1.
Poetry
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Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotles Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on such as repetition, verse form and rhyme. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a creative act employing language. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly figures of such as metaphor, simile and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm. Some poetry types are specific to cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing, among other things, in todays increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages. Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate literacy, others, however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing. The oldest surviving poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, comes from the 3rd millennium BCE in Sumer. An example of Egyptian epic poetry is The Story of Sinuhe, other forms of poetry developed directly from folk songs. The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, the efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in poetics—the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as Chinas through her Shijing, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance, Classical thinkers employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Later aestheticians identified three major genres, epic poetry, lyric poetry, and dramatic poetry, treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres of dramatic poetry, Aristotles work was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, as well as in Europe during the Renaissance. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic Negative Capability and this romantic approach views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic
2.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
3.
Languages of Canada
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A multitude of languages are used in Canada. According to the 2011 census, English and French are the mother tongues of 56. 9% and 21. 3% of Canadians respectively,85. 6% of Canadians have working knowledge of English while 30. 1% have a working knowledge of French. New Brunswick is the only Canadian province that has both English and French as its official languages to the extent, with constitutional entrenchment. Similar constitutional protections are in place in Manitoba, many Canadians believe that the relationship between the English and French languages is the central or defining aspect of the Canadian experience. Canada’s linguistic diversity extends beyond the two official languages, in all,20. 0% of Canadas population reported speaking a language other than English or French at home. Finally, the number of people reporting sign languages as the languages spoken at home was nearly 25,000 people, Canada is also home to many indigenous languages. Taken together, these are spoken by less than one percent of the population, about. 6% Canadians report an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue. The following table details the population of each province and territory, with summary national totals, source, Statistics Canada,2011 Census Population by language spoken most often and regularly at home, age groups, for Canada, provinces and territories. The percentage of the population speaking English, French or both languages most often at home has declined since 1986, the decline has been greatest for French, the proportion of the population who speak neither English nor French in the home has increased. The table below shows the percentage of the total Canadian population who speak Canadas official languages most often at home from 1971–2006. In 2011, just under 21.5 million Canadians, representing 65% of the population, spoke English most of the time at home, English is the major language everywhere in Canada except Quebec and Nunavut, and most Canadians can speak English. While English is not the language in Quebec,36. 1% of Québécois can speak English. Nationally, Francophones are five times more likely to speak English than Anglophones are to speak French – 44%, only 3. 2% of Canadas English-speaking population resides in Quebec—mostly in Montreal. More Canadians know how to speak English than speak it at home, of these, about 6.1 million or 85% resided in Quebec. Outside Quebec, the largest French-speaking populations are found in New Brunswick, overall, 22% of people in Canada declare French to be their mother language, while one in three Canadians speak French and 70% are unilingual Anglophones. Smaller indigenous French-speaking communities exist in other provinces. For example, a community exists on Newfoundlands Port au Port Peninsula. The percentage of the population who speak French both by mother tongue and home language has decreased over the past three decades
4.
Goidelic languages
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The Goidelic /ɡɔɪˈdɛlɪk/ or Gaelic languages form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from Ireland through the Isle of Man to Scotland, there are three modern Goidelic languages, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, the last of which died out in the 20th century but has since been revived to some degree. The word Gaelic by itself is used to refer to Scottish Gaelic and is thus ambiguous. The names used in the languages themselves are derived from Old Irish Goídelc, the medieval mythology of the Lebor Gabála Érenn places its origin in an eponymous ancestor of the Gaels, and inventor of the language, Goídel Glas. Medieval Gaelic literature tells us that the kingdom of Dál Riata emerged in western Scotland during the 6th century, the traditional view was that Dál Riata was founded by Irish migrants, but this is no longer universally accepted. Dál Riata grew in size and influence, and Gaelic language, the oldest written Goidelic language is Primitive Irish, which is attested in Ogham inscriptions from about the 4th century. The forms of speech are very close, and often identical, to the forms of Gaulish recorded before. Classical Gaelic, otherwise known as Early Modern Irish, covers the period from the 13th to the 18th century and this is often called Classical Irish, while Ethnologue gives the name Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic to this standardised written language. As long as written language was the norm, Ireland was considered the Gaelic homeland to the Scottish literati. Later orthographic divergence has resulted in standardised pluricentristic orthographies, Manx orthography, which was introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, was based on English and Welsh practice and so never formed part of this literary standard. Irish is one of the Republic of Irelands two official languages along with English, historically the predominant language of the island, it is now mostly spoken in parts of the south, west, and northwest of Ireland. At present, the Gaeltachtaí are primarily found in Counties Cork, Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry, in the Republic of Ireland 1,774,437 regard themselves as able to speak Irish. Of these,77,185 speak Irish on a daily basis outside school, the 2001 census in Northern Ireland showed that 167,487 people had some knowledge of Irish. Combined, this means that one in three people on the island of Ireland can understand Irish to some extent, although a large percentage of these do not speak it fluently. The Irish language has been recognised as an official and working language of the European Union, Irelands national language was the twenty-third to be given such recognition by the EU and previously had the status of a treaty language. Some people in the north and west of mainland Scotland and most people in the Hebrides still speak Scottish Gaelic, but the language has been in decline. There are now believed to be approximately 60,000 native speakers of Scottish Gaelic in Scotland and its historical range was much larger. For example, it was the language of most of the rest of the Scottish Highlands until little more than a century ago
5.
Indigenous languages of the Americas
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Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses that constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of language families, as well as many language isolates. Many proposals to group these into higher-level families have been made and this scheme is rejected by nearly all specialists. According to UNESCO, most of the indigenous American languages in North America are critically endangered, the most widely spoken indigenous language is Southern Quechua, with about 6 to 7 million speakers, primarily in South America. Thousands of languages were spoken by various peoples in North and South America prior to their first contact with Europeans and these encounters occurred between the beginning of the 11th century and the end of the 15th century. Several indigenous cultures of the Americas had also developed their own writing systems, after pre-Columbian times, several indigenous creole languages developed in the Americas, based on European, indigenous and African languages. The European colonizers and their states had widely varying attitudes towards Native American languages. In Brazil, friars learned and promoted the Tupi language, as a result, indigenous American languages suffered from cultural suppression and loss of speakers. Many indigenous languages have become endangered, but others are vigorous. Several indigenous languages have been official status in the countries where they occur. In other cases official status is limited to regions where the languages are most spoken. Although sometimes enshrined in constitutions as official, the languages may be used infrequently in de facto official use, examples are Quechua in Peru and Aymara in Bolivia, where in practice, Spanish is dominant in all formal contexts. In North America and the Arctic region, Greenland in 2009 adopted Kalaallisut as its official language. In the United States, the Navajo language is the most spoken Native American language, the US Marine Corps recruited Navajo men, who were established as code talkers during World War II, to transmit secret US military messages. Neither the Germans nor Japanese ever deciphered the Navajo code, which was a using the Navajo language. Today, governments, universities, and indigenous peoples are continuing to work for the preservation and revitalization of indigenous American languages, in American Indian Languages, The Historical Linguistics of Native America, Lyle Campbell lists several hypotheses for the historical origins of Amerindian languages. These proliferated in the New World, notes, Extinct languages or families are indicated by, †. The number of members is indicated in parentheses
6.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
7.
Robert Hayman
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Robert Hayman was a poet, colonist and Proprietary Governor of Bristols Hope colony in Newfoundland. Hayman was born in Wolborough near Newton Abbot, Devon, the eldest of nine children and his mother was Alice Gaverocke and his father, Nicholas Hayman, a prosperous citizen and later mayor and MP of both Totnes and Dartmouth. By 1579 the family was living in Totnes, where in the high street Hayman as a small boy met Sir Francis Drake, according to the 17th-century historian Anthony Wood Hayman was educated at Exeter College and the college register shows him matriculating on 15 October 1590. He then, according to Wood, retired to Lincolns-inn, without the honour of a degree and these encouraged his literary efforts with the result, according to Wood, that Hayman had the general vogue of a poet. Perhaps because of these distractions Hayman seems not to have achieved any significant public office in England, although Edward Sharpham dedicated a play to him in 1607 there is nothing further known about his activities for twenty years until he emerges as a venturer and colonist to the new world. Several of the later published in the book Quodlibets however are dedicated to other members of the Spicer family. Hayman was appointed the Newfoundland colonys first and only governor in 1618 when Bristols Society of Merchant Venturers received a charter from King James I of England to establish the settlement, Haymans brother-in-law John Barker was the societys master. Hayman lived in the colony for fifteen months before returning to England, much of his work was in England raising money for the settlement, publicizing it and encouraging more colonisation efforts. As Newfoundlands first poet in English, Hayman is remembered for his writings extolling the island, its climate, in his leisure hours as Governor in Harbour Grace he composed a work later published in England as Quodlibets. Quodlibets was the first book in the English language written in what would become Canada, some of it consisted of original short poems by Hayman, and some of translations, both of Latin poems by John Owen and of French prose by Rabelais. It was published in London in 1628, presumably as part of Haymans attempts to raise interest in the colony, although Hayman apparently remained committed to Newfoundland he was also interested in other colonial ventures, including one to Guyana under the direction of Robert Harcourt. Having arranged his affairs he made his will late in the fall of 1628. By February 1629 he was in Guiana looking into using the river Wiapoco as a trading route. It was while travelling up the Oyapock by canoe that Hayman died of a fever and was hastily buried by his companions near the banks of the river. His will, signed and sealed on 17 November 1628 but not proved until 1633, leaves his estate to my loving Cosin and his will also mentions two policies of insurance taken out with the diocesan Chancellor of London, Arthur Duck. Of the value of each, one related to the safe arrival of Haymans ship in Guiana
8.
Newfoundland (island)
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Newfoundland is a large Canadian island off the east coast of the North American mainland, and the most populous part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It has 29 percent of the land area. The island is separated from the Labrador Peninsula by the Strait of Belle Isle and it blocks the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, creating the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the worlds largest estuary. Newfoundlands nearest neighbour is the French overseas community of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, with an area of 108,860 square kilometres, Newfoundland is the worlds 16th-largest island, Canadas fourth-largest island, and the largest Canadian island outside the North. The provincial capital, St. Johns, is located on the southeastern coast of the island, Cape Spear, just south of the capital, is the easternmost point of North America, excluding Greenland. It is common to consider all directly neighbouring islands such as New World, Twillingate, Fogo, by that classification, Newfoundland and its associated small islands have a total area of 111,390 square kilometres. Additionally 6. 1% claimed at least one parent of French ancestry, the islands total population as of the 2006 census was 479,105. Long settled by peoples of the Dorset culture, the island was visited by the Icelandic Viking Leif Eriksson in the 11th century. The next European visitors to Newfoundland were Portuguese, Basque, Spanish, French, the island was visited by the Genoese navigator John Cabot, working under contract to King Henry VII of England on his expedition from Bristol in 1497. In 1501, Portuguese explorers Gaspar Corte-Real and his brother Miguel Corte-Real charted part of the coast of Newfoundland in a attempt to find the Northwest Passage. Newfoundland is considered Britains oldest colony, at the time of English settlement, the Beothuk inhabited the island. While there is evidence of ancient indigenous peoples on the island. LAnse aux Meadows was a Norse settlement near the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, the site is considered the only undisputed evidence of Pre-Columbian contact between the Old and New Worlds, if the Norse-Inuit contact on Greenland is not counted. There is a second suspected Norse site in Point Rosee, the island is a likely location of Vinland, mentioned in the Viking Chronicles, although this has been disputed. The indigenous people on the island at the time of European settlement were the Beothuk, later immigrants developed a variety of dialects associated with settlement on the island, Newfoundland English, Newfoundland French. In the 19th century, it also had a dialect of Irish known as Newfoundland Irish, Scottish Gaelic was spoken on the island during the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in the Codroy Valley area, chiefly by settlers from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. The Gaelic names reflected the association with fishing, in Scottish Gaelic, it was called Eilean a Trosg, or literally, similarly, the Irish Gaelic name Talamh an Éisc means Land of the Fish. The first inhabitants of Newfoundland were the Paleo-Eskimo, who have no link to other groups in Newfoundland history
9.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
