ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAY

English, along with French, is one of the two working languages of the United Nations Secretariat, and one of the Organization's six official and working languages.

Because it is so widely spoken, English is often referred to as a "world language", or the lingua franca of the modern era.

                     

Language Days at the UN

English Language Day at the UN is celebrated on 23 April, the date traditionally observed as the birthday of William Shakespeare. The Day is the result of a 2010 initiative by the Department of Public Information, establishing language days for each of the Organization's six official languages. The purpose of the UN's language days is to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization.

 

Under the initiative, UN duty stations around the world celebrate six separate days, each dedicated to one of the Organization's six official languages.

The days are as follows:

• Arabic (18 December)
• Chinese (20 April)
• English (23 April)
• French (20 March)
• Russian (6 June)
• Spanish (12 October)

Language Days at the UN aim to entertain as well as inform, with the goal of increasing awareness and respect for the history, culture and achievements of each of the six working languages among the UN community

Retrieved from: http://www.un.org/en/events/englishlanguageday/ 

EASTER & TRADITIONS

Easter, which celebrates Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead, is Christianity’s most important holiday. It has been called a moveable feast because it doesn’t fall on a set date every year, as most holidays do. Instead, Christian churches in the West celebrate Easter on the first Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox on March 21. Therefore, Easter is observed anywhere between March 22 and April 25 every year. Orthodox Christians use the Julian calendar to calculate when Easter will occur and typically celebrate the holiday a week or two after the Western churches, which follow the Gregorian calendar.

The exact origins of this religious feast day’s name are unknown. Some sources claim the word Easter is derived from Eostre, a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility. Other accounts trace Easter to the Latin term hebdomada alba, or white week, an ancient reference to Easter week and the white clothing donned by people who were baptized during that time. Through a translation error, the term later appeared as esostarum in Old High German, which eventually became Easter in English. In Spanish, Easter is known as Pascua; in French, Paques. These words are derived from the Greek and Latin Pascha or Pasch, for Passover. Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection occurred after he went to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover (or Pesach in Hebrew), the Jewish festival commemorating the ancient Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt. Pascha eventually came to mean Easter.

Easter is really an entire season of the Christian church year, as opposed to a single-day observance. Lent, the 40-day period leading up to Easter Sunday, is a time of reflection and penance and represents the 40 days that Jesus spent alone in the wilderness before starting his ministry, a time in which Christians believe he survived various temptations by the devil. The day before Lent, known asMardi Gras or Fat Tuesday, is a last hurrah of food and fun before the fasting begins. The week preceding Easter is called Holy Week and includes Maundy Thursday, which commemorates Jesus’ last supper with his disciples; Good Friday, which honors the day of his crucifixion; and Holy Saturday, which focuses on the transition between the crucifixion and resurrection. The 50-day period following Easter Sunday is called Eastertide and includes a celebration of Jesus’ ascension into heaven.

In addition to Easter’s religious significance, it also has a commercial side, as evidenced by the mounds of jelly beans and marshmallow chicks that appear in stores each spring. As with Christmas, over the centuries various folk customs and pagan traditions, including Easter eggs, bunnies, baskets and candy, have become a standard part of this holy holiday.

Retrieved from: http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/history-of-easter 

CRONOGRAMA DE ACTIVIDADES 2do PERIODO

2do Periodo Academico/2014

Inicia: Lunes, 7 de Abril/2014

Finaliza: Viernes, 13 de Junio/2014

April Fools' Day Mystery: How Did It Originate?

Young pranksters mark April Fools' Day by tying a kite to old man's wig in a circa-1770 

For the eager prankster, nothing beats the centuries-old tradition of April Fools' Day.

"A lot of people think [April Fools' Day] is just obnoxious, and just wish it would stop," said Alex Boese, curator of the Museum of Hoaxes in San Diego, California. (Read an April Fools' Day Q&A with the Museum of Hoaxes curator.)

"But people who love pranks really love the day and refuse to give up the tradition. They're the ones who keep it alive."

Boese notes, however, that the number of pranks in the home and at the office has decreased in recent years in the United States, and has been replaced by large institutionalized media hoaxes, he said.

(Related: "April Fools' Day Special: History's Hoaxes" [April 1, 2003].)

April Fools' Day Origins a Mystery

The origins of April Fools' Day are shrouded in mystery, experts say. 

The most popular theory is that France changed its calendar in the 1500s so that the New Year would begin in January to match the Roman calendar instead of beginning at the start of spring, in late March or early April.

However word of the change traveled slowly, and many people in rural areas continued to celebrate the New Year in the spring. These country dwellers became known as "April fools," the story goes.

Boese, who has studied the holiday's origin, disagrees with that interpretation.

"[The French] theory is completely wrong, because the day that the French celebrated the beginning of the year legally was Easter day, so it never really was associated with April first," he said. 

"Traditionally it was only a legal start to the year—people in France did actually celebrate [the New Year] on January first for as long as anybody could remember." 

Boese believes instead that April Fools' Day simply grew out of age-old European spring festivals of renewal, in which pranks and camouflaging one's identity are common.

(Related: "April Fools' Day on Mars: Scientists Post Yearly Photo Joke")

April Fools' Day: The Joke's On Us

Joseph Boskin, professor emeritus of American humor at Boston University, has offered his own interpretation of the holiday's roots—as a prank.

In 1983, Boskin told an Associated Press reporter that the idea came from Roman jesters during the time of Constantine I in the third and fourth centuries A.D. 

As the story goes, jesters successfully petitioned the ruler to allow one of their elected members to be king for a day. 

So, on April first, Constantine handed over the reins of the Roman Empire for one day to King Kugel, his jester. Kugel decreed that the day forever would be a day of absurdity.

Kugel, incidentally, is an Eastern European dish that one of Boskin's friends had been craving.

The news agency was less than thrilled about the gambit, Boskin said. "I thought I should have been complimented for a quacky, quirky story that was fitted to the occasion."

Humor and pranksters can offer society some much-needed perspective, he added.

"Good humorists are basically secular shamans—they both heckle society on one hand and heal it on the other."

Boese of the Museum of Hoaxes also points out the day is an outlet for social inequalities to be openly confronted. For example, street urchins used to play April Fools' Day tricks on London gentlemen in the 1800s.

Stranger Than Fiction

However, fictional humor is slowly giving way to factual absurdities in popular culture, experts say.

One needs to look no further than the Ig Nobel prizes awarded every year for scientific research.

The 2007 Ig Nobel prize for medicine went to researchers who published an article on sword swallowing and its side effects—in the eminentBritish Medical Journal, no less.

(Related news: "Poop Vanilla, Endless Soup Among 2007 Ig Nobels"[October 5, 2007].)

"We keep inventing fewer things simply because we keep finding it is impossible to compete with reality," said Marc Abrahams, creator of the Ig Nobel Prizes and editor of the Annals of Improbable Research.

In March 2008 the journal described Philip M. Parker, who has invented a book-writing machine that scours a database of information to churn out a book in 20 minutes. The device has helped him author more than 300,000 titles—85,000 of which are for sale on Amazon.com, including the 2007-2012 Outlook for Lemon-Flavored Water in Japan andWebster's English to Zarma Crossword Puzzles: Level 1.

"The real stuff is funnier simply because it is real," Abrahams said. 

"In that sense, the things that are real and funny are a superior form of [an] April Fools' joke, because you can tell them and people will think you are making it up."

Retrieved from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080328-april-fools/