered and restructured for a recovery value of approximately one third of its nominal value.

Under Kirchner, Argentine foreign policy shifted from the "automatic alignment" with the United States during the 1990s, to one stressing stronger ties (economic and political) within Mercosur and with other Latin American countries, and rejecting the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Kirchner saw the 2005 parliamentary elections as a means to confirm his political power, since Carlos Menem's defection in the second round of the 2003 presidential elections had not allowed Kirchner to receive the large number of votes that surveys predicted. Kirchner explicitly stated that the 2005 elections would be like a mid-term plebiscite for his administration, and he actively participated in the campaign in most provinces. Due to internal disagreements, the Justicialist Party was not presented as such on the polls but split into several factions. Kirchner's ''Frente para la Victoria'' (''FPV'', Front for Victory) was overwhelmingly the winner (the candidates of the FPV got more than 40% of the national vote), following which many supporters of other factions (mostly those led by former presidents Eduardo Duhalde and Carlos Menem) migrated to the FPV.

On 15 December 2005, following Brazil's initiative, Kirchner announced the cancellation of Argentina's debt to the IMF in full and offered a single payment, in a historic decision that generated controversy at the time (see Argentine debt restructuring). Some commentators, such as Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, suggest that the Argentine experiment has thus far proven successful. Others, such as Michael Mussa, formerly on the staff of the International Monetary Fund and now with the Peterson Institute, question the longer-term sustainability of Pres. Kirchner's approach.

In a meeting with executives of multinational corporations on Wall Street—after which he was the first Argentine president to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange—Kirchner defended his "heterodox economic policy, within the canon of classic economics" and criticized the IMF for its lack of collaboration with the Argentine recovery.

On July 2, 2007, President Kirchner announced he would not seek re-election in the October elections, despite having the support of 60% of those surveyed in polls. Instead, Kirchner intended to focus on the creation of a new political party.

Kirchner secured the Presidency of the Justicialist Party (to which his FPV belongs), in April 2008. Following the FPV's loss of 4 Senators and over 20 Congressmen in the June 28, 2009 mid-term elections, however, he was replaced by Buenos Aires Province Governor Daniel Scioli.

Post-presidency

Kirchner remained a highly influential politician during the term of his successor and wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The press developed the term "''presidential marriage''" to make reference to both of them at once. Some political analysts compared this type of government with a diarchy. He took part in the Operation Emmanuel in Colombia to release a group of FARC hostages, in December 2007. The Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt was among the group of hostages. Kirchner returned to Argentina after the failure of the negotiations, but some of the hostages were liberated the following year, including Betancourt.

Néstor Kirchner took active part in the government conflict with the agricultural sector in 2008. During this conflict he became president of the Justicialist Party, and declared full support for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the conflict. He accused the agricultural sector of attempting a coup d'état. He was one of the speakers in a demonstration made next to the Argentine National Congress supporting a law project on the matter, that would be voted the following day. Kirchner requested by then to accept the result in the Congress. Many senators who had formerly supported the government's proposal rejected it. The voting ended in a tie with 36 supporting votes and 36 rejecting votes. As a result, vicepresident Julio Cobos, president of the chamber of senators, was required to cast a decisive vote. Cobos voted for the rejection, and the law proposal was rejected.

On June 2009 legislative elections he ran for National Deputy for the Buenos Aires Province district. He was elected along with other 11 Front for Victory candidates, as their ticket arrived close second to the Union PRO peronist-conservative coalition in that district.

Néstor Kirchner was proposed by Ecuador as a candidate Secretary General of Unasur, but was rejected by Uruguay, at a time when Uruguay and Argentina were debating the Pulp mill dispute. The dispute was resolved in 2010 and the new Uruguayan president, José Mujica, supported Kirchner's candidacy. Kirchner was unanimously elected the first Secretary General of Unasur, during a Unasur Member States Heads of State summit held in Buenos Aires on 4 May 2010. In that role, he successfully mediated in the 2010 Colombia–Venezuela diplomatic crisis.

Death

Néstor Kirchner died of heart failure on 27 October 2010. He had been expected to run for president in 2011.

A wake was held from 28 October at the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires with the attendance of Latin American leaders. For more than 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of people filed past Kirchner's body lying in state, at the Casa Rosada. Starting on the afternoon of October 29 a large procession accompanied the remains of Néstor Kirchner from Casa Rosada to the metropolitan airport, and another from the airport of Río Gallegos to the cemetery. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner presided over the funeral, making her first public appearance since Néstor's death.

Argentina declared three days of national mourning. Condolences came from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the European Union, the OAS, The Union of South American Nations declared three days of national mourning in all South American countries. Eight South American heads of state traveled to Buenos Aires for the funeral and many other offered condolences.

Personal style and ideology

Néstor Kirchner is considered at times as a left-wing president, but that consideration is relative. Although Kirchner was to the left of previous Argentine presidents, from Raúl Alfonsín to Eduardo Duhalde, and contemporary Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, he was to the right of other latin american presidents as Hugo Chávez or Fidel Castro. His strong nationalist approach to the Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute is closer to Right-wing politics, and he has not considered classic left-wing policies such as socialization of production or the nationalization of the public services privatized during the presidency of Carlos Menem. He has not attempted either to modify the institutional system, the church–state relations or disestablish the armed forces.

Néstor Kirchner is a Peronist, and manages the political power as the historical Peronist leaders have traditionally done. One of the characteristics of his political style is the constant generation of controversies with other political or social forces, and the polarization of public opinion. This strategy was used against financial sectors, military, police, foreign countries, international bodies, newspapers, and even Duhalde himself, with varying levels of success. The rise of Kirchnerism reenacted the then outdated rivalry between Peronists and Antiperonists, and the use of the "Gorila" pejorative term.

Kirchner sought to generate an image contrasting that of former presidents Carlos Menem and Fernando de la Rúa. Menem was seen as frivolous, and De la Rúa as doubtful, so Kirchner worked to be seen as serious and determined.

Kirchner was a critic of IMF structural adjustment programs. His criticisms were supported in part by former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz, who opposes the IMF's measures as recessionary and urged Argentina to take an independent path. According to some commentators, Kirchner was seen as part of a spectrum of new Latin American leaders, including Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay, who see the Washington consensus as an unsuccessful model for economic development in the region.

Kirchner's increasing alignment with Hugo Chávez became evident when during a visit to Venezuela on July 2006 he attended a military parade alongside Bolivian president Evo Morales. On that occasion Mr. Chávez called for a defensive military pact between the armies of the region with a common doctrine and organization. Kirchner stated in a speech to the Venezuela national assembly that Venezuela represented a true democracy fighting for the dignity of its people.

Kirchner emphasised holding businesses accountable to Argentine institutions, laws prompting environmental standards, and contractual obligations. He pledged to not open his administration to the influence of interests that "benefited from inadmissible privileges in the last decade" during Carlos Menem's presidency. These groups, according to Kirchner, were privileged by an economic model that favored "financial speculation and political subordination" of politicians to well-connected elites. For instance, in 2006, citing the alleged failure of Aguas Argentinas, a company partly owned by the French utility group Suez, to meet its contractual obligation to improve the quality of water, Kirchner terminated the company's contract with Argentina to provide drinking water to Buenos Aires.

His preference for a more active role of the state in the economy was underscored with the founding, in 2004, of ENARSA a new state owned energy company. At the June 2007 Mercosur summit, he scolded energy companies for their lack of investment in the sector and for not supporting his strategic vision for the region. He said he was losing patience with energy companies as South America's second-largest economy faced power rationing and shortages during the Southern Hemisphere winter. Price controls on energy rates instituted in 2002 are attributed to have limited investment in Argentina's energy infrastructure, risking more than four years of economic growth greater than 8 percent.

Kirchner's collaborators and others who supported him and were politically close to him were known informally as ''pingüinos'' ("penguins"), alluding to his birthplace in the cold southern region of Argentina. Some media and sectors of society also resorted to using the letter ''K'' as a shorthand for Kirchner and his policies (as seen, for example, in the controversial group of supporters self-styled ''Los Jóvenes K'', that is "The K Youth", and in the faction of the Radical Civic Union that supports Kirchner, referred to by the media as ''Radicales K'').

Criticism and controversy

Kirchner was strongly criticized by commentators accusing him of authoritarianism by overly concentrating power in the executive branch and excessive use of decrees. The magazine ''The Economist'' in 2006 accused Kirchner of "populism", which it describes as a Latin American tendency that the Argentine president shares with a diverse range of figures, such as indigenous Peruvian nationalist Ollanta Humala, Mexican social democrat Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

The ''Wall Street Journal'' ran an article criticizing the NYSE for choosing Kirchner as a bell ringer, accusing him of being "anti-market."

Joaquín Morales Solá, a political columnist for the Argentine newspaper ''La Nación'', accused Kirchner of having a "personalistic style of governing, with a dose of authoritarianism and hegemony, an aggressive style of induced rupture and confrontation", and recently diverse allegations of cronyism and corrupt practices by his government's officials began to mount.

Controversy also arose when the Minister of Economy, Felisa Miceli, removed an officer of the National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina in charge of calculating the inflation indexes, allowing Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno to hand-pick an official from outside the institution for the post, in what was seen as a move to manipulate official data.

In the last months of his presidency, Kirchner had to weather several scandals. His Minister of Economy Felisa Miceli was forced to resign over more than $60,000 found stashed in a bag in her office bathroom, and a businessman carrying a suitcase with US$800,000 in cash, on a government-hired jet traveling from Venezuela, was discovered at an Argentine airport.

In May 2009, it was reported that the Argentine Intelligence Services (SIDE) were allegedly obeying Kirchner's orders in spying and harassing both his opponents as well as fellow Front for Victory and Justicialist Party figures to aid him in winning the 2009 mid-term elections, in which his party list struggled. The current SIDE Secretary, Héctor Icazuriaga, attended official acts with Kirchner and "offered political assistance" to him in the weekends at the official residence of the ex President.

In March 2007, it was confirmed that the SIDE had intervened and disrupted calls shortly before Cristina succeeded Néstor in the Casa Rosada; the Federal Police were linked to a clandestine operation involving the SIDE and 15,000 to 20,000 telephone numbers.

Allegations of embezzlement

Official reports from Argentina's anti-corruption office show that the fortune of the Argentine presidential couple, President Cristina Kirchner and her immediate predecessor and husband, Néstor Kirchner jumped 20.6% in 2009 totaling the equivalent of 14.5 million US dollars, and soared 700% since they first took office in 2003. The couple and several of their closest aides have been accused of purchasing from the Santa Cruz province government (their political turf) land at rock bottom farm prices which rapidly were converted into urban and suburban districts in exclusive resort areas valued in millions of dollars.

Several illicit enrichment claims filed in Buenos Aires did not prosper or were shelved with the same prosecutor involved in all cases.

Bibliography

References

External links

for the 2011 presidential campaign Biography by CIDOB Foundation

Category:1950 births Category:2010 deaths Category:Presidents of Argentina Category:Governors of Santa Cruz Category:Argentine lawyers Category:Justicialist Party politicians Category:Secretaries General of UNASUR Category:Spouses of the Presidents of Argentina Category:University of La Plata alumni Category:People from Santa Cruz Province Category:Argentine people of Chilean descent Category:Argentine people of Croatian descent Category:Argentine people of Swiss descent Category:Argentine Roman Catholics Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction

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color	#B0C4DE
name	Avram Noam Chomsky
birth date	December 07, 1928
birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
residence	U.S.
nationality	American
field	Linguistics
alma mater	University of Pennsylvania (BA 1949, MA 1951, Ph.D 1955)
Work institutions	MIT
known for	Generative grammaruniversal grammartransformational grammargovernment and binding theoryX-bar theoryChomsky hierarchycontext-free grammarprinciples and parametersMinimalist programlanguage acquisition devicepoverty of the stimulusChomsky–Schützenberger theoremChomsky normal formpropaganda model
Signature	Noam Chomsky signature.svg }}

Avram Noam Chomsky (; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) of in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT. 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 theorem, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His social 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. He is also the eighth most cited source of all time, and is considered the "most cited living author". Chomsky is the author of over 100 books.

Life and career

Chomsky was born on the morning of December 7, 1928, to Jewish parents in the affluent East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the 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 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.

Contributions to 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 ''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 which 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 motivation for 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 the 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 is especially useful for languages where words (terminal symbols) are commutative.

Contributions to 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).

Approach to 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.

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 such varied intellectuals as 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."

Political views

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. Chomsky tries to avoid the ambiguity of labels, although 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. 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 killing of Osama Bin Laden, Chomsky believes that the United States acted improperly, saying "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, 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 propaganda arm and "bought priesthood" of the U.S. government and U.S. corporations, with the three parties 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 supreme court ruling revoking the limits on campaign finance, calling it "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 therefore strongly critical of "authoritarian" Marxist and/or Leninist and/or Maoist 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.

Influence in other fields

''Chomskyan'' models have been used as a theoretical basis in several other fields. 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!".

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 élite consensus, frame public debate within élite 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 élite 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 élite interests.

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.

Chomsky is a member of the Faculty Advisory Board of the MIT Harvard Research Journal.

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 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".

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)

In the Time We've Got, Director: Christopher Ives (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

Important publications in computability

Knowledge worker

List of American philosophers

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''

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

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Name	Manu Chao
Landscape	yes
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao Ortega
Alias	Oscar Tramor
Born	June 21, 1961Paris, France
Religion	???
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard
Genre	Alternative rock, ska, punk, reggae, Latin, 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 origin (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 outlying suburbs 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 contéee'' 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.

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:French-language singers Category:Spanish-language singers Category:English-language singers 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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name	Mumia Abu-Jamal
image name	Mumia03.jpg
birth name	Wesley Cook
birth date	April 24, 1954
birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
conviction	First degree murder
conviction penalty	Death
conviction status	Incarcerated
children	}}

Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook on April 24, 1954) was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. He has been described as "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate", and his sentence is one of the most debated today. Before his arrest, he was an activist and radio journalist who became President of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. He was a member of the Black Panther Party until October 1970.

Since his conviction, his case has become an international cause célèbre, and he has become a controversial cultural icon. Supporters and opponents disagree on the appropriateness of the death penalty, whether he is guilty, or whether he received a fair trial. During his imprisonment he has published several books and other commentaries, notably ''Live from Death Row'' (1995).

Since 1995, Abu-Jamal, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections #AM8335, has been incarcerated at Pennsylvania's SCI Greene, where most of the state's capital case inmates are held. In 2008, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the murder conviction, but ordered a new capital sentencing hearing over concerns that the jury was improperly instructed. Subsequently, the United States Supreme Court allowed his July 1982 conviction to stand, and ordered the appeals court to reconsider its decision to rescind the death sentence. On April 26, 2011, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction as well as its decision to vacate the death sentence. The issue of the sentence was remanded for a new hearing. The death penalty may be imposed again or Abu-Jamal may receive a sentence of life without parole.

Early life and activism

Abu-Jamal's father died when Abu-Jamal was nine years old. Abu-Jamal was given the name Mumia in 1968 by his high school teacher, a Kenyan instructing a class on African cultures in which students took African classroom names. According to Abu-Jamal, 'Mumia' means "Prince" and was the name of anti-colonial African nationalists conducting warfare against the British in Kenya at the time of its independence movement. He adopted the surname Abu-Jamal ("father of Jamal" in Arabic) after the birth of his son Jamal on July 18, 1971. His first marriage at age 19, to Jamal's mother, Biba, was short-lived. Their daughter, Lateefa, was born shortly after the wedding. Mazi, Abu-Jamal's son by his second wife, Marilyn (known as "Peachie"), was born in early 1978. Abu-Jamal separated from Marilyn and commenced living with his third and current wife, Wadiya, shortly before the events that led to his incarceration.

Involvement with the Black Panthers

In his own writings, Abu-Jamal describes his adolescent experience of being "kicked ... into the Black Panther Party" after suffering a beating from "white racists" and a policeman for his efforts to disrupt a George Wallace for President rally in 1968. The following year, at the age of 15, he helped form the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party, taking appointment, in his own words, as the chapter's "Lieutenant of Information", exercising a responsibility for writing information and news communications. In one of the interviews he gave at the time he quoted Mao Zedong, saying that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". That same year, he dropped out of Benjamin Franklin High School and took up residence in the branch's headquarters. He spent late 1969 in New York City and early 1970 in Oakland, living and working with BPP colleagues in those cities. He was a party member from May 1969 until October 1970 and was subject to Federal Bureau of Investigation COINTELPRO surveillance from then until about 1974.

Education and journalism career

After leaving the Panthers he returned to his old high school, but was suspended for distributing literature calling for "black revolutionary student power". He also led unsuccessful protests to change the school name to Malcolm X High. After attaining his GED, he studied briefly at Goddard College in rural Vermont.

By 1975 he was pursuing a vocation in radio newscasting, first at Temple University's WRTI and then at commercial enterprises. In 1975, he was employed at radio station WHAT and he became host of a weekly feature program of WCAU-FM in 1978. He was also employed for brief periods at radio station WPEN, and became active in the local chapter of the Marijuana Users Association of America. From 1979 he worked at National Public Radio-affiliate WUHY until 1981 when he was asked to submit his resignation after a dispute about the requirements of objective focus in his presentation of news. As a radio journalist he earned the moniker "the voice of the voiceless" and was renowned for identifying with and giving exposure to the MOVE anarcho-primitivist commune in Philadelphia's Powelton Village neighborhood, including reportage of the 1979–80 trial of certain of its members (the "MOVE Nine") charged with the murder of police officer James Ramp. During his broadcasting career, his high-profile interviews included Julius Erving, Bob Marley, and Alex Haley, and he was elected president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.

At the time of Daniel Faulkner's murder, Abu-Jamal was working as a taxicab driver in Philadelphia two nights a week to supplement his income. He had been working part-time as a reporter for WDAS, then an African-American-oriented and minority-owned radio station.

Arrest for murder and trial

On December 9, 1981, in Philadelphia, close to the intersection at 13th and Locust Streets, Philadelphia Police Department officer Daniel Faulkner conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle belonging to William Cook, Abu-Jamal's younger brother. During the traffic stop, Abu-Jamal's taxi was parked across the street, and Abu-Jamal ran across the street towards the traffic stop. After arriving at the traffic stop, shots were fired by both Abu-Jamal and Officer Faulkner at each other. Both were wounded, and Faulkner died. Police arrived on the scene and arrested Abu-Jamal, who was found with a shoulder holster, a revolver, and spent cartridges in his revolver, in his possession. He was taken directly from the scene of the shooting to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital where he received treatment for his wounds. He was later charged with the first-degree murder of Daniel Faulkner.

The case went to trial in June 1982 in Philadelphia. Judge Albert F. Sabo initially agreed to Abu-Jamal's request to represent himself, with criminal defense attorney Anthony Jackson acting as his legal advisor. During the first day of the trial, Judge Sabo warned Abu-Jamal that he would forfeit his legal right to self-representation if he kept being intentionally disruptive in a fashion that was unbecoming under the law. Due to Abu-Jamal's continued disruptive behavior, Judge Sabo ruled that Abu-Jamal forfeited his right to self-representation.

Prosecution case at trial

The prosecution presented four witnesses to the court. Robert Chobert, a cab driver who testified he was parked behind Faulkner, identified Abu-Jamal as the shooter. Cynthia White, a prostitute, testified that Abu-Jamal emerged from a nearby parking lot and shot Faulkner. Michael Scanlon, a motorist, testified that from two car lengths away, he saw a man, matching Abu-Jamal's description, run across the street from a parking lot and shoot Faulkner. Albert Magilton, a pedestrian who did not see the actual murder, testified to witnessing Faulkner pull over Cook's car. At the point of seeing Abu-Jamal start to cross the street toward them from the parking lot, Magilton turned away and lost sight of what happened next.

The prosecution also presented two witnesses who were at the hospital after the altercation. Hospital security guard Priscilla Durham and Police Officer Garry Bell testified that Abu-Jamal confessed in the hospital by saying, "I shot the motherfucker, and I hope the motherfucker dies."

A .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver, belonging to Abu-Jamal, with five spent cartridges was retrieved beside him at the scene. He was wearing a shoulder holster, and the shell casings and rifling characteristics of the weapon were consistent with bullet fragments taken from Faulkner's body. Tests to confirm that Abu-Jamal had handled and fired the weapon were not performed, as contact with arresting police and other surfaces at the scene could have compromised the forensic value of such tests.

Defense case at trial

The defense maintained that Abu-Jamal was innocent of the charges and that the testimony of the prosecution's witnesses was unreliable. The defense presented nine character witnesses, including poet Sonia Sanchez, who testified that Abu-Jamal was "viewed by the black community as a creative, articulate, peaceful, genial man". Another defense witness, Dessie Hightower, testified that he saw a man running along the street shortly after the shooting although he did not see the actual shooting itself. His testimony contributed to the development of a "running man theory", based on the possibility that a "running man" may have been the actual shooter. Veronica Jones also testified for the defense, but she did not see anyone running. Other potential defense witnesses refused to appear in court. Abu-Jamal did not testify in his own defense. Nor did his brother, who said at the crime scene, "I ain't got nothing to do with this."

Verdict and sentence

The jury delivered a unanimous guilty verdict after three hours of deliberations.

In the sentencing phase of the trial, Abu-Jamal read to the jury from a prepared statement. He was then cross-examined about issues relevant to the assessment of his character by Joseph McGill, the prosecuting attorney.

In his statement Abu-Jamal criticized his attorney as a "legal trained lawyer" who was imposed on him against his will and who "knew he was inadequate to the task and chose to follow the directions of this black-robed conspirator, [Judge] Albert Sabo, even if it meant ignoring my directions". He claimed that his rights had been "deceitfully stolen" from him by Sabo, particularly focusing on the denial of his request to receive defense assistance from non-attorney John Africa and being prevented from proceeding ''pro se''. He quoted remarks of John Africa, and said: :"Does it matter whether a white man is charged with killing a black man or a black man is charged with killing a white man? As for justice when the prosecutor represents the Commonwealth the Judge represents the Commonwealth and the court-appointed lawyer is paid and supported by the Commonwealth, who follows the wishes of the defendant, the man charged with the crime? If the court-appointed lawyer ignores, or goes against the wishes of the man he is charged with representing, whose wishes does he follow? Who does he truly represent or work for? ... I am innocent of these charges that I have been charged of and convicted of and despite the connivance of Sabo, McGill and Jackson to deny me my so-called rights to represent myself, to assistance of my choice, to personally select a jury who is totally of my peers, to cross-examine witnesses, and to make both opening and closing arguments, I am still innocent of these charges."

Abu-Jamal was subsequently sentenced to death by the unanimous decision of the jury.

Appeals and review

State appeals

Direct appeal of his conviction was considered and denied by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on March 6, 1989, subsequently denying rehearing. The Supreme Court of the United States denied his petition for writ of ''certiorari'' on October 1, 1990, and denied his petition for rehearing twice up to June 10, 1991.

On June 1, 1995 his death warrant was signed by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge. Its execution was suspended while Abu-Jamal pursued state post-conviction review. At the post-conviction review hearings, new witnesses were called. William "Dales" Singletary testified that he saw the shooting and that the gunman was the passenger in Cook's car. Singletary's account contained discrepancies which rendered it "not credible" in the opinion of the court. William Harmon, a convicted fraudster, testified that Faulkner's murderer fled in a car which pulled up at the crime scene, and could not have been Abu-Jamal. However, Robert Harkins testified that he had witnessed a man stand over Faulkner as the latter lay wounded on the ground, who shot him point-blank in the face and then "walked and sat down on the curb".

The six judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled unanimously that all issues raised by Abu-Jamal, including the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, were without merit. The Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for certiorari against that decision on October 4, 1999, enabling Ridge to sign a second death warrant on October 13, 1999. Its execution in turn was stayed as Abu-Jamal commenced his pursuit of federal habeas corpus review.

In 1999, Arnold Beverly claimed that he and an unnamed assailant, not Mumia Abu-Jamal, shot Daniel Faulkner as part of a contract killing because Faulkner was interfering with graft and payoff to corrupt police. The Beverly affidavit became an item of division for Mumia's defense team, as some thought it usable and others rejected Beverly's story as "not credible".

Private investigator George Newman claimed in 2001 that Chobert had recanted his testimony. Commentators also noted that police and news photographs of the crime scene did not show Chobert's taxi, and that Cynthia White, the only witness at the trial to testify to seeing the taxi, had previously provided crime scene descriptions that omitted it. Cynthia White was declared to be dead by the state of New Jersey in 1992 although Pamela Jenkins claimed that she saw White alive as late as 1997. Mumia supporters often claim that White was a police informant and that she falsified her testimony against Abu-Jamal. Priscilla Durham's step-brother, Kenneth Pate, who was imprisoned with Abu-Jamal on other charges, has since claimed that Durham admitted to not hearing the hospital confession. The hospital doctors have stated that Abu-Jamal was not capable of making such a dramatic bedside confession at that time. In 2008, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected a further request from Abu-Jamal for a hearing into claims that the trial witnesses perjured themselves on the grounds that he had waited too long before filing the appeal.

Federal ruling directing resentencing

Abu-Jamal did not make any public statements about Faulkner's murder until May 3, 2001. In his version of events, he claimed that he was sitting in his cab across the street when he heard shouting, then saw a police vehicle, then heard the sound of gunshots. Upon seeing his brother appearing disoriented across the street, Abu-Jamal ran to him from the parking lot and was shot by a police officer. The driver originally stopped by police officer Faulkner, Abu-Jamal's brother William Cook, did not testify or make any statement until April 29, 2001, when he claimed that he had not seen who had shot Faulkner.

Judge William H. Yohn Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania upheld the conviction but voided the sentence of death on December 18, 2001, citing irregularities in the original process of sentencing. Particularly, He ordered the State of Pennsylvania to commence new sentencing proceedings within 180 days and ruled that it was unconstitutional to require that a jury's finding of circumstances mitigating against determining a sentence of death be unanimous. Eliot Grossman and Marlene Kamish, attorneys for Abu-Jamal, criticized the ruling on the grounds that it denied the possibility of a ''trial de novo'' at which they could introduce evidence that their client had been framed. Prosecutors also criticized the ruling; Officer Faulkner's widow Maureen described Abu-Jamal as a "remorseless, hate-filled killer" who would "be permitted to enjoy the pleasures that come from simply being alive" on the basis of the judgment. Both parties appealed.

Federal appeal

On December 6, 2005, the Third Circuit Court admitted four issues for appeal of the ruling of the District Court: 1) in relation to sentencing, whether the jury verdict form had been flawed and the judge's instructions to the jury had been confusing; 2) in relation to conviction and sentencing, whether racial bias in jury selection existed to an extent tending to produce an inherently biased jury and therefore an unfair trial (the ''Batson'' claim); 3) in relation to conviction, whether the prosecutor improperly attempted to reduce jurors' sense of responsibility by telling them that a guilty verdict would be subsequently vetted and subject to appeal; 4) in relation to post-conviction review hearings in 1995–6, whether the presiding judge, who had also presided at the trial, demonstrated unacceptable bias in his conduct.

The Third Circuit Court heard oral arguments in the appeals on May 17, 2007, at the United States Courthouse in Philadelphia. The appeal panel consisted of Chief Judge Anthony Joseph Scirica, Judge Thomas Ambro, and Judge Robert Cowen. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sought to reinstate the sentence of death, on the basis that Yohn's ruling was flawed, as he should have deferred to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which had already ruled on the issue of sentencing, and the ''Batson'' claim was invalid because Abu-Jamal made no complaints during the original jury selection. Abu-Jamal's counsel told the Third Circuit Court that Abu-Jamal did not get a fair trial because the jury was both racially-biased and misinformed, and the judge was a racist. The last of those claims was made based on the statement by a Philadelphia court stenographer named Terri Maurer-Carter who, in a 2001 affidavit, stated that Judge Sabo had said "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger." in the course of a conversation regarding Abu-Jamal's case. Sabo denied having made any such comment.

On March 27, 2008, the three-judge panel issued a majority 2–1 opinion upholding Yohn's 2001 opinion but rejecting the bias and ''Batson'' claims, with Judge Ambro dissenting on the ''Batson'' issue. On July 22, 2008, Abu-Jamal's formal petition seeking reconsideration of the decision by the full Third Circuit panel of 12 judges was denied. On April 6, 2009, the United States Supreme Court also refused to hear Abu-Jamal's appeal. On January 19, 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to reconsider its decision to rescind the death penalty, with the same three-judge panel convening in Philadelphia on November 9, 2010, to hear oral argument. On April 26, 2011, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed its prior decision to vacate the death sentence on the grounds that the jury instructions and verdict form were ambiguous and confusing.

Life as a prisoner

In 1991 Abu-Jamal published an essay in the ''Yale Law Journal'', on the death penalty and his Death Row experience. In May 1994, Abu-Jamal was engaged by National Public Radio's ''All Things Considered'' program to deliver a series of monthly three-minute commentaries on crime and punishment. The broadcast plans and commercial arrangement were canceled following condemnations from, among others, the Fraternal Order of Police and US Senator Bob Dole (R-KS). Abu-Jamal sued NPR for not airing his work, but a federal judge dismissed the suit. The commentaries later appeared in print in May 1995 as part of ''Live from Death Row''.

In 1999, he was invited to record a keynote address for the graduating class at The Evergreen State College. The event was protested heavily. In 2000, he recorded a commencement address for Antioch College. The now defunct New College of California School of Law presented him with an honorary degree "for his struggle to resist the death penalty".

With occasional interruptions due to prison disciplinary actions, Abu-Jamal has for many years been a regular commentator on an online broadcast, sponsored by Prison Radio, as well as a regular columnist for ''Junge Welt'', a Marxist newspaper in Germany. In 1995, he was punished with solitary confinement for engaging in entrepreneurship contrary to prison regulations. Subsequent to the airing of the 1996 HBO documentary ''Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case For Reasonable Doubt?'', which included footage from visitation interviews conducted with him, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections acted to ban outsiders from using any recording equipment in state prisons. In litigation before the US Court of Appeals in 1998 he successfully established his right to write for financial gain in prison. The same litigation also established that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections had illegally opened his mail in an attempt to establish whether he was writing for financial gain. When, for a brief time in August 1999, he began delivering his radio commentaries live on the Pacifica Network's ''Democracy Now!'' weekday radio newsmagazine, prison staff severed the connecting wires of his telephone from their mounting in mid-performance.

His publications include ''Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience'', in which he explores religious themes, ''All Things Censored'', a political critique examining issues of crime and punishment, ''Live From Death Row'', a diary of life on Pennsylvania's death row, and ''We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party'', which is a history of the Black Panthers drawing on autobiographical material.

Popular support and opposition

Abu-Jamal's supporters protest at perceived injustice or deplore the death penalty in his and other cases. Labor unions, US and foreign city governments, politicians, advocates, educators, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and human rights advocacy organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have expressed concern about his case. They are opposed by the family of Daniel Faulkner, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Fraternal Order of Police. In August 1999, the Fraternal Order of Police called for an economic boycott against all individuals and organizations that support Abu-Jamal.

Abu-Jamal has been made an honorary citizen of about 25 cities around the world, including Paris, Montreal, Palermo and Copenhagen. In 2001, he received the sixth biennial Erich Mühsam Prize, which recognizes outstanding activism on behalf of a liberatory vision of human society in keeping with that of its anarchist namesake; in particular, most of its awardees have been activists in the cause of social justice for persecuted minorities. In October 2002, he was awarded honorary membership of the Berlin-based Association of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime – Federation of Antifascists and Antifascist Groups (VVN-BdA).

On April 29, 2006, a newly-paved road in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis was named ''Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal'' in his honor. In protest of the street-naming, US Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) introduced resolutions in both Houses of Congress condemning the decision. The House of Representatives voted 368–31 in favor of the resolution. In December 2006, the 25th anniversary of the murder, the executive committee of the Republican Party for the 59th Ward of the City of Philadelphia—covering approximately Germantown, Philadelphia—filed two criminal complaints in the French legal system against the city of Paris and the city of Saint-Denis, accusing the municipalities of "glorifying" Abu-Jamal and alleging the offense "apology or denial of crime" in respect of their actions. In 2007, the widow of Officer Faulkner coauthored a book with Philadelphia radio journalist Michael Smerconish entitled ''Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Pain, Loss, and Injustice.'' The book was part memoir of Faulkner's widow, part discussion in which they chronicled Abu-Jamal's trial and discussed evidence for his conviction, and part discussion on supporting the death penalty. J. Patrick O'Connor, editor and publisher of crimemagazine.com, argues in his book ''The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal'' that the preponderance of evidence establishes that it was not Abu-Jamal but a passenger in Abu-Jamal's brother's car, Kenneth Freeman, who killed Faulkner, and that the Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney's Office framed Abu-Jamal.

In 2010, investigative journalists performed a series of tests that produced results inconsistent with the case against Abu-Jamal. Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington reproduced the shooting and showed that the shots which missed should have produced marks visible on the pavement. An expert photo analyst found no such marks visible in the highest-available-quality photo of the part of the crime scene where the body was found. A ballistics expert medical examiner said that the idea that police could have failed to recognise such marks at the crime scene was "absolute nonsense". Abu-Jamal's lawyer said that the results constituted "extraordinarily important new evidence that establishes clearly that the prosecutor and the Philadelphia Police Department were engaged in presenting knowingly false testimony".

See also

Alfonzo Giordano

''In Prison My Whole Life'' - 2008 documentary film

References

External links

Video

1996 video of death row visitation interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal

Competing Films Offer Differing Views - video report by ''Democracy Now!''

Audio

Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Broadcasts

Supporter groups

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (New York City)

Partisan Defense Committee

The Mobilization To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (San Francisco)

Journalists for Mumia

Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal

Opponent groups

Summary of the prosecution 's case

Fraternal Order of Police news, press releases, and communications relating to Mumia Abu-Jamal

Justice For Daniel Faulkner

Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century American criminals Category:African American journalists Category:African American writers Category:American anti–death penalty activists Category:American columnists Category:American people convicted of murdering police officers Category:American newspaper reporters and correspondents Category:American political writers Category:American prisoners sentenced to death Category:American radio reporters and correspondents Category:Black Panther Party members Category:France – United States relations Category:Marxist journalists Category:Pennsylvania political activists Category:People convicted of murder by Pennsylvania Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Pennsylvania Category:Writers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:Crime in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:Goddard College alumni Category:California State University, Dominguez Hills alumni

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