Woman

A woman is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. The term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "women's rights". "Woman" may also refer to a person's gender identity. Women with typical genetic development are usually capable of giving birth from puberty until menopause. In the context of gender identity, transgender people who are biologically determined to be male and identify as women cannot give birth. Some intersex people who identify as women cannot give birth due to either sterility or inheriting one or more Y chromosomes. In extremely rare cases, people who have Swyer syndrome can give birth with medical assistance. Throughout history women have assumed or been assigned various social roles.

Etymology

The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman. In Old English, wīfmann meant "female human", whereas wēr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone"; however, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 13th century had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr. The medial labial consonants f and m in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form "woman", while the initial element, which meant "female", underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife"). It is a popular misconception that the term "woman" is etymologically connected with "womb", which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning "stomach" (of male or female; modern German retains the colloquial term "Wampe" from Middle High German for "potbelly"). Nevertheless, such a false derivation of "woman" has appeared in print.

Woman (1918 film)

Woman is a 1918 American silent film directed by Maurice Tourneur, an allegorical film showcasing the story of women through points in time. Popular in its day, the film was distributed in the State's Rights plan as opposed to a major distributor like Paramount or Universal. This film has been preserved in private collections and in major venues like the Museum of Modern Art and reportedly the Gosfilmofond Archive in Russia.

Some scenes were shot at Bar Harbor, Maine. It was here that one of Tourneur's cameramen, John van den Broek, lost his life while filming a scene close to the raging Atlantic Ocean. His body was swept out to sea and never found.

Prints of this film are held at Cineteca Del Friuli, Germona, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Gosfilmofond of Russia, Moscow.

Plot

As described in a film magazine, a modern man and woman quarrel and, in reaction to his wife, the husband recalls all the women in history who have failed their husbands or lovers. Being in an unpleasant state, he recalls Adam in the garden with a very vain Eve who disports herself in a Broadway fashion and causes the downfall of caveman-like Adam. Then he dwells on the hideous betrayal of Claudius by an unfaithful Messilna. Next he recalls the useless ruination of Abelard by the charming Heloise. Following this episode he remembers Cyrene and the fisherman, where the wife basely deserted her husband and children to swim once more in her seal skin that had been hidden from her for many years. A particularly disagreeable episode in which a young woman during the American Civil War sacrifices a wounded soldier for a bauble. After this the modern woman returns and pins up a Red Cross poster, and the modern man sees the many women of today as more or less uninspiring. An epilogue noted how World War I made men realize the true value of women, and that women are working towards victory through good works in the Red Cross and other jobs.

Woman (1968 film)

Woman (여 - Yeo) is a 1968 three-part South Korean film directed by Kim Ki-young, Jung Jin-woo and Yu Hyun-mok. The film was based on ideas of Kim Ki-young's wife, Kim Yu-bong, and Kim directed the last third.

Synopsis

The film is a melodrama about a man who falls in love with a woman while traveling to Seoraksan. The man becomes infatuated with the woman's hair. The woman, who has a terminal illness, promises to leave her hair to the man after she has died. Later the man finds that the woman has died, and her hair has been sold to someone else. He then has a romantic relationship with another woman who turns out to be his mother.

Cast

Notes

Bibliography

Japanese people

The Japanese people (日本人, Nihonjin) are an ethnic group native to Japan. Japanese make up 98.5% of the total population of their country. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries are referred to as nikkeijin (日系人). The term ethnic Japanese may also be used in some contexts to refer to a locus of ethnic groups including the Yamato, Ainu, and Ryukyuan people.

Language

The Japanese language is a Japonic language that is treated as a language isolate; it is also related to the Ryukyuan languages, and both are sometimes suggested to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. The Japanese language has a tripartite writing system using Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Domestic Japanese people use primarily Japanese for daily interaction. The adult literacy rate in Japan exceeds 99%.

Religion

Japanese religion has traditionally been syncretic in nature, combining elements of Buddhism and Shinto. Shinto, a polytheistic religion with no book of religious canon, is Japan's native religion. Shinto was one of the traditional grounds for the right to the throne of the Japanese imperial family, and was codified as the state religion in 1868 (State Shinto was abolished by the American occupation in 1945). Mahayana Buddhism came to Japan in the sixth century and evolved into many different sects. Today the largest form of Buddhism among Japanese people is the Jōdo Shinshū sect founded by Shinran.

Culture of Japan

The culture of Japan has evolved greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia, Europe, and North America. The inhabitants of Japan experienced a long period of relative isolation from the outside world during the Tokugawa shogunate after Japanese missions to Imperial China, until the arrival of "The Black Ships" and the Meiji period.

Japanese language

Japanese is the official and primary language of Japan. Japanese is relatively small but has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. Early Japanese is known largely on the basis of its state in the 8th century, when the three major works of Old Japanese were compiled. The earliest attestation of the Japanese language is in a Chinese document from 252 AD.

Japanese is written with a combination of three scripts: hiragana, derived from the Chinese cursive script, katakana, derived as a shorthand from Chinese characters, and kanji, imported from China. The Latin alphabet, rōmaji, is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when inputting Japanese into a computer. The Hindu-Arabic numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also extremely common.

Japanese language

Japanese (日本語, Nihongo, [nihõŋɡo] or [nihõŋŋo]) is an East Asian language spoken by about 125 million speakers, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language. It is a member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family, whose relation to other language groups, particularly to Korean and the suggested Altaic language family, is debated.

Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial texts did not appear until the 8th century. During the Heian period (794–1185), Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language, as well as the first appearance of European loanwords. The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo (modern Tokyo) region in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid-19th century). Following the end in 1853 of Japan's self-imposed isolation, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly. English loanwords in particular have become frequent, and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated.