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Topic Review
Q'eqchi' Language
The Q'eqchi' language, also spelled Kekchi, K'ekchi', or kekchí, is one of the Mayan languages, spoken within Q'eqchi' communities in Guatemala and Belize.
  • 1.4K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
The Livability of Open Public Spaces during Nighttime
The transformations of contemporary life are reflected not only in the way people use open public spaces but also in the time people use them—nighttime activities are becoming more frequent. High daytime temperatures in certain periods of the year, during the summer and other seasons, discourage the development of outdoor activities in open public spaces during daytime. The urban heat island impact of pollution has significantly reduced the quality of living conditions in cities for daily outdoor activities. On the other hand, the hectic contemporary lifestyle in an urban context creates a lack of free time during the day, because leisure is compatible with working hours, where the focus on working during the day reduces the possibility of free time . These restrictions have changed the patterns of human behavior in urban environments, shifting the focus of free time to nighttime. The livability of open public spaces in an urban context is determined by usage and the frequency, duration, and activities of users. People’s activities in public spaces, according to Jan Gehl, can be divided into three types: necessary, optional, and social behaviors. According to him, the physical environment and spatial features of the area play an important role when engaging in outdoor activities, except for the necessary behaviors (including going to school, going to work, shopping, etc.).
  • 1.4K
  • 28 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Avesta
The Avesta (/əˈvɛstə/) is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language. The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect, or by usage. The principal text in the liturgical group is the Yasna, which takes its name from the Yasna ceremony, Zoroastrianism's primary act of worship, and at which the Yasna text is recited. The most important portion of the Yasna texts are the five Gathas, consisting of seventeen hymns attributed to Zoroaster himself. These hymns, together with five other short Old Avestan texts that are also part of the Yasna, are in the Old (or 'Gathic') Avestan language. The remainder of the Yasna's texts are in Younger Avestan, which is not only from a later stage of the language, but also from a different geographic region. Extensions to the Yasna ceremony include the texts of the Vendidad and the Visperad. The Visperad extensions consist mainly of additional invocations of the divinities (yazatas), while the Vendidad is a mixed collection of prose texts mostly dealing with purity laws. Even today, the Vendidad is the only liturgical text that is not recited entirely from memory. Some of the materials of the extended Yasna are from the Yashts, which are hymns to the individual yazatas. Unlike the Yasna, Visperad and Vendidad, the Yashts and the other lesser texts of the Avesta are no longer used liturgically in high rituals. Aside from the Yashts, these other lesser texts include the Nyayesh texts, the Gah texts, the Siroza, and various other fragments. Together, these lesser texts are conventionally called Khordeh Avesta or "Little Avesta" texts. When the first Khordeh Avesta editions were printed in the 19th century, these texts (together with some non-Avestan language prayers) became a book of common prayer for lay people. The term Avesta is from the 9th/10th-century works of Zoroastrian tradition in which the word appears as Zoroastrian Middle Persian abestāg, Book Pahlavi ʾp(y)stʾkʼ. In that context, abestāg texts are portrayed as received knowledge, and are distinguished from the exegetical commentaries (the zand) thereof. The literal meaning of the word abestāg is uncertain; it is generally acknowledged to be a learned borrowing from Avestan, but none of the suggested etymologies have been universally accepted. The widely repeated derivation from *upa-stavaka is from Christian Bartholomae (Altiranisches Wörterbuch, 1904), who interpreted abestāg as a descendant of a hypothetical reconstructed Old Iranian word for "praise-song" (Bartholomae: Lobgesang); but this word is not actually attested in any text.
  • 1.4K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Taiji
Taiji or Tai chi (simplified Chinese: 太极; traditional Chinese: 太極; pinyin: tàijí; literally: 'great pole') is a Chinese cosmological term for the "Supreme Ultimate" state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which Yin and Yang originate. It can be compared with the old Wuji (無極, "without pole"). The term Taiji and its other spelling T'ai chi (using Wade–Giles as opposed to Pinyin) are most commonly used in the West to refer to Taijiquan (or T'ai chi ch'uan, 太極拳), an internal martial art, Chinese meditation system and health practice. This article, however, refers only to the use of the term in Chinese philosophy and in Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.
  • 1.4K
  • 24 Oct 2022
Biography
Martin Lings
Martin Lings (24 January 1909 – 12 May 2005), also known as Abū Bakr Sirāj ad-Dīn, was an England writer, scholar, and philosopher. A student of the Swiss metaphysician Frithjof Schuon[1] and an authority on the work of William Shakespeare, he is best known as the author of Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, first published in 1983 and still in print. Lings was born in Bur
  • 1.4K
  • 09 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Concepts in Folk Art
Folk and traditional arts are rooted in and reflective of the cultural life of a community. They encompass the body of expressive culture associated with the fields of folklore and cultural heritage. Tangible folk art includes objects which historically are crafted and used within a traditional community. Intangible folk arts include such forms as music, dance and narrative structures. Each of these arts, both tangible and intangible, was originally developed to address a real need. Once this practical purpose has been lost or forgotten, there is no reason for further transmission unless the object or action has been imbued with meaning beyond its initial practicality. These vital and constantly reinvigorated artistic traditions are shaped by values and standards of excellence that are passed from generation to generation, most often within family and community, through demonstration, conversation, and practice. It is these cultural artifacts, both tangible and intangible, that become the purview of the folklorist and cultural historian. They seek to understand the significance of these cultural forms within the community by studying their creation, transmission and performance, through which the values and structure of the community are expressed. It then becomes important to document these traditional acts and their meaning.
  • 1.3K
  • 30 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Great Disappointment
The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller's proclamations that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth by 1844, what he called the Advent. His study of the Daniel 8 prophecy during the Second Great Awakening led him to the conclusion that Daniel's "cleansing of the sanctuary" was cleansing of the world from sin when Christ would come, and he and many others prepared, but October 22, 1844 came, and they were disappointed. These events paved the way for the Adventists who formed the Seventh-day Adventist Church. They contended that what had happened on October 22 was not Jesus' return, as Miller had thought, but the start of Jesus' final work of atonement, the cleansing in the heavenly sanctuary, leading up to the Second Coming.
  • 1.3K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Working Memory Models in Language and Bilingualism Research
Working memory (WM) generally refers to our ability to ‘mentally maintain information in an active and readily accessible state while concurrently and selectively processing new information’. WM, as the primary memory, plays a fundamental role in multiple facets of human cognitive life, including language learning and processing.
  • 1.3K
  • 09 Jun 2022
Topic Review
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell. In this book, Campbell discusses his theory of the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world myths. Since the publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell's theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. Filmmaker George Lucas acknowledged Campbell's theory in mythology, and its influence on the Star Wars films. The Joseph Campbell Foundation and New World Library issued a new edition of The Hero with a Thousand Faces in July 2008 as part of the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series of books, audio and video recordings. In 2011, Time (magazine) placed the book in its list of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since the magazine was founded in 1923.
  • 1.3K
  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Buddhism in Addiction Recovery
Buddhism was established by Guatama Buddha as a practice to liberate sentient beings from suffering. Mindfulness-Based interventions (MBIs) are Western psychologists’ adaptation of mindfulness/Vipassana to treat mental illnesses. In addition to mindfulness, Buddhist recovery peer-support programs also adopt the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the Five Precepts, which are the Buddha’s prescription to cease suffering and to discipline one’s ethical conduct.
  • 1.3K
  • 13 Apr 2022
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