The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals" (hence also the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants (or "transfixes") which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate way, generally following specific patterns. It is a peculiarity of Semitic linguistics that a large majority of these consonantal roots are triliterals (although there are a number of quadriliterals, and in some languages also biliterals).

Triconsonantal roots[link]

A triliteral or triconsonantal root (Hebrew: שוֹרֶש‎; šoreš, Arabic: جذر ثلاثي‎; jidhr thulāthī, Syriac: ܫܪܫܐ; šeršā) is a root containing a sequence of three consonants.

The following are some of the forms which can be derived from the triconsonantal root k-t-b (general overall meaning "to write") in Hebrew and Arabic:

Note: The Hebrew fricatives transcribed as "ḵ" and "ḇ" can also be transcribed in a number of other ways, such as "ch" and "v" (Eastern-European influenced), which are pronounced [χ] and [v], respectively. They are transliterated "ḵ" and "ḇ" on this page to retain the connection with the pure consonantal root k-t-b. Also notice that in Modern Hebrew, there is no gemination.

In Hebrew grammatical terminology, the word binyan (Hebrew בנין, plural בינינים binyanim) is used to refer to a verb stem or overall verb derivation pattern, while the word mishqal (or mishkal) is used to refer to a noun derivation pattern, and these words have gained some use in English-language linguistic terminology. The Arabic terms, called وزن wazn (plural أوزان, awzān) for the pattern and جذر jidhr (plural جذور, judhūr) for the root have not gained the same currency as the Hebrew equivalents, and Western grammarians continue to use "stem"/"form"/"pattern" for the former and "root" for the latter—though "form" and "pattern" are accurate translations of the Arabic grammatical term wazn (originally meaning 'weight, measure'), and "root" is a literal translation of jidhr.

Biliteral origin of some triliteral roots[link]

Although most roots in Hebrew seem to be tri-radical, many of them were originally bi-radical, cf. the relation between גזז √ g-z-z ‘shear’, גזמ √ g-z-m ‘prune’ and גזר√ g-z-r ‘cut’, as well as between פרז√ p-r-z ‘divide a city’, פרט √ p-r-ţ ‘give change’ and פרע √ p-r-‘ ‘pay a debt’."^[1] The Hebrew root שקפ √ sh-q-p "look out/through" deriving from קפ√ q-p "bend, arch, lean towards" (cf. קפח√ q-p-ħ, קפה√ q-p-h, קפא √ q-p-' and קפי √ q-p-y "arch, bend"), and similar verbs fit into the shaCCéC verb-pattern. "This verb-pattern is usually causative, cf. שטפ√ sh-ţ-p ‘wash, rinse, make wet’, from טפ √ ţ-p ‘wet’, as well as שלכ √ sh-l-k ‘cast off, throw down, cause to go’, from לכ √ l-k ‘go’".^[1]

Quadriliteral roots[link]

A quadriliteral is a consonantal root containing a sequence of four consonants (instead of three consonants, as is more often the case). A quadriliteral form is a word derived from such a four-consonant root. For example, the abstract quadriliteral root t-r-g-m / t-r-j-m gives rise to the verb forms תרגם tirgem in Hebrew and ترجم tarjama in Arabic, meaning "he translated". In some cases, a quadriliteral root is actually a reduplication of a two-consonant sequence. So in Hebrew דגדג digdeg means "he tickled", and in Arabic زلزال zilzāl means "earthquake".

Generally, only a subset of the verb derivations formed from triliteral roots are allowed with quadriliteral roots. For example, in Hebrew, the Pi``el, Pu``al, and Hitpa``el, and in Arabic, forms similar to the stem II and stem V forms of triliteral roots.

Traditionally in the Semitic languages, forms with more than four basic consonants (i.e. consonants not introduced by morphological inflection or derivation) were occasionally found in nouns — mainly loanwords from other languages — but never in verbs.^[2] However, in modern Israeli Hebrew, syllables are allowed to begin with a sequence of two consonants (a relaxation of the situation in early Semitic, where only one consonant was allowed), and this has opened the door to apparent five root-consonant forms, such as טלגרף tilgref "he telegraphed". But, -lgr- always appears as an indivisible cluster in the derivation of this verb, so that these five root-consonant forms do not display any fundamentally different morphological patterns from four root-consonant forms (and the term "quinqueliteral" or "quinquiliteral" would be misleading if it implied otherwise).

See also[link]

Look up triliteral in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up quadriliteral in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• apophony vs. transfixation (root-and-pattern)
• Arabic grammar
• broken plural
• nonconcatenative morphology
• Phono-semantic matching
• Proto-Indo-European root
• transfix
• Khuzdul

References[link]

External links[link]

• Semitic Roots Repository
• Roots in Quranic Arabic
• Project Root List

v t e Arabic عربي Overviews Language Alphabet History Romanization Numerology Influence on other languages Alphabet Arabic numerals Eastern numerals Arabic braille Diacritics Hamza Tāʾ marbūṭah Letters ʾAlif Bāʾ Tāʾ Ṯāʾ Ǧīm Ḥāʾ Ḫāʾ Dāl Ḏāl Rāʾ Zayn Sīn Šīn Ṣād Ḍād Ṭāʾ Ẓāʾ ʿAyn Ġayn Fāʾ Qāf Kāf Lām Mīm Nūn Hāʾ Wāw Yāʾ Eras Ancient North Arabian Classical Modern Notable varieties Standardized Modern Standard Arabic Regional Egyptian Iraqi Levantine Maghrebi Sudanese Arabian Yemeni Ethnic/Religious Judeo-Arabic Academic Literature Names Linguistics Phonology Sun and moon letters ʾIʿrāb (inflection) Grammar Triliteral root Mater lectionis IPA Quranic Arabic Corpus

Semitic peoples
الساميون

Abraham Ishmael Moses John the Baptist Jesus Christ Haydar Ali Sargon the Great Hammurabi Shalmaneser III Nebuchadnezzar II Philip the Arab Septimius Severus Dido Semiramis Zenobia Julia Domna Al-Khansa Mary Hannibal Gebre Mesqel Lalibela John of Damascus Tertullian Isaac of Nineveh Abgar V Al-Kindi Alhazen Antun Saadeh Lucian Bukhtishu Zeno of Citium
Total population
c. 250 – 476 million
Regions with significant populations
Arabic 206 million [1] [2] Amharic 27 million Tigrinya 6,7 million Hebrew 5 million [3] Neo-Aramaic 2,105 million Selti 0.83 million Tigre 0.8 million Maltese 371,900 [4] South Arabian 360,000 Sebat Bet Gurage 440,000 Inor 280,000 Soddo 250,000 Harari 21,283

Map showing the distribution of Semitic languages

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical "Shem", Hebrew: שם‎, translated as "name", Arabic: ساميّ‎) was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. This family includes the ancient and modern forms of; Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Ge'ez, Maltese, Canaanite/Phoenician, Amorite, Eblaite, Ugaritic, Sutean, Chaldean, Mandaic, Old Persian, Ahlamu, Amharic, Tigre and Tigrinya among others.

As language studies are interwoven with cultural studies, the term also came to describe the extended cultures and ethnicities, as well as the history of these varied peoples as associated by close geographic and linguistic distribution.

Origin[link]

The term Semite means a member of any of various ancient and modern Semitic-speaking peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including; Akkadians (Assyrians and Babylonians), Eblaites, Ugarites, Canaanites, Phoenicians (including Carthaginians), Hebrews (Israelites, Judeans and Samaritans), Ahlamu, Arameans, Chaldeans, Amorites, Moabites, Edomites, Hyksos, Arabs, Nabateans, Maganites, Shebans, Sutu, Ubarites, Dilmunites, Maltese, Mandaeans, Sabians, Syriacs, Mhallami, Amalekites and Ethiopian Semites. It was proposed at first to refer to the languages related to Hebrew by Ludwig Schlözer, in Eichhorn's "Repertorium", vol. VIII (Leipzig, 1781), p. 161. Through Eichhorn the name then came into general usage (cf. his "Einleitung in das Alte Testament" (Leipzig, 1787), I, p. 45). In his "Geschichte der neuen Sprachenkunde", pt. I (Göttingen, 1807) it had already become a fixed technical term.^[5]

The word "Semitic" is an adjective derived from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible (Genesis 5.32, 6.10, 10.21), or more precisely from the Greek derivative of that name, namely Σημ (Sēm); the noun form referring to a person is Semite.

The term "anti-Semitic" (or "anti-Semite") overwhelmingly refers to Jews only.^{[citation needed]} It was coined in 1879 by German journalist Wilhelm Marr in a pamphlet called Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum ("The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism").^{[citation needed]} Using ideas of race and nationalism, Marr argued that Jews had become the first major power in the West. He accused them of being liberals, a people without roots who had Judaized Germans beyond salvation. In 1879 Marr founded the "League for Anti-Semitism".^[6]

The concept of "Semitic" peoples is derived from Biblical accounts of the origins of the cultures known to the ancient Hebrews. Those closest to them in culture and language were generally deemed to be descended from their forefather Shem. Enemies were often said to be descendants of his cursed nephew, Canaan. In Genesis 10:21-31, Shem is described as the father of Aram, Ashur, and Arpachshad: the Biblical ancestors of the Arabs, Aramaeans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Sabaeans, and Hebrews, etc., all of whose languages are closely related; the language family containing them was therefore named "Semitic" by linguists. However, the Canaanites, Eblaites, Ugarites and Amorites also spoke languages belonging to this family, and are therefore also termed Semitic in linguistics, despite being described in Genesis as sons of Ham (See Sons of Noah). Shem is also described in Genesis as the father of Elam and Lud, however the Elamites spoke a language isolate and Lydians spoke an Indo-European language.

The hypothetical Proto-Semitic language, ancestral to historical Semitic languages in the Middle East, is thought to have been originally from either the Arabian Peninsula (particularly around Yemen), the Levant, Mesopotamia or even the Ethiopian Highlands. But its region of origin is still much debated and uncertain with, for example, a recent bayesian analysis identifying an origin for Semitic languages in the Levant around 5,750 BP with a later single introduction from what is now southern Arabia into north Africa around 2,800 BP.^[7] The Semitic language family is also considered a component of the larger Afroasiatic macro-family of languages. Identification of the hypothetical proto-Semitic region of origin is therefore dependent on the larger geographic distributions of the other language families within Afroasiatic.

Semitic peoples[link]

Approximate distribution of Semitic languages around the 1st century AD

The following is a list of ancient and modern Semitic peoples.

• Mandaeans
• Akkadians (Assyrians/Babylonians) — migrated into Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC and amalgamate with non-Semitic Mesopotamian (Sumerian) populations into the Assyrians and Babylonians of the Late Bronze Age.^[8][9] The remnants of these people became the modern Assyrian Christians.
• Eblaites — 23rd century BC
• Chaldeans — appeared in southern Mesopotamia circa 1000 BC
• Aramaeans — 16th to 8th century BC^[10] / Akhlames (Ahlamu) 14th century BC^[11] The modern Syriac Christian population of Syria are largely of Aramean stock.
• Mhallami
• Ugarites, 14th to 12th centuries BC
• Suteans - 14th Century BC
• Canaanite language speaking nations of the early Iron Age:
  • Amorites — 20th century BC
  • Ammonites
  • Edomites
  • Amalekites
  • Hebrews/Israelites — founded the nation of Israel which later split into the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The remnants of these people became the Jews and the Samaritans.
  • Moabites
  • Phoenicians — founded Mediterranean colonies including Carthage. The remnants of these people became the modern Maronites.
• Old South Arabian speaking peoples
  • Sabaeans of Yemen — 9th to 1st c. BC
• Shebans
• Ubarites
• Maganites
• Ethio-Semitic speaking peoples
  • Aksumites — 4th c. BC to 7th c. AD
• Arabs, Old North Arabian speaking Bedouins
  • Gindibu's Arabs 9th c. BC
  • Qadar tribe 7th century BC
  • Lihyanites — 6th to 1st c. BC
  • Thamud people — 2nd to 5th c. AD
  • Ghassanids — 3rd to 7th c. AD
• Nabataeans — Mix of Aramaiac and Arabic speakers.
  • Maltese

Semitic States and Nations[link]

Below is a list of some important Semitic speaking states and nations extant at different points prior to the 7th century AD.

Mesopotamia

• Isin
• Larsa
• Akshak
• Akkad
• Assyria
• Babylonia
• Ekallatum
• Mari
• Eshnunna
• Chaldea
• Adiabene
• Osroene
• Hatra

Levant

• Ebla
• Ugar
• Amorite States
• Aram Damascus
• Aram Rehob
• Aram-Sôvah
• Hamath
• Aram-Ma’akah
• Palmyra

Canaan

• Arvad
• Sidon
• Tyre
• Israel
• Judah
• Samarra
• Byblos
• Moab
• Edom
• Ammon
• Petra
• Sutea
• Amalek
• Nabatea

Arabia

• Magan
• Dilmun
• Sheba
• Ubar
• Himyarite Kingdom
• ʿĀd
• Thamud
• Qataban
• Kingdom of Awsan

North Africa/Mediterranean

• Mdina (Malta)
• Carthage

North East Africa

• Aksum
• Ethiopia

Languages[link]

The Harvard Semitic Museum at Harvard University

The modern linguistic meaning of "Semitic" is therefore derived from (though not identical to) Biblical usage. In a linguistic context the Semitic languages are a subgroup of the larger Afroasiatic language family (according to Joseph Greenberg's widely accepted classification) and include, among others: Akkadian, the ancient language of Babylon and Assyria; Amorite, Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia; Tigrinya, a language spoken in Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia; Arabic; Aramaic, still spoken in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Armenia by Assyrian-Chaldean Christians and Mandaeans; Canaanite; Ge'ez, the ancient language of the Eritrean and Ethiopian Orthodox scriptures which originated in Yemen; Hebrew; Maltese; Phoenician or Punic; Syriac (a form of Aramaic); and South Arabian, the ancient language of Sheba/Saba, which today includes Mehri, spoken by only tiny minorities on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula.

Wildly successful as second languages far beyond their numbers of contemporary first-language speakers, a few Semitic languages today are the base of the sacred literature of some of the world's great religions, including Islam (Arabic), Judaism (Hebrew and Aramaic), and Syriac and Ethiopian Christianity (Aramaic/Syriac and Ge'ez). Millions learn these as a second language (or an archaic version of their modern tongues): many Muslims learn to read and recite Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an, and many Jews all over the world outside of Israel with other first languages speak and study Hebrew, the language of the Torah, Midrash, and other Jewish scriptures. Ethnic Assyrian followers of The Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ancient Church of the East and some Syriac Orthodox Christians, both speak Mesopotamian eastern Aramaic and use it also as a liturgical tongue. The language is also used liturgically by the primarily Arabic speaking followers of the Maronite, Syriac Catholic Church and some Melkite Christians. Mandaic another dialect of Aramaic is both spoken and used as a liturgical language by followers of the Mandaean faith.

It should be noted that Berber, Egyptian (including Coptic), Hausa, Somali, and many other related languages within the wider area of Northern Africa and the Middle East do not belong to the specific Semitic group, but are related the larger Afroasiatic language family of which the Semitic languages are also a subgroup.^[12]

Other ancient Near Eastern languages fall under non Semitic groupings; Sumerian, Elamite, Hurrian, Mannean, Gutian and Urartian were language isolates, meaning they were stand alone tongues, not related to any other language group, living or dead. Hittite, Phrygian, Lydian, Mitanni, Median, Philistine language, Cimmerian, Scythian, ancient Armenian, ancient Persian and ancient Greek were Indo-European languages. Nubian was a Nilotic language. Modern languages of the region that are non Semitic include; Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Shabak, Farsi/Persian, Gilaki, Turkish, Gagauz, modern Armenian, Georgian, Circassian, Chechen and Roma.

For a complete list of Semitic languages arranged by subfamily, see list from SIL's Ethnologue.

Geography[link]

Semitic peoples and their languages, in both modern and ancient historic times, have covered a broad area bridging North Africa, Western Asia, Asia Minor and the Arabian Peninsula. The earliest historic (written) evidences of them are found in the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia), an area encompassing the Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (modern Iraq), extending northwest into southern Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and the Levant (modern Syria and Lebanon) along the eastern Mediterranean. Early traces of Semitic speakers are found, too, in South Arabian inscriptions in Yemen, Eritrea, Northern Ethiopia, and after this in Carthage (modern Tunisia) and later still, in Roman times, in Nabataean inscriptions from Petra (modern Jordan) south into Arabia.

Later historical Semitic languages also spread into North Africa in two widely separated periods. The first expansion occurred with the ancient Phoenicians from around the 9th century BC, along the southern Mediterranean Sea all the way to the Atlantic Ocean (Phoenician colonies which included ancient Rome's nemesis Carthage). The second, a millennium later, was the expansion of the Muslim armies and Arabic in the 7th-8th centuries AD, which, at their height, controlled the Iberian Peninsula (until 1492) and Sicily. Arab Muslim expansion is also responsible for modern Arabic's presence from Mauritania, on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, to the Red Sea in the northeastern corner of Africa, and its reach south along the Nile River as far as the northern half of Sudan, where, as the national language, non-Arab Sudanese even farther south must learn it.

Modern Hebrew was reintroduced in the 20th century, and together with Arabic, is a national language in Israel. Western Aramaic dialects remain spoken in Malula near Damascus. Eastern Mesopotamian Neo-Aramaic is spoken along the northern border of Syria and throughout Iraq, Southeast-Turkey (Turabdin), in far northwestern Iran and in Armenia, Georgia and southern Russia. These speakers are predominantly ethnic Assyrians (also known as Chaldo-Assyrians). Mandaean Aramaic is still spoken in parts of southern and northern Iraq. Semitic languages and are also found in the Horn of Africa, especially Eritrea and Ethiopia. Tigrinya, a North Ethiopic dialect, has around six million speakers in Eritrea and Tigray. In Eritrea, Tigre is the language of around 800,000 Muslims. Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia and is spoken by at least 10 million Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. Semitic languages today are also spoken in Malta (where an Italian-influenced language derived from Siculo-Arabic is spoken) and on the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean between Yemen and Somalia, where a dying vestige of South Arabian is spoken in the form of Soqotri. The Maltese language is the only officially recognized Semitic language of the European Union.

Religion[link]

In a religious context, the term 'Semitic' can refer to the religions associated with the speakers of these languages: thus Judaism, Christianity and Islam are often described as "Semitic religions" (irrespective of language family spoken by their adherents). Manicheanism and the Mandaean religion also fall within this category.

The term Abrahamic religions is more commonly used today. A truly comprehensive account of "Semitic" religions would include the Ancient Semitic religions (such as Mesopotamian religion and Canaanite Religion) that flourished in the Middle East long before the Abrahamic religions.

Ethnicity and race[link]

A stylised T and O map, depicting Asia as the home of the descendents of Shem (Sem). Africa is ascribed to Ham and Europe to Japheth

In Medieval Europe, all Asian peoples were thought of as descendants of Shem. By the nineteenth century, the term Semitic was confined to the ethnic groups who have historically spoken Semitic languages. These peoples were often considered to be a distinct race. However, some anti-Semitic racial theorists of the time argued that the Semitic peoples arose from the blurring of distinctions between previously separate races. This supposed process was referred to as Semiticization by the race-theorist Arthur de Gobineau. The notion that Semitic identity was a product of racial "confusion" was later taken up by the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg.^{[citation needed]}

In contrast, some recent genetic studies found that analysis of the DNA of Semitic-speaking peoples suggests that they have some common ancestry. Though no significant common mitochondrial results have been yielded, Y-chromosomal links between Semitic-speaking Near-Eastern peoples like Arabs, Hebrews and Assyrians have proved fruitful, despite differences contributed from other groups (see Y-chromosomal Aaron). The studies attribute this correlation to a common Near Eastern origin, since Semitic-speaking Near Easterners from the Fertile Crescent (including Jews) were found to be more closely related to non-Semitic speaking Near Easterners (such as Iranians, Anatolians, and Caucasians) than to other Semitic-speakers (such as Gulf Arabs, Ethiopian Semites, and North African Arabs).^[13][14]

Semiticization is a concept found in the writings of some racial theorists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.^{[citation needed]} The term was first used by Arthur de Gobineau to label the blurring of racial distinctions that, in his view, had occurred in the Middle-East. Gobineau had an essentialist model of race according to which there were three distinct racial groups: "black", "white" and "yellow" peoples, though he had no clear account of how this division arose. When these races mixed this caused "degeneration". Since the point at which these three supposed races met was in the middle-east, Gobineau argued that the process of mixing and diluting races occurred there, and that Semitic peoples embodied this "confused" racial identity.

This concept suited the interests of antisemites, since it provided a theoretical model to rationalise racialised antisemitism. Variations of the theory are to be found in the writings of many antisemites in the late nineteenth century. The Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg developed a variant of the theory in his writings, arguing that Jewish people were not a "real" race. According to Rosenberg, their evolution came about from the mixing of pre-existing races rather than from natural selection. The theory of Semiticization was typically associated with other longstanding racist fears about the dilution of racial difference through miscegenation, manifested in negative images of mulattos and other mixed groups.

See also[link]

• Hamitic
• Japhetic
• Proto-Semitic
• Antisemitism
• Afroasiatic languages

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2008)

External links[link]

• Semitic genetics
• Semitic language family tree included under "Afro-Asiatic" in SIL's Ethnologue.
• The south Arabian origin of ancient Arabs
• The Edomite Hyksos connection
• The perished Arabs
• The Midianites of the north
• Ancient Semitic peoples (video)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2011)

Friedrich A. Kittler (June 12, 1943 – October 18, 2011) was a literary scholar and a media theorist. His works relate to media, technology, and the military.

Biography[link]

Friedrich Adolf Kittler was born in 1943 in Rochlitz in Saxony. His family fled with him to West Germany in 1958, where from 1958 to 1963 he went to a natural sciences and modern languages Gymnasium in Lahr in the Black Forest, and thereafter, until 1972, he studied German studies, Romance philology and philosophy at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg in Freiburg im Breisgau. During his studies, he was influenced by Jacques Lacan's and Michel Foucault's writings.

In 1976, Kittler received his doctorate in philosophy after a thesis on the poet Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Between 1976 and 1986 he worked as academic assistant at the university's Deutsches Seminar. In 1984, he earned his Habilitation in the field of Modern German Literary History.

He had several stints as a Visiting Assistant Professor or Visiting Professor at universities in the United States, such as the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Santa Barbara and Stanford University.

From 1986 to 1990, he headed the DFG's Literature and Media Analysis project in Kassel and in 1987 he was appointed Professor of Modern German Studies at the Ruhr University. In 1993 he was appointed to the chair for Media Aesthetics and History at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Between 2005 and 2011 he was a professor at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.^[1]

In 1993, Kittler was awarded the "Siemens Media Arts Prize" (Siemens-Medienkunstpreis) by ZKM Karlsruhe (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, or "Centre for Art and Media Technology") for his research in the field of media theory.^[2]

He was recognized in 1996 as a Distinguished Scholar at Yale University and in 1997 as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York. Kittler was a member of the Hermann von Helmholtz Centre for Culture and the research group Bild Schrift Zahl ("Picture Writing Number") (DFG). He died in Berlin. His last words were reportedly "Alle Apparate auschalten", which translates, referring to the machines which were keeping him alive, as "switch off all apparatuses".^[3]

Work and its importance[link]

Friedrich Kittler is seminal in the new approach to media theory that grew popular starting in the 1980s, new media (German: Technische Medien, which translates roughly to "technical media"). Kittler's central project is to "prove to the human sciences [...] their technological-media a priori" (Hartmut Winkler), or in his own words: "Driving the spirit out of the humanities",^[4] a title that he gave a work that he published in 1980.

Kittler sees an autonomy in technology and therefore disagrees with Marshall McLuhan's reading of the media as "extensions of man": "Media are not pseudopods for extending the human body. They follow the logic of escalation that leaves a written history behind it. (Kittler in Geschichte der Kommunikationsmedien. In: Jörg Huber, Alois Martin Müller (publishers): Raum und Verfahren).

Consequently, he sees in writing literature, in writing programmes and in burning structures into silicon chips a complete continuum: "As we know and simply do not say, no human being writes anymore. [...] Today, human writing runs through inscriptions burnt into silicon by electronic lithography [...]. The last historic act of writing may thus have been in the late seventies when a team of Intel engineers [plotted] the hardware architecture of their first integrated microprocessor." (Kittler, Es gibt keine Software. In: ders.: Draculas Vermächtnis. Technische Schriften).

See also[link]

• Media influence
• Paul Virilio

Notes[link]

Publications[link]

• 2009: Musik und Mathematik. Band 1: Hellas, Teil 2: Eros. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Paderborn.
• 2006: Musik und Mathematik. Band 1: Hellas, Teil 1: Aphrodite. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Paderborn.
• 2004: Unsterbliche. Nachrufe, Erinnerungen, Geistergespräche. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Paderborn.
• 2002: Zwischen Rauschen und Offenbarung. Zur Kultur- und Mediengeschichte der Stimme (as publisher). Akademie Verlag, Berlin
• 2002: Optische Medien. Merve: Berlin. ISBN 3-88396-183-3 (English edition: Optical Media, with an introduction by John Durham Peters. Polity Press 2010)
• 2001: Vom Griechenland (with Cornelia Vismann; Internationaler Merve Diskurs Bd.240). Merve: Berlin. ISBN 3-88396-173-6
• 2000: Nietzsche – Politik des Eigennamens: wie man abschafft, wovon man spricht (with Jacques Derrida). Berlin.
• 2000: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Kulturwissenschaft. München
• 1999: Hebbels Einbildungskraft – die dunkle Natur. Frankfurt, New York, Vienna
• 1998: Zur Theoriegeschichte von Information Warfare
• 1998: Hardware das unbekannte Wesen
• 1997: Literature, Media, Information Systems: Essays (published by John Johnston). Amsterdam
• 1993: Draculas Vermächtnis: Technische Schriften. Leipzig: Reclam. ISBN 3-379-01476-1 Essays zu den "Effekten der Sprengung des Schriftmonopols", zu den Analogmedien Schallplatte, Film und Radio sowie "technische Schriften, die numerisch oder algebraisch verfasst sind".
• 1991: Dichter – Mutter – Kind. Munich
• 1990: Die Nacht der Substanz. Bern
• 1986: Grammophon Film Typewriter. Berlin: Brinkmann & Bose. ISBN 3-922660-17-7 (English edition: Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Stanford 1999)
• 1985: Aufschreibesysteme 1800/1900. Fink: Munich. ISBN 3-7705-2881-6 (English edition: Discourse Networks 1800 / 1900, with a foreword by David E. Wellbery. Stanford 1990)
• 1979: Dichtung als Sozialisationsspiel. Studien zu Goethe und Gottfried Keller (with Gerhard Kaiser). Göttingen
• 1977: Der Traum und die Rede. Eine Analyse der Kommunikationssituation Conrad Ferdinand Meyers. Bern-Munich

Literature[link]

Secondary literature on Friedrich Kittler:

• Frank Hartmann: Friedrich Kittler. In: Information Philosophie 25 (1997) 4, S. 40-44.
• Josef Wallmannsverger: Friedrich Kittler. In: Helmut Schanze (publisher): Metzler Lexikon Medientheorie/ Medienwissenschaft, S. 162 f. Stuttgart 2002.
• Geoffrey Winthrop-Young: Friedrich Kittler zur Einführung, Hamburg: Junius Verlag 2005.

Lectures[link]

• The Relation of Art and Techne, European Graduate School
• Friedrich Kittler. Ein Medienphilosoph, European Graduate School
• Die Endlichkeit der Algorithmen
• Aphrodite mit Stefan Münker
• Farben und/oder Maschinen denken
• Vom Gott der Diebe zum gerechneten Raum
• Kittler liest Gedichte von Sappho und spricht über die Liebe
• Blitz und Serie, Ereignis und Donner
• Ontologie der Medien

External links[link]

• Friedrich Kittler Faculty page at European Graduate School. Biography, bibliography, articles and video lectures
• Friedrich Kittler in the German National Library catalogue (German)
• Auf dem Weg in den Maschinenpark - Rezension Friedrich Kittler: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Kulturwissenschaft - von Frank Hartmann, 28 November 2000
• Telepolis: Friedrich Kittler meets Stephan Schambach von Stefan Krempl, 26. Mai 2000
• Telepolis: Vom Sündenfall der Software - Medientheorie mit Entlarvungsgestus: Friedrich Kittler - von Frank Hartmann, 22 December 1998
• Telepolis: Nicht Cyborg, sondern Affe 17 April 2005
• "Rock me, Aphrodite!" - Interview mit Kittler auf Telepolis, 24 May 2006.
• "Hegel is dead. Miscellanea on Friedrich A. Kittler (1943-2011)" - Obituary on Kittler, Telepolis, 17 November 2011.
• The Sigmund H. Danziger, Jr. Memorial Lecture in the Humanities (Sigmund H. Danziger, Jr Lecture 1993-1994
• "We only have ourselves to draw upon"" - An interview by Andreas Rosenfelder

Notes[link]

Ezra Levant
Ezra Levant in 2008
Born	February 20,[citation needed] 1972 Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Education	B.Comm; LLB
Alma mater	University of Calgary, University of Alberta
Religion	Judaism
Website
Ezra Levant

Ezra Isaac Levant (born 1972) is a Canadian media personality, conservative political activist and author. He is the founder and former publisher of the Western Standard, is a broadcaster and columnist for Sun Media and has written several books on politics and public policy.

Early life and education[link]

Born in Calgary, Levant holds a commerce degree from the University of Calgary and a law degree from the University of Alberta. His great-grandfather emigrated to Canada in 1903 from Russia to establish a homestead near Drumheller, Alberta.^[1] Levant grew up in a suburb of Calgary. He attended a Jewish day school in his childhood before transferring to a public junior high school.

Levant campaigned for the Reform Party of Canada as a teenager and joined it as a university student.^[1] In 1992, while at the University of Calgary, his two-person team won the "best debating" category in the Intercollegiate Business Competition held at Queen's University.^[2] In 1994, he was featured in a Globe and Mail article on young conservatives after accusing the University of Alberta of racism for instituting an affirmative action program of hiring women and aboriginal professors. His actions outraged aboriginal law students, feminists, and a number of professors, and he was called to a meeting with the assistant dean who advised him of the university's non-academic code of conduct and defamation laws. As head of the university's speakers committee, Levant organized a debate between Doug Christie, a lawyer known for his advocacy in defence of Holocaust deniers and accused Nazi war criminals, and Thomas Kuttner, a Jewish lawyer from the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission.^[1]

Levant gained a reputation as the university's leading conservative. He was invited to write a guest column for the Edmonton Journal and interviewed on television.^[3] He spent the summer of 1994 in Washington, D.C., in an internship arranged by the libertarian Charles G. Koch Foundation Summer Fellow Program. He worked for the Fraser Institute in 1995, writing Youthquake, which argued for smaller government, including privatization of the Canada Pension Plan. Levant saw "youthquake", the term he used to describe what he identified as a conservative youth movement of the 1990s, as similar to the 1960s civil rights movement except that instead of being enslaved by racism, his generation was "enslaved by debt" and, in order to liberate itself, society needed to dismantle elements such as trade unions, the minimum wage, universal health care, subsidized tuition and public pension plans.^[4]

Political activism[link]

Views on Quebec[link]

Levant favoured Quebec separatism and a yes vote during the 1995 Quebec referendum in a Calgary Sun column titled "10 Reasons to Hope for a Yes Victory"^[5] Among his 10 reasons were Levant's views that the departure of Quebec from Canadian confederation would lead to the elimination of bilingualism and multiculturalism, that it would give the Canadian government the "fortitude" to say no to "other special interest groups" such as First Nations and environmentalists; it would end corruption in Parliament, which Levant blamed on Quebec politicians, and clear the way for Preston Manning to become Prime Minister of Canada.^[6]

In 1996, Levant wrote a column saying that if the federal Liberals were re-elected, Alberta could separate from Canada making it "free from Quebec's demands."^[6]

Uniting the right[link]

In 1996, Levant worked with David Frum to organize the "Winds of Change" conference in Calgary, an early attempt to encourage the Reform Party of Canada and Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to merge so that a united rightwing party could defeat the Liberal Party of Canada in the subsequent election.^[7] While unsuccessful, the conference anticipated future attempts at a Unite the Right movement which ultimately led to the formation of the Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. Levant supported Preston Manning's United Alternative initiative in 1999, a more advanced attempt to unite the country's conservative movement^[8] and was one of the leaders of the movement to create the Canadian Alliance as an attempt to broaden the party's base.^[9]

Political organizer and aide[link]

While he was a student-at-law, Levant was an active political organizer in the Reform Party, and guided the successful attempts by Rahim Jaffer (as the campaign manager for his nomination in Edmonton-Strathcona and later as his communications-director during the 1997 Federal Election) and Rob Anders to win party nominations.^[10] In 1997, he went to Ottawa to work for the Reform Party, becoming a parliamentary aide to party leader Preston Manning and being put in charge of Question Period strategy.^[6] Along with newly-elected MP's Rob Anders, Jason Kenney and Rahim Jaffer, Levant was part of an up and coming group of young Reformers which pundits dubbed the "Snack Pack" due to their relative youth.

In 1999, after being dismissed as Preston Manning's legislative-assistant, Levant left Ottawa to join the editorial board of the fledgling National Post newspaper in Toronto.^[9][11] A close friend of Stockwell Day's son Logan, Levant proclaimed himself a "Stockaholic"^[12] and supported the elder Day in his successful attempt to defeat Reform Party leader Preston Manning for the leadership of the new Canadian Alliance.^{[citation needed]}

In February 2001, he returned to Ottawa as communications director to Day.^[13] In May of that year he resigned after leaking to the National Post a letter that he sent to dissident MP Chuck Strahl in which he threatened to sue over Strahl's criticisms of his office.^[14][15][16]

Candidacy and resignation[link]

Later in 2001, Levant returned to Calgary to practice law. By February 2002 he had won the Canadian Alliance party nomination for the riding of Calgary Southwest,^[17] but stepped aside after public pressure so that new party leader Stephen Harper could run there in a 2002 by-election. When the by-election was called, Levant, who said he spent over $150,000 to gain the nomination,^[18] announced on March 28 that he would not step aside.^[12][19] Later that night, however, he relented after widespread pressure from the party and accusations that he was putting himself ahead of the party.^[20]

Publishing[link]

In 2004 Levant co-founded the Western Standard, an Alberta-based magazine with an emphasis on Western Canada, political conservatism, and libertarianism.^[21] In October 2007 the magazine stopped publishing its print edition after failing to become profitable,^[22] becoming an online magazine. Levant later sold the publication's remaining assets to Matthew Johnson, the former legislative aide to Rahim Jaffer.^[23]

Levant wrote an irregular column for the Calgary Sun for ten years, until he was dropped in October 2007 because of "internal decisions."^[24] He continued to write occasional columns for the National Post on a freelance basis.^[25]

In 2010, Levant joined Sun Media a columnist and now has an on-air position on the Sun TV News Channel as host of The Source.^[26]

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy[link]

In February 2006, the Western Standard published the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons depicting Muhammad.^[27] Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada and the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities complained about the publication to the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission and a hearing was scheduled for January 2008. On the day of the hearing Levant republished the cartoons on his website.^[25]