111-535: Methuselah ( US : / m ə ˈ θ uː z ˌ l ɑː / ; Hebrew : מְתוּשֶׁלַח Məṯūšélaḥ , in pausa מְתוּשָׁלַח Məṯūšālaḥ , "His death shall send" or "Man of the Javelin " or "Death of Sword"; Greek : Μαθουσάλας Mathousalas ) was a biblical patriarch and a figure in Judaism , Christianity , and Islam . He is claimed to have lived the longest life, dying at 969 years of age. According to
222-707: A cot–caught merger , which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older cot–caught distinction. For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the THOUGHT vowel is particularly marked , as depicted in humorous spellings, like in tawk and cawfee ( talk and coffee ), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal : [oə] . A split of TRAP into two separate phonemes , using different
333-524: A flood swept over his land. Although the ages of Methuselah and Ubara-Tutu are different, they both died in a Great Flood. Babylonian writer Berossus also claims that, prior to the events of Babylon's flood myth , kings could live for tens of thousands of years, which bears some similarity to Genesis 5. In Forever Young: A Cultural History of Longevity , Lucian Boia says that the Bible's portrayal of Methuselah and other long-lived figures features "traces of
444-520: A pronunciations for example in gap [æ] versus gas [eə] , further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents. Most Americans preserve all historical /r/ sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent . The only traditional r -dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England , New York City , and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across
555-641: A "Double Sabbath" each year being counted as only one day to arrive at this computation. Jubilees 7:20–29 is possibly an early reference to the Noahide laws . The Hasmoneans adopted Jubilees immediately, and it became a source for the Aramaic Levi Document. Jubilees remained a point of reference for priestly circles (although they disputed its calendric proposal), and the Temple Scroll and " Epistle of Enoch " are based on Jubilees. It
666-480: A blend of Methuselah and singularity , was coined in 2010 by the biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey to mean a future point in time where people are expected not to die from age-related causes anymore, however long they live. A 4,856-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine ( Pinus longaeva ) tree growing high in the White Mountains of Inyo County in eastern California is called Methuselah . In
777-460: A blessing, and is given instructions on how to live righteously. After their father ascends into heaven, Methuselah and his brothers build an altar and make "a great festivity, praising God who had given such a sign by means of Enoch, who had found favor with Him." The Book of Jubilees presents itself as "the history of the division of the days of the Law, of the events of the years, the year-weeks, and
888-631: A complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling , while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another. Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England ,
999-447: A consonant, such as in pearl , car and fort . Non-rhotic American accents, those that do not pronounce ⟨r⟩ except before a vowel, such as some accents of Eastern New England , New York City , and African-Americans , and a specific few (often older ones) spoken by Southerners , are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived as sounding especially ethnic, regional, or antiquated. Rhoticity
1110-535: A few scattered allusions to the Messianic kingdom. Robert Henry Charles wrote in 1913: This kingdom was to be ruled over by a Messiah sprung, not from Levi —that is, from the Maccabean family—as some of his contemporaries expected—but from Judah . This kingdom would be gradually realized on earth, and the transformation of physical nature would go hand in hand with the ethical transformation of man until there
1221-518: A group of fallen angels mated with mortal females, giving rise to a race of giants known as the Nephilim , and then to their descendants, the Elioud . The Ethiopian version states that the "angels" were in fact the disobedient offspring of Seth ( Deqiqa Set ), while the "mortal females" were daughters of Cain . This is also the view held by Clementine literature , Sextus Julius Africanus , Ephrem
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#17327879926171332-437: A king is divine. Gnuse also believes that the author of Genesis said that Methuselah died before he lived a thousand years to show that he was not divine. Methuselah's name "has become a synonym for longevity". Saying that someone is "as old as Methuselah" is a humorous way of saying that someone is very elderly. In this context, dogs which have lived long lives have been described as "Methuselah dogs". The word "Methuselarity",
1443-591: A merger with the THOUGHT ( caught ) set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the cot vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into the THOUGHT vowel in the following environments: before many instances of /f/ , /θ/ , and particularly /s/ (as in Austria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often, etc.), a few instances before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long, wrong ), and variably by region or speaker in gone , on , and certain other words. Unlike American accents,
1554-636: A nice day , for sure); many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey , boost, bulldoze and jazz , originated as American slang. American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs . Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation , major, and many others. Compounds coined in
1665-480: A process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain. English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa. Additionally, firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to
1776-680: A series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the " Inland North ". The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents ) a backer tongue positioning of the GOOSE /u/ vowel (to [u] ) and the MOUTH /aʊ/ vowel (to [ɑʊ~äʊ] ) in comparison to the rest of the country. Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker
1887-525: A survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms. The study found that most Americans prefer the term sub for a long sandwich, soda (but pop in the Great Lakes region and generic coke in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink , you or you guys for the plural of you (but y'all in
1998-453: A variation of American English in these islands. In 2021, about 245 million Americans, aged 5 or above, spoke English at home: a majority of the United States total population of roughly 330 million people. The United States has never had an official language at the federal level, but English is commonly used at the federal level and in states without an official language. 32 of the 50 states, in some cases as part of what has been called
2109-544: A youth and Anthony Hopkins playing the elderly character. In the film, Noah's adopted daughter Ila (played by Emma Watson ) is infertile until Methuselah blesses her. Aronofsky's version of Methuselah is an eccentric but virtuous hermit who lives on a mountaintop and is friends with Watchers . In this retelling of the Genesis flood , Methuselah dies during the deluge. The lyrics of Ira Gershwin 's song " It Ain't Necessarily So " (1935) cast doubt on various aspects of
2220-702: Is 182, he begets Noah, and the Genesis Flood comes when Noah is 600 years old. This would imply that Methuselah dies the year of the Flood. (In the Septuagint , most of the ages in this section are different. Lamech begets Noah at age 188, and Methuselah lives 802 years after begetting Lamech.) He was also the oldest of all the figures mentioned in the Bible. Methuselah is mentioned once in the Hebrew Bible outside of Genesis, in 1 Chronicles 1:3 . Methuselah
2331-654: Is a biblical patriarch mentioned in Genesis 5:21–27, as part of the genealogy linking Adam to Noah . The following is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible : When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; then he
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#17327879926172442-463: Is also a preserved fragment of a Latin translation of the Greek that contains about a quarter of the whole work. The Geʽez Biblical texts , now numbering twenty-seven, are the primary basis for translations into English. Passages in the texts of Jubilees that are directly parallel to verses in Genesis do not directly reproduce either of the two surviving manuscript traditions. Consequently, even before
2553-654: Is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South. American accents that have not undergone the cot–caught merger (the lexical sets LOT and THOUGHT ) have instead retained a LOT – CLOTH split : a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as the CLOTH lexical set ) separated away from the LOT set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recent CLOTH set into
2664-664: Is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin , and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin-influenced accent. American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country, for example, Philippine English , beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands ; Thomasites first established
2775-554: Is an old abbey mouse named Methuselah, who is described to be the oldest mouse to have ever lived in Redwall Abbey. The subgiant star HD 140283 , believed to be the oldest extant star discovered, is often nicknamed "The Methuselah Star" after the ancient biblical figure. The name is also used to refer to the exoplanet PSR B1620−26 b , which is one of the oldest known exoplanets with an estimated age of 12.7 billion years old. A giant monster or "Titan" named Methuselah appears in
2886-538: Is common in most American accents despite being now rare in England because, during the 17th-century British colonization, nearly all dialects of English were rhotic, and most North American English simply remained that way. The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century (and moderately during
2997-632: Is mentioned a single time in the New Testament , when the Gospel of Luke traces Jesus ' lineage back to Adam in Luke 3 . The apocryphal Book of Enoch claims to be revelations of Enoch, transcribed by him and entrusted to be preserved for future generations by his son, Methuselah. In this book, Enoch recounts two visions he has had to Methuselah. The first is about the Flood , and the second chronicles
3108-477: Is much evidence to suggest Jubilees was written before this date. Jubilees could not have been written very long prior. Jubilees at 4:17–25 records that Enoch "saw in a vision what has happened and what will occur", and the book contains many points of information otherwise found earliest in the Animal Apocalypse in 1 Enoch ), such as Enoch's wife being Edna. The Animal Apocalypse claims to predict
3219-562: Is much more rational to conclude that Noah lived 50 years instead of 500 years before he took a wife and begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth..." and then lists the Septuagint total ages with decimal points: 93.0 for Adam, 91.0 for Cainan , 96.9 for Methuselah, 95.0 for Noah, etc. This, however, also implies that Enoch became a father at the age of 6.5 and that the other antediluvian patriarchs did so at implausibly young ages. Yigal Levin states that these long lifespans are intended simply to speed
3330-420: Is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent, and is defined by the /aɪ/ vowel losing its gliding quality : [aː] , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a " Southern drawl " that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels . The fronting of the vowels of GOOSE , GOAT , MOUTH , and STRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as
3441-543: Is taken by God, is the seventh patriarch, and Methuselah, the eighth, dies in the year of the Flood, which ends the ten-generational sequence from Adam to Noah, in whose time the world is destroyed. Boia believes that Methuselah serves the symbolic function of linking the Creation and the Flood, as Adam would have died during Methuselah's lifetime and Methuselah could have learned about the Garden of Eden from Adam. The kings of
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3552-582: Is the common language at home, in public, and in government. Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church , as well as by Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews). Jubilees is considered one of the pseudepigrapha by the Eastern Orthodox , Catholic , and Protestant churches. Apart from
3663-881: Is the source for certain of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs , for instance that of Reuben . It was not canonized into the Jewish canon and there is no official record of it in Pharisaic or Rabbinical sources. Some Jubilees traditions are echoed in the 12th-century Midrash Tadshe , the sole exception within Judaism. The earliest clear evidence of it in Jewish tradition is in the Bereshit Rabba (5th century) and Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (9th century). It appears that early Christian writers held
3774-469: Is the variable fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/ , for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth Park the car in Harvard Yard . Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston , Pittsburgh , Upper Midwestern , and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the LOT vowel with the THOUGHT vowel ( /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ , respectively):
3885-463: The Book of Genesis , Methuselah was the son of Enoch , the father of Lamech , and the grandfather of Noah . Elsewhere in the Bible, Methuselah is mentioned in genealogies in 1 Chronicles and the Gospel of Luke . His life is described in further detail in other texts such as the Book of Enoch , Slavonic Enoch , and the Book of Moses . Bible commentators have offered various explanations as to why
3996-482: The English-only movement , have adopted legislation granting official or co-official status to English. Typically only "English" is specified, not a particular variety like American English. (From 1923 to 1969, the state of Illinois recognized its official language as "American", meaning American English.) Puerto Rico is the largest example of a United States territory in which another language – Spanish –
4107-717: The Maccabean Revolt (which occurred 167–160 BCE) and is commonly dated to that time. The direction of dependence has been controversial, but the consensus since 2008 has been that the Animal Apocalypse came first and Jubilees after. As a result, general reference works such as the Oxford Annotated Bible and the Mercer Dictionary of the Bible conclude the work can be dated to 160–150 BCE. J. Amanda Guire argues that Jubilees
4218-622: The Mid-Atlantic states (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent ), and the South . As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area , Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the LOT /ɑ/ vowel in the mouth toward [a] and tensing of the TRAP /æ/ vowel wholesale to [eə] . These sound changes have triggered
4329-551: The Native American languages . Examples of such names are opossum , raccoon , squash , moose (from Algonquian ), wigwam , and moccasin . American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, en masse , from French ; cookie , from Dutch ; kindergarten from German , and rodeo from Spanish . Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and
4440-579: The Qumran discoveries, R. H. Charles had deduced that the Hebrew original had used an otherwise unrecorded text for Genesis and for the early chapters of Exodus, one independent either of the Masoretic Text (𝕸) or of the Hebrew text that was the basis for the Septuagint . According to one historian, the variation among parallel manuscript traditions that are exhibited by the Septuagint compared with
4551-515: The Sumerian King List lived for over a thousand years, and Mesopotamians believed both that living over a thousand years made someone divine or somewhat divine, and that their contemporary kings were descended from the kings of the Sumerian King List . Robert Gnuse hypothesizes that the author of Genesis made all of its characters die before they turned one thousand as a polemic against these Mesopotamian beliefs, as well as any claim that
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4662-437: The de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce; and an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states . Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide. Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around
4773-722: The francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred programme for program , manoeuvre for maneuver , cheque for check , etc.). AmE almost always uses -ize in words like realize . BrE prefers -ise , but also uses -ize on occasion (see: Oxford spelling ). There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences , called " comma splices " in American English, and American English prefers that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors
4884-531: The midrashim that had already been worked on in the Books of Chronicles . With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in 1947, Charles' Pharisaic hypothesis of the origin of Jubilees has been almost completely abandoned. The dating of Jubilees has been problematic for Biblical scholars. While the oldest extant copies of Jubilees can be assigned based on the handwriting to about 100 BCE, there
4995-764: The 18th century; apartment , shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium , townhouse , mobile home in the 20th century; and parts thereof ( driveway , breezeway, backyard ) . Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms through railroading (see further at rail terminology ) and transportation terminology, ranging from types of roads ( dirt roads , freeways ) to infrastructure ( parking lot , overpass , rest area ), to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally. Already existing English words—such as store , shop , lumber —underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in
5106-553: The 1970s, mathematician John Conway introduced the Game of Life , a cellular automaton . In cellular automata, methuselahs refer to a small initial state of cells that continue to grow for a large number of generations. The character Flint from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode " Requiem for Methuselah " is a nearly immortal man who was born in ancient Mesopotamia during the year 3,834 BC; and
5217-868: The 2019 film Godzilla: King of the Monsters , residing in Monarch Outpost 67 in Munich , Germany . In the film, it is woken up by King Ghidorah alongside the other Titans. It also makes an appearance in the 2021 graphic novel Godzilla Dominion . The Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences has an Australian lungfish named Methuselah. It is the world's oldest aquarium fish with an estimated age of 93 years old (± 9 years). Methuselah appeared in Darren Aronofsky 's 2014 film Noah , with Thor Kjartansson playing him as
5328-546: The 20th century. The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas . The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing
5439-786: The 6th century where it became part of the Ethiopic Bible . In the Christian tradition of the Syriac language , Jubilees is first received in extant sources from the mid-6th to early-7th century Cave of Treasures , and then in Letter 13 to John of Litarba, and Scholion 10, both authored by Jacob of Edessa (d. 708). Later still is the Catena Severi (compiled 861), the Syriac reception of an Arabic chronicle of Agapius of Mabbug, and
5550-523: The Beta Israel community, the book is not considered canonical within any of the denominations of Judaism . It was well known to early Christians , as evidenced by the writings of Epiphanius , Justin Martyr , Origen , Diodorus of Tarsus , Isidore of Alexandria , Isidore of Seville , Eutychius of Alexandria , John Malalas , George Syncellus , and George Kedrenos . The text was also utilized by
5661-466: The Bible, such as the idea that Methuselah lived so long, the idea that the devil is evil, the story of Jonah , and the story of David and Goliath . American English American English , sometimes called United States English or U.S. English , is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States ;
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#17327879926175772-457: The Book of Genesis describes him as having died at such an advanced age; some believe that Methuselah's age is the result of a mistranslation, while others believe that his age is used to give the impression that part of Genesis takes place in a very distant past. Methuselah's name has become synonymous with longevity, and he has been portrayed and referenced in film, television and music. Methuselah
5883-588: The Book of Jubilees in high regard, as many of them cited and alluded to Jubilees in their writings. In relationship to the New Testament, the Book of Jubilees contains one of the earliest references to the idea that God gave the Law to Moses through an angelic mediator. This idea is likewise reflected in the Epistle to the Galatians . Ethiopic-speaking Christians translated Jubilees into Geʽez before
5994-572: The British form is a back-formation , such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar ). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems. While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions. The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in
6105-413: The East Coast (perhaps in imitation of 19th-century London speech), even the East Coast has gradually begun to restore rhoticity, due to it becoming nationally prestigious in the 20th century. The pronunciation of ⟨r⟩ is a postalveolar approximant [ ɹ̠ ] or retroflex approximant [ ɻ ] , but a unique "bunched tongue" variant of the approximant r sound
6216-479: The Flood, the Bible depicts its characters' lifespans as gradually diminishing; Noah's sons lived between 400 and 500 years, while Abraham died at 175, Moses died at 120, and David died at 70, an age that the Bible portrays as old for David's time. Boia compares early biblical figures and their vast lifespans to the people of the Golden Age in Hesiod 's poem Works and Days , whose bodies are perpetually youthful. Methuselah's father Enoch, who does not die but
6327-463: The Flood. The Catholic Encyclopedia says "Certain exegetes solve the difficulty to their own satisfaction by declaring that the year meant by the sacred writer is not the equivalent of our year." Some believe that Methuselah's extreme age is the result of an ancient mistranslation that converted "months" to "years", producing a more credible 969 lunar months, or 78½ years, but the same calculation applied to Enoch would have him fathering Methuselah at
6438-510: The Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features include rhoticity , the father–bother merger , Mary–marry–merry merger , pre-nasal "short a " tensing , and other particular vowel sounds . General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in
6549-474: The Mesopatamian legends" found in the Epic of Gilgamesh , where Gilgamesh rules Uruk for 126 years, and his ancestors are said to have ruled for several hundred years each. Boia also notes that tales of kings who lived for thousands of years can be found in both Hindu and Chinese mythology , and that the Bible is comparatively "restrained" in depicting early humans as being able to live for hundreds of years, rather than thousands. Boia notes that following
6660-449: The South), sneakers for athletic shoes (but often tennis shoes outside the Northeast), and shopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods. American English and British English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language , known as Webster's Dictionary ,
6771-400: The Syrian , Augustine of Hippo , and John Chrysostom among many early Christian authorities. Their hybrid children, the Nephilim in existence during the time of Noah , were wiped out by the great flood . Jubilees also states that God granted ten percent of the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim to try to lead mankind astray after the flood. Jubilees makes an incestuous reference regarding
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#17327879926176882-528: The U.S. Several verbs ending in -ize are of U.S. origin; for example, fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize , etc.; and so are some back-formations (locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster and enthuse). Among syntactic constructions that arose are outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae , skeeter, sashay and kitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in
6993-505: The U.S. are for instance foothill , landslide (in all senses), backdrop , teenager , brainstorm , bandwagon , hitchhike , smalltime, and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in British English). Some are euphemistic ( human resources , affirmative action , correctional facility ). Many compound nouns have
7104-551: The U.S. are, for example, lengthy, bossy, cute and cutesy, punk (in all senses), sticky (of the weather), through (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky . A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots . Terms such as fall ("autumn"), faucet ("tap"), diaper ("nappy"; itself unused in
7215-530: The U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States. From the world of business and finance came new terms ( merger , downsize , bottom line ), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball . The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America ( elevator [except in
7326-427: The U.S.), candy ("sweets"), skillet , eyeglasses , and obligate are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year." Gotten ( past participle of get ) is often considered to be largely an Americanism. Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from
7437-541: The U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include hire ("to employ"), I guess (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler ), baggage , hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently ("currently"). Some of these, for example, monkey wrench and wastebasket , originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectives mad meaning "angry", smart meaning "intelligent", and sick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English. Linguist Bert Vaux created
7548-474: The United States and the United Kingdom suggest that, while spoken American English deviated away from period British English in many ways, it is conservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 21st-century British English has since lost. Full rhoticity (or "R-fulness") is typical of American accents, pronouncing the phoneme /r/ (corresponding to the letter ⟨r⟩ ) in all environments, including in syllable-final position or before
7659-499: The West and Midwest, and New York Latino English , spoken in the New York metropolitan area . Additionally, ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and " Yinglish " are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews , Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana , and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people. American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes. The island state of Hawaii , though primarily English-speaking,
7770-488: The accents spoken in the " Midland ": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum. Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds: In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since
7881-505: The aeronautical sense ], gasoline ) as did certain automotive terms ( truck , trunk ). New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish ( chutzpah , schmooze, bupkis, glitch ) and German ( hamburger , wiener ). A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7 ), while others have not ( have
7992-531: The age of 5 using numbers from the Masoretic Text . Donald V. Etz suggested that the Genesis 5 numbers "might for convenience have all been multiples of 5 or 10". Ellen Bennet argued that the Septuagint Genesis 5 numbers are in tenths of years, which "will explain how it was that they read 930 years for the age of Adam instead of 93 years, and 969 years for Methuselah instead of 96 years, and 950 years for that of Noah instead of 95 years"... "Surely it
8103-505: The animals lost their power of speech when Adam and Eve were expelled. Following the Deluge, the earth was apportioned into three divisions for the three sons of Noah , and his sixteen grandsons. After the destruction of the Tower of Babel , their families were scattered to their respective allotments, and Hebrew was forgotten, until Abraham was taught it by the angels. Jubilees also contains
8214-500: The ark was built but died before the flood, since God had promised he would not be killed with the unrighteous. The Sefer haYashar gives Methuselah's age at death as 960. Methuselah ( Arabic : Matūshalaḥ ) is also mentioned in Islam in the various collections of stories of the pre-Islamic prophets , which also say he was an ancestor of Noah. Furthermore, early Islamic writers like Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham always included his name in
8325-407: The ark, the wicked—who were of immense stature as they were descended from the sons of God —made sport of him and his work, saying: "If the Flood should come, it could not harm us. We are too tall; and, moreover, we could close up with our feet [which were of monstrous size] the springs from below." They resorted to these tactics; but God heated the water, and their feet and the flesh of their bodies
8436-608: The community that collected the Dead Sea Scrolls . No complete Hebrew, Greek or Latin version is known to have survived, but the Geʽez version is an accurate translation of the fragments in Biblical Hebrew found in the Dead Sea Scrolls . The Book of Jubilees presents a "history of the division of the days of the law and of the testimony, of the events of the years, of their (year) weeks, of their jubilees throughout all
8547-406: The country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird", "work", "hurt", "learn", etc. usually retains its r pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's r -dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from
8658-455: The creation, up to Moses receiving the scriptures upon Sinai during the Exodus, is calculated as fifty Jubilees, less the 40 years still to be spent wandering in the desert before entering Canaan – or 2,410 years. Four classes of angels are mentioned: angels of the presence , angels of sanctifications, guardian angels over individuals, and angels presiding over the phenomena of nature. Enoch was
8769-445: The discovery of extensive fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls , the earliest surviving manuscripts of Jubilees were four complete Geʽez texts dating to the 15th and 16th centuries and several quotations by the early Church Fathers such as Epiphanius , Justin Martyr , Origen , Diodorus of Tarsus , Isidore of Alexandria , Isidore of Seville , Eutychius of Alexandria , John Malalas , George Syncellus , and George Kedrenos . There
8880-614: The diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century, while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased. Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages. Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in
8991-806: The double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here'). Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas fall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation. AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where
9102-400: The first man initiated by the angels in the art of writing, and wrote down, accordingly, all the secrets of astronomy, of chronology, and of the world's epochs. As regards demonology, the writer's position is largely that of the deuterocanonical writings from both New and Old Testament times. The Book of Jubilees narrates the genesis of angels on the first day of Creation and the story of how
9213-517: The following two centuries) when this ethnic group eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population. Scotch-Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South and North, and throughout the West: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic. While non-rhoticity spread on
9324-464: The genealogy of Muhammad . The Book of Moses , a 19th-century Mormon text , says that after Enoch and the City of Zion were taken up to heaven , Methuselah stayed behind; this was so that God's promises to Enoch – that he would always have descendants on earth and that he would be an ancestor of Noah – would be fulfilled. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints further teaches that Methuselah
9435-522: The history of the world from Adam to the Last Judgment . In the latter vision, men are represented as animals – the righteous are white cattle and sheep, the sinners and enemies of Israel are black cattle and wild animals. Following his father's death in the Book of Enoch, Methuselah is designated by God as a priest, while Methuselah's grandson, Noah's brother Nir, is designated by God as his successor. In Slavonic Enoch , Methuselah asks his father for
9546-944: The hospital , BrE to hospital ; contrast, however, AmE actress Elizabeth Taylor , BrE the actress Elizabeth Taylor ). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other, and American English is not a standardized set of dialects. Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as flavor for British flavour , fiber for fibre , defense for defence , analyze for analyse , license for licence , catalog for catalogue and traveling for travelling . Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology." Other differences are due to
9657-674: The influence of 18th-century Protestant Ulster Scots immigrants (known in the U.S. as the Scotch-Irish ) in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the 20th-century Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers. Any phonologically unmarked North American accent falls under an umbrella known as General American. This section mostly refers to such General American features. Studies on historical usage of English in both
9768-532: The jubilees of the world" and claims to be a revelation of God to Moses , given through the Angel of the Presence in addition to the written Law received by Moses on Mount Sinai ; and, while the written Law was to be imparted to all, this was to be a secret tradition entrusted only to the saints of each generation, to Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, and Shem , then to Abraham , Isaac , Jacob , and Levi , and finally to
9879-438: The late 18th century onwards, but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century. Non-rhoticity makes a word like car sound like cah or source like sauce . New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored. Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas,
9990-427: The mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame. However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in
10101-617: The most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents. Although no longer region-specific, African-American Vernacular English , which remains the native variety of most working- and middle-class African Americans , has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans, including hip hop culture . Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native-speaker varieties of English. The best-studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English , spoken in
10212-402: The past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE: learned / learnt , burned / burnt , snuck/sneaked , dove/dived ) although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmE in school, BrE at school ); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to
10323-416: The priests and scribes of the latter times. Rabbinic literature states that when Noah was 480 years old, all the righteous men were dead—except Methuselah and himself. At God's command, they both announced that 120 years would be given to men for repentance; if, in that time, they had not mended their evil ways, the earth would be destroyed. But their plea was in vain; even while Noah was engaged in building
10434-409: The reader from Adam to Noah. Claus Westermann states they are intended to create the impression of a distant past. Some versions of the Sumerian King List mention a character named Ubara-Tutu who seems almost identical to Methuselah. He was the son of En-men-dur-ana , a Sumerian mythological figure often compared to Enoch, as he entered heaven without dying. Ubara-Tutu was the king of Sumer until
10545-501: The remainder of his days to the betterment of mankind. In the TV series Altered Carbon , based on Richard K. Morgan 's 2002 novel of the same name , a class of people who can afford to live forever by transferring their consciousness into cloned bodies are called "Meths" or "Methuselahs." In the children's literature series Redwall , Brian Jacques has multiple anthropomorphic characters named after several biblical figures, one of which
10656-454: The son of Adam and Eve, Cain, and his wife. In chapter iv (1–12) (Cain and Abel), it mentions that Cain took his sister Awan to be his wife and Enoch was their child. It also mentions that Seth (the third son of Adam and Eve) married his sister Azura . According to this book, Hebrew is the language of Heaven, and was originally spoken by all creatures in the Garden, animals and man; however,
10767-570: The traditional standard accent of (southern) England, Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved a trap–bath split . Moreover, American accents preserve /h/ at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in /h/ dropping , particularly in informal contexts. However, General American is also innovative in a number of its own ways: The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from
10878-417: The verb-and-preposition combination: stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout , holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover , and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin ( win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to and many others). Noun endings such as -ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and -cian (beautician) are also particularly productive in
10989-826: The word corn , used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S. Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812 , with the opening of the West, like ranch (now a common house style ). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms ( lot , waterfront) and types of homes like log cabin , adobe in
11100-609: The world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American ; it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent . The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in
11211-675: The writings of Michael the Syrian (d. 1199), Barhebraeus (d. 1286), and the Anonymous Chronicle by 1234. Jan van Reeth argues that the Book of Jubilees had great influence on the formation of early Islam . Etsuko Katsumata, comparing the Book of Jubilees and the Quran, notices significant differences, especially regarding Abraham's role in the Quranic narrative . He says that "The Quran has many passages in which Abraham expounds
11322-691: The years of the world, as the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai when he went up to receive the tables of the law and of the commandment" as revealed to Moses (in addition to the Torah or "Instruction") by angels while he was on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights. The chronology given in Jubilees is based on multiples of seven. The jubilee year is the year that follows the passage of seven "weeks of years" (seven cycles of sabbatical years , or 49 total years), into which all of time has been divided. Until
11433-921: The 𝕸, and which are embodied in the further variants among the Dead Sea Scrolls, demonstrates that even canonical Hebrew texts did not possess any single "authorized" manuscript tradition before the Common Era . Others write about the existence of three main textual manuscript traditions (namely the Babylonian, Palestinian and pre-𝕸 "proto" textual traditions). Although the pre-𝕸 text may have indeed been authoritative back then, arguments can be made for and against this concept. Between 1947 and 1956, approximately fifteen scrolls of Jubilees were found in five caves at Qumran , all written in Biblical Hebrew . The large number of manuscripts (more than for any Biblical books except for Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Exodus, and Genesis, in descending order) indicates that Jubilees
11544-473: Was a prophet . Some biblical literalists attempt to justify "969 years": perhaps early humans had a better diet, or a hypothetical "water vapor canopy " protected the earth from radiation before the Flood. Others introduce theological causes: humans were originally to have everlasting life, but sin was introduced into the world by Adam and Eve , its influence became greater with each generation, and God progressively shortened human life, particularly after
11655-532: Was a soldier (probably of Babylon ) before his powers. His identities include Methuselah, Alexander the Great , Solomon , Lazarus of Bethany , Merlin , Leonardo da Vinci and Johannes Brahms . He knew Moses , Socrates , Jesus , Galileo Galilei , and many more. Flint becomes lonely after living for a time on a deserted planet, and creates an immortal gynoid to keep him company. He eventually begins to slowly die because he left Earth's atmosphere, and dedicates
11766-549: Was a new heaven and a new earth. Thus, finally, all sin and pain would disappear and men would live to the age of 1,000 years in happiness and peace, and after death enjoy a blessed immortality in the spirit world. Jubilees insists (in Chapter ;6) on a 364 day yearly calendar, made up of four quarters of 13 weeks each, rather than a year of 12 lunar months, which it says is off by 10 days per year (the actual number being about 11¼ days). It also insists on
11877-483: Was no more, because God took him. When Methuselah had lived one hundred eighty-seven years, he became the father of Lamech. Methuselah lived after the birth of Lamech seven hundred eighty-two years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years; and he died. 5:21–27 According to the Hebrew Bible, Methuselah begets Lamech and then lives 782 more years. When Lamech
11988-434: Was scalded. The 17th-century midrashic Sefer haYashar (" Book of Jasher ") describes Methuselah with his grandson Noah attempting to persuade the people of the earth to return to godliness. All other very long-lived people died, and Methuselah was the only one of this class left. God planned to bring the flood after all the men who walked in the ways of the Lord had died (besides Noah and his family). Methuselah lived until
12099-460: Was widely used at Qumran. A comparison of the Qumran texts with the Geʽez version, performed by James VanderKam, found that the Geʽez was in most respects an accurate and literalistic translation. R. H. Charles (1855–1931) became the first Biblical scholar to propose an origin for Jubilees. Charles suggested that the author of Jubilees may have been a Pharisee and that Jubilees was the product of
12210-469: Was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings. Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs he ran quick / he ran quickly ; different use of some auxiliary verbs ; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns ; different preferences for
12321-470: Was written in c. 170–150 BCE by a Palestinian Jew of "priestly background and Hassidic or Essene persuasion", based on his knowledge of Canaanite geography, biblical festivals and laws. Jubilees covers much of the same ground as Genesis, but often with additional detail, and addressing Moses in the second person as the entire history of creation, and of Israel up to that point, is recounted in divisions of 49 years each, or "Jubilees". The elapsed time from
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