Papua New Guinea

Coordinates: 6°S 147°E / 6°S 147°E / -6; 147

Papua New Guinea (PNG; /ˈpæpuə njuː ˈɡɪniː, ˈpɑː-, -pju-/, US /ˈpæpjuə, pɑːˈpuːə/;Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini; Hiri Motu: Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an Oceanian country that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.

Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world; 848 languages are listed for the country, of which 12 have no known living speakers. Most of the population of over 7 million people live in customary communities, which are as diverse as the languages. It is also one of the most rural, as only 18 percent of its people live in urban centres. The country is one of the world's least explored, culturally and geographically, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals are thought to exist in the interior.

Papua New Guinea national Australian rules football team

The Papua New Guinea national Australian rules football team (nicknamed the "Mosquitos" and for sponsorship purposes, the Telikom PNG Mosquitos) represents Papua New Guinea in the team sport of Australian rules football.

The Mosquitos represent the best PNG born and bred male players from the clubs and teams of AFL PNG and is one of the nation's most successful sporting teams, currently ranked 2nd in the world behind Australia.

Beginning as a state representative team in 1973 (when it participated in the Teal Cup), it debuted internationally against Australia at Under 17 level in 1977. Papua New Guinea is the most decorated nation in international Australian Football, having won the equal most Australian Football International Cup titles (2 - 2008, 2014) and five medals including 3 silver medals (2002, 2005, 2011), as well as three gold medals at the Arafura Games.

Identity

The team's nickname is the Mosquitos or "Mozzies" (aka Binatangs – local PNG name for small insects, similar to a mosquito).

Papua New Guinea (song)

"Papua New Guinea" is a 1991 song by the electronic music group Future Sound of London. It was the group's debut single and later appeared on their full-length album Accelerator. The single reached #22 on the UK singles chart. The track has been remixed and released many times since its original release, both legitimately and in bootleg format on CD, Vinyl and Cassette.

The track

The song became a popular rave and club track almost immediately upon its release. The original mix notably samples the bassline from Meat Beat Manifesto's proto-jungle track "Radio Babylon", the tambourine from Bobby Byrd's "Hot Pants - I'm Coming, I'm Coming, I'm Coming", vocals of Lisa Gerrard's singing lifted from the Dead Can Dance song "Dawn of the Iconoclast", from their 1987 album 'Within the Realm of a Dying Sun' and "Shelter Me" by Circuit. "Papua New Guinea" was perhaps FSOL's most club-oriented track; most of the remixes on the single are very dancefloor-friendly. After Accelerator's release, however, they moved in increasingly ambient and experimental directions.

New Guinea

New Guinea (Tok Pisin: Niugini; Dutch: Nieuw-Guinea; Indonesian: Papua or, historically, Irian) is a large Island in the South West Pacific region.

It is the world's second-largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 785,753 km², and the largest wholly within the southern hemisphere.

The island is divided among two countries: Papua New Guinea to the east, and Indonesia to the west.

Names

The island has been known by various names.

The name Papua was used to refer to parts of the island before contact with the West. Its etymology is unclear; one theory states that it is from Tidore, the language used by the Sultanate of Tidore, which controlled parts of the island's coastal region. The name came from papo (to unite) and ua (negation), which means not united or, territory that geographically is far away (and thus not united).

Ploeg reports that the word papua is often said to derive from the Malay word papua or pua-pua, meaning 'frizzly-haired', referring to the highly curly hair of the inhabitants of these areas. Another possibility, put forward by Sollewijn Gelpke in 1993, is that it comes from the Biak phrase sup i papwa which means 'the land below [the sunset]' and refers to the islands west of the Bird's Head, as far as Halmahera. Whatever the origin of the name Papua, it came to be associated with this area, and more especially with Halmahera, which was known to the Portuguese by this name during the era of their colonization in this part of the world.

Guinea

Coordinates: 11°N 10°W / 11°N 10°W / 11; -10

Guinea ⁱ/ˈɡɪni/, officially the Republic of Guinea (French: République de Guinée), is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea (French: Guinée française), the modern country is sometimes referred to as Guinea-Conakry in order to distinguish it from other parts of the wider region of the same name, such as Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea. Guinea has a population of 10.5 million and an area of 245,860 square kilometres (94,927 sq mi).

Guinea is a republic. The president is directly elected by the people and is head of state and head of government. The unicameral Guinean National Assembly is the legislative body of the country, and its members are also directly elected by the people. The judicial branch is led by the Guinea Supreme Court, the highest and final court of appeal in the country.

Guinea is a predominantly Islamic country, with Muslims representing 85 percent of the population. Guinea's people belong to twenty-four ethnic groups. French, the official language of Guinea, is the main language of communication in schools, in government administration, in the media, and among the country's security forces, but more than twenty-four indigenous languages are also spoken.

Guinea (region)

Guinea is a traditional name for the region of West Africa that lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It stretches north through the forested tropical regions and ends at the Sahel.

Etymology

The etymology of "Guinea" is uncertain. The English term Guinea comes directly from the Portuguese word Guiné, which emerged in the mid-15th century to refer to the lands inhabited by the Guineus, a generic term for the black African peoples south of the Senegal River (as opposed to the 'tawny' Zenaga Berbers, north of it, whom they called Azenegues or Moors). The term "Guinea" is extensively used in the 1453 chronicle of Gomes Eanes de Zurara.

King John II of Portugal took up the title of Senhor da Guiné (Lord of Guinea) from 1483. It is believed the Portuguese borrowed Guineus from the Berber term Ghinawen (sometimes Arabized as Guinauha or Genewah) meaning "the burnt people" (analogous to the Classical Greek Aithiops, "of the burned face"). The Berber terms "aginaw" or "Akal n-Iguinawen" mean "black" or "land of the blacks."

Guinea (coin)

The guinea is a coin of approximately one quarter ounce of gold that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1814. It was the first English machine-struck gold coin, originally worth one pound sterling, equal to twenty shillings, but rises in the price of gold relative to silver caused the value of the guinea to increase, at times to as high as thirty shillings. From 1717 to 1816, its value was officially fixed at twenty-one shillings. Then, Great Britain adopted the gold standard and guinea became a colloquial or specialised term.

The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, where much of the gold used to make the coins originated. Although no longer circulated, the term guinea survives in some circles, notably horse racing, and in the sale of rams to mean an amount of one pound and one shilling (21 shillings) or one pound and five pence in decimalised currency. The name also forms the basis for the Arabic word for the Egyptian pound الجنيه el-Genēh / el-Geni, as a sum of 100 qirsh (one pound) was worth approximately 21 shillings at the end of the 19th century.