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Arabic alphabet
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Letter forms
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Letter forms
The Arabic alphabet is always cursive and letters vary in shape depending on their position within a word. Letters can exhibit up to four distinct forms corresponding to an initial, medial (middle), final, or isolated position (IMFI). While some letters show considerable variations, others remain almost identical across all four positions. Generally, letters in the same word are linked together on both sides by short horizontal lines, but six letters () can only be linked to their preceding letter. In addition, some letter combinations are written as ligatures (special shapes), notably , which is the only mandatory ligature (the unligated combination is considered difficult to read).
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Arabic alphabet
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Table of basic letters
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Table of basic letters
+ Arabic letters usage in Literary ArabicAbjadi OrderRomanizationLetter name in IPALetter name in Arabic scriptValue in Literary Arabic (IPA)Contextual formsIsolated formHija'i
OrderMaghreb Common FinalMedialInitial 11 / , , 122 2222232323 / 43358862424 / 74482525 / 920201077 112115122821 / 1315181418261599162627 171616 / 182728 / 1917172019192111112212122313132414142555 2666, , 271010, , 28 - -ʾ / (used in medial and final positions as an unlinked letter) -
Notes
See the article Romanization of Arabic for details on various transliteration schemes. Arabic language speakers may usually not follow a standardized scheme when transcribing words or names. Some Arabic letters which do not have an equivalent in English (such as ط) are often spelled as numbers when Romanized. Also names are regularly transcribed as pronounced locally, not as pronounced in Literary Arabic (if they were of Arabic origin).
Regarding pronunciation, the phonemic values given are those of Modern Standard Arabic, which is taught in schools and universities. In practice, pronunciation may vary considerably from region to region. For more details concerning the pronunciation of Arabic, consult the articles Arabic phonology and varieties of Arabic.
The names of the Arabic letters can be thought of as abstractions of an older version where they were meaningful words in the Proto-Semitic language.
Six letters () do not have a distinct medial form and have to be written with their final form without being connected to the next letter. Their initial form matches the isolated form. The following letter is written in its initial form, or isolated form if it is the final letter in the word.
The letter originated in the Phoenician alphabet as a consonant-sign indicating a glottal stop. Today it has lost its function as a consonant, and, together with and , is a mater lectionis, a consonant sign standing in for a long vowel (see below), or as support for certain diacritics ( and ).
Arabic currently uses a punctuation mark called the () to denote the glottal stop , written alone or with a carrier:
alone:
with a carrier: (above or under an ), (above a ), (above a dotless or ).
In academic work, the hamza is transliterated with the modifier letter right half ring (ʾ) or () on Wiktionary, while the modifier letter left half ring (ʿ) or () on Wiktionary, transliterates the letter (), which represents a different sound, not found in English.
The hamza has a single form, since it is never linked to a preceding or following letter. However, it is sometimes combined with a , , or , and in that case the carrier behaves like an ordinary , , or , check the table below:
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Arabic alphabet
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Hamza forms
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Hamza forms
The Hamza (glottal stop) can be written either alone, as if it were a letter, or with a carrier, when it becomes a diacritic. () indicates a long + sound as in "sorry", while the other Hamzas indicate the glottal stop in different positions of the word as in and , the writing of the Hamza is based on a set of rules, For the writing rule of each form, see .
NameContextual formsIsolatedPosition occurrence Final MedialInitial ()Initial / Medial / Final positions () - Initial position only () - Medial / Final only () - Medial / Final only () (medial) () (final) -Medial / Final only () -Initial / Medial only
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Arabic alphabet
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Modified letters
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Modified letters
The following are not individual letters, but rather different contextual variants of some of the Arabic letters.
NameContextual formsIsolatedTranslit.Notes and Phonemic Value (IPA)FinalMedialInitial()(only final) or (aka "correlated tā")
used in final position, often for denoting singular feminine noun/word or to make the noun/word feminine, it has two pronunciations rules; often unpronounced or pronounced as in / "school" and pronounced in construct state as in "Sara's school".
In rare irregular noun/word cases, it appears to denote masculine singular nouns as in , or some masculine plural noun forms as in plural of .
plural nouns: (a preceding letter followed by a + = ) ()(only final) Two uses:1. The letter called or (as opposed to ), pronounced in Modern Standard Arabic. It is used only at the end of words in some special cases to denote the neuter/non-feminine aspect of the word (mainly verbs), where cannot be used.
2. A way of writing the letter without its dots at the end of words, either traditionally or in contemporary use in Egypt and Sudan.
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Arabic alphabet
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Long vowels
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Long vowels
In the fully vocalized Arabic text found in texts such as the Quran, a long following a consonant other than a is written with a short sign () on the consonant plus an after it; long is written as a sign for short () plus a ; and long as a sign for short () plus a . Briefly, = ; = ; and = . Long following a may be represented by an or by a free followed by an (two consecutive s are never allowed in Arabic).
The table below shows vowels placed above or below a dotted circle replacing a primary consonant letter or a sign. For clarity in the table, the primary letters on the left used to mark these long vowels are shown only in their isolated form. Most consonants do connect to the left with , and written then with their medial or final form. Additionally, the letter in the last row may connect to the letter on its left, and then will use a medial or initial form. Use the table of primary letters to look at their actual glyph and joining types.
+Long vowels (with fully vocalized text) Unicode Letter with diacritic Name Trans. Variants Value064E 0627aa 064E 0649aa064F 0648 uw/ ou0650 064AiyRegional Variation (Egypt and Sudan)0650 0649īiy
In unvocalized text (one in which the short vowels are not marked), the long vowels are represented by the vowel in question: , , or . Long vowels written in the middle of a word of unvocalized text are treated like consonants with a (see below) in a text that has full diacritics. Here also, the table shows long vowel letters only in isolated form for clarity.
Combinations and are always pronounced and respectively. The exception is the suffix in verb endings where is silent, resulting in or . In addition, when transliterating names and loanwords, Arabic language speakers write out most or all the vowels as long ( with , and with , and and with ), meaning it approaches a true alphabet.
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Arabic alphabet
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Diphthongs
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Diphthongs
The diphthongs and are represented in vocalized text as follows:
Diphthongs(fully vocalized text)Trans.Value064A 064E0648 064EOther Diphthongs
A final is usually written at the end of words for nisba ( ) which is a common suffix to form adjectives of relation or pertinence. The suffix is for masculine ( for feminine); for example "socialist", it is also used for a singulative ending that applies to human or other sentient beings as in jundiyy "a soldier". However nowadays this final is mostly pronounced with a long () as in instead of . A similar mistake happens at the end of some third person plural verbs as in "they ran" which is pronounced nowadays as .
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Arabic alphabet
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Ligatures
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Ligatures
thumb|243x243px|Components of a ligature for "Allah": 1. alif2. hamzat waṣl ()3. lām4. lām5. shadda () 6. dagger alif () 7. hāʾ
The use of ligature in Arabic is common. There is one compulsory ligature, that for ل + ا, which exists in two forms. All other ligatures, of which there are many, are optional.
Contextual forms NameTrans.Value Final Medial Initial Isolated lām + aliflā/laː/
A more complex ligature that combines as many as seven distinct components is commonly used to represent the word . The only ligature within the primary range of Arabic script in Unicode (U+06xx) is + . This is the only one compulsory for fonts and word-processing. Other ranges are for compatibility to older standards and contain other ligatures, which are optional.
Note: Unicode also has in its Presentation Form B FExx range a code for this ligature. If your browser and font are configured correctly for Arabic, the ligature displayed above should be identical to this one, U+FEFB
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Arabic alphabet
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Diacritics
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Diacritics
Users of Arabic usually write long vowels but omit short ones, so readers must utilize their knowledge of the language in order to supply the missing vowels. However, in the education system and particularly in classes on Arabic grammar these vowels are used since they are crucial to the grammar. An Arabic sentence can have a completely different meaning by a subtle change of the vowels. This is why in an important text such as the the three basic vowel signs are mandated, like the Arabic diacritics and other types of marks, like the cantillation signs.
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Arabic alphabet
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Short vowels
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Short vowels
In the Arabic handwriting of everyday use, in general publications, and on street signs, short vowels are typically not written. On the other hand, copies of the cannot be endorsed by the religious institutes that review them unless the diacritics are included. Children's books, elementary school texts, and Arabic-language grammars in general will include diacritics to some degree. These are known as "vocalized" texts.
Short vowels may be written with diacritics placed above or below the consonant that precedes them in the syllable, called . All Arabic vowels, long and short, follow a consonant; in Arabic, words like "Ali" or "alif", for example, start with a consonant: , .
Short vowels(fully vocalized text) Code Name Name in Arabic script Trans. Phonemic Value Remarks 064E fat·ḥah Ranges from , , , , , to , depending on the native dialect, position, and stress. 064F Ranges from , , to , depending on the native dialect, position, and stress. Approximated to English "U" (as in "put")0650 Ranges from , , to , depending on the native dialect, position, and stress. Approximated to English "I" (as in "pick")
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Arabic alphabet
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Nunation
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Nunation
Nunation ( ) is the addition of a final to a noun or adjective. The vowel before it indicates grammatical case. In written Arabic, nunation is indicated by doubling the vowel diacritic at the end of the word, e.g. .
Nunation - tanwīn formsSymbolTransliteration
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Arabic alphabet
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Gemination
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Gemination
Gemination is the doubling of a consonant. Instead of writing the letter twice, Arabic places a W-shaped sign called above it.
General Unicode Name Name in Arabic script Transliteration 0651 (consonant doubled/geminated)
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Arabic alphabet
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Vowel omission
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Vowel omission
An Arabic syllable can be open (ending with a vowel) or closed (ending with a consonant):
open: CV [consonant-vowel] (long or short vowel)
closed: CVC (short vowel only)
A normal text is composed only of a series of consonants plus vowel-lengthening letters; thus, the word qalb, "heart", is written qlb, and the word qalaba "he turned around", is also written qlb. To write qalaba without this ambiguity, we could indicate that the l is followed by a short a by writing a fatḥah above it.
To write qalb, we would instead indicate that the l is followed by no vowel by marking it with a diacritic called sukūn (), like this: . This is one step down from full vocalization, where the vowel after the q would also be indicated by a fatḥah: .
The Qurʾān is traditionally written in full vocalization.
The long i sound in some editions of the Qur’ān is written with a kasrah followed by a diacritic-less y, and long u by a ḍammah followed by a bare w. In others, these y and w carry a sukūn. Outside of the Qur’ān, the latter convention is extremely rare, to the point that y with sukūn will be unambiguously read as the diphthong , and w with sukūn will be read .
For example, the letters can be read like English meel or mail, or (theoretically) also like mayyal or mayil. But if a sukūn is added on the y then the m cannot have a sukūn (because two letters in a row cannot be sukūnated), cannot have a ḍammah (because there is never an uy sound in Arabic unless there is another vowel after the y), and cannot have a kasrah (because kasrah before sukūnated y is never found outside the Qur’ān), so it must have a fatḥah and the only possible pronunciation is (meaning mile, or even e-mail). By the same token, m-y-t with a sukūn over the y can be mayt but not mayyit or meet, and m-w-t with a sukūn on the w can only be mawt, not moot (iw is impossible when the w closes the syllable).
Vowel marks are always written as if the i‘rāb vowels were in fact pronounced, even when they must be skipped in actual pronunciation. So, when writing the name Aḥmad, it is optional to place a sukūn on the ḥ, but a sukūn is forbidden on the d, because it would carry a ḍammah if any other word followed, as in Aḥmadu zawjī "Ahmad is my husband".
Another example: the sentence that in correct literary Arabic must be pronounced Aḥmadu zawjun shirrīr "Ahmad is a wicked husband", is usually pronounced (due to influence from vernacular Arabic varieties) as Aḥmad zawj shirrīr. Yet, for the purposes of Arabic grammar and orthography, is treated as if it were not mispronounced and as if yet another word followed it, i.e., if adding any vowel marks, they must be added as if the pronunciation were Aḥmadu zawjun sharrīrun with a tanwīn 'un' at the end. So, it is correct to add an un tanwīn sign on the final r, but actually pronouncing it would be a hypercorrection. Also, it is never correct to write a sukūn on that r, even though in actual pronunciation it is (and in correct Arabic MUST be) sukūned.
Of course, if the correct i‘rāb is a sukūn, it may be optionally written.
General UnicodeNameName in Arabic scriptTranslit.Phonemic Value (IPA) 0652 sukūn(no vowel with this consonant letter ordiphthong with this long vowel letter)∅
The sukūn is also used for transliterating words into the Arabic script. The English name "Mark" is written , for example, might be written with a sukūn above the to signify that there is no vowel sound between that letter and the .
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Arabic alphabet
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Additional diacritics
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Additional diacritics
These diacritics are uncommon in modern publications but are often used in Quran and some manuscripts.
General UnicodeNameName in Arabic scriptTranslit.Phonemic Value (IPA) 0670 alif khanjariyyah it indicates that the consonant is followed by a long ā, where the is normally not written. center|30x30pxIt indicates that the is not pronounced as a glottal stop (written as the hamza)∅
ٰThe alif khanjariyyah (, 'dagger ’alif') is written as short vertical stroke on top of a letter. It indicates a long sound for which is normally not written. For example: () or ().
The Wasla or (, 'hamza of connection') is a variant of the letter hamza () resembling part of the letter () that is rarely placed over the letter ( ʾalif al-waṣl ()) to form () at the beginning of the word (). It indicates that the is not pronounced as a glottal stop (written as the hamza), but that the word is connected to the previous word (like liaison in French). Outside of vocalised liturgical texts, the is usually not written. e.g. Abdullah can be written with hamzat al-wasl on the first letter of the word but it is mostly written without it .
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Arabic alphabet
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Additional letters
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Additional letters
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Arabic alphabet
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Regional variations
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Regional variations
Some letters take a traditionally different form in specific regions:
Letter Explanation Isolated Final Medial Initial The traditional style to write or print the letter, and remains so in the Nile Valley region (Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan... etc.) and sometimes Maghreb; is dotless in the isolated and final position. Merging with the ; e.g. "on" and "Ali" are both written in Egypt and Sudan. An alternative version of final is used (instead of ) in some script variants, for example in the Madani script which is used on road signs in Medina and on the logo of the chemical company SABIC written . An obsolete traditional Maghrebi variant of . An obsolete traditional Maghrebi variant of . Generally dotless in isolated and final positions and dotted in the initial and medial forms.
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Arabic alphabet
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Non-standard letters
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Non-standard letters
Some modified letters are used to represent non-native sounds to Modern Standard Arabic. These letters are used as an optional alternative in transliterated names, loanwords and dialectal words. The usage of these letters depends on the writer and their country of origin and their usage is not mandatory.
The phoneme (considered a standard pronunciation of in Egypt, Oman, and coastal Yemen) has the highest number of variations when writing loanwords or foreign proper nouns in Literary Arabic, and it can be written with either the standard letters , , , and or with the non-standard letters (used only in Tunisia and Algeria), (used only in Morocco), and (used mainly in Iraq) for example "Golf" pronounced can be written , , , , , or depending on the writer and their country of origin. On the other hand, is considered a native phoneme in most Arabic dialects, either as a reflex of as in lower Egypt, parts of Oman and parts of Yemen (e.g. ) or as a reflex of as in most of the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Sudan, and parts of Egypt, Levant and North Africa (e.g. ).
Letter Phoneme Note Sometimes used when transliterating foreign names and loanwords instead of . only used in foreign words. Sometimes used when transliterating foreign names and loanwords instead of . only used in foreign words. Only used in Algeria and Tunisia when transliterating foreign names and loanwords instead of , this form is used to distinguish it from . only used in foreign words. Only in Algeria and Tunisia is officially written using or including in city names e.g. the city of Guelma is written or , Gafsa is written or , and Gabès is written or . Only in Morocco is officially written using or including in city names; e.g. the city of Agadir is written or . Used in Gulf and Mesopotamian Arabic but only when writing dialectal words (e.g. "moon" instead of Standard Arabic ). Used in colloquial Gulf and Mesopotamian Arabic but only when writing dialectal words where is considered a native phoneme/allophone (e.g. "dog" instead of the standard ). While in Standard Arabic throughout the Arab world, the sequence + () is usually preferred (e.g. "Chad", "Czechia" and "Chile"). Used in Egypt when transliterating foreign names and loanwords where standard is mostly pronounced as in the city of Giza is written ., (e.g. or "skirt"). only used in foreign words.
Note: The sounds and are non-native to most Arabic dialects (excl. Anatolian Arabic where "Wolf" is pronounced vīp instead of Standard Arabic ), while , and appear as a native phoneme or allophone in many dialects.
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Arabic alphabet
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Used in languages other than Arabic
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Used in languages other than Arabic
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Arabic alphabet
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Numerals
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Numerals
Western(Maghreb) Eastern(Mashriq) EasternPersianUrdu 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
There are two main kinds of numerals used along with Arabic text; Western Arabic numerals and Eastern Arabic numerals. In most of present-day North Africa, the usual Western Arabic numerals are used. Like Western Arabic numerals, in Eastern Arabic numerals, the units are always right-most, and the highest value left-most. Eastern Arabic numbers are written from left to right.
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Arabic alphabet
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Letters as numerals
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Letters as numerals
In addition, the Arabic alphabet can be used to represent numbers (Abjad numerals). This usage is based on the order of the alphabet. is 1, is 2, is 3, and so on until = 10, = 20, = 30, ..., = 200, ..., = 1000. This is sometimes used to produce chronograms.
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Arabic alphabet
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History
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History
thumb|250px|Evolution of early Arabic calligraphy (9th–11th century). The is taken as an example, from Kufic manuscripts. (1) Early 9th century script used no dots or diacritic marks;File:Basmala kufi.svg – Wikimedia Commons (2) and (3) in the 9th–10th century during the Abbasid dynasty, Abu al-Aswad's system used red dots with each arrangement or position indicating a different short vowel. Later, a second system of black dots was used to differentiate between letters like and ;File:Kufi.jpg – Wikimedia Commons (4) in the 11th century (al-Farāhīdī's system) dots were changed into shapes resembling the letters to transcribe the corresponding long vowels. This system is the one used today.File:Qur'an folio 11th century kufic.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
The Arabic alphabet can be traced back to the Nabataean script used to write Nabataean Aramaic. A transitional phase, between the Nabataean Aramaic script and a subsequent, recognizably Arabic script, is known as Nabataean Arabic. The pre-Islamic phase of the script as it existed in the fifth and sixth centuries, once it had become recognizably similar to the script as it came to be known in the Islamic era, is known as Paleo-Arabic.
The first known text in the Arabic alphabet is a late fourth-century inscription from 50 km east of in Jordan, but the Zabad trilingual inscription is the earliest dated Arabic text from 512, and was discovered in Syria. Nevertheless, the epigraphic record is extremely sparse. Later, dots were added above and below the letters to differentiate them. (The Aramaic language had fewer phonemes than the Arabic, and some originally distinct Aramaic letters had become indistinguishable in shape, so that in the early writings 14 distinct letter-shapes had to do duty for 28 sounds; cf. the similarly ambiguous Book Pahlavi.)
The first surviving document that definitely uses these dots is also the first surviving Arabic papyrus (PERF 558), dated April 643, although they did not become obligatory until much later. Important texts were and still are frequently memorized, especially in Qurʾan memorization.
Later still, vowel marks and the hamza were introduced, beginning some time in the latter half of the 7th century, preceding the first invention of Syriac and Tiberian vocalizations. Initially, this was done by a system of red dots, said to have been commissioned in the Umayyad era by Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, a dot above = , a dot below = , a dot on the line = , and doubled dots indicated nunation. However, this was cumbersome and easily confusable with the letter-distinguishing dots, so about 100 years later, the modern system was adopted. The system was finalized around 786 by al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi.
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Arabic alphabet
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Other tributes and alphabets written in Arabic dialects
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Other tributes and alphabets written in Arabic dialects
Arabic dialects were written in different alphabets before the spread of the Arabic alphabet currently in use. The most important of these alphabets and inscriptions are the Safaitic inscriptions, amounting to 30,000 inscriptions discovered in the Levant desert.
There are about 3,700 inscriptions in Hismaic in central Jordan and northwest of the Arabian Peninsula, and Nabataean inscriptions, the most important of which are the Umm al-Jimal I inscription and the Numara inscription. thumb|Musnad script as is clear from one of the Sabaean inscriptions.
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Arabic alphabet
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Arabic printing
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Arabic printing
Medieval Arabic blockprinting flourished from the 10th century until the 14th. It was devoted to tiny texts, which were usually used in amulets.
In 1514, following Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1450, Gregorio de Gregorii, a Venetian, published an entire book of hours in Arabic script; it was entitled Kitab Salat al-Sawa'i and was intended for eastern Christian communities. Between 1580 and 1586, type designer Robert Granjon designed Arabic typefaces for Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, and the Medici Oriental Press published many Christian prayer and scholarly Arabic texts in the late 16th century.
thumb|A page from the manuscript of Al-Kamil's book on the making of the northern and southern astrolabe and their reasons for geometry and arithmetic by Ahmed bin Katheer Al-Farghani, where the letters appear in red in an arranged order expressing numbers.
Maronite monks at Monastery of Qozhaya on Mount Lebanon published the first Arabic books to use movable type in the Middle East. The monks employed Garshuni, the practice of writing Arabic using the Syriac script, usually by Christians.
Although Napoleon generally receives credit for introducing the printing press to Egypt during his invasion of the country in 1798, and though he did indeed bring printing presses and Arabic presses to print the French occupation's official newspaper Al-Tanbiyyah "The Courier," printing in the Arabic language had started several centuries earlier. A goldsmith (like Gutenberg) designed and implemented an Arabic script movable type printing press in the Middle East. The Lebanese Melkite monk Abdallah Zakher set up an Arabic printing press using movable type at the monastery of Saint John at the town of Dhour El Shuwayr in Mount Lebanon, the first homemade press in Lebanon using Arabic script. He cut the type molds and founded the typeface. The first book came off his press in 1734; this press continued in use until 1899.Arabic and the Art of Printing – A Special Section , by Paul Lunde
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Arabic alphabet
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Computers
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Computers
The Arabic alphabet can be encoded using several character sets, including ISO-8859-6, Windows-1256 and Unicode, the latter of which contains the "Arabic segment", entries U+0600 to U+06FF. However, none of the sets indicates the form that each character should take in context. It is left to the rendering engine to select the proper glyph to display for each character.
Each letter has a position-independent encoding in Unicode, and the rendering software can infer the correct glyph form (initial, medial, final or isolated) from its joining context. That is the current recommendation. However, for compatibility with previous standards, the initial, medial, final and isolated forms can also be encoded separately.
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Arabic alphabet
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Unicode
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Unicode
As of Unicode , the Arabic script is contained in the following blocks:
Arabic (0600–06FF, 256 characters)
Arabic Supplement (0750–077F, 48 characters)
Arabic Extended-A (08A0–08FF, 96 characters)
Arabic Extended-B (0870–089F, 42 characters)
Arabic Extended-C (10EC0–10EFF, 7 characters)
Arabic Presentation Forms-A (FB50–FDFF, 631 characters)
Arabic Presentation Forms-B (FE70–FEFF, 141 characters)
Rumi Numeral Symbols (10E60–10E7F, 31 characters)
Indic Siyaq Numbers (1EC70–1ECBF, 68 characters)
Ottoman Siyaq Numbers (1ED00–1ED4F, 61 characters)
Arabic Mathematical Alphabetic Symbols (1EE00—1EEFF, 143 characters)
The basic Arabic range encodes the standard letters and diacritics but does not encode contextual forms (U+0621-U+0652 being directly based on ISO 8859-6). It also includes the most common diacritics and Arabic-Indic digits. U+06D6 to U+06ED encode Qur'anic annotation signs such as "end of ayah" ۖ and "start of rub el hizb" ۞. The Arabic supplement range encodes letter variants mostly used for writing African (non-Arabic) languages. The Arabic Extended-A range encodes additional Qur'anic annotations and letter variants used for various non-Arabic languages.
The Arabic Presentation Forms-A range encodes contextual forms and ligatures of letter variants needed for Persian, Urdu, Sindhi and Central Asian languages. The Arabic Presentation Forms-B range encodes spacing forms of Arabic diacritics, and more contextual letter forms. The Arabic Mathematical Alphabetical Symbols block encodes characters used in Arabic mathematical expressions.
See also the notes of the section on modified letters.
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Arabic alphabet
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Keyboards
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Keyboards
thumb|450px|Arabic Mac keyboard layout
thumb|450px|Arabic PC keyboard layout
thumb|450px|Intellark imposed on a QWERTY keyboard layout
Keyboards designed for different nations have different layouts, so proficiency in one style of keyboard, such as Iraq's, does not transfer to proficiency in another, such as Saudi Arabia's. Differences can include the location of non-alphabetic characters.
All Arabic keyboards allow typing Roman characters, e.g., for the URL in a web browser. Thus, each Arabic keyboard has both Arabic and Roman characters marked on the keys. Usually, the Roman characters of an Arabic keyboard conform to the QWERTY layout, but in North Africa, where French is the most common language typed using the Roman characters, the Arabic keyboards are AZERTY.
To encode a particular written form of a character, there are extra code points provided in Unicode which can be used to express the exact written form desired. The range Arabic presentation forms A (U+FB50 to U+FDFF) contain ligatures while the range Arabic presentation forms B (U+FE70 to U+FEFF) contains the positional variants. These effects are better achieved in Unicode by using the zero-width joiner and zero-width non-joiner, as these presentation forms are deprecated in Unicode and should generally only be used within the internals of text-rendering software; when using Unicode as an intermediate form for conversion between character encodings; or for backwards compatibility with implementations that rely on the hard-coding of glyph forms.
Finally, the Unicode encoding of Arabic is in logical order, that is, the characters are entered, and stored in computer memory, in the order that they are written and pronounced without worrying about the direction in which they will be displayed on paper or on the screen. Again, it is left to the rendering engine to present the characters in the correct direction, using Unicode's bi-directional text features. In this regard, if the Arabic words on this page are written left to right, it is an indication that the Unicode rendering engine used to display them is out of date.For more information about encoding Arabic, consult the Unicode manual available at The Unicode websiteSee also Multilingual Computing with Arabic and Arabic Transliteration: Arabicizing Windows Applications to Read and Write Arabic & Solutions for the Transliteration Quagmire Faced by Arabic-Script Languages and A PowerPoint Tutorial (with screen shots and an English voice-over) on how to add Arabic to the Windows Operating System.
There are competing online tools, e.g. Yamli editor, which allow entry of Arabic letters without having Arabic support installed on a PC, and without knowledge of the layout of the Arabic keyboard.
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Arabic alphabet
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Handwriting recognition
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Handwriting recognition
The first software program of its kind in the world that identifies Arabic handwriting in real time was developed by researchers at Ben-Gurion University (BGU).
The prototype enables the user to write Arabic words by hand on an electronic screen, which then analyzes the text and translates it into printed Arabic letters in a thousandth of a second. The error rate is less than three percent, according to Dr. Jihad El-Sana, from BGU's department of computer sciences, who developed the system along with master's degree student Fadi Biadsy.
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Arabic alphabet
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Variations
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Variations
+ The modern Hijā’ī sequence (excluding ) in 15 fonts: Hijā’ī sequence 830px|center • Noto Nastaliq • Scheherazade New • Lateef • Noto Naskh Arabic • Markazi Text • Noto Sans Arabic • El Messiri • Lemonada • Changa • Mada • Noto Kufi Arabic • Reem Kufi • Lalezar • Jomhuria • Rakkas
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Arabic alphabet
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See also
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See also
Ancient South Arabian script
Algerian braille
Arabic braille
Arabic calligraphy
Arabic chat alphabet
Arabic letter frequency
Arabic numerals
ArabTeX – provides Arabic support for TeX and LaTeX
History of the Arabic alphabet
Modern Arabic mathematical notation
Romanization of Arabic
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Arabic alphabet
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Notes
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Notes
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Arabic alphabet
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References
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References
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Arabic alphabet
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Sources
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Sources
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Arabic alphabet
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External links
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External links
Category:Arabic orthography
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Arabic alphabet
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Table of Content
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Short description, Letters, Alphabetical order, Hijaʼi, Abjadi, Letter forms, Table of basic letters, Hamza forms, Modified letters, Long vowels, Diphthongs, Ligatures, Diacritics, Short vowels, Nunation, Gemination, Vowel omission, Additional diacritics, Additional letters, Regional variations, Non-standard letters, Used in languages other than Arabic, Numerals, Letters as numerals, History, Other tributes and alphabets written in Arabic dialects, Arabic printing, Computers, Unicode, Keyboards, Handwriting recognition, Variations, See also, Notes, References, Sources, External links
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Angels in art
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short description
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thumb|upright|Song of the Angels (1881) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905)
Angels have appeared in works of art since early Christian art, and they have been a popular subject for Byzantine and European paintings and sculpture.
thumb|Ezekiel's "chariot vision", by Matthaeus Merian (1593–1650), displaying several different types of angelic creatures.
thumb|Auf zarten Saiten by Ephraim Moses Lilien, 1900
Normally given wings in art, angels are usually intended, in both Christian and Islamic art, to be beautiful, though several depictions go for more awe-inspiring or frightening attributes, notably in the depiction of the living creatures (which have bestial characteristics), ophanim (which are wheels) and cherubim (which have mosaic features);Wood, Alice. Of Wing and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim. pp. 2–4. . As a matter of theology, they are spiritual beings who do not eat or excrete and are genderless. Many historical depictions of angels may appear to the modern eye to be gendered as either male or female by their dress or actions, but until the 19th century, even the most female looking will normally lack breasts, and the figures should normally be considered as genderless. In 19th-century art, especially funerary art, this traditional convention is sometimes abandoned. The lack of gender was to enable these winged creatures to be relatable to both genders.
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Angels in art
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Christian art
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Christian art
thumb|Winged angels in togas, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome (432–440)
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Angels in art
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In the early Church
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In the early Church
Specific ideas regarding how to portray angels began to develop in the early Church. Since angels are defined as pure spirits,Gorgievski, Sandra. Face to Face with Angels: Images in Medieval Art and in Film, McFarland (2010) Longhurst S.T.D., Christopher Evan. "The Science of Angelology in the Modern World: The Revival of Angels in Contemporary Culture", The Catholic Response, Volume IX, No. 2, September/October 2012 (pp. 32–36) the lack of a defined form has allowed artists wide latitude for creativity. Daniel 8:15 describes Gabriel as appearing in the "likeness of man" and in Daniel 9:21 he is referred to as "the man Gabriel." Such anthropomorphic descriptions of an angel are consistent with previous descriptions of angels, as in Genesis 19:5.Everson, David. "Gabriel Blow Your Horn! – A Short History of Gabriel within Jewish Literature", Xavier University, December 2009 They were usually depicted in the form of young men.Marshall, Peter and Walsham, Alexandra (editors). Angels in the Early Modern World, p. 5, Cambridge University Press (2006),
The earliest known Christian image of an angel, in the Cubicolo dell'Annunziazione in the Catacomb of Priscilla, which is dated to the middle of the third century, is a depiction of the Annunciation in which Gabriel is portrayed without wings. Representations of angels on sarcophagi and on objects such as lamps and reliquaries of that period also show them without wings,Proverbio(2007), pp. 81–89; cf. review in La Civiltà Cattolica, 3795–3796 (2–16 August 2008), pp. 327–328. as for example the angel in the Sacrifice of Isaac scene in the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.
In a third-century fresco of the Hebrew children in the furnace, in the cemetery of St. Priscilla, a dove takes the place of the angel, while a fourth-century representation of the same subject, in the coemeterium maius, substitutes the Hand of God for the heavenly messenger.
The earliest known representation of angels with wings is on what is called the Prince's Sarcophagus, discovered at Sarigüzel, near Istanbul, in the 1930s, and attributed to the time of Theodosius I (379–395).Proverbio(2007) p. 66 Flying winged angels, very often in pairs flanking a central figure or subject, are derivations in visual terms from pairs of winged Victories in classical art.
In this same period, Saint John Chrysostom explained the significance of angels' wings: "They manifest a nature's sublimity. That is why Gabriel is represented with wings. Not that angels have wings, but that you may know that they leave the heights and the most elevated dwelling to approach human nature. Accordingly, the wings attributed to these powers have no other meaning than to indicate the sublimity of their nature."Proverbio (2007) p. 34
From then on Christian art generally represented angels with wings, as in the cycle of mosaics in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (432–440).Proverbio (2007), pp. 90–95; cf. review in La Civiltà Cattolica, 3795–3796 (2–16 August 2008), pp. 327–328. Multi-winged angels, often with only their face and wings showing, drawn from the higher grades of angels, especially cherubim and seraphim, are derived from Persian art, and are usually shown only in heavenly contexts, as opposed to performing tasks on Earth. They often appear in the pendentives of domes or semi-domes of churches.
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Angels in art
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Byzantine art
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Byzantine art
thumb|upright|12th-century icon of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel wearing the loros of the Imperial guards.
Angels appear in Byzantine art in mosaics and icons. Artists found some of their inspiration from winged Greek figures such as "Victory". They also drew from imperial iconography. Court eunuchs could rise to positions of authority in the Empire. They performed ceremonial functions and served as trusted messengers. Amelia R. Brown points out that legislation under Justinian indicates that many of them came from the Caucasus, having light eyes, hair, and skin, as well as the "comely features and fine bodies" desired by slave traders. Those "castrated in childhood developed a distinctive skeletal structure, lacked full masculine musculature, body hair and beards,...." As officials, they would wear a white tunic decorated with gold. Brown suggests that "Byzantine artists drew, consciously or not, on this iconography of the court eunuch".
Daniel 10: 5–6 describes an angel as clothed in linen and girt with gold. Angels, especially the archangel Michael, who were depicted as military-style agents of God, came to be shown wearing Late Antique military uniform. This could be either the normal military dress, with a tunic to about the knees, armour breastplate and pteruges, but also often the specific dress of the bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperor, with a long tunic and the loros, a long gold and jewelled pallium restricted to the Imperial family and their closest guards, and in icons to archangels. The basic military dress it is still worn in pictures into the Baroque period and beyond in the West, and up to the present day in Eastern Orthodox icons. Other angels came to be conventionally depicted in long robes.
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Angels in art
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Medieval art
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Medieval art
Medieval depictions of angels borrow from the Byzantine. In the French Hours of Anne of Brittany, Gabriel wears a dalmatic.Andre, J. Lewis. "The Icons and Emblems of the Holy Angels", The Belfry: Quarterly Papers on Art, History and Archaeology, No. III, Burns & Oates, London, October 1876, In the later Middle Ages they often wear the vestments of a deacon, a cope over a dalmatic, especially Gabriel in Annunciation scenes – for example The Annunciation by Jan van Eyck. This indicated that, for all their powers, they could not perform the Eucharist, and were in this respect outranked by every priest, reinforcing the prestige of the clergy. In Early Christian art white robes were almost invariably adopted, sometimes bound with the "golden girdle" of Revelation. During the mediæval period senior angels were often clad in every brilliant colour, while junior ranks wore white. Early Renaissance painters such as Jan van Eyck and Fra Angelico painted angels with multi-colored wings. Depictions of angels came to combine medieval notions of beauty with feminine ideals of grace and beauty, as in da Panicale's 1435 Baptism of Christ.
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Angels in art
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Renaissance art
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Renaissance art
thumb|left|Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, 1437–1446
The classical erotes or putto re-appeared in art during the Italian Renaissance in both religious and mythological art, and is often known in English as a cherub, the singular of cherubim, actually one of the higher ranks in the Christian angelic hierarchy. They normally appear in groups and are generally given wings in religious art, and are sometimes represented as just a winged head. They generally are just in attendance, except that they may be amusing Christ or John the Baptist as infants in scenes of the Holy Family.
The classic example of Renaissance art showing Erotes is the depiction of Eros and Cupid. In the Greek mythology, Eros and his Roman counterpart Cupid, are winged and have arrows they use to manipulate people to fall in love.
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Angels in art
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Victorian art
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Victorian art
In the late 19th century artists' model Jane Burden Morris came to embody an ideal of beauty for Pre-Raphaelite painters. With the use of her long dark hair and features made somewhat more androgynous, they created a prototype Victorian angel which would appear in paintings and stained glass windows. Roger Homan notes that Edward Burne-Jones and others used her image often and in different ways, creating a new type of angel.
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Angels in art
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Modern art
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Modern art
Angels continued to be depicted in the 20th century. One example is the large mosaic mural Angels of the Heavenly Host in St Paul's, Bow Common, created during 1963–68 by Charles Lutyens.
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Angels in art
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Islamic art
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Islamic art
thumb|upright|Angel in a Mughal miniature, in the style of Bukhara, 16th century Angels in Islamic art often appear in illustrated manuscripts of Muhammad's life. Other common depictions of angels in Islamic art include angels with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, angels discerning the saved from the damned on the Day of Judgement, and angels as a repeating motif in borders or textiles. Islamic depictions of angels resemble winged Christian angels, although Islamic angels are typically shown with multicolored wings. Angels, such as the archangel Gabriel, are typically depicted as masculine, which is consistent with God's rejection of feminine depictions of angels in several verses of Quran. Nevertheless, later depictions of angels in Islamic art are more feminine and androgynous.
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Angels in art
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Angels in manuscripts
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Angels in manuscripts
The 13th-century book Ajā'ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā'ib al-mawjūdāt (The Wonders of Creation) by Zakariya al-Qazwini describes Islamic angelology, and is often illustrated with many images of angels. The angels are typically depicted with bright, vivid colors, giving them unusual liveliness and other-worldly translucence. While some angels are referred to as "Guardians of the Kingdom of God," others are associated with hell. An undated manuscript of The Wonders of Creation from the Bavarian State Library in Munich includes depictions of angels both alone and alongside humans and animals. Angels are also illustrated in Timurid and Ottoman manuscripts, such as The Timurid Book of the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascension () and the Siyer-i Nebi.
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Angels in art
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Angels in heaven and hell
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Angels in heaven and hell
thumb|upright|Zabaniya and the punishment of hypocrites (cutting of flesh) from The Timurid Book of the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascension, c. 1436.|alt=
thumb|left|Manuscript of the Annals of al-Tabari depicting Iblis, the angels and Adam. Topkapı Sarayı in Istanbul.
The Qur’an makes multiple references to angels. These angels take on both active and passive roles in Quranic stories. In the story of the creation of Adam, God announces to the angels that he intends to create man. The angels act as witnesses to this announcement and subsequent creation of Adam. Although there are many versions of the story, Islamic sources relate that God used the creation of Adam as a punishment or test for the angels. Therefore, the role of angels is often described as in opposition to man.
Another angel-like creature mentioned in the Qu’ran (4:97, 32:11) is the zabāniya. A zabāniya is a black angel of hell that brings souls of sinners down to hell to punish them and can be seen in illustrations of The Timurid Book of the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascension (c. 1436 A.D.). There are nineteen zabāniya, led by Mālik, an angel considered to be the master of fire or the gatekeeper of hell. Mālik's and zabāniya's categorizations as angels are debated as some believe they are better described as spirits or demons. Actually, portrayal of Zabaniyya shares many traits characteristical for demons in Islamic arts.Sheila Blair, Jonathan M. Bloom The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250–1800 Yale University Press 1995 p. 62 As seen in The Timurid Book of the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascension, Muhammad is greeted by Mālik and later witnesses the torture of sinners carried out by the zabāniya.
Similar, the fallen angel Iblis is shown during his moment of refusal to prostrate himself before the newly created Adam, leading to his banishment to the bottom of hell. He is depicted as a black-skinned monstrous creature with horns and flaming eyes, in contrast to the presentation of the noble angels. Only his wings remain as a sign of his former angelic status, however with burned edges.
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Angels in art
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Angels associated with Muhammad
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Angels associated with Muhammad
thumb|Muhammad beside al-Buraq, which holds a closed book in its hands while its tail appears to transform into an angel wielding a shield and a sword, is approached by two angels, one of whom holds a gold cup on a platter from Jami' al-Tawarikh (The Compendium of Chronicles), c. 1307.|alt=
Although depictions of Muhammad are often forbidden, the few that exist often include images of angels. Specifically, the Archangel Gabriel is frequently shown alongside Muhammad. For example, in The Timurid Book of the Prophet Muhammad’s Ascension, the Archangel Gabriel appears to Muhammad in Mecca to announce his ascension.Gruber, Christiane J. (2008). The Timurid "Book of Ascension" (Micrajnama): A Study of the Text and Image in a Pan-Asian Context. Patrimonia. p. 254 Kneeling before Muhammad, Gabriel is shown with colorful wings and a crown. Later in The Timurid Book, Muhammad is shown with Gabriel meeting a group of angels in heaven. In the Jami' al-tawarikh, a Persian history from the 14th century, Muhammad is depicted beside al-Buraq, whose tail is transformed into an angel, while two other angels approach. A 16th-century Ottoman manuscript of Siyer-i Nebi, a Turkish epic about the life of Muhammad, also includes many depictions of Muhammad alongside angels.
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Angels in art
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Jewish art
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Jewish art
Mainstream Rabbinic Judaism discourages focus from being placed on angels due to fears about idolatry and a desire to curtail any inclinations to polytheism. As such, many Jews do not make or display artworks of angels. However, such art does exist, and has been consistently made throughout Rabbinic history, for example as in the Dura Europos synagogue, where wingless humanoid angels dressed like Persians appear, as well as winged humanoids. Overall, if angel art is popular in a time and place, there will be Jewish art that depicts angels as well. Contemporary resistance and ignorance regarding angels in Judaism, and specifically in Jewish art, may partially stem from the current strong association between angels and Christianity.
alt=Medieval amulet to protect mother and child. Wellcome M0008070|thumb|Medieval Jewish amulet designed to ward off Lilith, depicting Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof.
Sanoi, Sansoni, and Samanglif (also spelled Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof) are three angels that protect newborns. Depictions of them as small, non-human creatures occur on amulets and have had a small resurgence in popularity in recent years. They are associated with the Alphabet of Ben Sira, where they attempt to retrieve Lilith after she flees from Adam. When they cannot, they make her promise not to harm newborns if they are protecting them. The use of their names in amulets for children predates the story, and that was likely intended to explain an existing custom.
Cherubim in their classic Jewish description are typically creatures with features of a human, lion, bird, and cattle in some combination. The variety of imagery here was common in the Ancient Near East, and draws on that of the lamassu. The name cherub may come from that connection. It also draws on the imagery of the sphinx. The descriptions of cherubim overall vary. Similarly, the imagery used for seraphim derives from the uraeus, which appeared in ancient carvings from Judah. It particularly occurred on seals, where it was invoked as a protective symbol.
While winged humanoid angels are strongly associated with Christianity, some academics argue that rather than Judaism occasionally adopting this imagery from Christianity, Christianity adopted it from Judaism. In text, humanoid beings with wings and no other unusual features appear as early as the writing of Zechariah 5:5–11. The most common wings are feathered, but occasionally winged humanoid angels in Jewish art have been depicted with butterfly wings. Winged angels are sometimes also depicted with halos.
Angels are sometimes depicted as birds without human features.
Humanoid angels appear in Ethiopian Jewish art traditions, which are traditionally non-Rabbinic.
Many well-known pop culture depictions of angels in the West come from the work of Jewish writers.
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Angels in art
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Precursors
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Precursors
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Angels in art
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Assyrian
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Assyrian
thumb|Lamassu, Neo-Assyrian Empire,
The use of winged angels in art spans several millennia and cuts across multiple cultures, with each culture associating these ethereal figures with various aspects. For instance, in the ancient Assyrian culture, there was a protective deity labelled lamassu. A lamassu is a hybrid figure that contains part human on the head, part bovine lion on the body, and enormous wings with feathers, completing the bird aspect of the deity.
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Angels in art
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Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek mythology has been an integral part of art, serving as an inspiration to a large number of concepts in art. The culture had a winged figure, Ero, the son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who became Cupid in the Roman Empire
The Greek mythology associates Erotes with love and desire. While they are perceived as heavenly creatures, they contain power that can make a person fall in love based on their enchantments.
The majority of ancient artwork portrayed Eros as being a slender yet well-built man wielding enormous sexual power. While Eros was not a popular figure in the classical period, the arrival of the Hellenistic period raised him back to prominence. The popularization of Erotes arises from the normalization of the Roman counterpart, Cupid, who has a bow and arrow that he uses to make people fall in love. The majority of people who observe Valentines Day have or utilize stories related to Cupid and Eros.
center|thumb|Eros bow Musei Capitolini MC410
The classical erotes or putto re-appeared in art during the Italian Renaissance in both religious and mythological art, and is often known in English as a cherub, the singular of cherubim, actually one of the higher ranks in the Christian angelic hierarchy. They normally appear in groups and are generally given wings in religious art, and are sometimes represented as just a winged head. They generally are just in attendance, except that they may be amusing Christ or John the Baptist as infants in scenes of the Holy Family
thumb|left|Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, 1437–1446
The Greek mythology associates Erotes with love and desire. While they are perceived as heavenly creatures, they contain power that can make a person fall in love based on their enchantments. According to Greek mythology, Eros was associated with Gaia, mother earth goddess.
The majority of ancient artwork portrayed Eros as being a slender yet well-built man wielding enormous sexual power. While Eros was not a popular figure in the classical period, the arrival of the Hellenistic period raised him back to prominence. The popularization of Erotes arises from the normalization of the Roman counterpart, Cupid, who has a bow and arrow that he uses to make people fall in love. The majority of people who observe Valentines Day have or utilize stories related to Cupid and Eros. Eros or Cupid uses his arrow to manipulate people through the power of love, making his role as a god an intriguing one.
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Angels in art
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Gallery of angels in Christian art
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Gallery of angels in Christian art
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Angels in art
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Gallery of angels in Islamic art
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Gallery of angels in Islamic art
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Angels in art
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Gallery of angels in Jewish art
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Gallery of angels in Jewish art
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Angels in art
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See also
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See also
Archangel Michael in Christian art
Michael (archangel)
Gabriel
Angels in Islam
Angelus
Fleur de lys
List of films about angels
List of names referring to El
Seraph
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Angels in art
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Notes
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Notes
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Angels in art
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References
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References
Category:Christian art
Category:Islamic art
Category:Jewish art
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Angels in art
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Table of Content
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short description, Christian art, In the early Church, Byzantine art, Medieval art, Renaissance art, Victorian art, Modern art, Islamic art, Angels in manuscripts, Angels in heaven and hell, Angels associated with Muhammad, Jewish art, Precursors, Assyrian, Ancient Greece, Gallery of angels in Christian art, Gallery of angels in Islamic art, Gallery of angels in Jewish art, See also, Notes, References
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Arctic fox
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Short description
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The Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus), also known as the white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small species of fox native to the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and common throughout the Arctic tundra biome. It is well adapted to living in cold environments, and is best known for its thick, warm fur that is also used as camouflage. It has a large and very fluffy tail. In the wild, most individuals do not live past their first year but some exceptional ones survive up to 11 years. Its body length ranges from , with a generally rounded body shape to minimize the escape of body heat.
The Arctic fox preys on many small creatures such as lemmings, voles, ringed seal pups, fish, waterfowl, and seabirds. It also eats carrion, berries, seaweed, and insects and other small invertebrates. Arctic foxes form monogamous pairs during the breeding season and they stay together to raise their young in complex underground dens. Occasionally, other family members may assist in raising their young. Natural predators of the Arctic fox are golden eagles,Arctic Fox at Fisheries and Land Resources Arctic wolves, polar bears,Arctic Fox at National Geographic wolverines, red foxes, and grizzly bears.
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Arctic fox
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Behavior
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Behavior
thumb|left|A sleeping Arctic fox with its tail wrapped around itself and over its face
Arctic foxes must endure a temperature difference of up to between the external environment and their internal core temperature. To prevent heat loss, the Arctic fox curls up tightly tucking its legs and head under its body and behind its furry tail. This position gives the fox the smallest surface area to volume ratio and protects the least insulated areas. Arctic foxes also stay warm by getting out of the wind and residing in their dens. Although the Arctic foxes are active year-round and do not hibernate, they attempt to preserve fat by reducing their locomotor activity. They build up their fat reserves in the autumn, sometimes increasing their body weight by more than 50%. This provides greater insulation during the winter and a source of energy when food is scarce.
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Arctic fox
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Reproduction
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Reproduction
In the spring, the Arctic fox's attention switches to reproduction and a home for their potential offspring. They live in large dens in frost-free, slightly raised ground. These are complex systems of tunnels covering as much as and are often in eskers, long ridges of sedimentary material deposited in formerly glaciated regions. These dens may be in existence for many decades and are used by many generations of foxes.
thumb|Pups of Arctic fox with summer morph
Arctic foxes tend to select dens that are easily accessible with many entrances, and that are clear from snow and ice making it easier to burrow in. The Arctic fox builds and chooses dens that face southward towards the sun, which makes the den warmer. Arctic foxes prefer large, maze-like dens for predator evasion and a quick escape especially when red foxes are in the area. Natal dens are typically found in rugged terrain, which may provide more protection for the pups. But, the parents will also relocate litters to nearby dens to avoid predators. When red foxes are not in the region, Arctic foxes will use dens that the red fox previously occupied. Shelter quality is more important to the Arctic fox than the proximity of spring prey to a den.
The main prey of the Arctic fox in the tundra are lemmings, which is why the white fox is often called the "lemming fox". The white fox's reproduction rates reflect the lemming population density, which cyclically fluctuates every 3–5 years. When lemmings are abundant, the white fox can give birth to 18 pups, but they often do not reproduce when food is scarce. The "coastal fox" or blue fox lives in an environment where food availability is relatively consistent, and they will have up to 5 pups every year.
Breeding usually takes place in April and May, and the gestation period is about 52 days. Litters may contain as many as 25 (the largest litter size in the order Carnivora). The young emerge from the den when 3 to 4 weeks old and are weaned by 9 weeks of age.
Arctic foxes are primarily monogamous and both parents will care for the offspring. When predators and prey are abundant, Arctic foxes are more likely to be promiscuous (exhibited in both males and females) and display more complex social structures. Larger packs of foxes consisting of breeding or non-breeding males or females can guard a single territory more proficiently to increase pup survival. When resources are scarce, competition increases and the number of foxes in a territory decreases. On the coasts of Svalbard, the frequency of complex social structures is larger than inland foxes that remain monogamous due to food availability. In Scandinavia, there are more complex social structures compared to other populations due to the presence of the red fox. Also, conservationists are supplying the declining population with supplemental food. One unique case, however, is Iceland where monogamy is the most prevalent. The older offspring (1-year-olds) often remain within their parent's territory even though predators are absent and there are fewer resources, which may indicate kin selection in the fox.
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Arctic fox
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Diet
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Diet
thumb|An Arctic fox (summer morph) with salmon
Arctic foxes generally eat any small animal they can find, including lemmings, voles, other rodents, hares, birds, eggs, fish, and carrion. They scavenge on carcasses left by larger predators such as wolves and polar bears, and in times of scarcity also eat their feces. In areas where they are present, lemmings are their most common prey, and a family of foxes can eat dozens of lemmings each day. In some locations in northern Canada, a high seasonal abundance of migrating birds that breed in the area may provide an important food source. On the coast of Iceland and other islands, their diet consists predominantly of birds. During April and May, the Arctic fox also preys on ringed seal pups when the young animals are confined to a snow den and are relatively helpless. They also consume berries and seaweed, so they may be considered omnivores. This fox is a significant bird-egg predator, consuming eggs of all except the largest tundra bird species.
Arctic foxes survive harsh winters and food scarcity by either hoarding food or storing body fat subcutaneously and viscerally. At the beginning of winter, one Arctic fox has approximately 14740 kJ of energy storage from fat alone. Using the lowest BMR value measured in Arctic foxes, an average sized fox of would need 471 kJ/day during the winter to survive. In Canada, Arctic foxes acquire from snow goose eggs at a rate of 2.7–7.3 eggs/h and store 80–97% of them. Scats provide evidence that they eat the eggs during the winter after caching. Isotope analysis shows that eggs can still be eaten after a year, and the metabolizable energy of a stored goose egg only decreases by 11% after 60 days; a fresh egg has about 816 kJ. Eggs stored in the summer are accessed the following spring prior to reproduction.
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Arctic fox
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Adaptations
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Adaptations
The Arctic fox lives in some of the most frigid extremes on the planet, but they do not start to shiver until the temperature drops to . Among its adaptations for survival in the cold is its dense, multilayered pelage, which provides excellent insulation.Claudio Sillero-Zubiri, Michael Hoffmann and David W. Macdonald (eds.) (2004). Canids: Foxes, Wolves, Jackals and Dogs . IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group. Additionally, the Arctic fox is the only canid whose foot pads are covered in fur. There are two genetically distinct coat color morphs: white and blue. The white morph has seasonal camouflage, white in winter and brown along the back with light grey around the abdomen in summer. The blue morph is often a dark blue, brown, or grey color year-round. Although the blue allele is dominant over the white allele, 99% of the Arctic fox population is the white morph. Two similar mutations to MC1R cause the blue color and the lack of seasonal color change. The fur of the Arctic fox provides the best insulation of any mammal.
The Arctic fox has a low surface area to volume ratio, as evidenced by its generally compact body shape, short muzzle and legs, and short, thick ears. Since less of its surface area is exposed to the Arctic cold, less heat escapes from its body.Arctic Fox Alopex lagopus . Department of Environment and Conservation, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
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Arctic fox
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Sensory modalities
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Sensory modalities
The Arctic fox has a functional hearing range between 125 Hz–16 kHz with a sensitivity that is ≤ 60 dB in air, and an average peak sensitivity of 24 dB at 4 kHz. Overall, the Arctic foxes hearing is less sensitive than the dog and the kit fox. The Arctic fox and the kit fox have a low upper-frequency limit compared to the domestic dog and other carnivores. The Arctic fox can easily hear lemmings burrowing under 4-5 inches of snow. When it has located its prey, it pounces and punches through the snow to catch its prey.
The Arctic fox also has a keen sense of smell. They can smell carcasses that are often left by polar bears anywhere from . It is possible that they use their sense of smell to also track down polar bears. Additionally, Arctic foxes can smell and find frozen lemmings under of snow, and can detect a subnivean seal lair under of snow.
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Arctic fox
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Physiology
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Physiology
left|thumb|Arctic fox lying in grass. A fox's thick winter coat helps keep its body temperature near . Foxes also have fur on the soles of their feet and reduced blood flow to their legs to help keep them warm.
The Arctic fox contains advantageous genes to overcome extreme cold and starvation periods. Transcriptome sequencing has identified two genes that are under positive selection: Glycolipid transfer protein domain containing 1 (GLTPD1) and V-akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homolog 2 (AKT2). GLTPD1 is involved in the fatty acid metabolism, while AKT2 pertains to the glucose metabolism and insulin signaling.
The average mass specific BMR and total BMR are 37% and 27% lower in the winter than the summer. The Arctic fox decreases its BMR via metabolic depression in the winter to conserve fat storage and minimize energy requirements. According to the most recent data, the lower critical temperature of the Arctic fox is at in the winter and in the summer. It was commonly believed that the Arctic fox had a lower critical temperature below . However, some scientists have concluded that this statistic is not accurate since it was never tested using the proper equipment.
About 22% of the total body surface area of the Arctic fox dissipates heat readily compared to red foxes at 33%. The regions that have the greatest heat loss are the nose, ears, legs, and feet, which is useful in the summer for thermal heat regulation. Also, the Arctic fox has a beneficial mechanism in their nose for evaporative cooling like dogs, which keeps the brain cool during the summer and exercise. The thermal conductivity of Arctic fox fur in the summer and winter is the same; however, the thermal conductance of the Arctic fox in the winter is lower than the summer since fur thickness increases by 140%. In the summer, the thermal conductance of the Arctic foxes body is 114% higher than the winter, but their body core temperature is constant year-round.
One way that Arctic foxes regulate their body temperature is by utilizing a countercurrent heat exchange in the blood of their legs. Arctic foxes can constantly keep their feet above the tissue freezing point () when standing on cold substrates without losing mobility or feeling pain. They do this by increasing vasodilation and blood flow to a capillary rete in the pad surface, which is in direct contact with the snow rather than the entire foot. They selectively vasoconstrict blood vessels in the center of the foot pad, which conserves energy and minimizes heat loss. Arctic foxes maintain the temperature in their paws independently from the core temperature. If the core temperature drops, the pad of the foot will remain constantly above the tissue freezing point.
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Arctic fox
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Size
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Size
The average head-and-body length of the male is , with a range of , while the female averages with a range of . In some regions, no difference in size is seen between males and females. The tail is about long in both sexes. The height at the shoulder is .Boitani, L. (1984). Simon & Schuster's Guide to Mammals. Simon & Schuster/Touchstone Books, On average males weigh , with a range of , while females average , with a range of .Alopex lagopus at the Smithsonian
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Arctic fox
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Taxonomy
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Taxonomy
Vulpes lagopus is a 'true fox' belonging to the genus Vulpes of the fox tribe Vulpini, which consists of 12 extant species. It is classified under the subfamily Caninae of the canid family Canidae. Although it has previously been assigned to its own monotypic genus Alopex, recent genetic evidence now places it in the genus Vulpes along with the majority of other foxes.
It was originally described by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae in 1758 as Canis lagopus. The type specimen was recovered from Lapland, Sweden. The generic name vulpes is Latin for "fox". The specific name lagopus is derived from Ancient Greek λαγώς (lagōs, "hare") and πούς (pous, "foot"), referring to the hair on its feet similar to those found in cold-climate species of hares.
Looking at the most recent phylogeny, the Arctic fox and the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) diverged approximately 3.17MYA. Additionally, the Arctic fox diverged from its sister group, the kit fox (Vulpes macrotis), at about 0.9MYA.
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Arctic fox
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Origins
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Origins
The origins of the Arctic fox have been described by the "out of Tibet" hypothesis. On the Tibetan Plateau, fossils of the extinct ancestral Arctic fox (Vulpes qiuzhudingi) from the early Pliocene (5.08–3.6 MYA) were found along with many other precursors of modern mammals that evolved during the Pliocene (5.3–2.6 MYA). It is believed that this ancient fox is the ancestor of the modern Arctic fox. Globally, the Pliocene was about 2–3 °C warmer than today, and the Arctic during the summer in the mid-Pliocene was 8 °C warmer. By using stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of fossils, researchers claim that the Tibetan Plateau experienced tundra-like conditions during the Pliocene and harbored cold-adapted mammals that later spread to North America and Eurasia during the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million-11,700 years ago).
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Arctic fox
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Subspecies
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Subspecies
thumb|Blue phase, Pribilof Islands
Besides the nominate subspecies, the common Arctic fox, V. l. lagopus, four other subspecies of this fox have been described:
Bering Islands Arctic fox, V. l. beringensis
Greenland Arctic fox, V. l. foragoapusis
Iceland Arctic fox, V. l. fuliginosus
Pribilof Islands Arctic fox, V. l. pribilofensis
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Arctic fox
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Distribution and habitat
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Distribution and habitat
thumb|The Arctic fox's seasonal furs, summer (top), "blue" (middle), and winter (bottom)
The Arctic fox has a circumpolar distribution and occurs in Arctic tundra habitats in northern Europe, northern Asia, and North America. Its range includes Greenland, Iceland, Fennoscandia, Svalbard, Jan Mayen (where it was hunted to extinction)The isolated beauty of Jan Mayen. Hurtigruten US and other islands in the Barents Sea, northern Russia, islands in the Bering Sea, Alaska, and Canada as far south as Hudson Bay. In the late 19th century, it was introduced into the Aleutian Islands southwest of Alaska. However, the population on the Aleutian Islands is currently being eradicated in conservation efforts to preserve the local bird population. It mostly inhabits tundra and pack ice, but is also present in Canadian boreal forests (northeastern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba, Northern Ontario, Northern Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador)Arctic fox. Nature Conservancy Canada and the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. They are found at elevations up to above sea level and have been seen on sea ice close to the North Pole.
The Arctic fox is the only land mammal native to Iceland. It came to the isolated North Atlantic island at the end of the last ice age, walking over the frozen sea. The Arctic Fox Center in Súðavík contains an exhibition on the Arctic fox and conducts studies on the influence of tourism on the population. Its range during the last ice age was much more extensive than it is now, and fossil remains of the Arctic fox have been found over much of northern Europe and Siberia.
The color of the fox's coat also determines where they are most likely to be found. The white morph mainly lives inland and blends in with the snowy tundra, while the blue morph occupies the coasts because its dark color blends in with the cliffs and rocks.
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Arctic fox
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Migrations and travel
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Migrations and travel
During the winter, 95.5% of Arctic foxes utilize commuting trips, which remain within the fox's home range. Commuting trips in Arctic foxes last less than 3 days and occur between 0–2.9 times a month. Nomadism is found in 3.4% of the foxes, and loop migrations (where the fox travels to a new range, then returns to its home range) are the least common at 1.1%. Arctic foxes in Canada that undergo nomadism and migrations voyage from the Canadian archipelago to Greenland and northwestern Canada. The duration and distance traveled between males and females is not significantly different.
Arctic foxes closer to goose colonies (located at the coasts) are less likely to migrate. Meanwhile, foxes experiencing low-density lemming populations are more likely to make sea ice trips. Residency is common in the Arctic fox population so that they can maintain their territories. Migratory foxes have a mortality rate >3 times higher than resident foxes. Nomadic behavior becomes more common as the foxes age.
In July 2019, the Norwegian Polar Institute reported the story of a yearling female which was fitted with a GPS tracking device and then released by their researchers on the east coast of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard group of islands. The young fox crossed the polar ice from the islands to Greenland in 21 days, a distance of . She then moved on to Ellesmere Island in northern Canada, covering a total recorded distance of in 76 days, before her GPS tracker stopped working. She averaged just over a day, and managed as much as in a single day.
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Arctic fox
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Conservation status
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Conservation status
thumb|left|Drawing of skull by St. George Mivart, 1890
The Arctic fox has been assessed as least concern on the IUCN Red List since 2004. However, the Scandinavian mainland population is acutely endangered, despite being legally protected from hunting and persecution for several decades. The estimate of the adult population in all of Norway, Sweden, and Finland is fewer than 200 individuals. Of these, especially in Finland, the Arctic fox is even classified as critically endangered, because even though the animal was declared a protected species in Finland in 1940, the population has not recovered despite that. As a result, the populations of Arctic fox have been carefully studied and inventoried in places such as the Vindelfjällens Nature Reserve (Sweden), which has the Arctic fox as its symbol.
The abundance of the Arctic fox tends to fluctuate in a cycle along with the population of lemmings and voles (a 3- to 4-year cycle). The populations are especially vulnerable during the years when the prey population crashes, and uncontrolled trapping has almost eradicated two subpopulations.
thumb|Skull
The pelts of Arctic foxes with a slate-blue coloration were especially valuable. They were transported to various previously fox-free Aleutian Islands during the 1920s. The program was successful in terms of increasing the population of blue foxes, but their predation of Aleutian Canada geese conflicted with the goal of preserving that species.
The Arctic fox is losing ground to the larger red fox. This has been attributed to climate change—the camouflage value of its lighter coat decreases with less snow cover. Red foxes dominate where their ranges begin to overlap by killing Arctic foxes and their kits. An alternative explanation of the red fox's gains involves the gray wolf. Historically, it has kept red fox numbers down, but as the wolf has been hunted to near extinction in much of its former range, the red fox population has grown larger, and it has taken over the niche of top predator. In areas of northern Europe, programs are in place that allow the hunting of red foxes in the Arctic fox's previous range.
As with many other game species, the best sources of historical and large-scale population data are hunting bag records and questionnaires. Several potential sources of error occur in such data collections. In addition, numbers vary widely between years due to the large population fluctuations. However, the total population of the Arctic fox must be in the order of several hundred thousand animals.
The world population of Arctic foxes is thus not endangered, but two Arctic fox subpopulations are. One is on Medny Island (Commander Islands, Russia), which was reduced by some 85–90%, to around 90 animals, as a result of mange caused by an ear tick introduced by dogs in the 1970s. The population is currently under treatment with antiparasitic drugs, but the result is still uncertain.
The other threatened population is the one in Fennoscandia (Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Kola Peninsula). This population decreased drastically around the start of the 20th century as a result of extreme fur prices, which caused severe hunting also during population lows. The population has remained at a low density for more than 90 years, with additional reductions during the last decade. The total population estimate for 1997 is around 60 adults in Sweden, 11 adults in Finland, and 50 in Norway. From Kola, there are indications of a similar situation, suggesting a population of around 20 adults. The Fennoscandian population thus numbers around 140 breeding adults. Even after local lemming peaks, the Arctic fox population tends to collapse back to levels dangerously close to nonviability.
The Arctic fox is classed as a "prohibited new organism" under New Zealand's Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996, preventing it from being imported into the country.
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Arctic fox
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See also
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See also
Arctic rabies virus
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Arctic fox
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References
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References
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Arctic fox
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Further reading
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Further reading
Nowak, Ronald M. (2005). Walker's Carnivores of the World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. .
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Arctic fox
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External links
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External links
State of the Environment Norway: Arctic fox
Smithsonian Institution – North American Mammals: Vulpes lagopus
Photo Gallery by islandsmyndir.is
https://www.britannica.com/animal/Arctic-fox
Fox, arctic
Category:Fauna of the Holarctic realm
Category:Mammals described in 1758
Category:Mammals of Europe
Category:Mammals of Asia
Category:Mammals of Greenland
Category:Mammals of Iceland
Category:Mammals of North America
Category:Mammals of Russia
Category:Mammals of Canada
Category:Mammals of the United States
Category:Mammals of the Arctic
Category:Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Category:Vulpes
Category:Habitats Directive species
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Arctic fox
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Table of Content
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Short description, Behavior, Reproduction, Diet, Adaptations, Sensory modalities, Physiology, Size, Taxonomy, Origins, Subspecies, Distribution and habitat, Migrations and travel, Conservation status, See also, References, Further reading, External links
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Anglo-Saxon (disambiguation)
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Wiktionary
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Anglo-Saxons were Germanic tribes that settled in early medieval England.
These Anglo-Saxons are also referred to under the names of two notable groups of tribes:
Angles
Saxons
Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Saxons may also refer to:
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Anglo-Saxon (disambiguation)
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Historical
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Historical
History of Anglo-Saxon England
Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon architecture
Anglo-Saxon art
Anglo-Saxon brooches
Burial in Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon burial mounds
Anglo-Saxon charters
Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Coinage in Anglo-Saxon England
List of Anglo-Saxon deities
Anglo-Saxon dress
Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies
Anglo-Saxon glass
Government in Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon law
Anglo-Saxon London
Anglo-Saxon lyre
Magic in Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon metrical charms
Anglo-Saxon mission
Old English, the earliest historical form of the English language
Anglo-Saxon paganism
Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon riddles
Anglo-Saxon runes
Anglo-Saxon runic rings
List of Anglo-Saxon saints
Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain
Anglo-Saxon turriform churches
Anglo-Saxon warfare
Weapons and armour in Anglo-Saxon England
Witchcraft in Anglo-Saxon England
Women in Anglo-Saxon society
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Anglo-Saxon (disambiguation)
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Modern
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Modern
Anglo-Saxon model, modern macroeconomic term
Anglo-Saxon world, modern societies based on or influenced by English customs
Anglo-Saxon (anthropology) or Nordic race, outdated racial concept
, one of several ships
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, sociological term in the U.S.
Anglo-Saxons (slur), a derogatory term for English-speaking countries used in Russian propaganda
Anglo-Saxonism in the 19th century
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Anglo-Saxon (disambiguation)
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Table of Content
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Wiktionary, Historical, Modern
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Folklore of the United States
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Short description
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American folklore encompasses the folklore that has evolved in the present-day United States mostly since the European colonization of the Americas. It also contains folklore that dates back to the Pre-Columbian era.
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared.
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Folklore of the United States
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Native American folk
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Native American folk
Native American cultures are rich in myths and legends that explain natural phenomena and the relationship between humans and the spirit world. According to Barre Toelken, feathers, beadwork, dance steps and music, the events in a story, the shape of a dwelling, or items of traditional food can be viewed as icons of cultural meaning.Toelken, Barre.The Anguish of Snails, Utah State University Press, 2003
Native American cultures are numerous and diverse. Though some neighboring cultures hold similar beliefs, others can be quite different from one another. The most common myths are the creation myths, which tell a story to explain how the earth was formed and where humans and other beings came from. Others may include explanations about the Sun, Moon, constellations, specific animals, seasons, and weather. This is one of the ways that many tribes have kept, and continue to keep, their cultures alive; these stories are told as a way of preserving and transmitting the nation, tribe, or band's particular beliefs, history, customs, spirituality, and traditional way of life. According to Barre Toelken, "Stories not only entertain but also embody Native behavioral and ethical values."
Although individual tribes have their own sacred beliefs and myths, many stories have much in common. Myths about floods are almost universal amongst Plains tribes, stories of a flooded earth being restored. There are many "hero stories" immortalising the adventures of heroes with supernatural powers, who right wrongs and defeat evils. Animal tales are common, some explaining how features of certain animals occurred, some using animal characters for narration, and others using animals symbolically. There are also myths where supernatural beings appear in the form of animals, with the bear, elk, eagle, owl, and snake frequently referred to.
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Folklore of the United States
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Founding myths
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Founding myths
The founding of the United States is often surrounded by national myths, legends, and tall tales. Many stories have developed since the founding long ago to become a part of America's folklore and cultural awareness, and non-Native American folklore especially includes any narrative which has contributed to the shaping of American culture and belief systems. These narratives have varying levels of historical accuracy; the veracity of the stories is not a determining factor.
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Folklore of the United States
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Christopher Columbus
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Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus, as a hero and symbol to the then-immigrants, is an important figure in the body of American myth. His status, not unlike most American icons, is representative not of his own accomplishments, but the self-perception of the society which chose him as a hero. Having effected a separation from England and its cultural icons, the United States was left without history—or heroes on which to base a shared sense of their social selves. Washington Irving was instrumental in popularizing Columbus. His version of Columbus' life, published in 1829, was more a romance than a biography. The book was very popular, and contributed to an image of the discoverer as a solitary individual who challenged the unknown sea, as triumphant Americans contemplated the dangers and promise of their own wilderness frontier. As a consequence of his vision and audacity, there was now a land free from kings, a vast continent for new beginnings. In the years following the Revolution the poetic device "Columbia" was used as a symbol of both Columbus and America. King's College of New York changed its name in 1792 to Columbia, and the new capital in Washington was subtitled District of Columbia.
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Folklore of the United States
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Jamestown
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Jamestown
In May 1607, the Susan Constant, the Discovery, and the Godspeed sailed through Chesapeake Bay and thirty miles up the James River settlers built Jamestown, Virginia, England's first permanent colony. Too late in the season to plant crops, many were not accustomed to manual labor. Within a few months, some settlers died of famine and disease. Only thirty-eight made it through their first year in the New World. Captain John Smith, a pirate turned gentleman, turned the settlers into foragers and successful traders with the Native Americans, who taught the English how to plant corn and other crops. Smith led expeditions to explore the regions surrounding Jamestown, and it was during one of these that the chief of the Powhatan Native Americans captured Smith. According to an account Smith published in 1624, he was going to be put to death until the chief's daughter, Pocahontas, saved him. From this, the legend of Pocahontas sprang forth, becoming part of American folklore, children's books, and movies.
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Folklore of the United States
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Plymouth
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Plymouth
right|thumb|Plymouth Rock Monument designed for the Tercentenary (1920)
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620, and an important symbol in American history. There are no contemporary references to the Pilgrims' landing on a rock at Plymouth. The first written reference to the Pilgrims landing on a rock is found 121 years after they landed. The Rock, or one traditionally identified as it, has long been memorialized on the shore of Plymouth Harbor in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The holiday of Thanksgiving is said to have begun with the Pilgrims in 1621. They had come to America to escape religious persecution, but then nearly starved to death. Some friendly Native Americans, including Squanto, helped the Pilgrims survive through the first winter. The perseverance of the Pilgrims is celebrated during the annual Thanksgiving festival.
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Folklore of the United States
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Revolutionary War figures
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Revolutionary War figures
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Folklore of the United States
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George Washington
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George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799), the country's first president, is the most preeminent of American historical and folkloric figures, as he holds the place of "Pater Patriae". Apocryphal stories about Washington's childhood include a claim that he skipped a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River at Ferry Farm. Another tale claims that as a young child, Washington chopped down his father's cherry tree. His angry father confronted the young Washington, who proclaimed "I cannot tell a lie" and admitted to the transgression, thus illuminating his honesty. Parson Mason Locke Weems mentions the first citation of this legend in his 1806 book, The Life of George Washington: With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honorable to Himself and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen. This anecdote cannot be independently verified. Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, is also known to have spread the story while lecturing, personalizing it by adding "I have a higher and greater standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie but I won't."
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Folklore of the United States
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Patrick Henry
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Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799) was an attorney, planter and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. Patrick Henry is best known for the speech he made in the House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775, in Saint John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. With the House undecided on whether to mobilize for military action against the encroaching British military force, Henry argued in favor of mobilization. Forty-two years later, Henry's first biographer, William Wirt, working from oral histories, tried to reconstruct what Henry said. According to Wirt, Henry ended his speech with words that have since become immortalized: "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" The crowd, by Wirt's account, jumped up and shouted "To Arms! To Arms!". For 160 years Wirt's account was taken at face value. In the 1970s, historians began to question the authenticity of Wirt's reconstruction.
thumb|Betsy Ross sewing
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Folklore of the United States
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Betsy Ross
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Betsy Ross
Betsy Ross (January 1, 1752 – January 30, 1836) is widely credited with making the first American flag. There is, however, no credible historical evidence that the story is true. Research conducted by the National Museum of American History notes that the story of Betsy Ross making the first American flag for General George Washington entered into American consciousness about the time of the 1876 centennial celebrations. In the 2008 book The Star-Spangled Banner: The Making of an American Icon, Smithsonian experts point out that accounts of the event appealed to Americans eager for stories about the revolution and its heroes and heroines. Betsy Ross was promoted as a patriotic role model for young girls and a symbol of women's contributions to American history.
Other Revolutionary War heroes who became figures of American folklore include: Benedict Arnold, Benjamin Franklin, Nathan Hale, John Hancock, John Paul Jones and Francis Marion.
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Folklore of the United States
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Tall tales
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Tall tales
The tall tale is a fundamental element of American folk literature. The tall tale's origins are seen in the bragging contests that often occurred when men of the American frontier gathered. A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, relayed as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are exaggerations of actual events; others are completely fictional tales set in a familiar setting, such as the American Old West, or the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. They are usually humorous or good-natured. The line between myth and tall tale is distinguished primarily by age; many myths exaggerate the exploits of their heroes, but in tall tales, the exaggeration looms large, to the extent of becoming the whole of the story.
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Folklore of the United States
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Based on historical figures
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Based on historical figures
John Chapman (September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845), widely known as Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. He became an American legend while still alive, largely because of his kind and generous ways, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. Johnny Appleseed is remembered in American popular culture by his traveling song or Swedenborgian hymn ("The Lord is good to me...").
Daniel Boone (November 2, 1734 [O.S. October 22] – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States.
Davy Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was a 19th-century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet, "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives, served in the Texas Revolution, and died at the Battle of the Alamo.
Mike Fink (c. 1770/1780 – c. 1823) called "king of the keelboaters", was a semi-legendary brawler and river boatman who exemplified the tough and hard-drinking men who ran keelboats up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
Martha Jane Canary (May 1, 1852 – August 1, 1903), better known as Calamity Jane, was an American frontierswoman, and professional scout best known for her claim of being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok. She is said to have also exhibited kindness and compassion, especially to the sick and needy. It was from her that Bret Harte took his famous character of Cherokee Sal in The Luck of Roaring Camp.
Jigger Johnson (1871–1935), was a lumberjack and log driver from northern New England who is known for his numerous off-the-job exploits, such as catching bobcats alive with his bare hands, and drunken brawls.Appalachia Appalachian Mountain Club, 1964.Monahan, Robert. "Jigger Johnson", New Hampshire Profiles magazine, Northeast Publications, Concord, New Hampshire, April, 1957.
John Henry was an African-American railroad worker who is said to have worked as a "steel-driving man"—a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock away in constructing a railroad tunnel. According to legend, John Henry's prowess as a steel-driver was measured in a race against a steam-powered hammer, which he won, only to die in victory with his hammer in his hand and his heart giving out from stress. The "Ballad of John Henry" is a musical rendition of his story.
Molly Pitcher was a nickname given to a woman said to have fought in the American Battle of Monmouth, who is generally believed to have been Mary Hays. Since various Molly Pitcher tales grew in the telling, many historians regard Molly Pitcher as folklore rather than history, or suggest that Molly Pitcher may be a composite image inspired by the actions of a number of real women. The name itself may have originated as a nickname given to women who carried water to men on the battlefield during the war.
Casey Jones (March 14, 1863 – April 30, 1900) was the nickname of John Luther Jones, an engineer for the Illinois Central Railroad, who was killed while attempting to stop his passenger train from colliding with a stalled freight train in Vaughan, Mississippi. His decisive actions saved the lives of all his passengers and multiple railway men at the cost of his own. His final run was immortalized in “The Ballad of Casey Jones”, a traditional folk song about the night of his death.
Other historical figures include Titanic survivor Molly Brown, Gunslinging Outlaw Billy The Kid, Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody, and sharpshooter Annie Oakley.
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Folklore of the United States
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Fictional characters
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Fictional characters
Paul Bunyan is a lumberjack figure in North American folklore and tradition. One of the most famous and popular North American folklore heroes, he is usually described as a giant as well as a lumberjack of unusual skill, and is often accompanied in stories by his animal companion, Babe the Blue Ox. The character originated in folktales circulated among lumberjacks in the Northeastern United States and eastern Canada, first appearing in print in a story published by Northern Michigan journalist James MacGillivray in 1906.
Cordwood Pete is said to be the younger brother of legendary lumberjack Paul Bunyan.
Johnny Kaw is a mythical Kansas settler whose exploits created elements of the Kansas landscape and helped establish wheat and sunflowers as major crops. The character dates to the 1955 centennial of Kansas and has been explored in numerous books.
John the Conqueror also known as High John the Conqueror, and many other folk variants, is a folk hero from African-American folklore. John the Conqueror was an African prince who was sold as a slave in the Americas. Despite his enslavement, his spirit was never broken and he survived in folklore as a sort of a trickster figure, because of the tricks he played to evade his masters. Joel Chandler Harris's 'Br'er Rabbit' of the Uncle Remus stories is said to be patterned after High John the Conqueror.
Pecos Bill is an American cowboy, apocryphally immortalized in numerous tall tales of the Old West during American westward expansion into the Southwest of Texas, New Mexico, Southern California, and Arizona
thumb|upright|MOLLY PITCHER (Ten American Girls from History 1917)
Captain Stormalong was an American folk hero and the subject of numerous nautical-themed tall tales originating in Massachusetts. Stormalong was said to be a sailor and a giant, some 30 feet tall; he was the master of a huge clipper ship known in various sources as either the Courser or the Tuscarora, a ship so tall that it had hinged masts to avoid catching on the moon.
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Folklore of the United States
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Legendary and folkloric creatures
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Legendary and folkloric creatures
Bigfoot, also known as "Sasquatch", is the name given to an ape-like creature that some believe inhabit mostly forests in the Pacific Northwest region of, and throughout the entirety of, North America. Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid, although descriptions vary depending on location. The height range is about 6 to 10 feet tall with black, dark brown, or dark reddish hair. One of the most famous accounts of Bigfoot is the Patterson-Gimlin film, where a supposedly female Bigfoot marches across the screen with giant strides, turns to face the camera, then marches off up a steep hill and into the forest. There are more than 100 sightings reported yearly. Among these reporters are veterans, campers, hikers, explorers, hunters, and more. There are several websites, podcasts and organizations related to Bigfoot.
Champ is the name given to a reputed lake monster living in Lake Champlain, a natural freshwater lake in North America. The lake crosses the Canada–United States border, located partially in the Canadian province of Quebec and partially in the U.S. states of Vermont and New York. There is no scientific evidence for Champ's existence, though there have been over 300 reported sightings. The most recent Champ sighting to get widespread attention occurred thumb|Still shot from 5 minute drone footage of Champ swimming behind boat containing two lead actors in the "Lucy & the Lake Monster" filmduring post-production of the Champ movie Lucy and the Lake Monster, the filmmakers reviewed their drone footage from production on August 2, 2024, and noticed what appears to be a large creature swimming just below the surface of the water, in Bulwagga Bay. The alleged plesiosaur image is visible in the bottom right portion of the screen, swimming behind a boat containing the two lead actors in the film. The boat was 142 inches from the tip of the bow to the stern and 50.5 inches at the widest point and the alleged plesiosaur appears bigger than the boat. One of the co-writers, Kelly Tabor, believes it to be a foundational piece of evidence for Champ. The second co-writer, Richard Rossi, referred to himself as the "Doubting Thomas," and he shared the entire five minutes of footage with a conclave of scientists with earned doctorates in science for further study of the Tabor-Rossi footage.
Punxsutawney Phil is a semi-mythical groundhog central to the most well-known Groundhog Day ceremony, a Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that claims to predict the arrival of spring. According to tradition, the same groundhog has made predictions ever since the 1800s.
The Jersey Devil is a legendary creature said to inhabit the New Jersey Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey in the United States. The creature is often described as a flying biped with hooves, but there are many different variations. The most common description is that of a kangaroo-like creature with the face of a horse, the head of a dog, leathery bat-like wings, horns, small arms with clawed hands, red eyes, cloven hooves and a forked tail. It has been reported to move quickly, as to avoid human contact, and often is described as emitting a "blood-curdling scream".The Jersey Devil, by James F. McCloy and Ray Miller Jr., Middle Atlantic Press. The legend goes as such: a woman named Mother Leeds gave birth to her 13th child on a dark, stormy night. Mother Leed is said to be a witch and her 13th child was born the Devil. It soon grew wings and hooves, killed the midwife, and took off into the night.thumb|The Jersey Devil
The White Lady is a type of female ghost reportedly seen in rural areas and associated with some local legend of tragedy. Common to many of them is the theme of losing or being betrayed by a husband or fiancé. They are often associated with an individual family line or said to be a harbinger of death, similar to a banshee.
Mothman is a mythical creature from Point Pleasant, West Virginia described as a large humanoid with glowing red eyes on its face and large bird-like wings with fur covering its body. Mothman has been blamed for the collapse of the Silver Bridge.
The Hodag is a mythical beast that is said to inhabit the forests of Northern Wisconsin, particularly around the city of Rhinelander. The Hodag has a reptilian body with the horns of a bull and is said to have a penchant for mischief.
Old Black Eyes is a spectral hound said to frequent an area known as the Baker Rocks, located near the top of the Black Mountains of North Carolina. Old Black Eyes is said to be the spirit of Jim Baker, who lived at the rocks and was regarded as a witch with supernatural powers by the local mountain people. According to legend, Jim Baker performed some sort of ritual at an old Indian cemetery, near the Black Mountains, where he proceeded to sell his soul to the Devil. The Devil proceeded to turn Baker's pupils "unnaturally black" as a sign of their deal and hell's claim on his soul. Upon his death, Baker was said to take the spirit of a "devil dog", identifiable by the large black pupils of its eyes, that people feared to approach, believing it was surrounded in black magic. It was said the only way to get rid of Old Black Eyes was to draw its picture, pin it to a tree, and then shoot it with a gun.
In North American folklore, Fearsome critters were tall tale animals jokingly said to inhabit the wilderness in or around logging camps, especially in the Great Lakes region. Today, the term may also be applied to similar fabulous beasts.
Other folkloric creatures include the Chupacabra, Jackalope, the Nain Rouge of Detroit, Michigan, the Hide-behind, Wendigo of Minnesota and Chessie, a legendary sea monster said to live in Chesapeake Bay.
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Folklore of the United States
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Literature
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Literature
Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, or simply "Santa", is a figure with legendary, mythical, historical and folkloric origins. The modern figure of Santa Claus was derived from the Dutch figure, Sinterklaas, which may, in turn, have its origins in the hagiographical tales concerning the Christian Saint Nicholas. "A Visit from St. Nicholas", also known as "The Night Before Christmas" is a poem first published anonymously in 1823 and generally attributed to Clement Clarke Moore. The poem, which has been called "arguably the best-known verses ever written by an American",Burrows, Edwin G. & Wallace, Mike. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. pp. 462–463 is largely responsible for the conception of Santa Claus from the mid-nineteenth century to today, including his physical appearance, the night of his visit, his mode of transportation, the number and names of his reindeer, as well as the tradition that he brings toys to children. The poem has influenced ideas about St. Nicholas and Santa Claus from the United States to the rest of the English-speaking world and beyond. Is There a Santa Claus? was the title of an editorial appearing in the September 21, 1897, edition of The (New York) Sun. The editorial, which included the famous reply "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus", has become a part of popular Christmas folklore in the United States and Canada.
The Headless Horseman is a fictional character from the short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by American author Washington Irving. The story, from Irving's collection of short stories, entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, has worked itself into known American folklore/legend through literature and film.
"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their liquor and falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains. He awakes 20 years later to a very changed world, having missed the American Revolution.
Inspired by a conversation on nostalgia with his American expatriate brother-in-law, Irving wrote the story while temporarily living in Birmingham, England. It was published in his collection, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. While the story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains near where Irving later took up residence, he admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills."Pierre M. Irving, The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1883, vol. 2, p. 176.
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Folklore of the United States
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Folk music
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Folk music
Native Americans were the earliest inhabitants of the land that is today known as the United States and played its first music. Beginning in the 17th century, immigrants from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Germany and France began arriving in large numbers, bringing with them new styles and instruments. African slaves brought musical traditions, and each subsequent wave of immigrants contributes to a melting pot. Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th-century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century but is often applied to music that is older than that.
The earliest American scholars were with The American Folklore Society (AFS), which emerged in the late 1800s. Their studies expanded to include Native American music but still treated folk music as a historical item preserved in isolated societies. In North America, during the 1930s and 1940s, the Library of Congress worked through the offices of traditional music collectors Robert Winslow Gordon, Alan Lomax and others to capture as much North American field material as possible. Lomax was the first prominent scholar to study distinctly American folk music such as that of cowboys and southern blacks. His first major published work was in 1911, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, and was arguably the most prominent US folk music scholar of his time, notably during the beginnings of the folk music revival in the 1930s and early 1940s.
The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Oscar Brand had enjoyed a limited general popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. The revival brought forward musical styles that had, in earlier times, contributed to the development of country & western, jazz, and rock and roll music.
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Folklore of the United States
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African-American music
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African-American music
Slavery was introduced to the Thirteen Colonies beginning in the early 17th century in Virginia. The ancestors of today's African-American population were brought from hundreds of tribes across West Africa and brought with them certain traits of West African music. This included call and response vocals, complex rhythmic music, syncopated beats, shifting accents, incorporation of hums and moans, which are sounds with no distinct meaning, and a combination of sound and body movements. The African musical focus on rhythmic singing and dancing was brought to the New World, where it became part of a distinct folk culture that helped Africans "retain continuity with their past through music." Along with retaining many African elements, there was also a continuation of instruments. Enslaved Africans would either take with them African instruments or reconstructed them once in the New World. The first slaves in the United States sang work songs and field hollers. However, slave music was used for a variety of reasons. Music was included in religious ceremonies and celebrations, used to coordinate work, and to conceal hidden messages, like when they were commenting on slave owners. African American slave songs can be divided into three groups: religious, work, and recreational songs.
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Folklore of the United States
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Spirituals
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Spirituals
Protestant hymns written mostly by New England preachers became a feature of camp meetings held among devout Christians across the South. Most slaves were typically animists or were a part of some other form of African Religion. To destroy any remnants of African culture or make more people disciples, slaves would be encouraged and taken to church. They became attracted to the grace and freedom that was preached within the church, which was very different from the lives they were living. Slaves would learn the same hymns that their masters sang, and when they came together they developed and sang adapted versions of these hymns, they were called Negro spirituals. It was from these roots, of spiritual songs, work songs, and field hollers, that blues, jazz, and gospel developed. Negro spirituals were primarily expressions of religious faith. These songs provided them a voice for their longing for freedom and to experience it. Around the 1840s, slaves knew that in the northern states, slavery was illegal, and some northerners wanted the complete abolishment of slavery. So when they sang about heaven, it was also about possibly escaping north. In the early 19th century the Underground Railroad was developed, containing a network of secret routes and safe houses, and it greatly impacted slaves' religious music. When there was any mention of trains, stations, etc. in spirituals they were directly referencing the Underground Railroad, such as the song "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". These songs were designed so that slave owners thought that slaves were only singing about heaven.
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Folklore of the United States
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Work songs
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Work songs
Work Songs at least had two functions: one to benefit the slaves and another to benefit overseers. When a group of slaves had to work together on a hard task, like carrying a heavy load, singing would provide a rhythm that allowed them to coordinate their movements. When picking crops, music was not necessary, but when there was silence it would be uncomfortable for the overseers. Even though there was a presence of melancholy in songs, Southern slave owners would interpret that their slaves were happy and content, possibly because of their singing.
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Folklore of the United States
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Recreational songs
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Recreational songs
Even if slave owners attempted to forbid things like drums or remnants of African culture, they did not seem to mind them learning European instruments and music. In some cases, black string players would be invited to play to entertain white audiences. Between the week of Christmas and New Years’, owners would give their slaves a holiday. This provided a chance for slave families who had different masters to come together, otherwise, they would not go anywhere. Some slaves would craft items, but masters detested industrious slaves. So most slaves would spend their recreational time doing other things, like dancing and singing. Masters approved of such activities, but they may not have listened carefully to the songs that were performed.
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Folklore of the United States
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Folk songs
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Folk songs
The original Thirteen Colonies of the United States were all former British possessions, and English culture became a major foundation for American folk and popular music. Many American folk songs are identical to British songs in arrangements, but with new lyrics, often as parodies of the original material. Anglo-American traditional music also includes a variety of broadside ballads, humorous stories and tall tales, and disaster songs regarding mining, shipwrecks and murder.Kip Lornell, Exploring American Folk Music: Ethnic, Grassroots, and Regional Traditions in the United States (Oxford MS: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2012), 82-117. ; and Duncan Emrich, ed., Anglo-American Songs and Ballads (Washington DC: Library of Congress, 1947); available online at https://www.loc.gov/folklife/LP/AFS_L12.pdf
Folk songs may be classified by subject matter, such as: drinking songs, sporting songs, train songs, work songs, war songs, and ballads.
The Star-Spangled Banner's tune was adapted from an old English drinking song by John Stafford Smith called "To Anacreon in Heaven."
"The Ballad of Casey Jones" is a traditional song about railroad engineer Casey Jones and his death at the controls of the train he was driving. It tells of how Jones and his fireman Sim Webb raced their locomotive to make up for lost time, but discovered another train ahead of them on the line, and how Jones remained on board to try to stop the train as Webb jumped to safety.
"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" (sometimes "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again") is a popular song of the American Civil War that expressed people's longing for the return of their friends and relatives who were fighting in the war. The Irish anti-war song "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" and "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" share the same melodic material. Based on internal textual references, "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" apparently dates from the early 1820s, while When Johnny Comes Marching Home was first published in 1863. "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" is a popular traditional Irish anti-war and anti-recruiting song. It is generally dated to the early 19th century, when soldiers from Athy, County Kildare served the British East India Company.
"Oh My Darling, Clementine" (1884) is an American western folk ballad believed to have been based on another song called Down by the River Liv'd a Maiden (1863). The words are those of a bereaved lover singing about his darling, the daughter of a miner in the 1849 California Gold Rush. He loses her in a drowning accident. The song plays during the opening credits for the highly acclaimed John Ford movie "My Darling Clementine". It also runs as a background score all through the movie.
"The Yellow Rose of Texas" is a traditional folk song. The original love song has become associated with the legend that Emily D. West, a biracial indentured servant, "helped win the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle in the Texas Revolution".
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is a 1908 Tin Pan Alley song by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer which has become the unofficial anthem of baseball, although neither of its authors had attended a game prior to writing the song. The song is traditionally sung during the seventh-inning stretch of a baseball game. Fans are generally encouraged to sing along.
Other American folksongs include: "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain", "Skewball", "Big Bad John", "Stagger Lee", "Camptown Races" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".
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