Is Kessler-Calzaghe a Superfight?

[Welter_Skelter]

I eat it dry or in orange juice.

I like eating it with Strawberry Quick

[!!! Beowulf !!!]

Japanese (日本語, Nihongo (help·info)?) is a language spoken by over 130 million people, in Japan and Japanese emigrant communities around the world. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of speaker, listener and the person mentioned in conversation. The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. Early Japanese is known largely on the basis of its state in the 8th century, when the three major works of Old Japanese were compiled; but smaller amounts of material, primarily inscriptional, are older. The earliest attestation of Japanese is in a Chinese document from 252 A.D.

The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: Chinese characters, kanji, and two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet, rōmaji, is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when inputting Japanese into a computer. Western style Arabic numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.

Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loans from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and Holland in the 17th century, Dutch has also been influential, with words like bīru (from bier; "beer") and kōhī (from koffie; "coffee").

Some historical linguists who specialize in Japanese agree that it is one of the two members of a Japonic language family, the other member being Ryūkyūan. Others, however, regard the kinds of speech found in the various Ryūkyū Islands as dialects of Japanese, since it is not yet clear when and how the various islands came to be settled by members of this linguistic and cultural group.

The genetic affiliation of the Japonic family is uncertain. Numerous theories have been proposed, relating it to a wide variety of other languages and families, including extinct languages spoken by historic cultures of the Korean Peninsula; the Korean language; the Altaic languages; and the Austronesian languages, among many others. It is also often suggested that it may be a creole language combining more than one of these. At this point, no one theory is generally accepted as correct, and the issue is likely to remain controversial.

Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and is still sometimes spoken elsewhere. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of the Chinese mainland, and various Pacific islands during and before World War II, locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programs. As a result, there were many people in these countries until the 1970s, who could speak Japanese in addition to the local languages. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil) frequently employ Japanese as their primary language. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne), and the United States (notably California and Hawaii). There is also a small emigrant community in Davao, Philippines where a lot of Filipinos of Japanese descent live, as well as some in Laguna, Philippines and a lot of Filipinos of Japanese descent all over Philippines and in Japan and over 245,518 Filipinos in Japan, plus the ones married to Japanese nationals, and in America can also speak Japanese. Their descendants (known as nikkei 日系, literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently. There are estimated to be several million non-Japanese studying the language as well; many schools, both primary and secondary, offer courses.

According to The World Factbook by the CIA, Angaur state of Palau is reported to have Japanese as one of three official languages as well as Angaur and English. [3] The state is the only place in the world where Japanese is the de jure official language, in case the report is true. However, another report tells that the official languages in Angaur are Palauan and English, just like other states in the republic. [1] Whichever the case, the number of active Japanese speakers in the state is zero, according to the census in 2005. [2]


[edit] Official status
Japanese is the de facto official language of Japan, which is the only country to have Japanese as an official working language. There is a form of the language considered standard: hyōjungo (標準語, hyōjungo?) standard Japanese, or kyōtsūgo (共通語, kyōtsūgo?) the common language). The meanings of two terms are almost the same. Hyōjungo and kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms a counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after Meiji Restoration meiji ishin (明治維新, meiji ishin?) (1868) from the language spoken in uptown in Tokyo for communicating necessity. Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.

Formerly, standard Japanese in writing (bungo (文語, bungo?), "literary language") was different from colloquial language (kōgo (口語, kōgo?), "colloquial language"). The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900, since then kogo gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo, although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the predominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.


[edit] Dialects
Main article: Japanese dialects
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.

The main distinction in Japanese dialects is between Tokyo-type (東京式, Tōkyō-shiki?) and Western-type (京阪式, Keihan-shiki?), though Kyūshū-type dialects form a smaller third group. Within each type are several subdivisions. The Western-type dialects are actually in the central region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama, Kyōto, Hyōgo, and Mie Prefectures; most Shikoku dialects are also Western-type. Dialects further west are actually of the Tokyo type. The final category of dialects are those that are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects are spoken in Hachijojima, Tosa, and very few other locations.

Dialects from peripheral regions, such as Tōhoku or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The several dialects used in Kagoshima in southern Kyūshū are famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in Kyūshū as well, probably due in part to the Kagoshima dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which include the existence of closed syllables (i.e., syllables that end in a consonant, such as /kob/ or /koʔ/ for Standard Japanese /kumo/ "spider"). The vocabulary of Kagoshima dialect is 84% cognate with standard Tokyo dialect. Kansai-ben, a group of dialects from west-central Japan, is spoken by many Japanese; the Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy.

The Ryūkyūan languages, while closely related to Japanese, are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family, and are not dialects of Japanese. They are spoken in the Ryukyu Islands and in some islands that are politically part of Kagoshima Prefecture. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages.

Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including portions of the Ryūkyū islands like Okinawa) due not only to television and radio, but also to increased mobility within Japan due to its system of roads, railways, and airports. Young people usually speak their local dialect and the standard language, though in most cases, the local dialect is influenced by the standard, and regional versions of "standard" Japanese have local-dialect influence.

[kayjay]

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of the forthcoming novel The Gravedigger's Daughter. She is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is also the recipient of the 2005 Prix Femina for The Falls. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and she has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

Dont make me have to post the "Legendary names" on Calzaghe's resume, lol.

I don't know how anyone could consider a fighter with such a terrible resume in their P4P. Even his win over Lacy is becoming more and more meaningless...

[!!! Beowulf !!!]

The original Arawak or Taino people from South America first settled on the island between 4000 and 1000 BC. Although some claim they became virtually extinct following contact with Europeans, others claim that some survived for a while. There is very little trace of the Arawak culture, and the Jamaican National Heritage Trust is attempting to locate and document any evidence of the Arawaks [1].

Jamaica was claimed for Spain after Christopher Columbus first landed there in 1494. Columbus used it as his family's private estate. The English Admiral William Penn (father of William Penn of Pennsylvania) and General Venables seized the island in 1655. During its first 200 years of English (then British) rule, post Spanish rule, Jamaica became one of the world's leading sugar exporting nations and produced over 77,000 tons of sugar annually between 1820 and 1824, which was achieved through the massive use of imported African slave labour. After the abolition of the slave trade the British imported Indian and Chinese indentured servants in the early 1800s as more cheap labour. Many of the descendants of the Chinese and Indian indentured servants continue to reside in Jamaica today.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the United Kingdom's heavy reliance on slavery resulted in blacks outnumbering whites by a ratio of almost 20 to one, leading to constant threat of revolt. Following a series of rebellions, slavery was formally abolished in 1834, with full emancipation from chattel slavery declared in 1838.

During the 1800’s a number of botanical gardens were established. These included the Castleton Garden in 1862 (set up to replace the Bath Garden which was established during the late 1770s and where breadfruit brought to Jamaica by Captain William Bligh was planted but which was subject to flooding), the Cinchona Plantation in 1868 and the Hope Garden during 1874.

In 1945, Sir Horace Hector Hearne became Chief Justice and Keeper of the Records in Jamaica and sat in the Supreme Court, Kingston between 1945 and 1950/1951 before going on to become Chief Justice in Kenya.

Jamaica slowly gained increasing independence from the United Kingdom. In 1958, it became a province in the Federation of the West Indies, a federation among all of the British West Indies. Jamaica attained full independence by leaving the federation in 1962.

Strong economic growth averaging about six percent per annum marked its first ten years of independence under conservative governments led successively by Prime Ministers Alexander Bustamante, Donald Sangster and Hugh Shearer. The growth was fueled by strong investments in bauxite/alumina, tourism, manufacturing industry and to a lesser extent the agricultural sector. However, the initial optimism of the first decade vanished following a change in government (the PNP - People's National Party) in 1972, Jamaica lagged economically with its gross national product falling in 1980 to some twenty-five percent below the level previously obtained in 1972. Rising foreign and local debt accompanied by large fiscal deficits resulted in the invitation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) financing from the USA and others, and the imposition of IMF austerity measures (with a greater than 25% interest rate per year).

Economic deterioration continued into the mid 1980s, exacerbated by the closure of the first (Alpart) and third (Alcoa) largest alumina producers, significant reduction in production by the second largest (Alcan), the exit of Reynolds Jamaica Mines Ltd from the Jamaican industry and reduced flows from tourism. During the 1980s Jamaica was still a prosperous country though increases in crime and petty theft began to weigh on the island.

The timis capital of Jamaica was Spanish Town in the parish of St. Catherine, the site of the old Spanish colonial capital. The Spanish named the town Santiago de la Vega. In 1655 when the English captured the island, much of the old Spanish capital was burned by the invading troops. The town was rebuilt by the English and renamed Spanish Town. It remained the capital until 1872, when the city of Kingston was named the capital under questionable circumstances.

[Pugilistic™]

certainly is

[Peder]

Not a superfight based on popularity, but definitely a superfight in terms of quality.

[PunchDrunk]

Not a superfight based on popularity, but definitely a superfight in terms of quality.

Popularity? 16,000 tickets sold the first day they're available, and the fight's not even signed yet...

[Tony628]

its funny how the only people who think this is not a superfight are the same people who hate white fighters.

[mECHsLAVE]

Bozo-nono strikes again.