Answer: the Congress of Paris

Context: Peace negotiations at the Congress of Paris resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 30 March 1856. In compliance with article III, Russia restored to the Ottoman Empire the city and citadel of Kars in common with "all other parts of the Ottoman territory of which the Russian troop were in possession". Russia ceded some land in Bessarabia at the mouth of the Danube to Moldavia. By article IV The United Kingdom, France, Sardinia and Turkey restored to Russia "the towns and ports of Sevastopol, Balaklava, Kamish, Eupatoria, Kerch, Jenikale, Kinburn, as well as all other territories occupied by the allied troops". In conformity with article XI and XIII, the Tsar and the Sultan agreed not to establish any naval or military arsenal on the Black Sea coast. The Black Sea clauses weakened Russia, and it no longer posed a naval threat to the Ottomans. The principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were nominally returned to the Ottoman Empire; in practice they became independent. The Great Powers pledged to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire.:432–33

Question: Where was the Treaty of Paris signed?


Answer: 1856

Question: What year was the Treaty of Paris signed?


Answer: the Tsar and the Sultan

Question: Who agreed to not have any military arsenal on the Black Sea coast?


Answer: the Ottoman Empire

Question: Who were the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia later return to?


Answer: The United Kingdom, France, Sardinia and Turkey

Question: Who returned towns and seaports to Russia?


Answer: 1871

Context: The Treaty of Paris stood until 1871, when France was defeated by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. While Prussia and several other German states united to form a powerful German Empire, the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III, was deposed to permit the formation of a Third French Republic. During his reign, Napoleon III, eager for the support of the United Kingdom, had opposed Russia over the Eastern Question. Russian interference in the Ottoman Empire, however, did not in any significant manner threaten the interests of France. Thus, France abandoned its opposition to Russia after the establishment of a republic. Encouraged by the decision of the French, and supported by the German minister Otto von Bismarck, Russia renounced the Black Sea clauses of the treaty agreed to in 1856. As the United Kingdom alone could not enforce the clauses, Russia once again established a fleet in the Black Sea.

Question: What year did the Treaty of Paris fall?


Answer: Franco-Prussian War

Question: In what war was France defeated by Prussia?


Answer: 1870–1871

Question: Between what years did the Franco-Prussian War take place?


Answer: a Third French Republic

Question: Napoleon III was removed to form what?


Answer: Russia

Question: Who renounced the Black Sea clause?


Answer: Austria

Context: Although it was Russia that was punished by the Paris Treaty, in the long run it was Austria that lost the most from the Crimean War despite having barely taken part in it.:433 Having abandoned its alliance with Russia, Austria was diplomatically isolated following the war,:433 which contributed to its disastrous defeats in the 1859 Franco-Austrian War that resulted in the cession of Lombardy to the Kingdom of Sardinia, and later in the loss of the Habsburg rule of Tuscany and Modena, which meant the end of Austrian influence in Italy. Furthermore, Russia did not do anything to assist its former ally, Austria, in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War:433 with its loss of Venetia and more important than that, its influence in most German-speaking lands. The status of Austria as a great power, with the unifications of Germany and Italy was now severely questioned. It had to compromise with Hungary, the two countries shared the Danubian Empire and Austria slowly became a little more than a German satellite. With France now hostile to Germany, allied with Russia, and Russia competing with the newly renamed Austro-Hungarian Empire for an increased role in the Balkans at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, the foundations were in place for creating the diplomatic alliances that would lead to World War I.

Question: Who lost the most due to the Crimean War?


Answer: Austro-Prussian War

Question: Russia failed to help Austria during what war that took place in 1866?


Answer: Kingdom of Sardinia

Question: Who became diplomatically isolated after the war?


Answer: The Crimean War

Context: The Crimean War marked the ascendancy of France to the position of pre-eminent power on the Continent,:411 the continued decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the beginning of a decline for Tsarist Russia. As Fuller notes, "Russia had been beaten on the Crimean peninsula, and the military feared that it would inevitably be beaten again unless steps were taken to surmount its military weakness." The Crimean War marks the demise of the Concert of Europe, the balance of power that had dominated Europe since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and which had included France, Russia, Austria and the United Kingdom.

Question: France rose to power after what war?


Answer: the Ottoman Empire

Question: What empire declined after the Crimean War?


Answer: Concert of Europe

Question: The Crimean war marked the end of what dominant European power?


Answer: A. W, Kinglake

Context: This view of 'diplomatic drift' as the cause of the war was first popularised by A. W, Kinglake, who portrayed the British as victims of newspaper sensationalism and duplicitous French and Ottoman diplomacy. More recently, the historians Andrew Lambert and Winfried Baumgart have argued that, first, Britain was following a geopolitical strategy in aiming to destroy a fledgling Russian Navy which might challenge the Royal Navy for control of the seas, and second that the war was a joint European response to a century of Russian expansion not just southwards but also into western Europe.

Question: Who made the view of diplomatic drift popular?


Answer: as victims

Question: What did A.W Kinglake make the British out to be?


Answer: Andrew Lambert and Winfried Baumgart

Question: Who believed Britain was following a strategy when trying to destroy Russian Navy?


Answer: British Columbia

Context: Russia feared losing Russian America without compensation in some future conflict, especially to the British. While Alaska attracted little interest at the time, the population of nearby British Columbia started to increase rapidly a few years after hostilities ended. Therefore, the Russian emperor, Alexander II, decided to sell Alaska. In 1859 the Russians offered to sell the territory to the United States, hoping that its presence in the region would offset the plans of Russia's greatest regional rival, the United Kingdom.

Question: What did the Russians fear losing without compensation?


Answer: British Columbia

Question: What province became more popular and saw a increase in population after the war?


Answer: Alexander II

Question: Who made the call to sell Alaska?


Answer: the United States

Question: Who did the Russians offer to sell Alaska to?


Answer: the United Kingdom

Question: Who is Russia's largest regional rival?


Answer: William Howard Russell

Context: Notable documentation of the war was provided by William Howard Russell (writing for The Times newspaper) and the photographs of Roger Fenton.:306–309 News from war correspondents reached all nations involved in the war and kept the public citizenry of those nations better informed of the day-to-day events of the war than had been the case in any other war to that date. The British public was very well informed regarding the day-to-day realities of the war in the Crimea. After the French extended the telegraph to the coast of the Black Sea during the winter of 1854, the news reached London in two days. When the British laid an underwater cable to the Crimean peninsula in April 1855, news reached London in a few hours. The daily news reports energised public opinion, which brought down the Aberdeen government and carried Lord Palmerston into office as prime minister.:304–11

Question: Who provided notable documentation of the war?


Answer: The Times

Question: William Howard Russell wrote for what newspaper at the time?


Answer: Roger Fenton

Question: Who's photographs accompanied William Howard Russell documentation?


Answer: the French

Question: Who extended the telegraph to the coast of the Black Sea?


Answer: two days

Question: After the telegraph was extended to the coast of the Black Sea, how long did it take news of the war to reach London?


Answer: the newspapers

Context: As the memory of the "Charge of the Light Brigade" demonstrates, the war became an iconic symbol of logistical, medical and tactical failures and mismanagement. Public opinion in the UK was outraged at the logistical and command failures of the war; the newspapers demanded drastic reforms, and parliamentary investigations demonstrated the multiple failures of the Army. However, the reform campaign was not well organized, and the traditional aristocratic leadership of the Army pulled itself together, and blocked all serious reforms. No one was punished. The outbreak of the Indian Revolution in 1857 shifted attention to the heroic defense of British interest by the army, and further talk of reform went nowhere. The demand for professionalization was, however, achieved by Florence Nightingale, who gained worldwide attention for pioneering and publicizing modern nursing while treating the wounded.:469–71

Question: Who demanded drastic reforms after the war?


Answer: 1857

Question: The outbreak of the Indian Revolution took place in what year?


Answer: Charge of the Light Brigade

Question: What poem demonstrates that the war became a symbol of failures?


Answer: The Crimean War

Context: The Crimean War also saw the first tactical use of railways and other modern inventions, such as the electric telegraph, with the first "live" war reporting to The Times by William Howard Russell. Some credit Russell with prompting the resignation of the sitting British government through his reporting of the lacklustre condition of British forces deployed in Crimea. Additionally, the telegraph reduced the independence of British overseas possessions from their commanders in London due to such rapid communications. Newspaper readership informed public opinion in the United Kingdom and France as never before. It was the first European war to be photographed.

Question: The tactical use of railways was first used during what war?


Answer: William Howard Russell

Question: Who gave the first live war report?


Answer: prompting the resignation of the sitting British government

Question: Due to his reporting skills, some give Russell credit for doing what?


Answer: the telegraph

Question: What reduced the independence of British overseas possessions from their commanders in London?


Answer: The Crimean War

Question: What was the first European war to be photographed?


Answer: deemed to have artistic or intellectual value

Context: Literature consists of written productions, often restricted to those deemed to have artistic or intellectual value. Its Latin root literatura/litteratura (derived itself from littera, letter or handwriting) was used to refer to all written accounts, but intertwined with the roman concept of cultura: learning or cultivation. Literature often uses language differently than ordinary language (see literariness). Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose; it can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama; and works are often categorised according to historical periods or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre).

Question: What two key elements that distinguish literature as a written form of art?


Answer: fiction or non-fiction

Question: What are two major divisions of literature?


Answer: poetry or prose

Question: Besides this major division, what are two other sub-divisions to describe literature?


Answer: the novel, short story or drama

Question: Prose literature can be sub-divided into what formats?


Answer: literatura/litteratura

Question: What words are the Latin roots of the word "literature?"


Answer: a "culturally relative definition"

Context: Definitions of literature have varied over time; it is a "culturally relative definition". In Western Europe prior to the eighteenth century, literature as a term indicated all books and writing. A more restricted sense of the term emerged during the Romantic period, in which it began to demarcate "imaginative" literature. Contemporary debates over what constitutes literature can be seen as returning to the older, more inclusive notion of what constitutes literature. Cultural studies, for instance, takes as its subject of analysis both popular and minority genres, in addition to canonical works.

Question: The changing nature of the meaning of the term "literature" can be described as what?


Answer: all books and writing

Question: In Western Europe until the 1700s, literature was a term used to describe what?


Answer: the Romantic period

Question: During what literary movement did the definition of literature begin to narrow?


Answer: it began to demarcate "imaginative" literature

Question: During that 18th century period, literature began to be applied how?


Answer: writing that possesses high quality or distinction

Context: The value judgement definition of literature considers it to exclusively include writing that possesses high quality or distinction, forming part of the so-called belles-lettres ('fine writing') tradition. This is the definition used in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–11) when it classifies literature as "the best expression of the best thought reduced to writing." However, this has the result that there is no objective definition of what constitutes "literature"; anything can be literature, and anything which is universally regarded as literature has the potential to be excluded, since value-judgements can change over time.

Question: What is the main component of the qualitative judgment definition of literature?


Answer: belles-lettres

Question: What French term for value-based literature literally translates as "fine writing?"


Answer: "the best expression of the best thought reduced to writing."

Question: Encyclopedia Britannica defined literature in its 1911 editions how?


Answer: anything which is universally regarded as literature has the potential to be excluded

Question: What effect does the evolving definition of literature have?


Answer: formalist

Context: The formalist definition is that the history of "literature" foregrounds poetic effects; it is the "literariness" or "poeticity" of literature that distinguishes it from ordinary speech or other kinds of writing (e.g., journalism). Jim Meyer considers this a useful characteristic in explaining the use of the term to mean published material in a particular field (e.g., "scientific literature"), as such writing must use language according to particular standards. The problem with the formalist definition is that in order to say that literature deviates from ordinary uses of language, those uses must first be identified; this is difficult because "ordinary language" is an unstable category, differing according to social categories and across history.

Question: A definition of literature that incorporates style and the poetic nature of prose is what?


Answer: journalism

Question: What is one example of writing that the formalist definition distinguishes literature from?


Answer: "ordinary language"

Question: What element of the formalist definition makes it difficult to apply?


Answer: an unstable category, differing according to social categories and across history

Question: What part of ordinary language makes it difficult to apply the formalist definition?


Answer: must use language according to particular standards

Question: The formalist definition when applied to industry writing allows it to be called literature when it does what?


Answer: aesthetic and rhythmic qualities

Context: Poetry is a form of literary art which uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, prosaic ostensible meaning. Poetry has traditionally been distinguished from prose by its being set in verse;[a] prose is cast in sentences, poetry in lines; the syntax of prose is dictated by meaning, whereas that of poetry is held across metre or the visual aspects of the poem. Prior to the nineteenth century, poetry was commonly understood to be something set in metrical lines; accordingly, in 1658 a definition of poetry is "any kind of subject consisting of Rythm or Verses". Possibly as a result of Aristotle's influence (his Poetics), "poetry" before the nineteenth century was usually less a technical designation for verse than a normative category of fictive or rhetorical art. As a form it may pre-date literacy, with the earliest works being composed within and sustained by an oral tradition; hence it constitutes the earliest example of literature.

Question: What elements of language make for poetic literature?


Answer: verse

Question: Poetry is usually differentiated from prose by what factor?


Answer: lines

Question: If prose uses sentences, what is the equivalent in poetry?


Answer: the nineteenth century

Question: Poetry was considered to need lines and meter until when?


Answer: literacy

Question: The structure of poetry may have existed before what?


Answer: Drama

Context: Drama is literature intended for performance. The form is often combined with music and dance, as in opera and musical theatre. A play is a subset of this form, referring to the written dramatic work of a playwright that is intended for performance in a theatre; it comprises chiefly dialogue between characters, and usually aims at dramatic or theatrical performance rather than at reading. A closet drama, by contrast, refers to a play written to be read rather than to be performed; hence, it is intended that the meaning of such a work can be realized fully on the page. Nearly all drama took verse form until comparatively recently.

Question: Literature intended for performance is what?


Answer: music and dance

Question: Drama is sometimes blended with what other elements?


Answer: opera and musical theatre

Question: What are two types of drama that incorporate music or dance?


Answer: A play

Question: Drama meant to be performed in a theater is what?


Answer: a playwright

Question: What do we call the author of a play?


Answer: Greek

Context: Greek drama exemplifies the earliest form of drama of which we have substantial knowledge. Tragedy, as a dramatic genre, developed as a performance associated with religious and civic festivals, typically enacting or developing upon well-known historical or mythological themes. Tragedies generally presented very serious themes. With the advent of newer technologies, scripts written for non-stage media have been added to this form. War of the Worlds (radio) in 1938 saw the advent of literature written for radio broadcast, and many works of Drama have been adapted for film or television. Conversely, television, film, and radio literature have been adapted to printed or electronic media.

Question: The earliest form of drama we know of was part of what culture?


Answer: performance associated with religious and civic festivals

Question: Tragedy was a dramatic style that evolved from what?


Answer: historical or mythological themes

Question: A tragedy typically involved what subject matter?


Answer: radio

Question: What media was the play War Of The Worlds written for?


Answer: 1938

Question: In what year was War Of The Worlds originally presented?


Answer: written records

Context: “The roots of all our modern academic fields can be found within the pages of literature.” Literature in all its forms can be seen as written records, whether the literature itself be factual or fictional, it is still quite possible to decipher facts through things like characters’ actions and words or the authors’ style of writing and the intent behind the words. The plot is for more than just entertainment purposes; within it lies information about economics, psychology, science, religions, politics, cultures, and social depth. Studying and analyzing literature becomes very important in terms of learning about our history. Through the study of past literature we are able to learn about how society has evolved and about the societal norms during each of the different periods all throughout history. This can even help us to understand references made in more modern literature because authors often make references to Greek mythology and other old religious texts or historical moments. Not only is there literature written on each of the aforementioned topics themselves, and how they have evolved throughout history (like a book about the history of economics or a book about evolution and science, for example) but we can also learn about these things in fictional works. Authors often include historical moments in their works, like when Lord Byron talks about the Spanish and the French in ‘‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: Canto I’’ and expresses his opinions through his character Childe Harold. Through literature we are able to continuously uncover new information about history. It is easy to see how all academic fields have roots in literature. Information became easier to pass down from generation to generation once we began to write it down. Eventually everything was written down, from things like home remedies and cures for illness, or how to build shelter to traditions and religious practices. From there people were able to study literature, improve on ideas, further our knowledge, and academic fields such as the medical field or trades could be started. In much the same way as the literature that we study today continue to be updated as we continue to evolve and learn more and more.

Question: Literature, regardless of how the definition is applied, can be interpreted as what?


Answer: our history

Question: We can learn what by carefully examining our literature?


Answer: Lord Byron

Question: Who wrote "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto I"?


Answer: once we began to write it down

Question: Passing information down through generations was made easier when our society did what?


Answer: Greek mythology and other old religious texts or historical moments

Question: Authors of literature frequently reference what antecedents?


Answer: Ancient China, Ancient India, Persia and Ancient Greece and Rome

Context: As a more urban culture developed, academies provided a means of transmission for speculative and philosophical literature in early civilizations, resulting in the prevalence of literature in Ancient China, Ancient India, Persia and Ancient Greece and Rome. Many works of earlier periods, even in narrative form, had a covert moral or didactic purpose, such as the Sanskrit Panchatantra or the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Drama and satire also developed as urban culture provided a larger public audience, and later readership, for literary production. Lyric poetry (as opposed to epic poetry) was often the speciality of courts and aristocratic circles, particularly in East Asia where songs were collected by the Chinese aristocracy as poems, the most notable being the Shijing or Book of Songs. Over a long period, the poetry of popular pre-literate balladry and song interpenetrated and eventually influenced poetry in the literary medium.

Question: What are some classical societies whose literature is still studied today?


Answer: a covert moral or didactic purpose

Question: Besides entertainment or informational value, classic literature also possessed what quality?


Answer: urban culture

Question: What societal evolution helped to develop drama and satire by providing a ready audience?


Answer: courts and aristocratic circles

Question: From what settings did lyric poetry derive?


Answer: the Shijing or Book of Songs

Question: What is an example of a collection of classic Chinese lyric poetry?


Answer: philosophy, historiography, military science, agriculture, and poetry

Context: In ancient China, early literature was primarily focused on philosophy, historiography, military science, agriculture, and poetry. China, the origin of modern paper making and woodblock printing, produced one of the world's first print cultures. Much of Chinese literature originates with the Hundred Schools of Thought period that occurred during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (769-269 BCE). The most important of these include the Classics of Confucianism, of Daoism, of Mohism, of Legalism, as well as works of military science (e.g. Sun Tzu's The Art of War) and Chinese history (e.g. Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian). Ancient Chinese literature had a heavy emphasis on historiography, with often very detailed court records. An exemplary piece of narrative history of ancient China was the Zuo Zhuan, which was compiled no later than 389 BCE, and attributed to the blind 5th century BCE historian Zuo Qiuming.

Question: Subjects featured in Ancient Chinese literature include what?


Answer: modern paper making and woodblock printing

Question: What two inventions helped make Chinese literature especially important and portable?


Answer: the Hundred Schools of Thought period

Question: What historic period was the foundry for classic Chinese literature in the ancient world?


Answer: The Art of War

Question: What classic work of war science originated during this period?


Answer: Sun Tzu

Question: Who wrote The Art Of War?


Answer: drama, fables, sutras and epic poetry

Context: In ancient India, literature originated from stories that were originally orally transmitted. Early genres included drama, fables, sutras and epic poetry. Sanskrit literature begins with the Vedas, dating back to 1500–1000 BCE, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India. The Vedas are among the oldest sacred texts. The Samhitas (vedic collections) date to roughly 1500–1000 BCE, and the "circum-Vedic" texts, as well as the redaction of the Samhitas, date to c. 1000-500 BCE, resulting in a Vedic period, spanning the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BCE, or the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The period between approximately the 6th to 1st centuries BC saw the composition and redaction of the two most influential Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, with subsequent redaction progressing down to the 4th century AD.

Question: What were some different genres that emerged from ancient India's oral literary traditions?


Answer: Sanskrit

Question: An important language for ancient Indian literature is what?


Answer: The Vedas

Question: What ancient religious scriptures were among the first examples of Indian literature?


Answer: the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BCE

Question: The Vedic Period refers to what expanse of time?


Answer: the Iron Age

Question: The Vedic Period began in the Late Bronze Age and extended until when?


Answer: the Iliad and the Odyssey

Context: In ancient Greece, the epics of Homer, who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Hesiod, who wrote Works and Days and Theogony, are some of the earliest, and most influential, of Ancient Greek literature. Classical Greek genres included philosophy, poetry, historiography, comedies and dramas. Plato and Aristotle authored philosophical texts that are the foundation of Western philosophy, Sappho and Pindar were influential lyric poets, and Herodotus and Thucydides were early Greek historians. Although drama was popular in Ancient Greece, of the hundreds of tragedies written and performed during the classical age, only a limited number of plays by three authors still exist: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The plays of Aristophanes provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy, the earliest form of Greek Comedy, and are in fact used to define the genre.

Question: What two epic narratives were written by Homer?


Answer: Hesiod

Question: Who wrote Works and Days and Theogony?


Answer: philosophical texts

Question: Plato and Aristotle wrote what type of literature?


Answer: Sappho and Pindar

Question: Who were two important Classic Greek lyric poets?


Answer: Herodotus and Thucydides

Question: The two great ancient Greek historians were?


Answer: Roman

Context: Roman histories and biographies anticipated the extensive mediaeval literature of lives of saints and miraculous chronicles, but the most characteristic form of the Middle Ages was the romance, an adventurous and sometimes magical narrative with strong popular appeal. Controversial, religious, political and instructional literature proliferated during the Renaissance as a result of the invention of printing, while the mediaeval romance developed into a more character-based and psychological form of narrative, the novel, of which early and important examples are the Chinese Monkey and the German Faust books.

Question: Much medieval literature was influenced by the works of what classic culture?


Answer: the romance

Question: What form of literature enjoyed the most widespread popularity during the Middle Ages?


Answer: an adventurous and sometimes magical narrative

Question: What element is characteristic of a medieval romance?


Answer: the invention of printing

Question: What helped cause the widespread appearance of multiple forms of literature in the Renaissance?


Answer: the German Faust books

Question: What is an early example of the novel form of literature from Europe?


Answer: Romanticism

Context: In the Age of Reason philosophical tracts and speculations on history and human nature integrated literature with social and political developments. The inevitable reaction was the explosion of Romanticism in the later 18th century which reclaimed the imaginative and fantastical bias of old romances and folk-literature and asserted the primacy of individual experience and emotion. But as the 19th-century went on, European fiction evolved towards realism and naturalism, the meticulous documentation of real life and social trends. Much of the output of naturalism was implicitly polemical, and influenced social and political change, but 20th century fiction and drama moved back towards the subjective, emphasising unconscious motivations and social and environmental pressures on the individual. Writers such as Proust, Eliot, Joyce, Kafka and Pirandello exemplify the trend of documenting internal rather than external realities.

Question: What literary movement in the 1700s recalled the fantastical literature of medieval times?


Answer: realism and naturalism

Question: What elements in 19th century European literature were a reaction to the romanticism movement?


Answer: individual experience and emotion

Question: What are two elements prevalent among characters at the center of romanticism works?


Answer: influenced social and political change

Question: How did naturalism effect the greater world?


Answer: the subjective

Question: 20th century literature reacted to the objectivity of naturalism in the 19th century to what?


Answer: Genre fiction

Context: Genre fiction also showed it could question reality in its 20th century forms, in spite of its fixed formulas, through the enquiries of the skeptical detective and the alternative realities of science fiction. The separation of "mainstream" and "genre" forms (including journalism) continued to blur during the period up to our own times. William Burroughs, in his early works, and Hunter S. Thompson expanded documentary reporting into strong subjective statements after the second World War, and post-modern critics have disparaged the idea of objective realism in general.

Question: What sub-group of literature emerged in the 20th century?


Answer: science fiction

Question: Alternative reality genre fiction is also known as what?


Answer: William Burroughs, in his early works, and Hunter S. Thompson

Question: Who were two 20th century writers who blurred the lines between journalism and literature?


Answer: strong subjective statements

Question: By what means did these two writers create and emergent convergence of literature and journalism?


Answer: post-modern

Question: Critics based in what movement find fault in objective realism?


Answer: advances and specialization

Context: As advances and specialization have made new scientific research inaccessible to most audiences, the "literary" nature of science writing has become less pronounced over the last two centuries. Now, science appears mostly in journals. Scientific works of Aristotle, Copernicus, and Newton still exhibit great value, but since the science in them has largely become outdated, they no longer serve for scientific instruction. Yet, they remain too technical to sit well in most programmes of literary study. Outside of "history of science" programmes, students rarely read such works.

Question: What two elements have reduced the literary nature of scientific journals?


Answer: journals

Question: The segregation of science writing means that articles in those subjects primarily appear where?


Answer: Aristotle, Copernicus, and Newton

Question: The work of what classical scientists is caught between being outdated and of literary importance?


Answer: "history of science" programmes

Question: In what coursework is one still likely to encounter the works of these classic scientists?


Answer: Philosophy

Context: Philosophy has become an increasingly academic discipline. More of its practitioners lament this situation than occurs with the sciences; nonetheless most new philosophical work appears in academic journals. Major philosophers through history—Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Augustine, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche—have become as canonical as any writers. Some recent philosophy works are argued to merit the title "literature", but much of it does not, and some areas, such as logic, have become extremely technical to a degree similar to that of mathematics.

Question: What classic area of study is now mostly reserved for academic consideration?


Answer: academic journals

Question: Most serious studies in philosophy are segregated to what publications?


Answer: Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Augustine, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche

Question: Who are some of the most important philosophers in history?


Answer: logic

Question: What aspect of modern academic philosophy is less literary than technical in nature?


Answer: mathematics

Question: Serious studies in logic tend to resemble what discipline, moreso than literature?


Answer: intimate emotional aspects

Context: Literature allows readers to access intimate emotional aspects of a person’s character that would not be obvious otherwise. It benefits the psychological development and understanding of the reader. For example, it allows a person to access emotional states from which the person has distanced himself or herself. An entry written by D. Mitchell featured in ‘‘The English Journal’’ explains how the author utilized young adult literature in order to re-experience the emotional psychology she experienced as a child which she describes as a state of “wonder”.

Question: Literature gives the reader insights into what areas of its characters?


Answer: It benefits the psychological development and understanding

Question: How does literary fiction aid the person who reads it?


Answer: D. Mitchell

Question: What writer's entry in "The English Journal" was concerned with young adult fiction?


Answer: to re-experience the emotional psychology she experienced as a child

Question: Why did this author embrace young adult literature as a grownup?


Answer: “wonder”

Question: How did the writer refer to this psychological state experienced as a youth?


Answer: by provoking universal emotions

Context: Hogan also explains that the temporal and emotional amount which a person devotes to understanding a character’s situation in literature allows literature to be considered “ecological[ly] valid in the study of emotion”. This can be understood in the sense that literature unites a large community by provoking universal emotions. It also allows readers to access cultural aspects that they are not exposed to thus provoking new emotional experiences. Authors choose literary device according to what psychological emotion he or she is attempting to describe, thus certain literary devices are more emotionally effective than others.

Question: How does literature unite members of a society?


Answer: allows readers to access cultural aspects that they are not exposed to

Question: How does literature expand the horizons of its readers?


Answer: what psychological emotion he or she is attempting to describe

Question: What determines what literary structure a literary author uses for expression of ideas?


Answer: literary devices

Question: What are the levers an author uses in literature to describe a psychological emotion?


Answer: Maslow

Context: Maslow’s ‘‘Third Force Psychology Theory’’ even allows literary analysts to critically understand how characters reflect the culture and the history in which they are contextualized. It also allows analysts to understand the author’s intended message and to understand the author’s psychology. The theory suggests that human beings possess a nature within them that demonstrates their true “self” and it suggests that the fulfillment of this nature is the reason for living. It also suggests that neurological development hinders actualizing the nature because a person becomes estranged from his or her true self. Therefore, literary devices reflect a characters’s and an author’s natural self. In his ‘‘Third Force Psychology and the Study of Literature’’, Paris argues “D.H Lawrence’s “pristine unconscious” is a metaphor for the real self”. Thus Literature is a reputable tool that allows readers to develop and apply critical reasoning to the nature of emotions.

Question: Who conceived of "The Third Force Psychology Theory?"


Answer: a nature within them that demonstrates their true “self”

Question: The theory states that at the center of humans beings is what?


Answer: the reason for living

Question: The theory suggests that the quest for this nature represents what?


Answer: neurological development

Question: What causes a person to become separated from their "true self"?


Answer: D.H Lawrence

Question: What author espoused the theory of the "pristine unconscious?"


Answer: creative nonfiction

Context: A significant portion of historical writing ranks as literature, particularly the genre known as creative nonfiction, as can a great deal of journalism, such as literary journalism. However, these areas have become extremely large, and often have a primarily utilitarian purpose: to record data or convey immediate information. As a result, the writing in these fields often lacks a literary quality, although it often(and in its better moments)has that quality. Major "literary" historians include Herodotus, Thucydides and Procopius, all of whom count as canonical literary figures.

Question: What is literary historical writing sometimes called?


Answer: literary journalism

Question: Reporting that attempts a creative or literary bent is sometimes called what?


Answer: to record data or convey immediate information

Question: What is the main function of journalism or historical documentation?


Answer: Herodotus, Thucydides and Procopius

Question: Who are some classic historians regarded as literary historians?


Answer: Hammurabi

Context: Law offers more ambiguity. Some writings of Plato and Aristotle, the law tables of Hammurabi of Babylon, or even the early parts of the Bible could be seen as legal literature. Roman civil law as codified in the Corpus Juris Civilis during the reign of Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire has a reputation as significant literature. The founding documents of many countries, including Constitutions and Law Codes, can count as literature; however, most legal writings rarely exhibit much literary merit, as they tend to be rather Written by Samuel Dean.

Question: What Babylonian ruler created formal law tables?


Answer: the Bible

Question: What religious scripture can be fit into a large, loose definition of legal literature?


Answer: the Corpus Juris Civilis

Question: Roman civil law was written and codified into a unified system by what group?


Answer: Justinian I

Question: Under what Emperor did this group sit?


Answer: the Byzantine Empire

Question: What empire did Justinian preside over?


Answer: produce specific effects

Context: A literary technique or literary device can be used by authors in order to enhance the written framework of a piece of literature, and produce specific effects. Literary techniques encompass a wide range of approaches to crafting a work: whether a work is narrated in first-person or from another perspective, whether to use a traditional linear narrative or a nonlinear narrative, or the choice of literary genre, are all examples of literary technique. They may indicate to a reader that there is a familiar structure and presentation to a work, such as a conventional murder-mystery novel; or, the author may choose to experiment with their technique to surprise the reader.

Question: Literary devices are employed for what reason?


Answer: first-person

Question: What is one form of narration in literature?


Answer: linear narrative or a nonlinear narrative

Question: What are two types of narrative structure in literature?


Answer: to surprise the reader

Question: Why would an author utilize experimental narratives in literature?


Answer: a conventional murder-mystery novel

Question: In what type of writing would a more familiar, standard literary narrative structure be employed?


Answer: the Islamic Golden Age

Context: Ibn Sina created an extensive corpus of works during what is commonly known as the Islamic Golden Age, in which the translations of Greco-Roman, Persian, and Indian texts were studied extensively. Greco-Roman (Mid- and Neo-Platonic, and Aristotelian) texts translated by the Kindi school were commented, redacted and developed substantially by Islamic intellectuals, who also built upon Persian and Indian mathematical systems, astronomy, algebra, trigonometry and medicine. The Samanid dynasty in the eastern part of Persia, Greater Khorasan and Central Asia as well as the Buyid dynasty in the western part of Persia and Iraq provided a thriving atmosphere for scholarly and cultural development. Under the Samanids, Bukhara rivaled Baghdad as a cultural capital of the Islamic world.

Question: What was the term used to describe the age in which Ibn Sina created a big body of work?


Answer: Persian

Question: What is one example of the type of translations done in the Islamic Golden Age?


Answer: the Kindi school

Question: What school translated Greco-Roman texts during the Islamic Golden Age?


Answer: the Buyid dynasty

Question: What was one dynasty that provided a great atmosphere for cultural development?


Answer: Baghdad

Question: What city was known as a cultural capital of the Islamic world?


Answer: theology

Context: The study of the Quran and the Hadith thrived in such a scholarly atmosphere. Philosophy, Fiqh and theology (kalaam) were further developed, most noticeably by Avicenna and his opponents. Al-Razi and Al-Farabi had provided methodology and knowledge in medicine and philosophy. Avicenna had access to the great libraries of Balkh, Khwarezm, Gorgan, Rey, Isfahan and Hamadan. Various texts (such as the 'Ahd with Bahmanyar) show that he debated philosophical points with the greatest scholars of the time. Aruzi Samarqandi describes how before Avicenna left Khwarezm he had met Al-Biruni (a famous scientist and astronomer), Abu Nasr Iraqi (a renowned mathematician), Abu Sahl Masihi (a respected philosopher) and Abu al-Khayr Khammar (a great physician).

Question: What was one subject that Avicenna further developed?


Answer: Al-Farabi

Question: Who is another philosopher during this Islamic Golden Age?


Answer: Hamadan

Question: What is the name of one library that Avicenna had access to?


Answer: Al-Biruni

Question: Who was the famous astronomer that Avicenna met before he left Khwarezm?


Answer: the 'Ahd with Bahmanyar

Question: What text was proof that Avicenna debated philosophy with some of the greatest scholars of the time?


Answer: Uzbekistan

Context: Avicenna was born c. 980 in Afšana, a village near Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan), the capital of the Samanids, a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan. His mother, named Setareh, was from Bukhara; his father, Abdullah, was a respected Ismaili scholar from Balkh, an important town of the Samanid Empire, in what is today Balkh Province, Afghanistan, although this is not universally agreed upon. His father worked in the government of Samanid in the village Kharmasain, a Sunni regional power. After five years, his younger brother, Mahmoud, was born. Avicenna first began to learn the Quran and literature in such a way that when he was ten years old he had essentially learned all of them.

Question: What present-day country was Avicenna born in?


Answer: Bukhara

Question: What Samanid dynasty capital was Avicenna born near?


Answer: Afghanistan

Question: What present-day country is Avicenna's father thought to have come from?


Answer: Setareh

Question: What was Avicenna's mother's name?


Answer: ten

Question: By what age had Avicenna learned the entire Quran?


Answer: the Brethren of Purity

Context: A number of theories have been proposed regarding Avicenna's madhab (school of thought within Islamic jurisprudence). Medieval historian Ẓahīr al-dīn al-Bayhaqī (d. 1169) considered Avicenna to be a follower of the Brethren of Purity. On the other hand, Dimitri Gutas along with Aisha Khan and Jules J. Janssens demonstrated that Avicenna was a Sunni Hanafi. However, the 14th cenutry Shia faqih Nurullah Shushtari according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, maintained that he was most likely a Twelver Shia. Conversely, Sharaf Khorasani, citing a rejection of an invitation of the Sunni Governor Sultan Mahmoud Ghazanavi by Avicenna to his court, believes that Avicenna was an Ismaili. Similar disagreements exist on the background of Avicenna's family, whereas some writers considered them Sunni, some more recent writers contested that they were Shia.

Question: What secret society was Avicenna considered to be a follower of?


Answer: Medieval historian Ẓahīr al-dīn al-Bayhaqī

Question: Who thought that Avicenna was a Brethren of Purity follower?


Answer: Sunni

Question: What Islamic denomination was Avicenna thought to be a member of?


Answer: Nurullah Shushtari

Question: Who thought Avicenna was a Shia?


Answer: Jules J. Janssens

Question: What was the name of one man who thought Avicenna was Sunni?


Answer: Quran

Context: According to his autobiography, Avicenna had memorised the entire Quran by the age of 10. He learned Indian arithmetic from an Indian greengrocer,ءMahmoud Massahi and he began to learn more from a wandering scholar who gained a livelihood by curing the sick and teaching the young. He also studied Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) under the Sunni Hanafi scholar Ismail al-Zahid. Avicenna was taught some extent of philosophy books such as Introduction (Isagoge)'s Porphyry (philosopher), Euclid's Elements, Ptolemy's Almagest by an unpopular philosopher, Abu Abdullah Nateli, who claimed philosophizing.

Question: What had Avicenna memorized by the age of 10?


Answer: ءMahmoud Massahi

Question: Who did Avicenna learn Indian arithmetic from?


Answer: Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence)

Question: What did Avicenna learn from the Sunni scholar Ismail al-Zahid?


Answer: Euclid's Elements

Question: What was one philosophy book that Avicenna was taught from?


Answer: Abu Abdullah Nateli

Question: What unpopular philosopher's text did Avicenna learn from?


Answer: the Metaphysics of Aristotle

Context: As a teenager, he was greatly troubled by the Metaphysics of Aristotle, which he could not understand until he read al-Farabi's commentary on the work. For the next year and a half, he studied philosophy, in which he encountered greater obstacles. In such moments of baffled inquiry, he would leave his books, perform the requisite ablutions, then go to the mosque, and continue in prayer till light broke on his difficulties. Deep into the night, he would continue his studies, and even in his dreams problems would pursue him and work out their solution. Forty times, it is said, he read through the Metaphysics of Aristotle, till the words were imprinted on his memory; but their meaning was hopelessly obscure, until one day they found illumination, from the little commentary by Farabi, which he bought at a bookstall for the small sum of three dirhams. So great was his joy at the discovery, made with the help of a work from which he had expected only mystery, that he hastened to return thanks to God, and bestowed alms upon the poor.

Question: What text could Avicenna not understand?


Answer: al-Farabi's commentary

Question: What helped Avicenna understand the Metaphysics of Aristotle?


Answer: year and a half

Question: How long did Avicenna study philosophy?


Answer: Forty times

Question: How many times did Avicenna read through the Metaphysics of Aristotle?


Answer: three dirhams

Question: How much did Avicenna pay for the book that helped him understand the Aristotle text?


Answer: 16

Context: He turned to medicine at 16, and not only learned medical theory, but also by gratuitous attendance of the sick had, according to his own account, discovered new methods of treatment. The teenager achieved full status as a qualified physician at age 18, and found that "Medicine is no hard and thorny science, like mathematics and metaphysics, so I soon made great progress; I became an excellent doctor and began to treat patients, using approved remedies." The youthful physician's fame spread quickly, and he treated many patients without asking for payment.

Question: At what age did Avicenna turn to away from philosophy?


Answer: medicine

Question: What subject did Avicenna start studying at 16?


Answer: 18

Question: Avicenna became a qualified physician at what age?


Answer: mathematics

Question: Avicenna found medicine to be much easier than what subject?


Answer: the emir, Nuh II

Context: Ibn Sina's first appointment was that of physician to the emir, Nuh II, who owed him his recovery from a dangerous illness (997). Ibn Sina's chief reward for this service was access to the royal library of the Samanids, well-known patrons of scholarship and scholars. When the library was destroyed by fire not long after, the enemies of Ibn Sina accused him of burning it, in order for ever to conceal the sources of his knowledge. Meanwhile, he assisted his father in his financial labors, but still found time to write some of his earliest works.

Question: Who was Ibn Sina's first appontment?


Answer: access to the royal library of the Samanids

Question: What did Ibn Sina receive as payment for helping the emir?


Answer: to conceal the sources of his knowledge

Question: Why did some accuse Ibn Sina of burning down the royal library?


Answer: his father

Question: Who did Ibn Sina assist in his financial labors?


Answer: 997

Question: What year did the emir Null II recover from his illness?


Answer: 22

Context: When Ibn Sina was 22 years old, he lost his father. The Samanid dynasty came to its end in December 1004. Ibn Sina seems to have declined the offers of Mahmud of Ghazni, and proceeded westwards to Urgench in modern Turkmenistan, where the vizier, regarded as a friend of scholars, gave him a small monthly stipend. The pay was small, however, so Ibn Sina wandered from place to place through the districts of Nishapur and Merv to the borders of Khorasan, seeking an opening for his talents. Qabus, the generous ruler of Tabaristan, himself a poet and a scholar, with whom Ibn Sina had expected to find asylum, was on about that date (1012) starved to death by his troops who had revolted. Ibn Sina himself was at this time stricken by a severe illness. Finally, at Gorgan, near the Caspian Sea, Ibn Sina met with a friend, who bought a dwelling near his own house in which Ibn Sina lectured on logic and astronomy. Several of Ibn Sina's treatises were written for this patron; and the commencement of his Canon of Medicine also dates from his stay in Hyrcania.

Question: At what age did Avicenna lose his father?


Answer: The Samanid dynasty

Question: What dynasty ended in December 1004?


Answer: Turkmenistan

Question: What modern country did Ibn Sina travel to after the end of the Samanid dynasty?


Answer: Nishapur

Question: What is one district that Ibn Sina traveled through in search of more work?


Answer: Mahmud of Ghazni

Question: Who did Ibn Sina turn down in order to travel westwards after the Samanid dynasty ended?


Answer: Rey

Context: Ibn Sina subsequently settled at Rey, in the vicinity of modern Tehran, the home town of Rhazes; where Majd Addaula, a son of the last Buwayhid emir, was nominal ruler under the regency of his mother (Seyyedeh Khatun). About thirty of Ibn Sina's shorter works are said to have been composed in Rey. Constant feuds which raged between the regent and her second son, Shams al-Daula, however, compelled the scholar to quit the place. After a brief sojourn at Qazvin he passed southwards to Hamadãn where Shams al-Daula, another Buwayhid emir, had established himself. At first, Ibn Sina entered into the service of a high-born lady; but the emir, hearing of his arrival, called him in as medical attendant, and sent him back with presents to his dwelling. Ibn Sina was even raised to the office of vizier. The emir decreed that he should be banished from the country. Ibn Sina, however, remained hidden for forty days in sheikh Ahmed Fadhel's house, until a fresh attack of illness induced the emir to restore him to his post. Even during this perturbed time, Ibn Sina persevered with his studies and teaching. Every evening, extracts from his great works, the Canon and the Sanatio, were dictated and explained to his pupils. On the death of the emir, Ibn Sina ceased to be vizier and hid himself in the house of an apothecary, where, with intense assiduity, he continued the composition of his works.

Question: What city did Ibn Sina settle in?


Answer: Tehran

Question: What modern city of today was Rey in the vicinity of?


Answer: thirty

Question: How many of Ibn Sina's shorter works were said to have been created in Rey?


Answer: Hamadãn

Question: Ibn Sina left Rey and moved southwards to what city?


Answer: office of vizier

Question: What office did Ibn Sina receive in Hamadan?


Answer: city of Isfahan

Context: Meanwhile, he had written to Abu Ya'far, the prefect of the dynamic city of Isfahan, offering his services. The new emir of Hamadan, hearing of this correspondence and discovering where Ibn Sina was hiding, incarcerated him in a fortress. War meanwhile continued between the rulers of Isfahan and Hamadãn; in 1024 the former captured Hamadan and its towns, expelling the Tajik mercenaries. When the storm had passed, Ibn Sina returned with the emir to Hamadan, and carried on his literary labors. Later, however, accompanied by his brother, a favorite pupil, and two slaves, Ibn Sina escaped from the city in the dress of a Sufi ascetic. After a perilous journey, they reached Isfahan, receiving an honorable welcome from the prince.

Question: Where did Ibn Sina hope to flee to after Hamadan?


Answer: Isfahan and Hamadãn

Question: What two cities were at war during this time?


Answer: 1024

Question: What year did Isfahan gain victory over Hamadan?


Answer: the Tajik

Question: What mercenaries were expelled after Isfahan's victory over Hamadan?


Answer: in the dress of a Sufi ascetic

Question: How did Ibn Sina escape from Hamadan?


Answer: Arabic

Context: Ibn Sīnā wrote extensively on early Islamic philosophy, especially the subjects logic, ethics, and metaphysics, including treatises named Logic and Metaphysics. Most of his works were written in Arabic – then the language of science in the Middle East – and some in Persian. Of linguistic significance even to this day are a few books that he wrote in nearly pure Persian language (particularly the Danishnamah-yi 'Ala', Philosophy for Ala' ad-Dawla'). Ibn Sīnā's commentaries on Aristotle often criticized the philosopher,[citation needed] encouraging a lively debate in the spirit of ijtihad.

Question: In what language was most of Ibn Sina's works written in?


Answer: ethics

Question: What is one subject that Ibn SIna specialized in?


Answer: Persian

Question: Ibn Sina also wrote some of his works in what other language?


Answer: Aristotle

Question: What famous philosopher did Ibn Sina criticize heavily?


Answer: Metaphysics

Question: What is one of the subjects of a treatise by Ibn Sina?


Answer: Latin

Context: His Book of Healing became available in Europe in partial Latin translation some fifty years after its composition, under the title Sufficientia, and some authors have identified a "Latin Avicennism" as flourishing for some time, paralleling the more influential Latin Averroism, but suppressed by the Parisian decrees of 1210 and 1215. Avicenna's psychology and theory of knowledge influenced William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris and Albertus Magnus, while his metaphysics had an impact on the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

Question: Ibn Sina's Book of Healing was partially available in what language?


Answer: fifty

Question: How many years did it take for Ibn Sina's Book of Healing to be available in Latin?


Answer: Europe

Question: On what continent was the Book of Healing finally available fifty years after its composition?


Answer: Sufficientia

Question: What was the title of Ibn Sina's Book of Healing?


Answer: Thomas Aquinas

Question: Who did Avicenna's metaphysics works have an influence on?


Answer: essence and existence

Context: Early Islamic philosophy and Islamic metaphysics, imbued as it is with Islamic theology, distinguishes more clearly than Aristotelianism between essence and existence. Whereas existence is the domain of the contingent and the accidental, essence endures within a being beyond the accidental. The philosophy of Ibn Sīnā, particularly that part relating to metaphysics, owes much to al-Farabi. The search for a definitive Islamic philosophy separate from Occasionalism can be seen in what is left of his work.

Question: What does Islamic philosophy more clearly explain than Aristotelianism?


Answer: al-Farabi

Question: Who does Ibn Sina's philosophy owe much to?


Answer: Islamic theology

Question: What is early Islamic metaphysics imbued with?


Answer: the question of being

Context: Following al-Farabi's lead, Avicenna initiated a full-fledged inquiry into the question of being, in which he distinguished between essence (Mahiat) and existence (Wujud). He argued that the fact of existence can not be inferred from or accounted for by the essence of existing things, and that form and matter by themselves cannot interact and originate the movement of the universe or the progressive actualization of existing things. Existence must, therefore, be due to an agent-cause that necessitates, imparts, gives, or adds existence to an essence. To do so, the cause must be an existing thing and coexist with its effect.

Question: What did Avicenna start an inquiry into?


Answer: essence (Mahiat) and existence (Wujud)

Question: What two points did he write about?


Answer: al-Farabi

Question: Who also began an inquiry into the question of being?


Answer: Wujud

Question: What is the Arabic term for existence?


Answer: essence

Question: Mahiat is Arabic for what?


Answer: necessity

Context: Avicenna's consideration of the essence-attributes question may be elucidated in terms of his ontological analysis of the modalities of being; namely impossibility, contingency, and necessity. Avicenna argued that the impossible being is that which cannot exist, while the contingent in itself (mumkin bi-dhatihi) has the potentiality to be or not to be without entailing a contradiction. When actualized, the contingent becomes a 'necessary existent due to what is other than itself' (wajib al-wujud bi-ghayrihi). Thus, contingency-in-itself is potential beingness that could eventually be actualized by an external cause other than itself. The metaphysical structures of necessity and contingency are different. Necessary being due to itself (wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi) is true in itself, while the contingent being is 'false in itself' and 'true due to something else other than itself'. The necessary is the source of its own being without borrowed existence. It is what always exists.

Question: What is one modality of being that Avicenna analyzed?


Answer: contingency-in-itself

Question: According to Avicenna, what could eventually be actualized by an external cause?


Answer: the source of its own being without borrowed existence

Question: What is the necessary according to Avicenna?


Answer: The necessary

Question: According to Avicenna, what always exists?


Answer: false in itself

Question: If necessary being is true in itself, what is contingent?


Answer: Its-Self

Context: The Necessary exists 'due-to-Its-Self', and has no quiddity/essence (mahiyya) other than existence (wujud). Furthermore, It is 'One' (wahid ahad) since there cannot be more than one 'Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself' without differentia (fasl) to distinguish them from each other. Yet, to require differentia entails that they exist 'due-to-themselves' as well as 'due to what is other than themselves'; and this is contradictory. However, if no differentia distinguishes them from each other, then there is no sense in which these 'Existents' are not one and the same. Avicenna adds that the 'Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself' has no genus (jins), nor a definition (hadd), nor a counterpart (nadd), nor an opposite (did), and is detached (bari) from matter (madda), quality (kayf), quantity (kam), place (ayn), situation (wad), and time (waqt).

Question: The necessary exists due to what?


Answer: a definition

Question: What is something that the necessary does not have?


Answer: wad

Question: What is the Arabic for situation?


Answer: time

Question: What is one thing that the Necessary is detached from?


Answer: Muslim

Context: Avicenna was a devout Muslim and sought to reconcile rational philosophy with Islamic theology. His aim was to prove the existence of God and His creation of the world scientifically and through reason and logic. Avicenna's views on Islamic theology (and philosophy) were enormously influential, forming part of the core of the curriculum at Islamic religious schools until the 19th century. Avicenna wrote a number of short treatises dealing with Islamic theology. These included treatises on the prophets (whom he viewed as "inspired philosophers"), and also on various scientific and philosophical interpretations of the Quran, such as how Quranic cosmology corresponds to his own philosophical system. In general these treatises linked his philosophical writings to Islamic religious ideas; for example, the body's afterlife.

Question: What religion was Avicenna?


Answer: rational philosophy

Question: What did Avicenna want to reconcile with Islamic theology?


Answer: prove the existence of God

Question: What did Avicenna hope to do through his work?


Answer: 19th century

Question: Up until what century was Avicenna's work highly influential?


Answer: the prophets

Question: Who did Avicenna view as inspired philosophers?


Answer: philosophy

Context: There are occasional brief hints and allusions in his longer works however that Avicenna considered philosophy as the only sensible way to distinguish real prophecy from illusion. He did not state this more clearly because of the political implications of such a theory, if prophecy could be questioned, and also because most of the time he was writing shorter works which concentrated on explaining his theories on philosophy and theology clearly, without digressing to consider epistemological matters which could only be properly considered by other philosophers.

Question: What did Avicenna consider to be the only way to distinguish real philosophy from illusion?


Answer: the political implications of such a theory

Question: What did Avicenna fear about stating his theories on philosophy more clearly?


Answer: epistemological matters

Question: What did Avicenna not consider when explaining his theories on philosophy?


Answer: al-Razi

Context: Later interpretations of Avicenna's philosophy split into three different schools; those (such as al-Tusi) who continued to apply his philosophy as a system to interpret later political events and scientific advances; those (such as al-Razi) who considered Avicenna's theological works in isolation from his wider philosophical concerns; and those (such as al-Ghazali) who selectively used parts of his philosophy to support their own attempts to gain greater spiritual insights through a variety of mystical means. It was the theological interpretation championed by those such as al-Razi which eventually came to predominate in the madrasahs.

Question: Which interpretation of Avicenna's work was more taught in Islamic schools?


Answer: three

Question: Interpretations of Avicenna's work split into how many different schools?


Answer: al-Ghazali

Question: Who used only parts of Avicenna's works to support their own great spiritual insights?


Answer: al-Tusi

Question: Who used Avicenna's work to help understand future political events?


Answer: madrasahs

Question: What are Islamic schools also known as?


Answer: the castle of Fardajan

Context: While he was imprisoned in the castle of Fardajan near Hamadhan, Avicenna wrote his famous "Floating Man" – literally falling man – thought experiment to demonstrate human self-awareness and the substantiality and immateriality of the soul. Avicenna believed his "Floating Man" thought experiment demonstrated that the soul is a substance, and claimed humans cannot doubt their own consciousness, even in a situation that prevents all sensory data input. The thought experiment told its readers to imagine themselves created all at once while suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies. He argued that, in this scenario, one would still have self-consciousness. Because it is conceivable that a person, suspended in air while cut off from sense experience, would still be capable of determining his own existence, the thought experiment points to the conclusions that the soul is a perfection, independent of the body, and an immaterial substance. The conceivability of this "Floating Man" indicates that the soul is perceived intellectually, which entails the soul's separateness from the body. Avicenna referred to the living human intelligence, particularly the active intellect, which he believed to be the hypostasis by which God communicates truth to the human mind and imparts order and intelligibility to nature. Following is an English translation of the argument:

Question: Where was Avicenna once imprisoned?


Answer: "Floating Man"

Question: What did Avicenna write while he was imprisoned?


Answer: a substance

Question: What was the soul according to Avicenna?


Answer: intellectually

Question: How is the soul perceived according to Avicenna's work "Floating Man"?


Answer: suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations

Question: How did Avicenna want man to think of themselves as?


Answer: the brain

Context: However, Avicenna posited the brain as the place where reason interacts with sensation. Sensation prepares the soul to receive rational concepts from the universal Agent Intellect. The first knowledge of the flying person would be "I am," affirming his or her essence. That essence could not be the body, obviously, as the flying person has no sensation. Thus, the knowledge that "I am" is the core of a human being: the soul exists and is self-aware. Avicenna thus concluded that the idea of the self is not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance. The body is unnecessary; in relation to it, the soul is its perfection. In itself, the soul is an immaterial substance.

Question: Where did reason interact with sensation according to Avicenna?


Answer: Intellect

Question: What is the universal agent?


Answer: the knowledge that "I am"

Question: In Avicenna's work "Floating Man", what is the core of a human being?


Answer: the soul

Question: What is the body's perfection?


Answer: the body

Question: In Avicenna's "Floating Man", what could the essence of a person not be?


Answer: Aristotle

Context: In the Al-Burhan (On Demonstration) section of The Book of Healing, Avicenna discussed the philosophy of science and described an early scientific method of inquiry. He discusses Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and significantly diverged from it on several points. Avicenna discussed the issue of a proper methodology for scientific inquiry and the question of "How does one acquire the first principles of a science?" He asked how a scientist would arrive at "the initial axioms or hypotheses of a deductive science without inferring them from some more basic premises?" He explains that the ideal situation is when one grasps that a "relation holds between the terms, which would allow for absolute, universal certainty." Avicenna then adds two further methods for arriving at the first principles: the ancient Aristotelian method of induction (istiqra), and the method of examination and experimentation (tajriba). Avicenna criticized Aristotelian induction, arguing that "it does not lead to the absolute, universal, and certain premises that it purports to provide." In its place, he develops a "method of experimentation as a means for scientific inquiry."

Question: What philosopher did Avicenna discuss in his The Book of Healing text?


Answer: Posterior Analytics

Question: What work of Aristotle's does Avicenna focus on?


Answer: Aristotelian induction

Question: What method did Avicenna criticize as not leading to absolute certainty?


Answer: temporal logic

Context: An early formal system of temporal logic was studied by Avicenna. Although he did not develop a real theory of temporal propositions, he did study the relationship between temporalis and the implication. Avicenna's work was further developed by Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī and became the dominant system of Islamic logic until modern times. Avicennian logic also influenced several early European logicians such as Albertus Magnus and William of Ockham. Avicenna endorsed the law of noncontradiction proposed by Aristotle, that a fact could not be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense of the terminology used. He stated, "Anyone who denies the law of noncontradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned."

Question: What was a subject that Avicenna studied, but did not develop a theory on?


Answer: Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī

Question: Who expanded on Avicenna's work in temporal logic?


Answer: Avicennian logic

Question: What became the dominant system of Islamic logic?


Answer: Albertus Magnus

Question: What European logician was greatly influenced by Avicenna?


Answer: Aristotle

Question: Whose law of noncontradiction did Avicenna endorse?


Answer: Kitab al-shifa

Context: Avicenna's legacy in classical psychology is primarily embodied in the Kitab al-nafs parts of his Kitab al-shifa (The Book of Healing) and Kitab al-najat (The Book of Deliverance). These were known in Latin under the title De Anima (treatises "on the soul").[dubious – discuss] Notably, Avicenna develops what is called the "flying man" argument in the Psychology of The Cure I.1.7 as defense of the argument that the soul is without quantitative extension, which has an affinity with Descartes's cogito argument (or what phenomenology designates as a form of an "epoche").

Question: What is Avicenna's Book of Healing referred to in Arabic?


Answer: classical psychology

Question: What subject is seen throughout Avicenna's Book of Healing?


Answer: quantitative extension

Question: In an argument by Avicenna, the soul is without what?


Answer: Descartes

Question: Whose argument is similar to Avicenna's that the soul is without quantitative extension?


Answer: De Anima

Question: What is the Latin for Avicenna's psychology parts in his Book of Healing?


Answer: physiology

Context: Avicenna's psychology requires that connection between the body and soul be strong enough to ensure the soul's individuation, but weak enough to allow for its immortality. Avicenna grounds his psychology on physiology, which means his account of the soul is one that deals almost entirely with the natural science of the body and its abilities of perception. Thus, the philosopher's connection between the soul and body is explained almost entirely by his understanding of perception; in this way, bodily perception interrelates with the immaterial human intellect. In sense perception, the perceiver senses the form of the object; first, by perceiving features of the object by our external senses. This sensory information is supplied to the internal senses, which merge all the pieces into a whole, unified conscious experience. This process of perception and abstraction is the nexus of the soul and body, for the material body may only perceive material objects, while the immaterial soul may only receive the immaterial, universal forms. The way the soul and body interact in the final abstraction of the universal from the concrete particular is the key to their relationship and interaction, which takes place in the physical body.

Question: What does Avicenna ground his psychology on?


Answer: strong enough

Question: According to Avicenna, the body and soul must be what in order to ensure the soul's individuation?


Answer: his understanding of perception

Question: How does Avicenna explain the connection between body and soul?


Answer: external senses

Question: How does man first perceive features of an object?


Answer: the physical body

Question: The body and soul's interaction takes place where?


Answer: Al-Biruni

Context: Avicenna's astronomical writings had some influence on later writers, although in general his work could be considered less developed than Alhazen or Al-Biruni. One important feature of his writing is that he considers mathematical astronomy as a separate discipline to astrology. He criticized Aristotle's view of the stars receiving their light from the Sun, stating that the stars are self-luminous, and believed that the planets are also self-luminous. He claimed to have observed Venus as a spot on the Sun. This is possible, as there was a transit on May 24, 1032, but Avicenna did not give the date of his observation, and modern scholars have questioned whether he could have observed the transit from his location at that time; he may have mistaken a sunspot for Venus. He used his transit observation to help establish that Venus was, at least sometimes, below the Sun in Ptolemaic cosmology, i.e. the sphere of Venus comes before the sphere of the Sun when moving out from the Earth in the prevailing geocentric model.

Question: What Muslim astronomer did Avicenna influence?


Answer: mathematical astronomy

Question: What subject did Avicenna consider to be a separate discipline from astrology?


Answer: Aristotle

Question: What philosopher thought the stars received their light from the sun?


Answer: Venus

Question: What planet did Aristotle think was a spot on the sun?


Answer: below the Sun

Question: Where did Avicenna think Venus was in relation to the sun?


Answer: Liber Aboali Abincine de Anima in arte Alchemiae

Context: Liber Aboali Abincine de Anima in arte Alchemiae was the most influential, having influenced later medieval chemists and alchemists such as Vincent of Beauvais. However Anawati argues (following Ruska) that the de Anima is a fake by a Spanish author. Similarly the Declaratio is believed not to be actually by Avicenna. The third work (The Book of Minerals) is agreed to be Avicenna's writing, adapted from the Kitab al-Shifa (Book of the Remedy). Ibn Sina classified minerals into stones, fusible substances, sulfurs, and salts, building on the ideas of Aristotle and Jabir. The epistola de Re recta is somewhat less sceptical of alchemy; Anawati argues that it is by Avicenna, but written earlier in his career when he had not yet firmly decided that transmutation was impossible.

Question: What work by Avicenna is thought to be a fake?


Answer: the Declaratio

Question: What is another work of Avicenna that is said to not be his creation?


Answer: The Book of Minerals

Question: What is definitely seen as being written by Avicenna?


Answer: Book of the Remedy

Question: What is the kitab al-Shifa?


Answer: minerals

Question: What did Ibn Sina classify into stones?


Answer: George Sarton

Context: George Sarton, the author of The History of Science, described Ibn Sīnā as "one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history" and called him "the most famous scientist of Islam and one of the most famous of all races, places, and times." He was one of the Islamic world's leading writers in the field of medicine. Along with Rhazes, Abulcasis, Ibn al-Nafis, and al-Ibadi, Ibn Sīnā is considered an important compiler of early Muslim medicine. He is remembered in the Western history of medicine as a major historical figure who made important contributions to medicine and the European Renaissance. His medical texts were unusual in that where controversy existed between Galen and Aristotle's views on medical matters (such as anatomy), he preferred to side with Aristotle, where necessary updating Aristotle's position to take into account post-Aristotelian advances in anatomical knowledge. Aristotle's dominant intellectual influence among medieval European scholars meant that Avicenna's linking of Galen's medical writings with Aristotle's philosophical writings in the Canon of Medicine (along with its comprehensive and logical organisation of knowledge) significantly increased Avicenna's importance in medieval Europe in comparison to other Islamic writers on medicine. His influence following translation of the Canon was such that from the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries he was ranked with Hippocrates and Galen as one of the acknowledged authorities, princeps medicorum ("prince of physicians").

Question: Who said that Ibn Sina was one of the greatest thinkers?


Answer: The History of Science

Question: What did George Sarton write?


Answer: Islam

Question: Ibn Sina was described as the most famous scientist in what religion?


Answer: Abulcasis

Question: Who is another leading Islamic figure in medicine?


Answer: early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries

Question: During what centuries was Ibn Sina ranked among such medical greats as Hippocrates?


Answer: Iran

Context: In modern Iran, he is considered a national icon, and is often regarded as one of the greatest Persians to have ever lived. A monument was erected outside the Bukhara museum[year needed]. The Avicenna Mausoleum and Museum in Hamadan was built in 1952. Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamadan (Iran), Avicenna Research Institute in Tehran (Iran), the ibn Sīnā Tajik State Medical University in Dushanbe, Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences at Aligarh, India, Avicenna School in Karachi and Avicenna Medical College in Lahore, Pakistan Ibne Sina Balkh Medical School in his native province of Balkh in Afghanistan, Ibni Sina Faculty Of Medicine of Ankara University Ankara, Turkey and Ibn Sina Integrated School in Marawi City (Philippines) are all named in his honour. His portrait hangs in the Hall of the Avicenna Faculty of Medicine in the University of Paris. There is also a crater on the Moon named Avicenna and a plant genus Avicennia.

Question: In what modern country is Avicenna considered an icon?


Answer: the Bukhara museum

Question: Where is a monument located that honors Avicenna?


Answer: the University of Paris

Question: In what European school does Avicenna's portrait hang in their hall of medicine?


Answer: Hamadan

Question: Where is the Avicenna Mausoleum and Museum located?


Answer: Avicennia

Question: What plant genus is named after Avicenna?


Answer: the Soviet Union

Context: In 1980, the Soviet Union, which then ruled his birthplace Bukhara, celebrated the thousandth anniversary of Avicenna's birth by circulating various commemorative stamps with artistic illustrations, and by erecting a bust of Avicenna based on anthropological research by Soviet scholars.[citation needed] Near his birthplace in Qishlak Afshona, some 25 km (16 mi) north of Bukhara, a training college for medical staff has been named for him.[year needed] On the grounds is a museum dedicated to his life, times and work.[citation needed]

Question: What superpower in 1980 created a stamp in honor of Avicenna?


Answer: Bukhara

Question: What was Avicenna's birthplace?


Answer: 16

Question: A medical staff training college named in his honor is how many miles away from his birthplace?


Answer: thousand

Question: In 1980, how many years had it been since Avicenna's birth?


Answer: a bust

Question: Besides stamps, what did the Soviet Union also create in Avicenna's honor?


Answer: March 2008

Context: In March 2008, it was announced that Avicenna's name would be used for new Directories of education institutions for health care professionals, worldwide. The Avicenna Directories will list universities and schools where doctors, public health practitioners, pharmacists and others, are educated. The project team stated "Why Avicenna? Avicenna ... was ... noted for his synthesis of knowledge from both east and west. He has had a lasting influence on the development of medicine and health sciences. The use of Avicenna's name symbolises the worldwide partnership that is needed for the promotion of health services of high quality."

Question: When was it announced that Avicenna would have medical directories named after him?


Answer: where doctors, public health practitioners, pharmacists and others, are educated

Question: What does the Avicenna Directories contain?


Answer: his synthesis of knowledge from both east and west

Question: What was Avicenna known for?


Answer: worldwide partnership

Question: What is Avicenna's name needed for?


Answer: Youth of Genius

Context: The soviet film "Youth of Genius" (1982), filmed and studios Uzbekfilm and Tajikfilm, dedicated to children and youth years Avicenna. The film's director Elyor Ishmuhamedov. Romantic and stormy, performed works, danger and irresistible thirst of knowledge was the youth of Al-Husayn ibn Abdallah ibn al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Sina, which will be known around the world under the name of Avicenna – a great physician, scientist and educator X-XI centuries. The film is set in the ancient city of Bukhara at the turn of the millennium. In Louis L'Amour's 1985 historical novel The Walking Drum, Kerbouchard studies and discusses Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine. In his book The Physician (1988) Noah Gordon tells the story of a young English medical apprentice who disguises himself as a Jew to travel from England to Persia and learn from Avicenna, the great master of his time. The novel was adapted into a feature film, The Physician, in 2013. Avicenna was played by Ben Kingsley.

Question: What movie was made about Avicenna's younger years?


Answer: alchemy

Context: Ibn Sīnā wrote at least one treatise on alchemy, but several others have been falsely attributed to him. His Logic, Metaphysics, Physics, and De Caelo, are treatises giving a synoptic view of Aristotelian doctrine, though Metaphysics demonstrates a significant departure from the brand of Neoplatonism known as Aristotelianism in Ibn Sīnā's world; Arabic philosophers[who?][year needed] have hinted at the idea that Ibn Sīnā was attempting to "re-Aristotelianise" Muslim philosophy in its entirety, unlike his predecessors, who accepted the conflation of Platonic, Aristotelian, Neo- and Middle-Platonic works transmitted into the Muslim world.

Question: What is a rare discipline that Avicenna worked on?


Answer: Physics

Question: On what subject is one of Avicenna's treatise based on?


Answer: Aristotelian doctrine

Question: What doctrine is some of Avicenna's works based around?


Answer: "re-Aristotelianise" Muslim philosophy

Question: According to some, what was Ibn Sina trying to do regarding his works?


Answer: Schmoelders

Context: The Logic and Metaphysics have been extensively reprinted, the latter, e.g., at Venice in 1493, 1495, and 1546. Some of his shorter essays on medicine, logic, etc., take a poetical form (the poem on logic was published by Schmoelders in 1836).[citation needed] Two encyclopaedic treatises, dealing with philosophy, are often mentioned. The larger, Al-Shifa' (Sanatio), exists nearly complete in manuscript in the Bodleian Library and elsewhere; part of it on the De Anima appeared at Pavia (1490) as the Liber Sextus Naturalium, and the long account of Ibn Sina's philosophy given by Muhammad al-Shahrastani seems to be mainly an analysis, and in many places a reproduction, of the Al-Shifa'. A shorter form of the work is known as the An-najat (Liberatio). The Latin editions of part of these works have been modified by the corrections which the monastic editors confess that they applied. There is also a حكمت مشرقيه (hikmat-al-mashriqqiyya, in Latin Philosophia Orientalis), mentioned by Roger Bacon, the majority of which is lost in antiquity, which according to Averroes was pantheistic in tone.

Question: Who published Avicenna's poem on logic?


Answer: Al-Shifa'

Question: What is the name of Avicenna's larger encyclopedic treatise?


Answer: the Bodleian Library

Question: Where is Avicenna's Al-Shifa manuscript located?


Answer: the An-najat

Question: What is the shorter form of Al-Shifa called?


Answer: Logic and Metaphysics

Question: What two subjects of Avicenna's have been reprinted extensively?


Answer: Chinese characters

Context: Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and some other Asian languages. In Standard Chinese they are called Hanzi (simplified Chinese: 汉字; traditional Chinese: 漢字). They have been adapted to write a number of other languages including: Japanese, where they are known as kanji, Korean, where they are known as hanja, and Vietnamese in a system known as chữ Nôm. Collectively, they are known as CJKV characters. In English, they are sometimes called Han characters. Chinese characters constitute the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world. By virtue of their widespread current use in East Asia, and historic use throughout the Sinosphere, Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world.

Question: What are logograms used in the writing of Chinese?


Answer: Hanzi

Question: What are Chinese characters called in standard Chinese?


Answer: Chinese characters

Question: What have been adapted to write in a number of other languages?


Answer: Chinese characters

Context: Chinese characters number in the tens of thousands, though most of them are minor graphic variants encountered only in historical texts. Studies in China have shown that functional literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters. In Japan, 2,136 are taught through secondary school (the Jōyō kanji); hundreds more are in everyday use. There are various national standard lists of characters, forms, and pronunciations. Simplified forms of certain characters are used in China, Singapore, and Malaysia; the corresponding traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and to a limited extent in South Korea. In Japan, common characters are written in post-WWII Japan-specific simplified forms (shinjitai), which are closer to traditional forms than Chinese simplifications, while uncommon characters are written in Japanese traditional forms (kyūjitai), which are virtually identical to Chinese traditional forms. In South Korea, when Chinese characters are used they are of the traditional variant and are almost identical to those used in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. Teaching of Chinese characters in South Korea starts in the 7th grade and continues until the 12th grade where 1,800 total characters are taught albeit these characters are only used in certain cases (on signs, academic papers, historical writings, etc.) and are slowly declining in use.

Question: What number in the tens of thousands?


Answer: literacy in written Chinese

Question: What requires a knowledge of three to four thousand characters?


Answer: kyūjitai

Question: Which are identical to Chinese forms?


Answer: modern Chinese dictionaries

Context: Most modern Chinese dictionaries and Chinese dictionaries sold to English speakers use the traditional radical-based character index in a section at the front, while the main body of the dictionary arranges the main character entries alphabetically according to their pinyin spelling. To find a character with unknown sound using one of these dictionaries, the reader finds the radical and stroke number of the character, as before, and locates the character in the radical index. The character's entry will have the character's pronunciation in pinyin written down; the reader then turns to the main dictionary section and looks up the pinyin spelling alphabetically.

Question: What use the traditional radical-based character index?


Answer: character's entry

Question: What will have the character's pronunciation in pinyin?


Answer: traditional radical-based character index

Question: What is at the front of most modern Chinese dictionaries?


Answer: monosyllabic

Context: In Old Chinese, (e.g. Classical Chinese) most words were monosyllabic and there was a close correspondence between characters and words. In modern Chinese (esp. Mandarin Chinese), characters do not necessarily correspond to words; indeed the majority of Chinese words today consist of two or more characters due to the merging and loss of sounds in the Chinese language over time. Rather, a character almost always corresponds to a single syllable that is also a morpheme. However, there are a few exceptions to this general correspondence, including bisyllabic morphemes (written with two characters), bimorphemic syllables (written with two characters) and cases where a single character represents a polysyllabic word or phrase.

Question: What are most words in Old Chinese?


Answer: character

Question: What almost always corresponds to a single syllable?


Answer: bisyllabic morphemes

Question: What is written with two characters?


Answer: Modern Chinese

Context: Modern Chinese has many homophones; thus the same spoken syllable may be represented by many characters, depending on meaning. A single character may also have a range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings; occasionally these correspond to different pronunciations. Cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally written with the same character. They typically have similar meanings, but often quite different pronunciations. In other languages, most significantly today in Japanese and sometimes in Korean, characters are used to represent Chinese loanwords, to represent native words independent of the Chinese pronunciation, and as purely phonetic elements based on their pronunciation in the historical variety of Chinese from which they were acquired. These foreign adaptations of Chinese pronunciation are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations, and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese.

Question: What has many homophones?


Answer: single character

Question: What may have a wide range of meanings?


Answer: Sino-Xenic pronunciations

Question: What have been beneficial in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese?


Answer: Chinese characters

Context: Chinese characters represent words of the language using several strategies. A few characters, including some of the most commonly used, were originally pictograms, which depicted the objects denoted, or simple ideograms, in which meaning was expressed iconically. Some other words were expressed by compound ideograms, but the vast majority were written using the rebus principle, in which a character for a similarly sounding word was either simply borrowed or (more commonly) extended with a disambiguating semantic marker to form a phono-semantic compound character.

Question: What represent words of the language using several strategies?


Answer: rebus principle

Question: What were most words written in?


Answer: compound ideograms

Question: What are some words expressed in?


Answer: Semantic-phonetic compounds

Context: Semantic-phonetic compounds or pictophonetic compounds are by far the most numerous characters. These characters are composed of two parts: one of a limited set of characters (the semantic indicator, often graphically simplified) which suggests the general meaning of the compound character, and another character (the phonetic indicator) whose pronunciation suggests the pronunciation of the compound character. In most cases the semantic indicator is also the radical under which the character is listed in dictionaries.

Question: What are the most numerous characters?


Answer: semantic indicator

Question: What is the radical under which the character is listed in dictionaries?


Answer: semantic indicator

Question: What suggests the general meaning of a compound character?


Answer: right-hand side

Context: Examples are 河 hé "river", 湖 hú "lake", 流 liú "stream", 沖 chōng "riptide" (or "flush"), 滑 huá "slippery". All these characters have on the left a radical of three short strokes (氵), which is a reduced form of the character 水 shuǐ meaning "water", indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water. The right-hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator. For example, in the case of 沖 chōng (Old Chinese *ɡ-ljuŋ), the phonetic indicator is 中 zhōng (Old Chinese *k-ljuŋ), which by itself means "middle". In this case it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character is slightly different from that of its phonetic indicator; the process of historical phonetic change means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today.

Question: What side is a phonetic indicator located on?


Answer: phonetic indicator

Question: What is the process of historical phonetic change?


Answer: phonetic change

Question: What process can sometimes seem arbitrary today?


Answer: bisyllabic word

Context: Occasionally a bisyllabic word is written with two characters that contain the same radical, as in 蝴蝶 húdié "butterfly", where both characters have the insect radical 虫. A notable example is pipa (a Chinese lute, also a fruit, the loquat, of similar shape) – originally written as 批把 with the hand radical, referring to the down and up strokes when playing this instrument, which was then changed to 枇杷 (tree radical), which is still used for the fruit, while the character was changed to 琵琶 when referring to the instrument. In other cases a compound word may coincidentally share a radical without this being meaningful.

Question: What is occasionally written with two characters that contain the same radical?


Answer: pipa

Question: What is also a fruit?


Answer: compound word

Question: What may share a radical without being meaningful?


Answer: series of inscribed graphs and pictures

Context: In recent decades, a series of inscribed graphs and pictures have been found at Neolithic sites in China, including Jiahu (c. 6500 BC), Dadiwan and Damaidi from the 6th millennium BC, and Banpo (5th millennium BC). Often these finds are accompanied by media reports that push back the purported beginnings of Chinese writing by thousands of years. However, because these marks occur singly, without any implied context, and are made crudely and simply, Qiu Xigui concluded that "we do not have any basis for stating that these constituted writing nor is there reason to conclude that they were ancestral to Shang dynasty Chinese characters." They do however demonstrate a history of sign use in the Yellow River valley during the Neolithic through to the Shang period.

Question: What may have been found at Neolithic sites in China in recent decades?


Answer: Chinese characters

Question: What has demonstrated a history of sign use in the Yellow River valley?


Answer: Yellow

Question: What color was the famous valley during the Neolithic through to the Shang period?


Answer: oracle bones

Context: The earliest confirmed evidence of the Chinese script yet discovered is the body of inscriptions on oracle bones from the late Shang dynasty (c. 1200–1050 BC). These symbols, carved on pieces of bone and turtle shell being sold as "dragon bones" for medicinal purposes, were identified as Chinese writing by scholars in 1899. By 1928, the source of the oracle bones had been traced to a village near Anyang in Henan Province, which was excavated by the Academia Sinica between 1928 and 1937. Over 150,000 fragments have been found.

Question: What was the earliest confirmed evidence of the Chinese script?


Answer: pieces of bone and turtle shell

Question: Where were the symbols carved on?


Answer: village near Anyang in Henan Province

Question: Where was the source of Oracle bones traced to?


Answer: oracle-bone script

Context: The traditional picture of an orderly series of scripts, each one invented suddenly and then completely displacing the previous one, has been conclusively demonstrated to be fiction by the archaeological finds and scholarly research of the later 20th and early 21st centuries. Gradual evolution and the coexistence of two or more scripts was more often the case. As early as the Shang dynasty, oracle-bone script coexisted as a simplified form alongside the normal script of bamboo books (preserved in typical bronze inscriptions), as well as the extra-elaborate pictorial forms (often clan emblems) found on many bronzes.

Question: What existed as early as the Shang dynasty?


Answer: bamboo books

Question: What did the oracle-bone script coexist alongside?


Answer: bamboo books

Question: What were preserved in typical bronze inscriptions?