Gallimimus (/ˌɡælɪˈmaɪməs/ GAL-i-MY-məs) is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous period, about 70 million years ago (mya). Gallimimus is the largest known ornithomimid; adults were about 6 metres (20ft) long, 1.9 metres (6ft 3in) tall at the hip and weighed about 440 kilograms (970lb). As evidenced by its relative Ornithomimus, it would have had feathers. The head was small and light with large eyes that faced to the sides. The snout was long compared to other ornithomimids, although it was broader and more rounded at the tip than in other species. Gallimimus was toothless with a keratinous (horny) beak, and had a delicate lower jaw. Many of the vertebrae had openings that indicate they were pneumatic (air-filled). The neck was proportionally long in relation to the trunk. The hands were proportionally the shortest of any ornithomimosaur and each had three digits with curved claws. The forelimbs were weak while the hindlimbs were proportionally long.
Several fossils in various stages of growth were discovered by Polish-Mongolian expeditions in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia during the 1960s; a large skeleton discovered in this region was made the holotype specimen of the new genus and species Gallimimus bullatus in 1972. The generic name means "chicken mimic", referring to the similarities between its neck vertebrae and those of the Galliformes. The specific name is derived from bulla, a gold capsule worn by Roman youth, in reference to a bulbous structure at the base of the skull of Gallimimus. At the time it was named, the fossils of Gallimimus represented the most complete and best preserved ornithomimid material yet discovered, and the genus remains one of the best known members of the group. The family Ornithomimidae is part of the group Ornithomimosauria, the "ostrich dinosaurs". Anserimimus, also from Mongolia, is thought to have been the closest relative of Gallimimus.
As an ornithomimid, Gallimimus would have been a fleet (or cursorial) animal, using its speed to escape predators; its speed has been estimated at 42-56 km/h (29-34 mph). It may have had good vision and intelligence comparable to ratite birds. Gallimimus may have lived in groups, based on the discovery of several specimens preserved in a bone bed. Various theories have been proposed regarding the diet of Gallimimus and other ornithomimids. The highly mobile neck may have helped locate small prey on the ground, but it may also have been an opportunistic omnivore. It has also been suggested that it used small columnar structures in its beak for filter-feeding in water, though these structures may instead have been ridges used for feeding on tough plant material, indicative of a herbivorous diet. Gallimimus is the most commonly found ornithomimosaur in the Nemegt Formation, where it lived alongside its relatives Anserimimus and Deinocheirus. Gallimimus was featured in the movie Jurassic Park, in a scene that was important to the history of special effects, and in shaping the common conception of dinosaurs as bird-like animals.
Description

Gallimimus is the largest known member of the family Ornithomimidae. The adult holotype (specimen IGM 100/11) was about 6 metres (20ft) long and 1.9 metres (6.2ft) tall at the hip; its skull was 330 millimetres (1.08ft) long and the femur (thigh bone) was 660 millimetres (2.17ft). It would have weighed about 440 kilograms (970lb). In comparison, one juvenile specimen (ZPAL MgD-I/94) was about 2.15 metres (7.1ft) long, 0.79 metres (2.6ft) tall at the hip, and weighed about 26 kilograms (57lb).[1] Based on fossils of the related Ornithomimus, it is known that ornithomimosaurs were feathered, and that the adults bore wing-like structures as evidenced by the presence of quill-knobs on the ulna bone of the lower arm, bumps that indicate where feathers would have attached.[2]
Skull

The head of Gallimimus was very small and light compared to the vertebral column. Due to the length of its snout, the skull was long compared to other ornithomimids, and the snout had a gently sloping upper profile; this was less distinct in juvenile specimens. The side profile of the snout differed from other ornithomimids in not narrowing towards its front half, and the lower front margin of the premaxilla at the front of the upper jaw rose upwards, instead of being horizontal. Seen from above, the snout was almost spatulate (spoon-shaped), broad and rounded at the tip (or U-shaped), whereas it was acute (or V-shaped) in North American ornithomimids. The orbits (eye sockets) were large and faced sideways, as in other ornithomimids. The temporal region at the side of the skull behind the eyes was deep, and the infratemporal fenestra (the lower opening behind the orbit) was nearly triangular and smaller than that of the related Struthiomimus. It had deep muscle scars at the back part of the skull roof, along the parietal bone. The parasphenoid (a bone at the underside of the skull's base) was thin-walled, hollow and formed a pear-shaped, bulbous structure. The structure had a shallow furrow which opened at the base of the skull. The internal nares (internal openings for the nasal passage) were large and placed far back on the palate, due to the presence of an extensive secondary palate, which was common to ornithomimids.[3][4][5][6]
The delicate lower jaw, consisting of thin bones, was slender and shallow at the front, deepening towards the rear. The front of the mandible was shovel-like, resulting in a gap between the tips of the jaws when shut. The shovel-like shape was similar to that of the common seagull, and the lower beak may have had a shape similar to that of this bird. The retroarticular process at the back of the jaw (where jaw muscles attached) was well developed and consisted mainly of the angular bone. The surangular was the largest bone of the lower jaw, which is usual in theropods. The mandibular fenestra, a sidewards-facing opening in the lower jaw, was elongated and comparatively small. The lower jaw did not have a coronoid process or a supradentary bone, the lack of which is a common feature of beaked theropods (ornithomimosaurs, oviraptorosaurs, therizinosaurs and birds), but unusual among theropods in general. The shape and proportions of the skull changed significantly during growth. The rear of the skull and the orbits decreased in size, whereas the snout became relatively longer, similar changes occur in modern crocodiles. The skull was also proportionally larger in the younger specimens.[3][7] The jaws of Gallimimus were edentulous (toothless), and the front part would have been covered in a keratinous rhamphotheca (horny beak) in life. The beak may have covered a smaller area than in North American relatives, based on the lack of nourishing foramina on the maxilla. The inner side of the beak had small, tightly packed and evenly spaced columnar structures (their exact nature is debated), which were longest at the front and shortening towards the back.[5][7][8]
Postcranial skeleton

Gallimimus had 64–66 vertebrae in its spine, fewer than other ornithomimids. The centra (or bodies) of the vertebrae were platycoelous, with a flat front surface and a concave hind surface, except for the first six caudal (tail) vertebra–where the hind surface was also flat–and those at the end of the tail–which were amphiplatyan with both surfaces flat. Many of the centra had foramina (openings which have also been called "pleurocoels"), and were therefore probably pneumatic (with their hollow chambers invaded by air sacs). The neck consisted of 10 cervical vertebrae, which were all long and wide, except for the atlas bone (the first vertebra that connects with the back of the skull). The atlas differed from that of other ornithomimids in that the surface of its intercentrum was slanted downwards towards the back, instead of being concave and facing upwards. The neck appears to have been proportionally longer in relation to the trunk than in other ornithomimids. The neck was divided into two distinct sections: the cervical vertebrae at the front had centra which were nearly triangular in side view and tapered towards the back, as well as low neural arches and short, broad zygapophyses (the processes that articulated between the vertebrae); the cervical vertebrae at the back had spool-like centra which became gradually higher, and long, thin zygapophyses. The pneumatic foramina here were small and oval, and the neural spines projecting outwards from the centra formed long, low and sharp ridges, except for in the hindmost cervical vertebrae.[3][9]
The back of Gallimimus had 13 dorsal vertebrae, with spool-like centra that were short, but tended to become deeper and longer towards the back. Their transverse processes (processes articulating with the ribs) slightly increased in length towards the back. The two first dorsal centra had deep pneumatic foramina, while the rest only had shallow fossae (depressions), and the neural spines were prominent being somewhat triangular or rectangular in shape. The sacrum (fused vertebrae between the pelvic bones) consisted of five sacral vertebrae which were about equal in length. The centra here were spool-like, flattened sideways and had fossae which appear to have continued as deep foramina in some specimens. The neural spines here were rectangular, broad, and higher than those in the dorsal vertebrae. They were higher or equal in height to the upper margin of the iliac blade and were separate, whereas in other ornithomimids they were fused together. The tail had 36–39 caudal vertebrae with the centra of those at the front being spool-shaped, while those at the back were nearly triangular, and elongated across. The neural spines here were high and flat, but diminished backwards, where they became ridge-like. The only sign of pneumaticity in the tail were deep fossae between the neural spies and the transverse process of the two first caudal vertebrae. All the vertebrae in front of the sacrum bore ribs except for the atlas and the last dorsal vertebra. The ribs in the neck were fused to the vertebrae only in adults.[3][9]

The scapula (shoulder blade) was short and curved, thin at the front end, and thick at the back. It was connected relatively weakly with the coracoid, which was large and deep from top to bottom. Overall, the forelimbs did not differ much from those of other ornithomimids, all of which were comparatively weak. The humerus (upper arm bone), which had a near circular cross-section, was long and twisted. The deltopectoral crest on the upper front part of the humerus was comparatively small, and therefore provided little surface for attachment of upper arm muscles. The ulna was slender, long and weakly curved, with a nearly triangular shaft. The olecranon (the projection from the elbow) was prominent in adults, but not well developed in juveniles. The radius (the other bone in the lower arm) was long and slender with a more expanded upper end compared to the lower. The manus (hand) was proportionally short compared to those of other ornithomimosaurs, having the smallest manus to humerus length ratio of any member of the group, but was otherwise similar in structure. It had three fingers, which were similarly developed; the first (the "thumb") was the strongest, the third was the weakest and the second was the longest. The unguals (claw bones) were strong, somewhat curved (that of the first finger was most curved) and compressed sideways with a deep groove on each side. The unguals were similarly developed, though the third was slightly smaller. The forelimbs appear to have become proportionally longer during growth.[3][10][4]
The pubis (pubic bone) was long and slender, ending in a pubic boot which expanded to the front and back, a general feature of ornithomimosaurs. The hind limbs differed little from those of other ornithomimids, and were proportionally longer than in other theropods. The femur was nearly straight, long and slender, with a sideways flattened shaft. The tibia was straight, long, with two well developed condyles (rounded end of a bone) on the upper end and a flattened lower end. The fibula of the lower leg was flat, thin and broad at the upper end narrowing towards the lower end. The lower half of the third metatarsal was broad when viewed end on, partly covering the adjoining two metatarsals to each side, but narrowed abruptly at mid-length, wedging between those bones and disappearing (an arctometatarsalian foot structure). The third toe was proportionally shorter in relation to the limb than in other ornithomimids. As in other ornithomimids, the foot had no hallux (or dewclaw, the first toe of most other theropods). The unguals of the toes were flat on their lower sides; the outer two declined slightly outwards from their digits. The proportional length of the bones in the hind limbs changed very little with growth.[3][4]
History of discovery

Between 1963 and 1965, the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences organised the Polish-Mongolian palaeontological expeditions to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Among the dinosaur remains discovered in sand beds of the Nemegt Basin were numerous ornithomimids at different growth stages from the Nemegt, Tsaagan Khushuu, Altan Ula IV and Naran Bulak localities. Three partially complete skeletons, two with skulls, as well as many fragmentary remains, were collected. The largest skeleton (later to become the holotype of Gallimimus bullatus) was discovered by palaeontologist Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska in Tsaagan Khushuu in 1964; it was preserved lying on its back, and the skull was found under its pelvis. One small specimen was also found in Tsaagan Khushuu the same year, and another small specimen was found in the Nemegt locality. A small skeleton without forelimbs was discovered in 1967 by the Mongolian palaeontological expedition in Bugeen Tsav outside the Nemegt Basin. The fossils were housed at the Mongolian, Polish and USSR Academy of Sciences.[3][11][12] The Polish-Mongolian expeditions were notable for being led by women, some of which were among the first women to name new dinosaurs. The fossils discovered in these expeditions shed new light on the interchange of fauna between Asia and North America during the Cretaceous period.[13][14][15] Some of the skeletons were exhibited in Warsaw in 1968, mounted in tall, semi-erect postures, which was accepted at the time, though more horizontal postures are favoured today.[15]

In 1972, palaeontologists Halszka Osmólska, Ewa Roniewicz and Rinchen Barsbold named the new genus and species Gallimimus bullatus, using the largest collected skeleton, specimen IGM 100/11 (from Tsaagan Khushuu, formerly referred to as G.I.No.DPS 100/11 and MPD 100/11), as the holotype. The generic name is derived from the Latin gallus, "chicken", and the Greek mimos, "mimic", in reference to the front part of the neck vertebrae which resembled those of the Galliformes. The specific name is derived from the Latin bulla, a gold capsule worn by Roman youth around the neck, in reference to the bulbous capsule on the parasphenoid at the base of the dinosaur's skull. Such a feature had not been described from other reptiles at the time, and was considered unusual. The holotype consists of an almost complete skeleton with a distorted snout, incomplete lower jaw, vertebral series, pelvis, as well as some missing hand and foot bones.[3][16] The other partially complete skeletons were juveniles; ZPAL MgD-I/1 (from Tsaagan Khushuu) has a crushed skull with a missing tip, damaged vertebrae, fragmented ribs, pectoral girdle and forelimbs, and an incomplete left hind limb, ZPAL MgD-I/94 (from the Nemegt locality) lacks the skull, atlas, tip of the tail, pectoral girdle and forelimbs, while the smallest specimen, IGM 100/10 (from Bugeen Tsav), lacks a pectoral girdle, forelimbs and several vertebrae and ribs. Osmólska and colleagues listed 25 known specimens in all, 9 of which were only represented by single bones.[3][10]
At the time it was named, the fossils of Gallimimus represented the most complete and best preserved ornithomimid material yet discovered, and the genus remains one of the best known members of the group. Ornithomimids were previously known mainly from North America, Archaeornithomimus being the only prior known member from Asia (though without a skull). Since the first discoveries, more specimens have been found by further Mongolian-led international expeditions.[3][10][14][15] Three of the Gallimimus skeletons (including the holotype) later became part of a travelling exhibit of Mongolian dinosaur fossils, which toured various countries.[17][18] Fossil poaching has become a serious problem in Mongolia in the 21st century, and several Gallimimus specimens have been looted. In 2017, Hang-Jae Lee and colleagues reported a fossil trackway discovered in 2009 associated with a clenched Gallimimus foot (specimen MPC-D100F/17). The rest of the skeleton appeared to have been removed previously by poachers, along with several other Gallimimus specimens (as indicated by empty excavation pits, garbage, and scattered broken bones in the quarry). It is unusual to find tracks closely associated with body fossils; some of the tracks are consistent with ornithoimimid feet, while others belong to different dinosaurs.[19][20]

In 1988, the palaeontologist Gregory S. Paul concluded that the skulls of ornithomimids were more similar to each other than previously thought and moved most species into the same genus, Ornithomimus, resulting in the new combination O. bullatus.[1] In 2010, he instead listed it as "Gallimimus (or Struthiomimus) bullatus", but returned to using only the genus name Gallimimus in 2016.[21][22] The species involved have generally been kept in separate genera by other writers.[4] An ornithomimid vertebra from Japan informally named "Sanchusaurus" was reported in a 1988 magazine, but was assigned to Gallimimus sp. (of uncertain species) by the palaeontologist Dong Zhiming and colleagues in 1990.[16] Barsbold informally referred to a nearly complete skeleton (IGM 100/14) as "Gallimimus mongoliensis", but since it differs from Gallimimus in some details, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi and Barsbold proposed in 2006 that it probably belongs to a different genus. In 2000, the palaeontologist Philip J. Currie proposed that Anserimimus, which is only known from one skeleton from Mongolia, was a junior synonym of Gallimimus, but this was dismissed by Kobayashi and Barsbold, who pointed out several differences between the two. Barsbold noted some morphological variation among newer Gallimimus specimens, though this has never been published.[10]
Classification
Osmólska and colleagues assigned Gallimimus to the family Ornithomimidae in 1972, with the North American Struthiomimus as the closest relative, while lamenting the fact that comparison between taxa was difficult because other ornithomimids known at the time were either poorly preserved or inadequately described.[3] In 1975, Kielan-Jaworowska stated that though many dinosaurs from Asia were placed in the same families as North American relatives, this category of classification tended to be more inclusive than was used for modern birds. She highlighted that while Gallimimus had a rounded beak (similar to a goose or duck), North American ornithomimids had pointed beaks, a difference that would otherwise lead taxonomists to place modern birds in different families.[14] In 1976, Barsbold placed Ornithomimidae in the new group Ornithomimosauria (the "ostrich dinosaurs"). In 2003, Kobayashi and Jun-Chang Lü found that Anserimimus was the sister taxon to Gallimimus, both forming a derived (or "advanced") clade with North American genera, which was confirmed by Kobayashi and Barsbold in 2006.[10][5]
The following cladogram shows the placement of Gallimimus among Ornithomimidae according to Li Xu and colleagues, 2011:[23]

Ornithomimidae

Archaeornithomimusunnamed

Sinornithomimusunnamed

Anserimimus
Gallimimusunnamed

Qiupalongunnamed

Struthiomimus
Ornithomimus
Ornithomimosaurs belonged to the clade Maniraptoriformes of coelurosaurian theropods, which also includes modern birds. Early ornithomimosaurs had teeth, which were lost in more derived members of the group.[24] In 2004, Makovicky, Kobayashi, and Currie suggested that most of the early evolutionary history of ornithomimosaurs took place in Asia, where most genera have been discovered, including the most basal (or "primitive") taxa, although they acknowledged that the presence of the basal Pelecanimimus in Europe presents a complication in classification. The group must have dispersed once or twice from Asia to North America across Beringia to account for the Late Cretaceous genera found there. As seen in some other dinosaur groups, ornithomimosaurs were largely restricted to Asia and North America after Europe was separated from Asia by the Turgai Strait.[4]
In 1994, the palaeontologist Thomas R. Holtz grouped ornithomimosaurs and troodontids in a clade, based on shared features such as the presence of a bulbous capsule on the parasphenoid. He named the clade Bullatosauria, based on the specific name of Gallimimus bullatus, which was also in reference to the capsule.[25] In 1998, Holtz instead found that troodontids were basal maniraptorans, meaning that all members of that clade would fall within Bullatosauria, which would therefore become a junior synonym of Maniraptoriformes, and the clade has since fallen out of use.[26][27]
Palaeobiology

The cervical vertebrae of Gallimimus indicate that it held its neck obliquely, declining upwards at an angle of 35 degrees. Osmólska and colleagues found that the hands of Gallimimus were not prehensile (or capable of grasping), and that the thumb was not opposable. They also suggested that the arms were weak compared to, for example, those of the ornithomimosaur Deinocheirus. They agreed with the interpretations of ornithomimid biology by palaeontologist Dale Russell from earlier in 1972, including that they would have been very fleet (or cursorial) animals, although less agile than large, modern ground birds, and would have used their speed to escape predators. Russell also suggested that they had a good sense of vision and intelligence comparable to that of modern ratite birds. Since their predators may have had colour vision, he suggested it would have influenced their colouration, perhaps resulting in camouflage.[3][28] In 1982, palaeontologist Richard A. Thulborn estimated that Gallimimus could have run at speeds of 42-56 km/h (29-34 mph). He found that ornithimimids would not have been as fast as ostriches, which can reach 70-80 km/h (43-49 mph), in part due to their arms and tails increasing their weight.[29]

In 1988, Paul suggested that the eyeballs of ornithomimids were flattened and had minimal mobility within the sockets, necessitating movement of the head to view objects. Since their eyes faced more sideways  than in some other bird-like theropods, their binocular vision would have been more limited, which is an adaptation in some animals that improves their ability to see predators behind them. Paul considered the relatively short tails, which reduced weight, and missing halluxes of ornithomimids to be adaptations for speed. He suggested that they could have defended themselves by pecking and kicking, but would have mainly relied on their speed for escape.[1] In 2015, Akinobu Watanabe and colleagues found that together with Deinocheirus and Archaeornithomimus, Gallimimus had the most pneumatised skeleton among ornithomimosaurs. Pneumatisation is thought to be advantageous for flight in modern birds, but its function in non-avian dinosaurs is not known with certainty. It has been proposed that pneumatisation was used to reduce the mass of large bones, that it was related to high metabolism, balance during locomotion, or used for thermoregulation.[9]
In 2017, Lee and colleagues suggested various possible taphonomic circumstances (changes during decay and fossilisation) to explain how the Gallimimus foot discovered in 2009 was associated with a trackway. The trackway is preserved in sandstone while the foot is preserved in mudstone, extending 20 centimetres (7.9in) below the layer with the tracks. It is possible the fossil represents an animal that died in its tracks, but the depth of the foot in the mud may be too shallow for it to have become mired. It may also have been killed by a flood, after which it was buried in a pond. However, the layers of mud and sand do not indicate flooding but probably a dry environment, and the disrupted sediments around the fossil indicate the animal was alive when it came to the area. The authors thus suggested that the tracks had been made over an extended amount of time and period of drying, and that probably none of them were produced by the individual that owned the foot. The animal may have walked across the floor of a pond, breaking through the sediment layer with the tracks while it was soaked from rain or contained water. The animal may have died in this position from thirst, hunger, or another reason, and mud then deposited on the sand, thereby covering and preserving the tracks and the carcass. The foot may have become clenched and disarticulated as it decomposed, which made the tendons flex, and was later stepped on by heavy dinosaurs. The area may have been a single bone bed (based on the possible number of poached specimens) representing a Gallimimus mass mortality, perhaps due to a drought or famine. The fact that the animals seem to have died at the same time (the empty excavation pits were stratigraphically identical) may indicate that Gallimimus was gregarious (lived in groups), which has also been suggested for other ornithomimids.[20]
Development

A 1987 study by the biologists Roman Pawlicki and P. Bolechała showed age-related differences in the content of calcium and phosphorus (important components in the formation of bone) of Gallimimus specimens. They found that the ratio was highest in young to middle aged animals, decreasing with age.[30] In 1991, they reported that the bones of old individuals contained the highest amounts of lead and iron, while those in younger animals were lower.[31] A study of the bone histology of various dinosaurs in 2000, by biologists John M. Rensberger and Mahito Watabe, revealed that the canaliculi (channels which connect bone cells) and collagen fibre bundles of Gallimimus and other ornithomimids were more akin to those in birds than mammals, unlike those of ornithischian dinosaurs, which were more similar to mammals. These differences may have been related to the process and rate at which bone formed.[32] In 2012, palaeontologist Darla K. Zelenitsky and colleagues concluded that, since adult ornithomimosaurs had wing-like structures on their arms whereas juveniles did not (as evidenced by specimens of Ornithomimus), these structures were originally secondary sexual characteristics, which could have been used for reproductive behaviour such as courtship, display, and brooding.[2]
Feeding and diet

Osmólska and colleagues pointed out that the front part of the neck of Gallimimus would have been very mobile (the hind part was more rigid), the neural arches in the vertebrae of that region being similar to chicken and other Galliformes, indicating similar feeding habits. They found the beak of Gallimimus similar to that of a duck or goose, and that it would have fed on small, living prey which it swallowed whole. The mobility of the neck would have been useful in locating prey on the ground, since the eyes were positioned on the sides of the skull. They assumed that all ornithomimids had similar feeding habits, and pointed out that Russel had compared the beaks of ornithomimids with those of insectivorous birds. Osmólska and colleagues suggested that Gallimimus was capable of cranial kinesis (due to the seemingly loose connection between some of the bones at the back of the skull), a feature which allows individual bones of the skull to move in relation to each other. They also proposed that it did not use its short handed forelimbs for bringing food to the mouth, but for raking or digging in the ground to access food.[3] The hands of Gallimimus may have been weaker than for example those of Struthiomimus, which may instead have used its hands for hooking and gripping, according to a 1985 article by palaeontologists Elizabeth L. Nicholls and Anthony P. Russell.[33]
In 1988 Paul disagreed that ornithomimids were omnivores that ate small animals and eggs as well as plants, as had previously been suggested. He pointed out that ostriches and emus are mainly grazers and browsers, and that the skulls of ornithomimids were most similar to those of the extinct moas, which were strong enough to bite off twigs, as evidenced by their gut content. He further suggested that ornithomimids were well adapted for browsing on tough plants and would have used their hands to bring branches within reach of their jaws.[1] Palaeontologist Jørn Hurum suggested in 2001 that due to its similar jaw structure, Gallimimus may have had an opportunistic, omnivorous diet like seagulls. He also observed that the tight intramandibular joint would prevent any movement between the front and rear portions of the lower jaw.[7]

In 2001, palaeontologists Mark A. Norell, Makovicky, and Currie reported a Gallimimus skull (IGM 100/1133) and an Ornithomimus skull that preserved soft tissue structures on the beak. The inner side of the Gallimimus beak had columnar structures that the authors found similar to the lamellae in the beaks of anseriform birds, which use these for manipulating food, straining sediments, filter-feeding by segregating food items from other material, and for cutting plants while grazing. They found the Northern shoveller, which feeds on plants, molluscs, ostracods, and foraminiferans, to be the modern anseriform with structures most similar in anatomy to those of Gallimimus. The authors noted that ornithomimids probably did not use their beaks to prey on large animals and were abundant in mesic environments, while rarer in more arid environments, suggesting that they may have depended on aquatic food sources.[8] If this interpretation is correct, Gallimimus would have been one of the largest known terrestrial filter feeders.[4]
In 2005, palaeontologist Paul Barrett pointed out that the lamella-like structures of Gallimimus did not appear to have been flexible bristles like those of filter-feeding birds (as there is no indication of these structures overlapping or being collapsed), but were instead more akin to the thin, regularly spaced vertical ridges in the beaks of turtles and hadrosaurid dinosaurs. In these animals, such ridges are thought to be associated with herbivorous diets, used to crop tough vegetation. Barrett suggested that the ridges in the beak of Gallimimus represented a natural cast of the internal surface of the beak, indicating that the animal was a herbivore that fed on material high in fibre. The discovery of many gastroliths (gizzard stones) in some ornithomimids indicate the presence of a gastric mill, and therefore point towards a herbivorous diet, as these are used to grind food of animals that lack the necessary chewing apparatus. Barrett also calculated that a 440 kilograms (970lb) Gallimimus would have needed between 0.07 and 3.34 kilograms (0.15 and 7.36lb) of food per day, depending on whether it had an endothermic or an ectothermic ("warm" or "cold"-blooded) metabolism, an intake which he found to be unfeasible if it was a filter feeder. He also found that ornithomimids were abundant not only in formations that represented mesic environments, but also in arid environments where there would be insufficient water to sustain a diet based on filter feeding.[6] In 2007, palaeontologist Espen M. Knutsen wrote that the beak shape of ornithomimids, when compared to those of modern birds, was consistent with omnivory or high-fibre herbivory.[34]
Palaeoecology

Gallimimus is known from the Nemegt Formation in the Gobi Desert of southern Mongolia. This geologic formation has never been dated radiometrically, but the fauna present in the fossil record indicate it was probably deposited during the early Maastrichtian stage, at the end of the Late Cretaceous about 70 million years ago.[35][36][37] The sediments of the Gallimimus type locality Tsaagan Khushuu consist of silts, siltstones, mudstones, sands, as well as less frequent thin beds of sandstones.[12] The rock facies of the Nemegt Formation suggest the presence of river channels, mudflats, shallow lakes and floodplains in an environment similar to the Okavango Delta of present-day Botswana.[38] Large river channels and soil deposits are evidence of a significantly more humid climate than those found in the older Barun Goyot and Djadochta formations, although caliche deposits indicate that periodic droughts occurred.[39] Fossil bones from the Nemegt Basin, including of Gallimimus, are more radioactive than fossils from surrounding areas, possibly because uranium accumulated in the bones, transported there by percolating ground water.[15][40]
The Nemegt rivers, where Gallimimus lived, were home to a wide array of organisms. Occasional mollusc fossils, as well as a variety of other aquatic animals like fish, turtles,[35] and crocodylomorphs, including Shamosuchus, have been discovered in this region.[41] Mammal fossils are rare in the Nemegt Formation, but many birds, including the enantiornithine Gurilynia, the hesperornithiform Judinornis, as well as Teviornis, a possible anseriform, have been found. Herbivorous dinosaurs discovered in the Nemegt Formation include ankylosaurids such as Tarchia, the pachycephalosaurian Prenocephale, large hadrosaurids such as Saurolophus and Barsboldia, and sauropods such as Nemegtosaurus and Opisthocoelicaudia.[35][42] Predatory theropods that lived alongside Gallimimus include tyrannosauroids such as Tarbosaurus, Alioramus and Bagaraatan, and troodontids such as Borogovia, Tochisaurus and Zanabazar. Herbivorous or omnivorous theropods include therizinosaurs, such as Therizinosaurus, as well as oviraptorosaurians, such as Elmisaurus, Nemegtomaia, and Rinchenia.[43] Other ornithomimosaurs, including Anserimimus and Deinocheirus, are also found, but Gallimimus is the most common member of the group in the Nemegt.[10]
Cultural significance

Gallimimus was featured in the 1993 movie Jurassic Park by director Steven Spielberg; a similar scene in the original 1990 novel instead featured hadrosaurs. Spielberg had wanted a stampede sequence with animal herds in the movie, but did not know how to achieve it, and it was initially going to be visualised through stop-motion animation. At the time, there was little faith in creating animals through computer animation, but the visual effects company Industrial Light and Magic was given a go-ahead by the movie's producers to explore possibilities. ILM created a Gallimimus skeleton in the computer and animated a test showing a herd of running skeletons, and later a Tyrannosaurus chasing a fully rendered Gallimimus herd. The production team became very enthusiastic as nothing similar had previously been achieved, and Spielberg was convinced to write the scene into the script, and to also use computer graphics for other dinosaur shots in the movie instead of stop motion.[44][45] The Gallimimus were animated by tracing frames from footage of ostriches, and footage of herding gazelles was also referenced.[46] Kielan-Jaworowska, who discovered the holotype specimen, called it a "beautiful scene".[15] The movie's dinosaurs were one of the most widely publicised applications of computer-generated imagery in film, and were considered more lifelike than what had been previously accomplished with special effects.[47]
Emphasising the bird-like flocking behaviour of the Gallimimus herd was a point in Jurassic Park's story, as they were supposed to represent the precursors to birds. The herd was shown moving as a whole, rather than individual animals running around, and the smaller Gallimimus were shown in the middle of the group, as though they were protected.[44] During the scene, the protagonist palaeontologist Alan Grant says that the herd moves with "uniform direction changes, just like a flock of birds evading a predator" and "bet you'll never look at birds the same way again" as he watches the movements of the fast, graceful Gallimimus. This contrasted with how dinosaurs were traditionally depicted in mass media as lumbering, tail-dragging animals, and the movie helped change the common perception of dinosaurs. This and other scenes reflected then-recent theories of bird evolution encouraged by the movie's scientific advisor, palaeontologist John R. Horner, ideas which were still contentious at the time.[48][49][50] Despite such theories, Gallimimus and other dinosaurs of the movie were depicted without feathers, in part because it was unknown at the time how widespread these were among the group.[48][51]
It has been claimed that the Lark Quarry tracks (one of the world's largest concentrations of dinosaur tracks) in Queensland, Australia, served as inspiration and "scientific underpinning" for the Gallimimus stampede scene in Jurassic Park; these tracks were initially interpreted as representing a dinosaur stampede caused by the arrival of a theropod predator. The idea that the tracks represent a stampede has since been contested (the "theropod" may instead have been a herbivore similar to Muttaburrasaurus), and a consultant to Jurassic Park has denied the tracks served as inspiration for the movie.[52][53][54]
See also
Timeline of ornithomimosaur research
 Media related to Gallimimus at Wikimedia Commons


This sortable list of largest libraries includes libraries that, as measured in 2008 or subsequently, store 15 million or more items.
Largest libraries in the world

See also
List of the largest libraries in the United States


Czech (/tʃɛk/; čeština Czech pronunciation:[ˈtʃɛʃcɪna]), historically also Bohemian[6] (/boʊˈhiːmiən, bə-/;[7] lingua Bohemica in Latin), is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group.[6] Spoken by over 10 million people, it serves as the official language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of mutual intelligibility to a very high degree.[8] Like other Slavic languages, Czech is a fusional language with a rich system of morphology and relatively flexible word order. Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by Latin[9] and German.[10]
The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in the high medieval period, and the standardization of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerged in the early modern period. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the modern written standard became codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main vernacular, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, but is now spoken throughout most of the Czech Republic. The Moravian dialects spoken in the eastern part of the country are also classified as Czech, although some of their eastern variants are closer to Slovak.
Czech has a moderately-sized phoneme inventory, comprising ten monophthongs, three diphthongs and 25 consonants (divided into "hard", "neutral" and "soft" categories). Words may contain complicated consonant clusters or lack vowels altogether. Czech has a raised alveolar trill, which is not known to occur as a phoneme in any other language, represented by the grapheme ř. Czech uses a simple orthography which phonologists have used as a model.
Classification

Czech is a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. This branch includes Polish, Kashubian, Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak. Slovak is the closest language genetic neighbor of Czech, followed by Polish and Silesian.[11]
The West Slavic languages are spoken in Central Europe. Czech is distinguished from other West Slavic languages by a more-restricted distinction between "hard" and "soft" consonants (see Phonology below).[11]
History

Medieval/Old Czech
The term "Old Czech" is applied to the period predating the 16th century, with the earliest records of the high medieval period also classified as "early Old Czech", but the term "Medieval Czech" is also used.
Around the 7th century, the  Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, settling on the eastern fringes of the Frankish Empire. The West Slavic polity of  Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries. The diversification of the Czech-Slovak group within West Slavic began around that time, marked among other things by  its ephemeral use of the voiced velar fricative consonant (/ɣ/)[12] and consistent stress on the first syllable.[13]
The Bohemian (Czech) language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the late 13th and early 14th century and administrative documents first appear towards the late 14th century. The first complete Bible translation also dates to this period.[14] Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were produced outside the university as well.[15]
Literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation. Jan Hus contributed significantly to the standardization of Czech orthography, advocated for widespread literacy among Czech commoners (particularly in religion) and made early efforts to model written Czech after the spoken language.[14]
Early Modern Czech
There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century.[16] In the 16th century, the division between Czech and Slovak becomes apparent, marking the confessional division between Lutheran Protestants in Slovakia using Czech orthography and Catholics, especially Slovak Jesuits, beginning to use a separate Slovak orthography based on the language of the Trnava region.
The publication of the Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 (the first complete Czech translation of the Bible from the original languages) became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries.
In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the only official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt (of predominantly Protestant aristocracy) which was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620, the Protestant intellectuals had to leave the country. This emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years' War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, especially among the upper classes.[17]
Modern Czech

The modern standard Czech language originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century.[18] By then the language had developed a literary tradition, and since then it has changed little; journals from that period have no substantial differences from modern standard Czech, and contemporary Czechs can understand them with little difficulty.[19] Changes include the morphological shift of í to ej and é to í (although é survives for some uses) and the merging of í and the former ejí.[20] Sometime before the 18th century, the Czech language abandoned a distinction between phonemic /l/ and /ʎ/ which survives in Slovak.[21]
With the beginning of the national revival of the mid-18th century,  Czech historians began to emphasize their people's accomplishments from the 15th through the 17th centuries, rebelling against the Counter-Reformation (the Habsburg re-catholization efforts which had denigrated Czech and other non-Latin languages).[22] Czech philologists studied sixteenth-century texts, advocating the return of the language to high culture.[23] This period is known as the Czech National Revival[24] (or Renaissance).[23]
During the national revival, in 1809 linguist and historian Josef Dobrovský released a German-language grammar of Old Czech entitled Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der böhmischen Sprache (Comprehensive Doctrine of the Bohemian Language). Dobrovský had intended his book to be descriptive, and did not think Czech had a realistic chance of returning as a major language. However, Josef Jungmann and other revivalists used Dobrovský's book to advocate for a Czech linguistic revival.[24] Changes during this time included spelling reform (notably, í in place of the former j and j in place of g), the use of t (rather than ti) to end infinitive verbs and the non-capitalization of nouns (which had been a late borrowing from German).[21] These changes differentiated Czech from Slovak.[25] Modern scholars disagree about whether the conservative revivalists were motivated by nationalism or considered contemporary spoken Czech unsuitable for formal, widespread use.[24]
Adherence to historical patterns was later relaxed and standard Czech adopted a number of features from Common Czech (a widespread, informal register), such as leaving some proper nouns undeclined. This has resulted in a relatively high level of homogeneity among all varieties of the language.[26]
Geographic distribution

In 2005 and 2007, Czech was spoken by about 10 million residents of the Czech Republic.[17][27] A Eurobarometer survey conducted from January to March 2012 found that the first language of 98 percent of Czech citizens was Czech, the third-highest in the European Union (behind Greece and Hungary).[28]
Czech, the official language of the Czech Republic (a member of the European Union since 2004), is one of the EU's official languages and the 2012 Eurobarometer survey found that Czech was the foreign language most often used in Slovakia.[28] Economist Jonathan van Parys collected data on language knowledge in Europe for the 2012 European Day of Languages. The five countries with the greatest use of Czech were the Czech Republic (98.77 percent), Slovakia (24.86 percent), Portugal (1.93 percent), Poland (0.98 percent) and Germany (0.47 percent).[29]
Czech speakers in Slovakia primarily live in cities. Since it is a recognised minority language in Slovakia, Slovak citizens who speak only Czech may communicate with the government in their language to the extent that Slovak speakers in the Czech Republic may do so.[30]
United States

Immigration of Czechs from Europe to the United States occurred primarily from 1848 to 1914. Czech is a Less Commonly Taught Language in U.S. schools, and is taught at Czech heritage centers. Large communities of Czech Americans live in the states of Texas, Nebraska and Wisconsin.[31] In the 2000 United States Census, Czech was reported as the most-common language spoken at home (besides English) in Valley, Butler and Saunders Counties, Nebraska and Republic County, Kansas. With the exception of Spanish (the non-English language most commonly spoken at home nationwide), Czech was the most-common home language in over a dozen additional counties in Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, North Dakota and Minnesota.[32] As of 2009, 70,500 Americans spoke Czech as their first language (49th place nationwide, behind Turkish and ahead of Swedish).[33]
Standard Czech
The modern written standard is directly based on the standardization during the Czech National Revival in the 1830s, significantly influenced by  Josef Jungmann's Czech–German dictionary published during 1834–1839. Jungmann used vocabulary of the Bible of Kralice (1579–1613) period and of the language used by his contemporaries. He borrowed words not present in Czech from other Slavic languages or created neologisms.[34]
Phonology

Standard Czech contains ten basic vowel phonemes, and three more found only in loanwords. They are /a/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /o/, and /u/, their long counterparts /aː/, /ɛː/, /iː/, /oː/ and /uː/, and three diphthongs, /ou̯/, /au̯/ and /ɛu̯/. The latter two diphthongs and the long /oː/ are exclusive to loanwords.[35] Vowels are never reduced to schwa sounds when unstressed.[36] Each word usually has primary stress on its first syllable, except for enclitics (minor, monosyllabic, unstressed syllables). In all words of more than two syllables, every odd-numbered syllable receives secondary stress. Stress is unrelated to vowel length, and the possibility of stressed short vowels and unstressed long vowels can be confusing to students whose native language combines the features (such as most varieties of English).[37]
Voiced consonants with unvoiced counterparts are unvoiced at the end of a word before a pause, and in consonant clusters voicing assimilation occurs, which matches voicing to the following consonant. The unvoiced counterpart of /ɦ/ is /x/.[38]
Czech consonants are categorized as "hard", "neutral" or "soft":
Hard: /d/, /ɡ/, /ɦ/, /k/, /n/, /r/, /t/, /x/
Neutral: /b/, /f/, /l/, /m/, /p/, /s/, /v/, /z/
Soft: /c/, /ɟ/, /j/, /ɲ/, /r̝/, /ʃ/, /ts/, /tʃ/, /ʒ/
This distinction describes the declension patterns of nouns, which is based on the category of a noun's ending consonant. Hard consonants may not be followed by i or í in writing, or soft ones by y or ý (except in loanwords such as kilogram).[39] Neutral consonants may take either character. Hard consonants are sometimes known as "strong", and soft ones as "weak".[40]
The phoneme represented by the letter ř (capital Ř) is often considered unique to Czech[41]. It represents the raised alveolar non-sonorant trill (IPA: [r̝]), a sound somewhere between Czech's r and ž (example: "řeka" (river)),[41] and is present in Dvořák. In unvoiced environments, /r̝/ is realized as its voiceless allophone [r̝̊].[42]
The consonants /r/ and /l/ can be syllabic, acting as syllable nuclei in place of a vowel. Strč prst skrz krk ("Stick [your] finger through [your] throat") is a well-known Czech tongue twister using only syllabic consonants.[43]

Consonants

Vowels

Grammar
Slavic grammar is fusional; its nouns, verbs, and adjectives are inflected by phonological processes to modify their meanings and grammatical functions, and the easily separable affixes characteristic of agglutinative languages are limited.[44]
Slavic inflection is complex and pervasive, inflecting for case, gender and number in nouns and tense, aspect, mood, person and subject number and gender in verbs.[45]
Parts of speech include adjectives, adverbs, numbers, interrogative words, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.[46] Adverbs are primarily formed from adjectives by taking the final ý or í of the base form and replacing it with e, ě, or o.[47] Negative statements are formed by adding the affix ne- to the verb of a clause, with one exception: je (he, she or it is) becomes není.[48]
Sentence and clause structure

Because Czech uses grammatical case to convey word function in a sentence (instead of relying on word order, as English does), its word order is flexible. As a pro-drop language, in Czech an intransitive sentence can consist of only a verb; information about its subject is encoded in the verb.[49] Enclitics (primarily auxiliary verbs and pronouns) must appear in the second syntactic slot of a sentence, after the first stressed unit. The first slot must contain a subject and object, a main form of a verb, an adverb or a conjunction (except for the light conjunctions a, "and", i, "and even" or ale, "but").[50]
Czech syntax has a subject–verb–object sentence structure. In practice, however, word order is flexible and used for topicalization and focus. Although Czech has a periphrastic passive construction (like English), colloquial word-order changes frequently produce the passive voice. For example, to change "Peter killed
Paul" to "Paul was killed by Peter" the order of subject and object is inverted: Petr zabil Pavla ("Peter killed Paul") becomes "Paul, Peter killed" (Pavla zabil Petr). Pavla is in the accusative case, the grammatical object (in this case, the victim) of the verb.[51]
A word at the end of a clause is typically emphasized, unless an upward intonation indicates that the sentence is a question:[52]
Pes jí bagetu. – The dog eats the baguette (rather than eating something else).
Bagetu jí pes. – The dog eats the baguette (rather than someone else doing so).
Pes bagetu jí. – The dog eats the baguette (rather than doing something else to it).
Jí pes bagetu? – Does the dog eat the baguette? (emphasis ambiguous)
In portions of Bohemia (including Prague), questions such as Jí pes bagetu? without an interrogative word (such as co, "what" or kdo, "who") are intoned in a slow rise from low to high, quickly dropping to low on the last word or phrase.[53]
In modern Czech syntax, adjectives precede nouns,[54] with few exceptions.[55] Relative clauses are introduced by relativizers such as the adjective který, analogous to the English relative pronouns "which", "that", "who" and "whom". As with other adjectives, it is declined into the appropriate case (see Declension below) to match its associated noun, person and number. Relative clauses follow the noun they modify, and the following is a glossed example:[56]

Czech:Chc-inavštív-ituniversit-u,nakter-ouchod-íJan.Gloss:want-1.SGvisit-INFuniversity-SG.ACC,onwhich-SG.F.ACCattend-3.SGJohn.SG.NOM
English: I want to visit the university that John attends.
Declension

In Czech, nouns and adjectives are declined into one of seven grammatical cases. Nouns are inflected to indicate their use in a sentence. A nominative–accusative language, Czech marks subject nouns with nominative case and object nouns with accusative case. The genitive case marks possessive nouns and some types of movement. The remaining cases (instrumental, locative, vocative and dative) indicate semantic relationships, such as secondary objects, movement or position (dative case) and accompaniment (instrumental case). An adjective's case agrees with that of the noun it describes. When Czech children learn their language's declension patterns, the cases are referred to by number:[57]

Some Czech grammatical texts order the cases differently, grouping the nominative and accusative (and the dative and locative) together because those declension patterns are often identical; this order accommodates learners with experience in other inflected languages, such as Latin or Russian. This order is nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental and vocative.[57]
Some prepositions require the nouns they modify to take a particular case. The cases assigned by each preposition are based on the physical (or metaphorical) direction, or location, conveyed by it. For example, od (from, away from) and z (out of, off) assign the genitive case. Other prepositions take one of several cases, with their meaning dependent on the case; na means "onto" or "for" with the accusative case, but "on" with the locative.[58]
Examples of declension patterns (using prepositions) for a few nouns with adjectives follow. Only one plural example is given, since plural declension patterns are similar across genders.

This is a glossed example of a sentence using several cases:

Czech:Nes-ljs-emkrabic-idodom-usesv-ýmpřítel-em.Gloss:carry-SG.M.PSTbe-1.SGbox-SG.ACCintohouse-SG.GENwithown-SG.INSfriend-SG.INS
English: I carried the box into the house with my friend.
Czech distinguishes three genders—masculine, feminine, and neuter—and the masculine gender is subdivided into animate and inanimate. With few exceptions, feminine nouns in the nominative case end in -a, -e, or consonant; neuter nouns in -o, -e, or -í, and masculine nouns in a consonant.[59] Adjectives agree in gender and animacy (for masculine nouns in the accusative or genitive singular and the nominative plural) with the nouns they modify.[60] The main effect of gender in Czech is the difference in noun and adjective declension, but other effects include past-tense verb endings: for example, dělal (he did, or made); dělala (she did, or made) and dělalo (it did, or made).[61]
Nouns are also inflected for number, distinguishing between singular and plural. Typical of a Slavic language, Czech cardinal numbers one through four allow the nouns and adjectives they modify to take any case, but numbers over five place these nouns and adjectives in the genitive case when the entire expression is in nominative or accusative case. The Czech koruna is an example of this feature; it is shown here as the subject of a hypothetical sentence, and declined as genitive for numbers five and up.[62]

Numerical words decline for case and, for numbers one and two, for gender. Numbers one through five are shown below as examples, and have some of the most exceptions among Czech numbers. The number one has declension patterns identical to those of the demonstrative pronoun, to.[63][64]

Although Czech's grammatical numbers are singular and plural, several residuals of dual forms remain. Some nouns for paired body parts use a historical dual form to express plural in some cases: ruka (hand)—ruce (nominative); noha (leg)—nohama (instrumental), nohou (genitive/locative); oko (eye)—oči, and ucho (ear)—uši. While two of these nouns are neuter in their singular forms, all plural forms are considered feminine; their gender is relevant to their associated adjectives and verbs.[65] These forms are plural semantically, used for any non-singular count, as in mezi čtyřma očima (face to face, lit. among four eyes). The plural number paradigms of these nouns are actually a mixture of historical dual and plural forms. For example, nohy (legs; nominative/accusative) is a standard plural form of this type of noun.[66]
Verb conjugation

Czech verb conjugation is less complex than noun and adjective declension because it codes for fewer categories. Verbs agree with their subjects in person (first, second or third) and number (singular or plural), and are  conjugated for tense (past, present or future). For example, the conjugated verb mluvíme (we speak) is in the present tense and first-person plural; it is distinguished from other conjugations of the infinitive mluvit by its ending, -íme.[67]
Typical of Slavic languages, Czech marks its verbs for one of two grammatical aspects: perfective and imperfective. Most verbs are part of inflected aspect pairs—for example, koupit (perfective) and kupovat (imperfective). Although the verbs' meaning is similar, in perfective verbs the action is completed and in imperfective verbs it is ongoing. This is distinct from past and present tense,[68] and any Czech verb of either aspect can be conjugated into any of its three tenses.[67] Aspect describes the state of the action at the time specified by the tense.[68]
The verbs of most aspect pairs differ in one of two ways: by prefix or by suffix. In prefix pairs, the perfective verb has an added prefix—for example, the imperfective psát (to write, to be writing) compared with the perfective napsat (to write down, to finish writing). The most common prefixes are na-, o-, po-, s-, u-, vy-, z- and za-.[69] In suffix pairs, a different infinitive ending is added to the perfective stem; for example, the perfective verbs koupit (to buy) and prodat (to sell) have the imperfective forms kupovat and prodávat.[70] Imperfective verbs may undergo further morphology to make other imperfective verbs (iterative and frequentative forms), denoting repeated or regular action. The verb jít (to go) has the iterative form chodit (to go repeatedly) and the frequentative form chodívat (to go regularly).[71]
Many verbs have only one aspect, and verbs describing continual states of being—být (to be), chtít (to want), moct (to be able to), ležet (to lie down, to be lying down)—have no perfective form. Conversely, verbs describing immediate states of change—for example, otěhotnět (to become pregnant) and nadchnout se (to become enthusiastic)—have no imperfective aspect.[72]
Although Czech's use of present and future tense is largely similar to that of English, the language uses past tense to represent the English present perfect and past perfect; ona běžela could mean she ran, she has run or she had run.[73]

In some contexts, Czech's perfective present (which differs from the English present perfect) implies future action; in others, it connotes habitual action.[74] As a result, the language has a proper future tense to minimize ambiguity. The future tense does not involve conjugating the verb describing an action to be undertaken in the future; instead, the future form of být (as shown in the table at left) is placed before the infinitive (for example, budu jíst—"I will eat").[75]
This conjugation is not followed by být itself, so future-oriented expressions involving nouns, adjectives, or prepositions (rather than verbs) omit být. "I will be happy" is translated as Budu šťastný (not Budu být šťastný).[75]

The infinitive form ends in t (archaically, ti). It is the form found in dictionaries and the form that follows auxiliary verbs (for example, můžu tě slyšet—"I can hear you").[76] Czech verbs have three grammatical moods: indicative, imperative and conditional.[77] The imperative mood adds specific endings for each of three person (or number) categories: -Ø/-i/-ej for second-person singular, -te/-ete/-ejte for second-person plural and -me/-eme/-ejme for first-person plural.[78] The conditional mood is formed with a particle after the past-tense verb. This mood indicates possible events, expressed in English as "I would" or "I wish".[79]

Most Czech verbs fail into one of five classes, which determine their conjugation patterns. The future tense of být would be classified as a Class I verb because of its endings. Examples of the present tense of each class and some common irregular verbs follow in the tables below:[80]

Orthography

Czech has one of the most phonemic orthographies of all European languages. Its thirty-one graphemes represent thirty sounds (in most dialects, i and y have the same sound), and it contains only one digraph: ch, which follows h in the alphabet.[81] As a result, some of its characters have been used by phonologists to denote corresponding sounds in other languages. The characters q, w and x appear only in foreign words.[82] The háček (ˇ) is used with certain letters to form new characters: š, ž, and č, as well as ň, ě, ř, ť, and ď (the latter five uncommon outside Czech). The last two letters are sometimes written with a comma above (ʼ, an abbreviated háček) because of their height.[83] The character ó exists only in loanwords and onomatopoeia.[84]
Unlike most European languages, Czech distinguishes vowel length; long vowels are indicated by an acute accent or, occasionally with ů, a ring. Long u is usually written ú at the beginning of a word or morpheme (úroda, neúrodný) and ů elsewhere,[85] except for loanwords (skútr) or onomatopoeia (bú).[86] Long vowels and ě are not considered separate letters in the alphabetical order.[87]
Czech typographical features not associated with phonetics generally resemble those of most Latin European languages, including English. Proper nouns, honorifics, and the first letters of quotations are capitalized, and punctuation is typical of other Latin European languages. Writing of ordinal numerals is similar to most European languages. The Czech language uses a decimal comma instead of a decimal point. When writing a long number, spaces between every three numbers (e.g. between hundreds and thousands) may be used for better orientation in handwritten texts, but not in decimal places, like in English. The number 1,234,567.8910 may be written as 1234567,8910 or 1 234 567,8910. Ordinal numbers (1st) use a point as in German (1.). In proper noun phrases (except personal names), only the first word is capitalized (Pražský hrad, Prague Castle).[88][89]
Varieties

The main vernacular of Bohemia is "Common Czech", based on the dialect of the Prague region.
Other Bohemian dialects have become marginalized, while Moravian dialects remain more widespread, with a political movement for Moravian linguistic revival active since the 1990s.
Common Czech
The main Czech vernacular, spoken primarily in and around Prague but also throughout the country, is known as Common Czech (obecná čeština). This is an academic distinction; most Czechs are unaware of the term or associate it with vernacular (or incorrect) Czech.[90] Compared to standard Czech, Common Czech is characterized by simpler inflection patterns and differences in sound distribution.[91]
Common Czech has become ubiquitous in most parts of the Czech Republic since the later 20th century. It is usually defined as an interdialect used in common speech in Bohemia and western parts of Moravia (by about two thirds of all inhabitants of the Czech Republic). Common Czech is not codified, but some of its elements have become adopted in the written standard.
Since the second half of the 20th century, Common Czech elements have also been spreading to regions previously unaffected, as a consequence of media influence.
Standard Czech is still the norm for politicians, businesspeople and other Czechs in formal situations, but Common Czech is gaining ground in journalism and the mass media.[91]
Common Czech is characterized by quite regular differences from the standard morphology and phonology. These variations are more or less common among all Common Czech speakers:[92]
é usually replaced by ý/í: mal<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[49976,49983,3,3]}'>ý město (small town), plam<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50008,50015,3,3]}'>í</b>nek (little flame), l<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50036,50043,3,3]}'>í</b>tat (to fly);
ý (sometimes also í) replaced by ej: mal<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50111,50119,3,3]}'>ej dům (small house), ml<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50141,50149,3,3]}'>ej</b>n (mill), pl<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50161,50169,3,3]}'>ej</b>tvat (to waste), b<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50187,50195,3,3]}'>ej</b>t (to be) – as a consequence of the loss of the difference in the pronunciation of y/ý and i/í in the 15th century;
unified plural endings of adjectives: mal<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50387,50394,3,3]}'>ý lidi (small people), mal<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50419,50426,3,3]}'>ý ženy (small women), mal<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50450,50457,3,3]}'>ý města (small towns) – stand.: malí lidé, malé ženy, malá města;
unified instrumental ending -ma in plural: s tě<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50626,50634,3,3]}'>ma dobrej<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50641,50649,3,3]}'>ma lid<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50653,50661,3,3]}'>ma, žena<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50667,50675,3,3]}'>ma, chlapa<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50683,50691,3,3]}'>ma, města<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[50698,50706,3,3]}'>ma (with the good people, women, guys, towns) – stand.: s těmi dobrými lidmi, ženami, chlapy, městy. In essence, this form resembles the form of the dual, which was once a productive form, but now is almost extinct and retained in a lexically specific set of words. In Common Czech the ending became productive again around the 17th century, but used as a substitute for a regular plural form.[93]
prothetic v- added to most words beginning o-: v</b>otevřít v</b>okno (to open the window) – stand.: otevřít okno; but ovoce not *vovoce (fruit)
omitting of the syllabic -l in the masculine ending of past tense verbs: řek (he said), moh (he could), pích (he pricked) – stand.: řekl, mohl, píchl.
Example of declension (with the comparison with the standard Czech):

mladý člověk – young man/person, mladí lidé – young people, mladý stát – young state, mladá žena – young woman, mladé zvíře – young animal
Bohemian dialects

Apart from the Common Czech vernacular, there remain a variety of other Bohemian dialects, mostly in marginal rural areas. Dialect use began to weaken in the second half of the 20th century, and by the early 1990s regional dialect use was stigmatized, associated with the shrinking lower class and used in literature or other media for comedic effect. Increased travel and media availability to dialect-speaking populations has encouraged them to shift to (or add to their own dialect) standard Czech.[94]
The Czech Statistical Office in 2003 recognized the following Bohemian dialects:[95]
Nářečí středočeská (Central Bohemian dialects)
Nářečí jihozápadočeská (Southwestern Bohemian dialects)
Podskupina chodská (Chod subgroup)
Podskupina doudlebská (Doudleby subgroup)
Nářečí severovýchodočeská (Northeastern Bohemian dialects)
Podskupina podkrknošská (Krkonoše subgroup)
Bohemian dialects use a slightly different set of vowel phonemes to standard Czech. The phoneme /ɛː/ is peripheral and is replaced by /iː/, and a second native diphthong /eɪ̯/ occurs, usually in places where standard Czech has /iː/.[96]
Moravian dialects

The Czech dialects spoken in Moravia and Silesia are known as Moravian (moravština). In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, "Bohemian-Moravian-Slovak" was a language citizens could register as speaking (with German, Polish and several others).[97] Of the Czech dialects, only Moravian is distinguished in nationwide surveys by the Czech Statistical Office. As of 2011, 62,908 Czech citizens spoke Moravian as their first language and 45,561 were diglossal (speaking Moravian and standard Czech as first languages).[98]
Beginning in the sixteenth century, some varieties of Czech resembled Slovak;[16] the southeastern Moravian dialects, in particular, are sometimes considered dialects of Slovak rather than Czech. These dialects form a continuum between the Czech and Slovak languages,[99] using the same declension patterns for nouns and pronouns and the same verb conjugations as Slovak.[100]
The Czech Statistical Office in 2003 recognized the following Moravian dialects:[95]
Nářečí českomoravská (Bohemian–Moravian dialects)
Nářečí středomoravská (Central Moravian dialects)
Podskupina tišnovská (Tišnov subgroup)
Nářečí východomoravská (Eastern Moravian dialects)
Podskupina slovácká (Moravian Slovak subgroup)
Podskupina valašská (Moravian Wallachian subgroup)
Nářečí slezská (Silesian dialects)
Sample
In a 1964 textbook on Czech dialectology, Břetislav Koudela used the following sentence to highlight phonetic differences between dialects:[101]

Standard Czech:D<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59232,59240,3,3]}'>ej m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59242,59250,3,3]}'>ou</b>k<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59251,59258,3,3]}'>u z<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59260,59267,3,3]}'>e m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59269,59277,3,3]}'>lý</b>na na voz<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59286,59293,3,3]}'>í</b>k.Common Czech:D<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59323,59331,3,3]}'>ej m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59333,59341,3,3]}'>ou</b>k<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59342,59349,3,3]}'>u z<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59351,59358,3,3]}'>e m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59360,59369,3,3]}'>lej</b>na na voz<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59378,59386,3,3]}'>ej</b>k.Central Moravian:D<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59420,59427,3,3]}'>é m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59429,59436,3,3]}'>ó</b>k<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59437,59444,3,3]}'>u z<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59446,59453,3,3]}'>e m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59455,59463,3,3]}'>lé</b>na na voz<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59472,59479,3,3]}'>é</b>k.Eastern Moravian:D<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59513,59521,3,3]}'>aj m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59523,59530,3,3]}'>ú</b>k<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59531,59538,3,3]}'>u z<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59540,59547,3,3]}'>e m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59549,59557,3,3]}'>łý</b>na na voz<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59566,59573,3,3]}'>í</b>k.Silesian:D<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59599,59607,3,3]}'>aj m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59609,59616,3,3]}'>u</b>k<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59617,59624,3,3]}'>u z<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59626,59633,3,3]}'>e m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59635,59643,3,3]}'>ły</b>na na voz<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59652,59659,3,3]}'>i</b>k.Slovak:D<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59683,59691,3,3]}'>aj m<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59693,59700,3,3]}'>ú</b>ku z mly</b>na na voz<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[59723,59730,3,3]}'>í</b>k.English:Put the flour from the mill into the cart.
Mutual intelligibility
Czech and Slovak have been considered mutually intelligible; speakers of either language can communicate with greater ease than those of any other pair of West Slavic languages. Since the 1993 dissolution of Czechoslovakia, mutual intelligibility has declined for younger speakers, probably because Czech speakers now experience less exposure to Slovak and vice versa.[102]
In phonetic differences, Czech is characterized by a glottal stop before initial vowels and Slovak by its less-frequent use of long vowels than Czech;[103] however, Slovak has long forms of the consonants r and l when they function as vowels.[104] Phonemic differences between the two languages are generally consistent, typical of two dialects of a language. Grammatically, although Czech (unlike Slovak) has a fully productive vocative case,[103] both languages share a common syntax.[16]
One study showed that Czech and Slovak lexicons differed by 80 percent, but this high percentage was found to stem primarily from differing orthographies and slight inconsistencies in morphological formation;[105] Slovak morphology is more regular (when changing from the nominative to the locative case, Pra<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[61326,61333,3,3]}'>h</b>a becomes Pra<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[61352,61359,3,3]}'>z</b>e in Czech and Pra<b data-parsoid='{"dsr":[61381,61388,3,3]}'>h</b>e in Slovak). The two lexicons are generally considered similar, with most differences found in colloquial vocabulary and some scientific terminology. Slovak has slightly more borrowed words than Czech.[16]
The similarities between Czech and Slovak led to the languages being considered a single language by a group of 19th-century scholars who called themselves "Czechoslavs" (Čechoslované), believing that the peoples were connected in a way which excluded German Bohemians and (to a lesser extent) Hungarians and other Slavs.[106] During the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938), although "Czechoslovak" was designated as the republic's official language, both Czech and Slovak written standards were used. Standard written Slovak was partially modeled on literary Czech, and Czech was preferred for some official functions in the Slovak half of the republic. Czech influence on Slovak was protested by Slovak scholars, and when Slovakia broke off from Czechoslovakia in 1938 as the Slovak State (which then aligned with Nazi Germany in World War II), literary Slovak was deliberately distanced from Czech. When the Axis powers lost the war and Czechoslovakia reformed, Slovak developed somewhat on its own (with Czech influence); during the Prague Spring of 1968, Slovak gained independence from (and equality with) Czech,[16] due to the transformation of Czechoslovakia from a unitary state to a federation. Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, "Czechoslovak" has referred to improvised pidgins of the languages which have arisen from the decrease in mutual intelligibility.[107]
Vocabulary

Czech vocabulary derives primarily from Slavic, Baltic and other Indo-European roots. Although most verbs have Balto-Slavic origins, pronouns, prepositions and some verbs have wider, Indo-European roots.[108] Some loanwords have been restructured by folk etymology to resemble native Czech words (hřbitov, "graveyard" and listina, "list").[109]
Most Czech loanwords originated in one of two time periods. Earlier loanwords, primarily from German,[110] Greek and Latin,[111] arrived before the Czech National Revival. More recent loanwords derive primarily from English and French,[110] and also from Hebrew, Arabic and Persian. Many Russian loanwords, principally animal names and naval terms, also exist in Czech.[112]
Although older German loanwords were colloquial, recent borrowings from other languages are associated with high culture.[110] During the nineteenth century, words with Greek and Latin roots were rejected in favor of those based on older Czech words and common Slavic roots; "music" is muzyka in Polish and музыка (muzyka) in Russian, but in Czech it is hudba.[111] Some Czech words have been borrowed as loanwords into English and other languages—for example, robot (from robota, "labor")[113] and polka (from polka, "Polish woman" or from "půlka" "half").[114]
Sample text

According to Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Czech: Všichni lidé se rodí svobodní a sobě rovní co do důstojnosti a práv. Jsou nadáni rozumem a svědomím a mají spolu jednat v duchu bratrství.[115]
English: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."[116]
See also

Czech Centers
Czech name
Czech Sign Language
Swadesh list of Slavic words
Notes

Explicit use of et al. in: |first= (help)

 – Czech Language Institute, the regulatory body for the Czech language (in Czech)

 (from Wiktionary's )

What language is spoken in Czech Republic?


John Ray Grisham Jr. (/ˈɡrɪʃəm/; born February 8, 1955)[2][3] is an American novelist, attorney, politician, and activist, best known for his popular legal thrillers. His books have been translated into 42 languages and published worldwide.
Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University and received a law degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practiced criminal law for about a decade and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from January 1984 to September 1990.[4]
His first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in June 1989, four years after he began writing it. As of 2012, his books have sold over 275 million copies worldwide.[5]
A Galaxy British Book Awards winner, Grisham is one of only three authors to sell two million copies on a first printing, the other two being Tom Clancy[6] and J. K. Rowling.[7]
Grisham's first bestseller, The Firm, sold more than seven million copies.[2] The book was adapted into a 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise, and a 2012 TV series which continues the story ten years after the events of the film and novel.[8]
Eight of his other novels have also been adapted into films: The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, Skipping Christmas, and A Time to Kill.[9]
Early life
Grisham, the second of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Wanda (née Skidmore) and John Ray Grisham.[4] His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer, while his mother was a homemaker.[10] When Grisham was four years old, his family settled in Southaven, Mississippi.[4]
As a child, he wanted to be a baseball player.[9] In A Painted House, a novel with strong autobiographical elements, the protagonist - a seven-year old farmer boy - manifests a strong wish to become a baseball player. As noted in the forward to Calico Joe, Grisham gave up playing baseball at the age of 18, after a game in which a hostile pitcher aimed a beanball at him, and narrowly missed doing the young Grisham grave harm.
Grisham has been a Christian since he was eight years old, and has described his conversion to Christianity as "the most important event" in his life. After leaving law school, he participated in some missionary work in Brazil, under the First Baptist Church of Oxford.[11]
Although Grisham's parents lacked formal education, his mother encouraged him to read and prepare for college.[2] He drew on his childhood experiences for his novel A Painted House.[4] Grisham started working for a plant nursery as a teenager, watering bushes for $1.00 an hour. He was soon promoted to a fence crew for $1.50 an hour. He wrote about the job: "there was no future in it". At 16, Grisham took a job with a plumbing contractor but says he "never drew inspiration from that miserable work".
Through one of his father's contacts, he managed to find work on a highway asphalt crew in Mississippi at age 17. It was during this time that an unfortunate incident got him "serious" about college. A fight with gunfire broke out among the crew causing Grisham to run to a nearby restroom to find safety. He did not come out until after the police had detained the perpetrators. He hitchhiked home and started thinking about college. His next work was in retail, as a salesclerk in a department store men's underwear section, which he described as "humiliating". By this time, Grisham was halfway through college. Planning to become a tax lawyer, he was soon overcome by "the complexity and lunacy" of it. He decided to return to his hometown as a trial lawyer.[12]
He attended the Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Mississippi and later attended Delta State University in Cleveland.[4] Grisham drifted so much that he changed colleges three times before completing a degree.[2] He eventually graduated from Mississippi State University in 1977, receiving a B.S. degree in accounting. He later enrolled in the University of Mississippi School of Law to become a tax lawyer, but his interest shifted to general civil litigation. He graduated in 1981 with a J.D. degree.[4]
Career
Law and politics
Grisham practiced law for about a decade and won election as a Democrat in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1984–90, at an annual salary of $8,000.[4][13]
Grisham represented the seventh district, which included DeSoto County.[14] By his second term in the Mississippi state legislature, he was the vice-chairman of the Apportionment and Elections Committee and a member of several other committees.[2]
Grisham's writing career blossomed with the success of his second book, The Firm, and he gave up practicing law, except for returning briefly in 1996 to fight for the family of a railroad worker who was killed on the job.[2] His official website states: "He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer. Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of $683,500 — the biggest verdict of his career."[10]
Writing career

Grisham said the big case came in 1984, but it was not his case. As he was hanging around the court, he overheard a 12-year-old girl telling the jury what had happened to her. Her story intrigued Grisham, and he began watching the trial. He saw how the members of the jury cried as she told them about having been raped and beaten. It was then, Grisham later wrote in The New York Times, that a story was born.[12]
Musing over "what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants",[10] took three years to complete his first book, A Time to Kill. Finding a publisher was not easy. The book was rejected by 28 publishers before Wynwood Press, an unknown publisher, agreed to give it a modest 5,000-copy printing. It was published in June 1989.[2][15]
The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on his second novel, The Firm.
[10] The Firm remained on The New York Times' bestseller list for 47 weeks,[2] and became the bestselling novel of 1991.[16]
Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, Grisham broadened his focus from law to the more general rural South but continued to write legal thrillers. He has written sports fiction and comedy fiction. He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the 2004 baseball movie Mickey, which starred Harry Connick Jr.
In 2005, Grisham received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, which is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.[17]
In 2010, Grisham started writing a series of legal thrillers for children aged 9 to 12 years. It features Theodore Boone, a 13-year-old who gives his classmates legal advice ranging from rescuing impounded dogs to helping their parents prevent their house from being repossessed. He said, "I'm hoping primarily to entertain and interest kids, but at the same time I'm quietly hoping that the books will inform them, in a subtle way, about law."[18]
He also stated that it was his daughter, Shea, who inspired him to write the Theodore Boone series. "My daughter Shea is a teacher in North Carolina and when she got her fifth grade students to read the book, three or four of them came up afterwards and said they'd like to go into the legal profession."[18]
In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose show, Grisham stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book, and his favorite author is John le Carré.[19]
In 2017, Grisham released two legal thrillers. Camino Island was published on June 6, 2017.[20] The Rooster Bar, published on October 24, 2017, was called his most original work yet, in The News Herald.[21]
Southern settings

Several of Grisham's legal thrillers are set in the fictional town of Clanton, Mississippi, in the equally fictional Ford County, a northwest Mississippi town still deeply divided by racism. The first novel set in Clanton was A Time to Kill.
Other stories set there include The Last Juror, The Summons, The Chamber, and Sycamore Row. The stories in the collection Ford County are also set in and around Clanton. Other Grisham novels have non-fictional Southern settings, for example The Runaway Jury and The Partner, are both set in Biloxi, and large portions of The Pelican Brief in New Orleans.
A Painted House is set in and around the town of Black Oak, Arkansas, where Grisham spent some of his childhood.
Personal life
Marriage
Grisham married Renee Jones on May 8, 1981. The couple have two children together: Shea and Ty.[4] Ty played college baseball for the University of Virginia.[22]
Real estate holdings
The family splits their time among their Victorian home on a farm outside Oxford, Mississippi,[10] a home in Destin, Florida[23] and a condominium at McCorkle Place in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, purchased in 2008.[24]
Religion
As a Baptist, he advocates the separation of church and state.[25] He once said, "I have some very deep religious convictions that I keep to myself, and when I see people using them for political gain it really irritates me."[26]
Baseball
Grisham has a lifelong passion for baseball demonstrated partly by his support of Little League activities in both Oxford and in Charlottesville. In 1996, Grisham built a $3.8 million youth baseball complex.[27]
As he notes in the forward to Calico Joe, Grisham himself stopped playing baseball after a ball thrown by a pitcher nearly caused him a serious injury. This experience left Grisham with an abiding dislike of pitchers.
He remains a fan of Mississippi State University (MSU)'s baseball team and wrote about his ties to the university and the Left Field Lounge in the introduction for the book Dudy Noble Field: A Celebration of MSU Baseball.
Since moving to the Charlottesville area, Grisham has become a supporter of Virginia Cavaliers athletics and is regularly seen sitting courtside at basketball games.[28] Grisham also contributed to a $1.2 million donation to the Cavalier baseball team in Charlottesville, Virginia, which was used in the 2002 renovation of Davenport Field.[29]
Political activism
Grisham is a member of the board of directors of the Innocence Project, which campaigns to free and exonerate unjustly convicted people on the basis of DNA evidence.[30] The Innocence Project contends that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events but instead arise from systemic defects. Grisham has testified before Congress on behalf of the Innocence Project.[31]
Grisham has appeared on Dateline NBC,[32] Bill Moyers Journal on PBS,[33] and other programs. He wrote for The New York Times in 2013 about an unjustly held prisoner at Guantanamo.[34]
Grisham opposes capital punishment, a position very strongly manifested in the plot of The Confession.[35][36][37][38] He believes that prison rates in the United States are excessive, and the justice system is "locking up far too many people". Citing examples including "black teenagers on minor drugs charges" to "those who had viewed child porn online", he controversially added that he believed not all viewers of child pornography are necessarily pedophiles. After hearing from numerous people against this position, he later recanted this statement in a Facebook post.[39][40][41]
The Mississippi State University Libraries, Manuscript Division, maintains the John Grisham Room,[42] an archive containing materials generated during the author's tenure as Mississippi State Representative and relating to his writings.[43] In 2012, the Law Library at the University of Mississippi School of Law was renamed in his honor. It had been named for more than a decade after the late Senator James Eastland.
In 2015, Grisham, along with about 60 others, signed a letter published in the Clarion-Ledger urging that an inset within the flag of Mississippi containing a Confederate flag be removed.[44] He co-authored the letter with author Greg Iles; the pair contacted various public figures from Mississippi for support.[45]
Awards and honors
2005 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award
2007 Galaxy British Lifetime Achievement Award
2009 Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction
2011 The inaugural Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction for The Confession[46]
2014 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction for Sycamore Row[47]
Bibliography
A complete listing of works by John Grisham:[48]
† Denotes stories not in the legal genre
Novels

A Time to Kill (1989)
The Firm (1991)
The Pelican Brief (1992)
The Client (1993)
The Chamber (1994)
The Rainmaker (1995)
The Runaway Jury (1996)
The Partner (1997)
The Street Lawyer (1998)
The Testament (1999)
The Brethren (2000)
A Painted House† (2001)
Skipping Christmas† (2001)
The Summons (2002)
The King of Torts (2003)
Bleachers† (2003)
The Last Juror (2004)
The Broker (2005)
The Innocent Man (2006)
Playing for Pizza† (2007)
The Appeal (2008)
The Associate (2009)
The Confession (2010)
Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer (2010)
The Litigators (2011)
Theodore Boone: The Abduction (2011)
Calico Joe† (2012)
The Racketeer (2012)
Theodore Boone: The Accused (2012)
Sycamore Row (2013)
Theodore Boone: The Activist (2013)
Gray Mountain (2014)
Theodore Boone: The Fugitive (2015)
Rogue Lawyer (2015)
Theodore Boone: The Scandal (2016)
The Whistler (2016)
Camino Island† (2017)
The Rooster Bar (2017)
The Reckoning (2018)

Short stories
"Ford County" (2009)
"The Tumor"† (2016)
"Partners" (2016)
"Witness to a Trial" (2016)
Non-fiction
The Wavedancer Benefit: A Tribute to Frank Muller (2002)
—with Pat Conroy, Stephen King, and Peter Straub
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006)
—story of Ronald "Ron" Keith Williamson
Don't Quit Your Day Job: Acclaimed Authors and the Day Jobs they Quit (2010)
—with various authors
Adaptations
Feature films

The Firm (1993)[49]
The Pelican Brief (1993)[49]
The Client (1994)[49]
A Time to Kill (1996)[49]
The Chamber (1996)[49]
The Rainmaker (1997)[49]
The Gingerbread Man (1998)
A Painted House (2003) television film
Runaway Jury (2003)[49]
Mickey (2004)
Christmas with the Kranks (2004)[49]
The Associate (TBA) to be directed by Adrian Lyne.
The Testament (TBA) to be directed by Stuart Blumberg.
Calico Joe (film) (TBA) to be directed by Jake Kasdan.

Television
The Client (1995–1996) 1 season, 20 episodes
The Street Lawyer (2003) TV pilot
The Firm (2011–2012) 1 season, 22 episodes
The Innocent Man (2018) 1 season, 6 episodes
See also

List of bestselling novels in the United States

 on IMDb
 on C-SPAN
 (TV Interview)

, , Flagpole Magazine, February 7, 2007, pg 9.

What was the last book John Grisham published?