• 08-06-2008, 04:51 AM
    jakncoke
    In traditional usage, the cult of a religion, quite apart from its sacred writings ("scriptures"), its theology or myths, or the personal faith of its believers, is the totality of external religious practice and observance, the neglect of which is the definition of impiety. Cult in this primary sense is literally the "care" (Latin cultus) owed to the god and the shrine. In the specific context of Greek hero cult, Carla Antonaccio has written, "The term cult identifies a pattern of ritual behavior in connection with specific objects, within a framework of spatial and temporal coordinates. Ritual behavior would include (but not necessarily be limited to) prayer, sacrifice, votive offerings, competitions, processions and construction of monuments. Some degree of recurrence in place and repetition over time of ritual action is necessary for cult to be enacted, to be practiced"[1]

    Cult is embodied in ritual and ceremony. Its present or former presence is made concrete in temples, shrines and churches, and cult images (denigrated by Christians as "idols") and votive deposits at votive sites.

    By extension, "cult" has come to connote the total cultural aspects of a religion, as they are distinguished from others through change and individualization.
  • 08-06-2008, 04:52 AM
    jakncoke
    A religion is a set of beliefs and practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and moral claims about reality, the cosmos, and human nature, and often codified as prayer, ritual, or religious law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.

    In the frame of European religious thought,[1] religions present a common quality, the "hallmark of patriarchal religious thought": the division of the world in two comprehensive domains, one sacred, the other profane.[2] Religion is often described as a communal system for the coherence of belief focusing on a system of thought, unseen being, person, or object, that is considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine, or of the highest truth. Moral codes, practices, values, institutions, tradition, rituals, and scriptures are often traditionally associated with the core belief, and these may have some overlap with concepts in secular philosophy. Religion is also often described as a "way of life" or a Life stance.

    The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures. "Organized religion" generally refers to an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion with a prescribed set of beliefs, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). Other religions believe in personal revelation. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system,"[3] but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.
  • 08-06-2008, 04:52 AM
    jakncoke
    The term supernatural or supranatural (Latin: super, supra "above" + natura "nature") pertains to entities, events or powers regarded as beyond nature, in that they cannot be explained by the currently understood laws of the natural world. Religious miracles are typical of such “supernatural” claims, as are spells and curses, divination, the belief that there is an afterlife for the dead, and innumerable others.

    Supernatural themes are often associated with magical and occult ideas.

    Arthur C. Clarke points out that any science beyond current scientific explanation and understanding is considered "Magic", mystical, or supernatural until or unless it can be described by science. Conversely any claimed "science" which has not been proven is by definition supernatural or beyond science. This of course differs with each individual.
  • 08-06-2008, 04:52 AM
    jakncoke
    Latin (lingua Latīna, pronounced [laˈtiːna]) is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. It later evolved into such languages as French, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan. It was also the international language of science and scholarship in central and western Europe until the 17th century. There are two varieties of Latin: Classical Latin, the literary dialect used in poetry and prose, and Vulgar Latin, the form of the language spoken by ordinary people, which later diverged into the various Romance languages. After the rise of the Catholic Church, Medieval Latin, the ecclesiastical language of the Catholic Church, became the lingua franca of educated classes in the West.

    Vulgar Latin was preserved as a spoken language in much of Europe after the decline of the Roman Empire, and by the 9th century diverged into the various Romance languages. Around the 16th century, the popularity of Medieval Latin began to decline.

    Classical Latin lives on in the form of Ecclesiastical Latin used for edicts and papal bulls issued by the Catholic Church. Much Latin vocabulary is used in science, academia, and law. Classical Latin, the literary language of the late Republic and early Empire, is still taught in many primary, grammar, and secondary 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 and French alphabets, is the most widely used alphabet in the world.
  • 08-06-2008, 04:52 AM
    jakncoke
    The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family's Centum branch. It includes the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, etc.), and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Latin, Umbrian, and Oscan
  • 08-06-2008, 04:53 AM
    jakncoke
    the game ends, the game was to click on first possible link in the first paragraph of wiki page without finding a old link, Indo-European stopped it.
  • 08-06-2008, 04:54 AM
    jakncoke
    went on for awhile though
  • 08-06-2008, 04:55 AM
    jakncoke
    Centum-Satem is the start
  • 08-06-2008, 04:56 AM
    jakncoke
    The Centum-Satem division is an isogloss of the Indo-European language family, related to the evolution of the three dorsal consonant rows reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, *kʷ (labiovelars), *k (velars), and *ḱ; (palatovelars). The terms come from the words for the number "one hundred" in representative languages of each group (Latin centum and Avestan satəm).

    The Satem languages include Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Baltic, Slavic, Albanian, and perhaps also a number of barely documented extinct languages, such as Thracian and Dacian. This group merged PIE-velars and PIE-labiovelars to develop into velars, and changed PIE-palatovelars into sibilants. Although Albanian is treated as a Satem language, there is some evidence that the plain velars and the labiovelars may not have been completely merged in Proto-Albanian.

    The Centum group is often thought of as being identical to "non-Satem", i.e. as including all remaining dialects. However, this group features a merging of PIE-velars and PIE-palatovelars to velars in a separate Centum sound change, independent from and predating the Satem sound change. More specifically, in the sense of Brugmann's "languages with labialization", the Centum group includes Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Greek and possibly a number of minor and little known extinct groups (such as Ancient Macedonian, Venetic and probably the Illyrian languages). Tocharian combined all rows into a single velar row and although the relative chronology of the change is unknown, it lacks the assibilation typical of "Satem", thus is often considered "Centum".

    The Proto-Anatolian language apparently did not undergo either the Satem or the Centum sound change. The velar rows remain separate in Luwian, while Hittite may secondarily have undergone a Centum change, but the exact phonology is unclear
  • 08-06-2008, 04:56 AM
    jakncoke
    An isogloss is the geographical boundary or delineation of a certain linguistic feature, e.g. the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature. Major dialects are typically demarcated by whole bundles of isoglosses, e.g. the Benrath line that distinguishes High German from the other West Germanic languages; or the La Spezia-Rimini Line which divides the eastern Romance languages from the western ones. Undoubtedly, the largest well-known isogloss is the Centum-Satem isogloss, which traditionally separates the Indo-European languages into two distinct categories.

    A major isogloss in American English has been identified as the North-Midland isogloss, which demarcates numerous linguistic features, including the Northern Cities vowel shift: regions north of the line (including western New York; Cleveland, Ohio; lower Michigan; northern Illinois; and eastern Wisconsin) are subject to the shift and regions south of the line (including Pennsylvania, central and southern Ohio, and most of Indiana) are not.

    The name is inspired by contour lines or isopleths such as isobar, etc.; however, the isogloss separates rather than connects points of equal language (perhaps one could say it connects points of indefinite language).

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