Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 107

Journal - Essay Example Other interventions included training the teachers and the parents about the importance of the early intervention programs for the development of the children between 0 and five years. The government took up the responsibility of providing scholarships for students with disabilities by sponsoring ten male students to work in the transition service with Beacon College of Florida. Specifically, the development service has five core elements, which are the Foundation of self-discovery, academic exploration, a preview of campus life, the Florida experience, and post program follow up in Saudi Arabia. The main challenge for the program is conducting interviews about the personal experience for the families who have children with autism. I learn from this presentation that the government of Saudi Arabia has taken an active initiative in establishing programs focus on the disabled’s needs. Mental and physical disability is a major challenge for the families and the patients as they have trouble in their lives. However, interventional programs are paramount in empowering the families and victims, as they are a means of liberation. The success of the program demonstrates that infirmity is not inability because when given a chance, even the disabled can use their skills and talent to change the

Net Present Value and Cash Essay Example for Free

Net Present Value and Cash Essay Need to consider what types and which cash flows should be included in capital budgeting analysis. Damp;D was producing and marketing two major product lines: 1. Lift-Off: Low –suds, concentrated powder. 2. Wave: Traditional powder detergent. Questions amp; Answers: . If you were in Steve Gasper’s place, would you argue to include the cost from market testing as a cash outflow? If I’m Steven Gasper’s I would not include the cost from market testing as a cash outflow. The reason is because the cost from market testing was considered as sunk costs. A sunk cost is an outlay that has already occurred, hence by decision under consideration would not been affected by the costs. Since sunk costs are not incremental cost they should not be included in the analysis. In this case initial cost for Blast, $500,000 for test marketing, which was conducted in the Detroit area and completed in the previous June was consider as a sunk cost and it will not affect Danforth amp; Donnalley Laundry future cash flows regardless of whether or not the new branch is built. 2. What would your opinion be as to how to deal with the question of working capital? Working capital management deals with the management of current assets which are inventories, payroll, and other cash needs and receivables from customers, account receivable, and also procedures financing these assets. In our opinion, have two basic questions involves in working capital policy: (i) What is the appropriate amount of current assets for the firm to carry both in total and for each specific account and (ii) How should current asset be financed. Therefore, the most important element in best buys working capital policy is its inventory management. Refer to the Danforth amp; Donnalley laundry, McDonald suggest to add another $200,000 in working capital, because they estimate this money would never leave the firm and would always be in liquid form, for the first time; it consider outflow but hence inflow. In our opinion, some additional cash is required to conduct operations in Damp;D laundry because additional some cash is needed in order to reserve for some contingency, or as a â€Å"parking place† for funds prior to an acquisition, a major capital investment program, or the like. That concept has been applied to more complex businesses, where it is used to analyze the effectiveness of a firm’s working capital management. Under relaxed current assets policy, Damp;D laundry would hold relatively large amounts of each type of current asset and under a restricted current assets policy; company would hold minimal amounts of these items. Current assets are necessary, but there are costs associated with holding them. Therefore, if Damp;D can manage its current assets more efficiently and thereby operate with smaller investment in working capital; this will increase Damp;D laundry profitability. 3. Would you suggest that the product be charged for the use of excess production facilities and building? Would this opinion change under the hypothetical assumption that needed production facilities for the current line of powdered detergents were at 55 percent of capacity and expected to grow at a rate 20 percent a year and maximum production capacity was 100 percent? What would be the present value of this cash flow given the fact that the currently proposed new plant would involve cash outflows of $5 million in three years (assuming that acceptance of the Blast project would not affect the size of the proposed outlay, only the timing, and that the new plant and facilities would be operable indefinitely). (Hint: Assume that the introduction of Blast would only move the need for a new plant ahead by one year, that the cash outflow would remain at $5 million regardless of when incurred, and that the plant would operate indefinitely. In our opinion, the excess usage of production facilities and building would not be charge into Blast. The reasons of this are:- a) When the machine was bought for Lift-Off productions the cost has been calculated; and b) In obtaining the machine and building for Blast productions no cash payment has been made. Since the production of Blast will occupy current excess capacity, no incremental cash flows are incurred; hence, none should be charged against Blast. Would you suggest that the cash flows resulting from erosion of sales from current laundry detergent products be included as a cash inflow? If there was a chance that competition would introduce a similar product were Damp;D to fail to introduce Blast, would this affect your answer? Yes, it should be treat as an incremental cash flow for the reduction in the sales of the Lift-Off and Wave, referred to as erosion. These lost sales are included because it a cost (a revenue reduction) that the company must bear if it choose to produce the new product (Blast). It will not affect our answer if there was a chance that competition would introduce a similar product at time Damp;D fail to introduce Blast. This happen due to the fact that for constructs cash flow we ignore the competitor effect. 5. If debt is used to finance this project, should the interest payments associated with this new debt be considered cash flows? No. We discount project cash flows with a cost of capital that is the rate of return required by all investors (not just debt holders or stockholders), and so we should discount the total amount of cash flow available to all investors.

The Portrait Of ED Students Pronunciation Education Essay

The Portrait Of ED Students Pronunciation Education Essay Introduction This chapter reveals the background of study, problem statement, purpose of the study and the benefit of the study. The explanations of these parts are presented below; Pronunciation is one of the most important things that students have to master in order to communicate appropriately and fluently. According to Fangzhi (1998:39), that it is important to pay attention to pronunciation since it results in whether or not someones message can be passed or not by other people. More over, Gilbert (cited in Otlowsky, 2004:3) stated that if someone cannot hear English well, she or he is cut off from the language. And if someone cannot be understood easily, she or he is cut off from conversation with native speakers. We can conclude from the statements above that pronunciation gives a significant effect to the meaning of what someone says. However, almost all English teachers make little attempt to teach pronunciation in any overt way and only give attention to it in passing. In ideal condition, students in ED seem to have good pronunciation because they are taught by using English as their language. As cited in Buku Pedoman Akademik FBS 2005/2006, students in English Department are expected to be able to speak and write English correctly. But in fact, based on the observation and informal talks both with lectures and students done by the researcher, students still have bad pronunciation. For example, it is hard to find MC with good pronunciation in ED. Many students speak incorrectly when they are in their thesis examination and so on. Considering this situation, the researcher is interested in conducting this study to find out ED students pronunciation portrait and its implication to the teaching and learning of English. 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS Based on the background of the study above, the research questions are divided into two, they are: Major questions: 1.) What is the portrait of ED students pronunciation? 2.) What is the implication of students pronunciation portrait towards the teaching and learning of English? Minor questions: How do ED students learn pronunciation? Does the students mother tongue affect students pronunciation? What are general mistakes that students often make? What are the causes contribute to the mistakes of the students pronunciation? Is students pronunciation influenced by American English or British English? 1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The purposes of the study based on the research questions above are divided into: 1. Major purposes: The major purposes are 1.) to describe the portrait of ED students pronunciation, 2.) to find out the implication of students pronunciation portrait towards the teaching and learning of English; 2. Minor purposes: The minor purposes are 1.) to investigate the way ED students learn pronunciation, 2.) to analyze whether the students mother tongue affect students pronunciation or not, 3.) to figure out the mistakes that students often make in producing sounds, 4.) to investigate the causes that contribute to the students pronunciation mistakes , and 5.) to analyze whether students pronunciation is influenced by American English or British. 1.4 BENEFIT OF THE STUDY The results of the study are hoped to give an input for the institution, to enrich the research in pronunciation field. And it can help ED students who are interested in conducting the related research. 1.5 PREVIOUSLY RELATED STUDY The previously related study was done by Ros Dwi Wahyuni whose thesis title was The Pronunciation of Second Grade Students of SMU 77 in 2005. She conducted her study using a case study as her approach, thus the results of her study can not be generalized for the entire population. The data were gathered by using interviews and pronunciation test from December 2004 until January 2005 and processed using rank order correlation formula. The results of her study showed that most participants were intelligible in recognizing the words in their speech and the participants also had positive attitude towards pronunciation and the teaching of pronunciation. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter consists of the definition of pronunciation, related issues on TEFL and pronunciation, background of teaching pronunciation, principles for pronunciation teaching, the areas of English pronunciation, pronunciation teaching, and factors affecting students pronunciation. 2.1 Definition of pronunciation Pronunciation is the most important thing that we have to master. Otherwise, people cannot receive the message we say. According to Penny Ur (2001), Jack C. Richard (2002), Pronunciation is the sound of the language, or phonology; stress and rhythm; and intonation and includes the role of individual sounds and segmental and supra segmental sounds. Moreover, Otlowski (2004:1) stated that Pronunciation is a way that is accepted or generally understood. From those statements above, we can conclude that pronunciation is the way of someone produces segmental and supra segmental sound that is accepted or generally understood. 2.2 Related Issues on TEFL and Pronunciation There are several problems that related to pronunciation and TEFL, such as; in ED there is no subject that focuses on pronunciation. Indeed, there are some simple and enjoyable exercises to practice pronunciation. According to Jenkins (2007) mentioned on her article, Global English and Teaching Pronunciation, that an implication global English for pronunciation teaching that is students should be given plenty of exposure in their pronunciation classrooms to other non-native accents of English so that they can understand then easily even if a speaker has not yet managed to acquire the core features. For EIL, this is more important than having classroom exposure to native speaker accents. It means that students should have non-native accents of English in order to help them understand what the speaker means even though he or she can not get the RP pronunciation. Moreover, Griffiths (2007), Integrating Pronunciation into Classroom Activities, found that addressing issues (pronunciation) regularly during the language feedback or group correction stage of lesson helps to focus learners attention on its importance and lead to more positive experiences. He also described that pronunciation work can be kept simple and employ exercises which are both accessible and enjoyable for students, whatever their level is. Whenever students do a freer speaking activity, the main aim is usually at developing their spoken fluency in the language. However, the activity also serves to work on students accuracy through the feedback we give them on their use of language. It means that lecturers should give the feedback on students pronunciation regularly so that students will have positive attitude towards the pronunciation. Based on those statements above, Okita (2007), Teaching Pronunciation, concluded the activities that can be passed in teaching pronunciation are: 1.) explaining Daniel Jones phonemic symbols, using a chart of English vowels and consonants; 2.) using minimal pair exercises; 3.)getting learners to memorize pronunciation patterns to predict on which vowel the primary stress is placed in a word, and; 4.)distinguishing the differences in the sounds of a vowel or consonant in a given word. 2.3 Background to the teaching of pronunciation There are three main orientations proposed by Nunan (2003, p.112-113) in pronunciation teaching: Listen carefully and repeat what I say (1940s-1950s). In this orientation, the activities are students are to repeat the words said by their teacher for several times. The problem that can be raised in this orientation is that students differ in how effectively they are able to really listen to and discern the sound system of anew language; Lets analyze these sounds closely to figure out how to pronounce them clearly (1960s-19701s). The teacher compares features of the sound system of English with features of their native languages. It is done in order to get students accustomed to International Phonetic Alphabet; lets start using these sounds in activities as soon as we can while I provide cues and feedback on how well youre doing (1980s and beyond). The teacher gives chances to the students to use the sounds which they are right in producing. 2.4 Principles for Teaching Pronunciation In the teaching of pronunciation, there are five principles, according to Nunan (2003, p. 115-117) , which are: stated five principles of pronunciation teaching, they are: Foster intelligibility during spontaneous speech. Teachers need to keep fostering the students intelligibility to get them concentrate to pronounce words while they are doing the spontaneous speech. Keep affective considerations firmly in mind. Teachers need to give affective support to their students in order not to make them have feared to develop new pronunciation habits. Avoid the teaching of individual sounds in isolation. Giving students chances to communicate meaningfully with their friends are more interesting, enjoyable, and memorable activities. If the teachers provide such activities, in the long run, have more impact on improving students speech intelligibility. Provide feedback on learner progress. Teachers should support students efforts, guide them, provide cues for their enhancement. Unless, students would unaware where they need to place their energies. Realize that ultimately it is the learner who is in control of changes in pronunciation. According to Morley (1994, p.89), teacher is only as a language coach who supplies information; gives models from time to time; sets high stands; provides a wide variety of practice opportunities; and encourages the learner. 2.5 The Areas of English Pronunciation The areas of English pronunciation are categorized into two, they are: segmental (e.g. English consonant and vowel sounds) and supra segmental (e.g. stress, linking, weak forms, intonation), Rajadurai (2001: 25). Parker adds (2000: 25) rhythm, reduction, and deletion are included as supra segmental features. The controversial issues about which areas of pronunciation are important to be taught came arise. According to Rajadurai (2001:13) teaching supra segmental is less valued than the teaching of segmental areas. However, Harmer (2002:183) disagrees with what Rajadurai stated. He claims that overt teaching of supra segmental areas particularly gives improved comprehension and intelligibly. Wahba (1998: 32-33) supported this statement, he claimed that that if learners are aware that there is a stress pattern in English words, and the pitch of the voice can convey the meaning, they will know what to pay attention to and can build basic awareness. In conclusion, both of segmental and supra segmental areas of teaching give significant effect in affecting students pronunciation. 2.6 Pronunciation Teaching Pronunciation teaching is important to ED students, but in fact there is no lesson which focuses on pronunciation. Indeed, pronunciation can increase the quality of students speaking as Harmer stated (2001:183) that pronunciation teaching not only makes students aware of different sound and sound features (and what these mean), but also improve their speaking immeasurably. In order to teach pronunciation, here are the three kinds of pronunciation practices which are most widely used by English teacher to help students improve their pronunciation: Minimal pair drills. This is a pair of utterance-usually short- which differs in meaning, but which are exactly alike in sound except in one point. The students are to pronounce pairs of words which differ in pronunciation only in one respect, such as bid/bId/; big/bIg, and sound/saund/; round/raund; (Deterding and Pudjosoedarmo 1998:77) A series of isolated sentences. These have concentration of the sound to be practiced, but they are not sentences frequently used in everyday conversation, Fangzhi (1998:38). For example: ai: Mike tried five times to get the prize Five times five is twenty-five Tongue twisters. Playing with words is particularly useful for the students who have unique pronunciation problems. Ball (2003:8) gives examples of tongue twisters: She sells seashells on the seashore; Red lorry yellow lorry; If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose? They think that it is Thursdays the thirtieth; Fangzhi (1998:38) concluded that the practices above are good for introducing English sound to beginners and also good for building a strong basic pronunciation. These pronunciation practices might be succeeded in helping students to improve pronunciation but not in sequence. Students who are trained in these ways tend to make more pronunciation errors when speaking spontaneously. Not only that, Celce Murcia, et.al. (1996:2) introduced two approaches that can be applied in helping students pronunciation improvement, they are: An intuitive-imitative approach. It talks about the students ability to listen to and imitate sounds of a target language. He or she also can make imitate the pronunciation of other people in television, radio, songs, and so forth; An analytic-linguistic approach. It recognizes the importance of intervention of pronunciation in language acquisition. Using this approach, teacher is to identify students problem in pronouncing the foreign language by providing pedagogical aids; Beside that, Nunan (2003) also gave us teaching strategies to teach pronunciation that consists of: Openness to change. Teacher ask learner to discuss problem areas that are faced. It is important to build learners self-confidence and attend their emotional needs as a non-native speaker; Contextualized minimal pairs. Teaching pronunciation by distinguishing between specifically targeted sounds, stress patterns, or intonation patterns through the use of minimal pairs; Gadgets and props. Learners are to analyze the words on their own, and to practice saying words by using their tools in coordination with their pronunciation stress syllables. Slow motion speaking (SMS). SMS allows learners to view close up, and to imitate, the teachers way of producing specific sounds in context; Tracking. Languages learner are not being asked to repeat after the recorded voice, but to try to say the words presented in the transcript concurrent with the voices they are listening to. Techniques from drama and theater arts. Popular plays and screenplays can be interesting sources of pronunciation work; Pronunciation teaching is not as easy as the stated statements above, it has obstacles too. Because of that, Otlowsky suggested: pronunciation should be integrated into other subjects orienting to communicative competence than linguistic skill especially in segmental and supra segmental phoneme ,Morley (1991, p.481-520); listening comprehension and pronunciation have close relationship ,Gilbert (1984, p.1) and Nooteboom (1983, p.183-194) stated that there is a strong impact of speech perception to speech production; the best technique should involve teachers and students as speech trainer or trainer, Morley (1991, p.507); intelligible pronunciation is seen as essential component of communicative competence, Morley (1991, p.513); 2.7 Factors Affecting Students Pronunciation Sometimes we, as the non-native speaker, made mistakes in pronouncing words. It is because the several things, such as the differences in pronunciation area so that we are not accustomed to produce the sounds. As stated by Ur (2001, p.52) that some causes affect pronunciation mistakes: 1.) substitute second language with first language sound because there is no in first language; 2.) create wrong perception on second language sounds because the sound is an allophone in first language; 3.)use a stress pattern and first language intonation when pronouncing second language in order to create a strange accent; CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This chapter reveals the methodology used by the researcher, including research design consists of time, place, and the subjects of the study; data collection process; and data analysis. RESEARCH DESIGN Since the study focuses on describing the portrait of ED students pronunciation and analyzing the implication of students pronunciation towards the teaching and learning of English, the method will be used in this study is descriptive analytical interpretive. This research does not make any intervention and judgment. It only describes the portrait of ED students pronunciation and analyzes its implication towards the teaching and learning of English. This study also describes how ED students learn their pronunciation and whether their mother tongue affects their pronunciation or not. This study applies two methods of data collection that are by recording the test of English phoneme and doing the interview. The test of English phoneme consists of the list of words; those are vowels, diphthongs, trip thongs, consonants, consonant clusters, stress, and intonation. The interview is designed to get more specific information to answer the research questions. Both data collected by means of test of English phoneme and interview will be analyzed with descriptive analysis interpretive. Descriptive analytical interpretive The study used a descriptive analytical interpretive method. Yin cited in Tunisa (2008) and Ardi (2009) mentioned that descriptive cases require that the writer begins with a descriptive theory, or face the possibility that problems will occur during the project. Surakhmad (1990:140) stated two features of descriptive study: Memusatkan diri pada pemecahan masalah-masalah yang ada pada masa sekarang, pada masalah-masalah aktual Data yang dikumpulkan mula-mula disusun, dijelaskan dan kemudian dianalisa (karenaitu metode in sering pula disebut metode analitik. Surakhmad (1990:140) It can be concluded that to implement descriptive study, the study has to (1) focus on solving the past and actual issues then (2) the collected data is ordered, explained, and then analyzed (that is why this is often called an analytical method). Geoff Walsham said on his presentation that according to Orlikowski and Baroudi (1991) interpretive studies assume that people cerate and associate their own subjective and intersubjective meanings as they interact with the world around them. Interpretive researchers thus attempt to understand phenomena through accessing the meanings participants assign to them. This definition is based on the ground that: The interpretive research approach towards the relationship between theory and practice is that the researcher can never assume a value-neutral stance, and is always implicated in the phenomena being studied. There is no direct access to reality unmediated by language and preconception. Walsham (1993) himself states that interpretive methods of research start from the position that our knowledge of reality, including the domain of human action, is a social construction by human actors and that this applies equally to researchers. Thus there is no objective reality which can be discovered by researchers and replicated by others, in contrast to the assumptions of positive science. Population The population of the study was the whole of ED classes at State University of Jakarta. Sample The samples of this study were the students from 2005, 2006, and 2007 both from educational and non-educational students. Site and place The study was conducted at English Department of State University of Jakarta from December 2008 to April 2009. Instruments Two kinds of instruments are designed for data collection. They are test of English phoneme and interview list. 1.) Test of English Phoneme The test of English phoneme is consisted of the list of words that are categorized into vowels, diphthongs, trip thongs, consonants, consonant clusters, stress, and intonation. Then, students are asked to pronounce them using tape recorder. 2.) Interview list The interview for this study is designed as a structured interview. The questions in the interview list are designed based on the research questions in chapter I. 3.2 DATA COLLECTION PROCESS The data collection was conducted on December 2008 until April 2009. The data in this study consisted of information collected by using test of English phoneme, and interview list. The collected data using an English test phoneme was conducted on December 2008 until April 2009. Meanwhile, the data from interview was done by taking notes (face-to-face individually) and sending via e-mail. DATA ANALYSIS The researcher analyzed the data by the following steps. The first was checking data completeness; the data taken were the recorded ED students pronunciation. The recorded data contains vowels, diphthongs, trip thongs, consonants, consonant clusters, stress, and intonation. To classify the data, the writer analyzed the pronunciation into the transcript based on the participants entrance year. The second was grouping data by making them in the table presentation based on the data source. The third was comparing the data in each category; by comparing the data, the writer would find the dominant and the less dominant made by students in pronouncing the sound. The forth was putting groups of data in order from the more dominant data to the less ones. The last was the taken data was interpreted based on the findings.

Usage of Characterization In Ryonosuke Akutagawa’s Rashomon Essay

Usage of Characterization In Ryonosuke Akutagawa’s Rashomon Despite coming from a different background than most other authors that have so far been studied, Ryonosuke Akutagawa still wrote stories that included similar ideas like internal and external conflict, sacrifice of oneself for a higher cause, murder, human flaws and many others. In addition to that, Akutagawa also used common literary elements like motifs, symbols, point of view and irony. However, one element that is prevalent in almost all of his works is characterization. In two of his short stories, Rashomon and The Martyr, characterization is used to develop their respective themes; in Rashomon, characterization is equally important in building up the theme as in The Martyr. In Rashomon, characterization is used to show the theme that the desperate situations that a person faces can result in the resorting to means that compromise morals, and can even lead to hypocrisy. Akutagawa does this through narration and behavior of the character. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist is faced with the dilemma of either being honest and dying of starvation, or to be a thief and steal from the corpses that were scattered around. However even after much consideration, he was still â€Å"unable to muster enough courage to justify the conclusion that he must become a thief† (Akutagawa 34). Through this, it is evident at this point, the protagonist was still somewhat reluctant to compromise his morals even for survival, and if possible, he would definitely consider other means. With time though, the protagonist does eventually decide to compromise his morals, and he did not even have to â€Å"wonder whether he should starve to death or become a thief. ... ...gh they may have shown approval initially. In the two different stories, characterization is used to prove the themes, and in both cases, they are equally important. However, there are similarities and differences as to how characterization is used. One similarity that they share is the fact that in both stories, characterization is mainly shown through narration. Indeed in both cases character traits can be extracted through speech, but they are more apparent in the narration. On the other hand, one difference is that in Rashomon, there was only a single person that was being characterized to prove the theme, and this character was less of a one-dimensional figure than the characters in The Martyr, whereas in that story, a whole community was being characterized through their actions, as well as through the introspection of one member of the community.

Christian religion Essay

Many aspects of our Christian religion today have developed because of these early religious beliefs and culture of the Romans. At the beginning, the Roman Empire was able to develop more than any other country because of its acceptance of some areas of culture and religion of its conquered enemies and allowing them to keep their religion and culture, blending the old ways with the new. How little was known, that the paganism belief system of the Roman Empire would eventually lead the way to the new Christianity religion of the world. Paganism, with its gods and goddesses, answered humanity’s problems and provided answers at the whim of these supernatural beings. In the early stages of Greek and Roman culture, mythology answered all questions regarding the origin of the world and of man. (Case, 1929, p. 12) In the early days of Greece and Rome, everything under the sun was explained by the gods and goddesses — humanity was at their whim along depending on their whims, just as today everything we do is explained through the Christian belief of God and Jesus, instead of the Roman gods and goddesses. In Rome, mythology answered all questions while today Christianity answers all of ours in regard to the world and mankind’s problems, all being subject to superhuman beings who have a lot to do with the affairs of mankind. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire under the Emperor Constantine in AD 324 (the Emperor Julian, known to Christians as the Apostate, failed to bring about a pagan revival a few years later), and pagan forms of worship were finally made illegal in 390 by Theodosius. The myths of the pagan gods were particularly vulnerable to Christian attack, as can be seen in Lactantius’ Divine Institutes I 9-22 and Augustine’s City of God. (Rivers, 1994, p. 22) According to Barry Banning’s article entitled, â€Å"The Irony of Faith†, which is part of the research done for his book The Unspoken Power of Rome, he refers to the fact most world religions expect people to believe in something that cannot be detected, seen, felt, heard, tasted, or smelled. Researching the fact that Rome had a serious influence on early Christian’s beginning and formation, he also says that people are expected to believe in something that doesn’t exist physically and can’t be proved in normal human experiences. In most of the world religions, people are asked to believe in something that can not be detected, seen, felt, heard, tasted, or smelled. They are asked to believe in something that doesn’t exist physically and can’t be proven in normal human experience. And when confronted with numerous, obvious discrepancies, the normal response is â€Å"faith†. Faith is the key to understanding. Faith is the key to believing in concepts that cannot be explained. (Banning, 2001, 1) Over the last several years, most Christians have accepted blindly this philosophy of faith, not realizing how much influence that Rome had on Christianity and how we perceive it today, in its early beginnings. Very little credit was ever historically given to Rome for having any influence on Christianity and how we look at it presently – many Christians refusing to believe that many aspects of Christianity had its origins in the pagan arena of Rome, and in the development of our present social orders. However, most of this credit was because of the way Christians hid inside the Roman Empire, to avoid persecution or death by the Romans. The hardest thing possible was to believe in one God instead of many gods and goddesses, remaining anonymous, while still living as Christians in brutal Rome. Early Christians, facing scorn at best and persecution at worst, depending on Emperor and the era, were forced to blend in with their Pagan counterparts. In order to celebrate the ‘holidays’ of their religion, the Christians used pre-existing holidays and festivals to blend in. Christmas, for example, was originally part of the great festival of the Winter Solstice, or the Saturnalia. By adopting this grand event as the celebration of Christ’s birth, Christian revelry was allowed to take place, largely unnoticed. The Church too manipulated customs and traditions of the Pagan Empire to make their faith more adaptable. (Kousoulas, 2006,1) Christianity had been the official religion of Rome since 392, before Rome’s official fall in 476 when its last ruler, Romulus Augustus, fell under Alaric and the Visigoths in 410 and later destroyed by the Vandals in 455. According to Professor Richard Baldwin at the Gulf Coast Community College in Florida, this fall of Rome would later influence the Middle Ages and its civilizations in classical Greek and Roman cultures, Christianity, and the Germanic culture. With modern science and intellectual knowledge today slowly replacing the word of God and Christian beliefs, public and society religious dedication has become a thing of the past — unwelcome in schools and sports, government buildings, and bringing down the morals of society. We need to look at Rome’s influence on the world accompanied with many other civilizations that were also influential on the world that led to Christianity. The development of human societies was not continuous. It was started several times anew–in India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, and in Western Europe, beginning each time with the primitive tribe and then the village community. But if we consider each of these lines separately, we certainly find in each of them, and especially in the development of Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire, a continual widening of the conception of mutual support and mutual protection, from the clan to the tribe, the nation, and finally to the international union of nations. (Kropotkin, 1934, p. 17) Christianity today is going through another revival such as in Rome, with many Christians now looking deeply inside – philosophizing and asking inner questions concerning what they have always been told – such as, is Christianity a pure religion in itself, or is it a combination of other religions. As Barry Banning said, previous Christian philosophies and hierarchical leaders told us to never question anything about our churches or what we have been taught. Christians are individuals who have unique mindsets, they are going to grow and change in their perception of the world around them, and this is a time when humanity is asking questions, seeking to find out truths. We are beginning to observe what Christianity is really about, not blindly accepting what we have been told by our superiors. The Roman imprints left from the early Christian development have simply extended an age-old religious philosophy that has long been past due for a change and maybe a needed updated version. Over the centuries, Christianity has not only changed in an intellectual theory but also with the philosophy regarding its impact by Rome. People change and learn in different ways, with continuously changing perceptions that cross many barriers – age, education, beliefs, or culture. Nevertheless, the bottom line is, without Rome we would never have had Christianity. Moreover, today Christianity as a single religion is ranked as the world’s largest religion, with sub-groups being included in this statistic. For the purpose of statistics, Christians refer to varying degrees of religious activity within Christianity – including Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-day Saints, African Indigenous Churches, and others. All of this is very different from the early days of Rome, with terrified Christians being persecuted for speaking and attempting to practice their religion. Yet, no matter where we look regarding Christianity, we find ourself looking also at the Roman Empire and its early heritage and culture, still breathing today inside our churches and religious cultures. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS: Banning, B. (2001). The Unspoken Power of Rome. 1st Edition. Albuquerque, New Mexico: Wellspring Books. Case, S. C. (1929). Experience with the Supernatural in Early Christian Times. New York: The Century Company. Laistner, M. L. (1951). Christianity and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kropotkin, P. P. A. (1934). The Present Need of Determining the Bases of Morality. New York: Dial Press. Potter, D. S. (2004). The Roman Empire at Bay: AD 180-395. New York: Routledge. Rivers, I. (1994). Classical and Christian Ideas in English Renaissance Poetry: A Student’s Guide. New York: Routledge.

Diglossia

Hindi as a Diglossic Language Standard (Suddha) Hindi vs Hindustani:- Hindustani,  commonly known as  Hindi-Urdu  and historically as  Hindavi,  Urdu, and, is the lingua franca of north india and Pakistan. It is an  indo Aryan language and it is deriving primarily from the  khariboli of Delhi, and borrows a large amount of vocabulary from  Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and Turkic. The colloquial languages are all but indistinguishable, and even though the official standards are nearly identical in grammar. They differ in literary conventions and in academic and technical vocabulary.With Urdu retaining stronger Persian, Central Asian and Arabic influences, and Hindi relying more heavily on Sanskrit. Before the  partisan of India, the terms  Hindustani, Urdu,  and Hindi  were synonymous; all covered what would be called Urdu and Hindi today. The term  Hindustani  is still used for the colloquial language and lingua franca of North India and Pakistan, for example for the language of   bollywood  films, as well as for several quite different   varieties of Hindi  spoken outside the Subcontinent, such as  Fiji Hindi  and the  Caribbean Hindustani  of   Suriname and  Trinidad.Standard Hindi, the official language of India, is based on the  khariboli dialect of the Delhi region and differs from Urdu in that it is usually written in the indigenous  devnagari  script of India and exhibits less Persian influence than Urdu. Many scholars today employ a Sanskritized form of Hindi developed primarily varansi, the  Hindu  holy city, which is based on the Eastern Hindi dialect of that region and thus a separate language from official Standard Hindi.It has a literature of 500 years, with prose, poetry, religion & philosophy, under the Bahmani Kings and later on Khutab Shahi Adil Shahi etc. It is a living language, still prevalent all over the Deccan Plato. Note that the term â€Å"Hindustani† has generally fallen out of common usage in modern India, except to refer to a style of Indian  Hindustani Classic Music. The term used to refer to the language is â€Å"Hindi†, regardless of the mix of Persian or Sanskrit words used by the speaker.One could conceive of a wide spectrum of dialects, with the highly Persianized Urdu at one end of the spectrum and a heavily Sanskrit-based dialect, spoken in the region around Varansi, at the other end of the spectrum. In common usage in India, the term â€Å"Hindi† includes all these dialects except those at the Urdu end of the spectrum. Thus, the different meanings of the word â€Å"Hindi† include, among others: 1. standardized Hindi as taught in schools throughout India, 2. Formal or official Hindi advocated by Puushottam Das Tandon who was freedom fighter from Uttar Pradesh. e is widely remembered for his effort in achieving the official language of India status for Hindi  and as instituted by the post-independence Indian government , heavily influenced by Sanskrit, 3. the vernacular dialects of Hindustani as spoken throughout India, 4. the neutralized form of the language used in popular television and films, or 5. The more formal neutralized form of the language used in broadcast and print news reports. Hindi has two forms: the H form called   Shuddha Hind and Hindustani Language.Both are based on the same dialect that is Khariboli. The L variety, Hindustani (often simply called Hindi) contains many loanwords from Persian and Arabic (brought by the Arabic and Persian invaders in medieval times), along with a massive vocabulary of English loanwords which increase day by day. The L variety is identical with spoken Urdu—except for the fact that the latter is written in  Perso Arabic script. The H variety was standardized in the 1960s during the movement to adopt  Hindi  as national language of Indian Union.Shuddh  means pure Hindi primarily uses words from Sanskrit to replace not only English lo anwords, but also loanwords from  Persian language  and Arabic which had been nativized for centuries. These words are called  Tatsama  words, and they even replaced many  tadbhav  words, i. e. words with Sanskrit origin but having undergone profound  phonological  change. The L variety is used in common speech, TV serials and Bollywood movies and songs. The H variety is used in official and government writings, scholarly books and magazines, signboards, public announcements and public speaking.