Epos of Albanians

By Prof.Dr. SHABAN SINANI


North Albanian epos, or the cycle of heroes, was brought to the attention of scholars a century ago. It was made manifest precisely at the end of the epoch of National Renaissance, which has been justly called a century of the “the cult of epopee”.
Albanian literature was born and developed for a long time as the literature of heroes. Those who were not aware of the existence of the oral tradition of the epos of heroes tried to create “fictional epopees” and introduce them as oral heritage. Later on, there were attempts at recreating an integral epopee according to the pattern of poems of antiquity.
Like in any other epos, in Albanian epos, too, time runs in accordance with a calendar different from the humans’ calendar, which reminds one of the mentality of “The Feats of Gilgamesh” where one day in the time of deities is as much as a thousand years in the time of humans. Mythological heroes of Albanian epos remain dead for a hundred years and upon waking they say, “I have been taking a nap”. As Muj meditates, he “is able to observe the grass growing”. In epos there is only a distant and undefined past. Time in the mythological imagination does not respect human time.
Two important features of the mythological northern cycle figures testify the remote ancientness of Albanian epos: their matriarchal character, on the one hand, and chthonic character, on the other hand. This is another aspect of the question of autochthony – or allochthony – of the population that has created them. In the Hellenic epos deities are matriarchal and patriarchal. They coexist and conflict, win and suffer defeat, fight for power and protect it. The cycle of Artrides ends up in the tragic dilemma of Orestes, who has to break through a tradition and establish a new one: protect the right of fatherhood against that of motherhood. The heroes of Albanian epos are the sons of Ajkuna. Quite unlike the cycle of ballads, where “a wise old man”, advising a sacrifice of the bride over the bridge, reminds one of the patriarch, in epos there is no patriarch. For the first time, the father in the epos appears in the figure of Muj, as contrasted to Omer (or “seven Omers”). In one of the songs, Omer has to release “father and uncle” from the king’s prison. The rhapsodist entitled the song "Omer from Muj" and this is the only case where a shade of a patriarch appears. Ajkuna plays the central figure and authoritative role. Muj and Halil do not have a father in formal terms; they are sons of the same mother running the house and they take their power from the deities. After Omer, there are no more heroes. Their power and glory is not inherited.
The matriarchal feature of mythological characters of legendary epic is made more emphatic by the general feeling of the well-known rhapsody of Gjergj Elez Alia. It is commonly stated that, in this song, the earth powers are matched against the powers of the sea (“a black giant has emerged out of the sea”). Traces of Byzantine culture have been tracked and found, such as is the exacting of tribute by the giant, as the laws of the empire government demanded. In fact, the main source of Gjergj Elez Alia rhapsody is the end of the era of human (woman) sacrifice for an act, campaign or tribute. Gjergj Elez Alia rises from his deathbed to rescue an era from the morality inherited from the distant past when people could be sacrificed alive – as in the case of the walled bride in the Balkan ballads. He beats the giant, who demands “a roast ram” and “a young maiden” every night. The defeat of the giant marks the end of that convention which legitimised woman sacrifice. Gjergj Elez Alia ensures a permanent deliverance of women from sacrifice.
The chthonic (earthy) character of the deities of Albanian epos defines the autochthonous character of the people. Unlike homeric poems, where the deities have a multilevel hierarchy (underground, semi-earthy -- Persephone spends half of the year underground and the second half on heavenly – chthonic and uranic – earth), in Albanian epos this hierarchy does not exist. The mythological figures of Albanian world are earthy ones. In narrative folklore, including the epic and tales, "the seraph of heaven" does not exist. Along with the "earth nymph" (of this earth), in the ethno-folkloric tradition of the country, fairy characters emerge and merge.
The chthonic feature of Albanian mythological actors of Albanian epos corresponds to that level of thought when, in Hellenic literature of antiquity "Gods descended from the Olympus", and yet they remained important figures of the conscience of belief. This goes back to a later date than the Uranic (heavenly) layer of mythological figures, but, however, earlier than the time when Greek Gods made a laughing stock of themselves in Aristophane's comedies.
"The two calendars" of time in the epos and history of human life are connected with the distinctions between the mythological perception of time in the ancient and modern mentalities. One of the interesting folkloric facts in this regard is the use of time for space and vice-versa, which is viewed as a universal feature of the epos. In Albanian epos, distance is usually shown by expressions such as “nine houses away” or "nine years' travel". This resembles the literary idiom of Sumerians, where distance is not measured by units of space, but units of time: "The eagle clutched me with iron claws, / And hovered me into space for four hours”. Or, "We went whither, twice twenty hours, / Until we discerned from afar a corner of the earth”. The use of time for space and vice-versa is linked with that level of mental development of human world, where the process of movement from the past to the present was perceived as unidimensional. Time and space were unified almost indistinctively into this dimension.
These mentalities of an ancient and antique stage constitute the primary artistic arguments for the debate on the origin in point of time of Albanian epos. The cycle of Albanian heroes contains an intertwining of features of antique and Medieval European eposes. But we know of a greater number of antique eposes than European Medieval European ones. There are a number of arguments in favour of a relative chronological determination of the source of epos in the period of transition from Illyrians to Albanians, from Illyrian to Albanian language, from the end of Romanticism to the confrontation with Slav invasions.
In Slav science, the northern cycle is considered as a recreation of the motifs of Serbo-Bosnian epos following a massive Islamisation of Albanians, sometime in the 18th century and on. Some of the local scholars share the opinion that Albanian epos is "of the Byzantine period" and its origin should be connected with the time of creation of "Digenis Akritas" among the Greeks. By tying its origin with the birth of the Slav or Byzantine eposes, these views, at times openly and at times implicitly, at times for certain purposes and at times owing to a lack of trust in facts, put the formation of Albanian epos at a chronologically much later date.
The data concerning the overall cultural development of Albanians indicate that the northern epos was created in a period of divergent development. This is the period of the largest territorial division of Albanian ethnos (into Gheg and Tosk) – in fact there can be found no traces of the epos south of Shkumbin River. This is the period of the separation of South polyphony from the North homophony. This is the period of rhotacism in the South and nasality in the North. This is the period of the preservation of “a” in Gheg and its transformation into “ë” in Tosk. From the cultural viewpoint, epos was born when the most important two-branched changes in Albanian culture – Gheg and Tosk – occurred. This does not mean that epos is a folk tradition isolated in the North. There are abundant data proving that the northern cycle is not that northern as to be called self-segregated. Its fundamental motifs are found to have developed in the folklore of southern territories in the form of narratives, tales or legends.
From the historical perspective, epos may not arise at any time and following any event. Albanian epos itself is totally prevailed by the conflict between its carriers and the population, which had moved to the Balkans; it bears the stamp of Slav invasions. Albanian epos rules out the idea of its creation from the first contacts with the newly-settling population, drawing the attention of the audience to the fact that other things had occurred before the time "when there was an allegiance to the king”. A more tendentious research could also explore data which bear witness of a danger from the sea and which could be connected in the underground with an echo from the time of Roman conquest. Both these facts and reasoning enable one to develop the view that in epos, irrespective of its multilayered character, there exists, however, a “first time”. It coincides with the 7th and 8th centuries AD, when the most important divergent internal changes occurred in the ethnic culture, when qualitative cultural transformations occurred, such as the transition from Illyrian to Albanian, the consolidation of Gheg and Tosk koines (instead of the narrow speech of tribes). This process of divergence was progressive because, by separating the northern cultural koine from the southern one, it developed convergence within them, in the same way as the four dialects of Greek language had developed in antiquity. It was just in this period that the local population was faced with Slav invasions in the Balkans and recognised step by step their expansive character.
In addition, the data concerning the notion of a mythological space in the epos favour a connection of its origin with the period of these great transformations. If a researcher were to explore a prehistoric “habitat” of the world of epos characters and events, of a "spiritual fatherland", of a "patria poesis", this would be found in the cult of the land of forefathers, myth of native land, sanctification of highlands, deification of land, in the sense the Germans use this word when they say “land”. Though limited, certain data on the ethnically separatory character of the people have been inherited in the Albanian spiritual world. These start with the distinction “we-others”, which is one of the earliest signs of community conscience. Most likely, the “champion-enemy” position is the same as the “Hellenes-barbarians” position among old Greeks. Although one might speak of the notion of land, the native land, Albanian Ithaca, as the notion of Moré is among the Arbëresh (in their historical songs), rather than of a well-defined space, yet the conscience of a fatherland which makes carriers of the epos feel “at home” among them, is at times evident. It is worth recalling that in ancient Hellenic epos, fatherland was used in two senses: Odysseus was son of Hellas, but he finds no peace unless he reaches “the fatherland”, Ithaca.
Evidence of the presence of ancient cultures in the Albanian subject, especially of Greek-Roman culture, constitutes a testimony of its ancientness and its neighbourhood with these ancient civilisations. Lambertz argues that the northern epos comprises “over 40 topics similar” to Akritas' songs. Selection of Muj (“having both strength and power”) is like the selection of Heraclitus. In a well-known Albanian song, little Omer must release “father and uncle” from prison, in the same way as Armouropulos (little Armour) in Akritas' songs. These traces drive one to come to the conclusion that Albanian epos, called “northern cycle”, in view of its artistic connection with the entire local folklore, is not that northern and limited as denoted by the term. Even historical geography does not matter much here.
Layering epos on the basis of types of characters is especially important. Belonging to the infancy of mankind, mythological characters need more attention and depth. The main heroes of the epos (Muj) represent the cult of power, just like Achiles in Homeric poems; whereas transition to the stage of the cult of knowledge-craft (the cult of Odysseus) is not confirmed entirely. The focus of Albanian epos is the war hero, whereas the peace hero, "second hero" -- Halil -- is more inclined to the cult of beauty. In Hellenic epos, Odysseus had to subdue temptations of adventure and escape, far away from his country as he was; as such he had to resolve situations with wisdom; whereas in Albanian epos, Halil is living in his native country and has to win the hearts of "chicks" of human grace.


Bibliography:

1. Albert Lord, "The Singer of Tales", 1962.
2. Maximillian Lambertz, "Die Volksepik der Albaner", Leipzig,
East Germany, 1958.
3. "Epi i Gilgameshit", 1999.
4. "Shah Name", translation of Vexhi Buhara, hand-written manuscript.
5. Çështje të Folklorit, "Albanian", 1-6.
6. Fatos Arapi, "Këngë të moçme Albanian", 1986.
7. Berndardin Palaj - Donart Kurti, "Visaret e Kombit"-2, 1937.
8. Gjergj Zheji, "Vargu i këngëve të kreshnikëve”, 1987.
9. Eqrem Çabej, “Problemi i autoktonisë së shqiptarëve në dritën e emrave të vendeve”, 1958/2.
10. Faik Konica: "Shqipëria -kopsht shkëmbor në Evropën Juglindore", 1993.
11. Stavro Skëndi, “Albanian and South Slavic Oral Poetry”, Philadelphia 1954.
12. Vladimir Propp, "Morfologija skaskih",1958.
13. Shaban Sinani, "Mitologjia në eposin e kreshnikëve", 1998.
14. “Bernardin Palaj - opere”, Roma 1969.
15. Celentano. L. “Letteratura greca”, Napoli 1995.
16. Clarotti-Crussi, “Viaggio nell’epos”, Torino 1996.
17. Robert Elsie, “Albanian Folktales and Legends”, Tiranë 1994.
18. Vladimir Propp, “Ruskij geroiçeskij epos”, M. 1958.
19. Sigmund Freud, “Psicoanalisi dell’arte e della letteratura”, Roma

Prof. Shaban Demiraj - The Albanian Language

The Albanian Language
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(Excerpts from the work of Prof. Shaban Demiraj)
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Albanian Language belongs to the family of Indo-European Languages, along with Indo-Iranian languages, Greek language, Roman languages, Slavonic languages, Germanic languages, etc. It constitutes a separate branch in this family of languages and is not originally associated to any of the modern Indo-European languages. The Indo-European origin of the Albanian language and the place it occupies in the family of Indo-European languages was determined and proved in the middle of the 19th century, following studies in the comparative historical linguistics. It was primarily the merit of one of the leading founders of this linguistic direction, the eminent German scholar Franz Bopp, who proved scientifically that the Albanian language belonged to the family of the Indo-European languages. Franz Bopp dedicated to this issue a special work entitled “Ueber das Albanesische in sinen verwandtschaft lichen Bezichungen”, published in 1854.

The Indo-European languages are divided into two groups: Eastern languages, or satem and Western languages, or centum. The Albanian language belongs to the eastern group (satem), along with the Indo-Iranian languages, Balto-Slavonic languages and the Armenian language.

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Origins

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The origins of the Albanian language are one of the most debatable issues in the linguistic science. Its roots are found in one of the ancient languages of the Balkan Peninsula, Illyrian or Thracian. Two main theories have circulated in the linguistic literature with regard to the Albanian language: its origin in the Illyrian language and the one in the Thracian language. The Illyrian theory has had a broader historical and linguistic support. It took shape in the 18th century among the historians of the time and is further elaborated and supported from linguists.

The first attempt at explaining the origins of the Albanians and the Albanian language was made by the Swedish historian Hans Erich Thunmann in his work “ Undersuchunger liber di Geschichte der Östlichen europäischen Völker” Leipzig, 1774. Based on Latin and Byzantine historical sources as well as on linguistic and onomatopoeic documents, he came to the conclusion that the Albanians are autochthonous descendants of the ancient Illyrian population, who were not romanised, as was the case with the Thraco-Dacian population, the predecessors of the Romanians.

The theses of Illyrian origin theory of the Albanian people was defended by well known Austrian albanologue Johannas Georges von Hahn in his work Albanesische Studien, published on 1854.

Since that time on, a number of eminent scholars, such as historians, archaeologists and linguists have brought a number of historical and linguistic complementary arguments in support of the theory concerning the origin of Albanians and their language. The complete synthesis of overall studies on Albanian Language was made by out standing linguist Prof. Eqrem Çabej, which brought in the ground full scientific arguments which verify the Illyrian thesis instead of the Thracian one Some of these arguments are as follows:

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1. Albanians are currently living in some of the territories, which were inhabited by Illyrians in ancient times; on the other hand, historical sources do not speak of any Albanian migration from other territories to the present ones.

2. A number of linguistic elements such as names of things, tribes, people, etc., of Illyrian origin, are explained in the Albanian language.

3. The ancient toponymic forms of the Illyrian Albanian territories, as compared to the corresponding present-day forms, prove that they have evolved in conformity with the rules of the historical phonetics of the Albanian language.

4. Relationships between the Albanian language and the ancient Greek and Latin suggest that the Albanian language took shape and developed side by side with these two neighbouring languages on the shores of the Adriatic and Ionian seas.

5. Both archaeological documents and documents belonging to the material and psychological heritage testify to the cultural continuity from the ancient Illyrians to the present-day Albanians.

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In view of these arguments, presented in a concise way, it results that the theory of the Illyrian origin of the Albanian language is the most plausible theory, judging by historical and linguistic evidence.

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The beginnings of the written Albanian language

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Albanian is one of the ancient languages of the Balkans, but its written records, just like the Romanian language, date back only to the 15th century. The first written record in the Albanian language is what is known as the “ The Formula of Baptism” of 1462 AD. It is a short sentence in Albanian “Un te paghesont premenit Atit et birit et spertit senit” (I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit), which is found in a circular (pamphlet) written in Latin by the Archbishop of Durrës, Pal Ëngjëlli, a close associate of Skanderbeg.

"The Formula of Baptism” was found in the Laurentiana Library of Milan by the well-known Romanian historian Nikolla Jorga and was published by him in 1915 “).

The French philologist, Mario Rogues, made a philological publication of this document and also its photographic reproduction in “Recherches sur les anciens textes albanais”, Paris 1932 .

The second document written in the Albanian language is a Glossary by Arnold von Harf of 1496 . In autumn of 1496 the German traveller Arnold von Harf from the village of Cologne set out on a pilgrimage tour of the “holy countries”. The tour brought him along the coast, to our country as well, where he stopped at Ulqin, Durrës and Sazan. In the course of the journey, for practical needs, he wrote down 26 words, 8 phrases and the numerals from 1 to 10 and from 100 to 1000, along with their equivalents in German. E. von Grote published this Glossary for the first time in Cologne in 1860.

Another text written in the Albanian language that dates back to the late 15th and early 16th centuries was found in a Greek manuscript of the 16th century in the Ambrosiana Library of Milan. It contains extracts translated from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, etc., and is written in the dialect of the South, in the Greek alphabet. This text written in Albanian is known in the Albanian literature by the name “The Easter Testament”.

The first book known to date to be written in the Albanian language is the “ Missal” (Meshari) (the Prayer Book) by Gjon Buzuku in AD 1555, which marks the beginning of the early Albanian literature. Only one copy of this book has survived and currently is in the Library of the Vatican. The book contains 220 pages and is written in two columns. “Missal” by Gjon Buzuku is the translation of the main parts of the catholic liturgy into Albanian. Obviously, it is an attempt by the author to introduce the Albanian language in the catholic religious services. Hence, the literary period of the Albanian language, as is the case with many other languages, has its beginnings in the translation of religious texts. Gjon Buzuku's “Missal”, the first book in the Albanian language, was discovered in Rome by one of the writers from the north of Albania, Gjon Nikollë Kazazi; but the book was lost and recovered again in 1909 by the bishop Pal Skeroi, researcher and explorer of antique.

Prof. Eqrem Çabej, who had made a thorough study of Gjon Buzuku's book, has reached the conclusion that its language “is not an uncultivated land”. “ Looking at this text objectively – he states – and judging by the fluent language that permeates it from top to bottom and by the consistent style of writing, one is convinced that a literary tradition in liturgical writings had existed earlier in Albania, at least since the late Middle Ages”. According to this author, the cultural level of Albania in the Middle Ages also supports this theory. “The cultural level of the Albanian people at that time had not been much different from the neighbouring countries and from those along the Adriatic coast in particular.”

There is also additional indirect evidence that speaks of a tradition in the writing of the Albanian language before the 15th century. The French priest Guillaume Adae(1270-1341), who for a long time served as Archbishop of Tivar (1270-1341) and came to know the Albanians well, in a report entitled “ Directorium ad passagium faciendum ad terrom sanctam” sent to the king of France Philip VI, Valua, wrote among others: “Although Albanians speak a different language from Latin, they use and write their books in the Latin alphabet”. This author speaks of books in the Albanian language, thus testifying that Albanian had been written well before the 15th century. In his work “De obsi dione scodrensi” (On the siege of Shkodër), published in Venice in 1504, the renowned humanist Marin Barleti also speaks of excerpts written in Vernacular lingua, i.e. in the language of the country, which deal with the reconstruction of the town of Shkodër.

The literature in the Albanian language among the Arbëresh of Italy also has its beginnings in the 16th century. The first work of the Arbëresh literature in the Albanian language and the second earliest work, after that of Buzuku, is the one by the Arbëresh priest Lekë Matrenga “E mbesuame e krishterë” ("The Christian Faith") published in 1592. It is a booklet of 28 pages, the translation of a catechism. The book is written in the southern dialect, in Latin alphabet, and is provided with some special letters representing the s ounds of the Albanian language that are missing in Latin.

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Dialects of the Albanian language

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The Albanian language has two dialects, the northern dialect or "gegërisht" and the southern dialect or "toskërisht". The natural boundary that separates these dialects is the river Shkumbin that runs through Elbasan, in central Albania. To the right of Shkumbin lies the northern dialect (gegërisht) and to the left lies the southern dialect (toskërisht).

There are no great differences between Albanian dialects and people can understand each other without difficulty. Nevertheless, there are some differences in the phonetic system and in the grammatical structure and lexicon, of which the most important are: the northern dialect has mouth and nasal vowels, whereas the southern dialect has only mouth vowels; the diphthong ua in toskërisht has the equivalent ue in gegërisht (grua ~ grue); the initial cluster va in toskërisht has the equivalent vo in gegërisht (vatër ~ votër); the distinct nasal â in gegërisht has the distinct equivalent ë in toskërisht (nânë ~ nënë).

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Standard Albanian

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The formation of the unified national literary language (standard language), as the most elaborated variant of the Albanian language, has gone through a long process, which began in 16th and 17th centuries, but this process entered a new stage in the 19th century, during the National Renaissance During the period of National Renaissance, two literary variants of the Albanian language developed, which are the southern literary variant and the northern literary variant. Attempts were made to bring the two variants together and unify the literary language. An issue that required immediate solution was the unification of the alphabet.. This issue was resolved at the Congress of Manastir, held in November 14-22, 1908, in the town of Manastir, which is currently situated in Macedonia. The Congress decided on the introduction of a new alphabet based entirely on the Latin alphabet . .

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In 1967, the Institute of History and Linguistics published the new draft on “ Orthography Rules of the Albanian Language“. This draft was applied in all the Albanian territories, the Republic of Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro. Meanwhile, efforts were also made in Kosovo for the unification of the literary language and its orthography.

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In 1968, a linguistic conference was held in Prishtina, Kosova, guided by the principle “one nation-one literary language“. It decided that once the orthography draft was approved and took official form, it would be applied in Kosovo as well. the Congress on orthography of the Albanian language held in Tirana in 1972. It has gone down in the history of the Albanian language and culture as the Congress of the unification of the national literary language. Delegates attended the Congress on orthography of the Albanian language from all of the Orthography Rules of the Albanian Language“ of 1967 was submitted for disc regions of Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Arberësh from Italy. The Congress adopted a resolution which, among others, stated that "the Albanian people now have a unified literary (standard) language“. The unified national literary language (standard language) was mostly based on the literary variant of the south, especially with regard to the phonetic system, but it also encompasses elements from the literary variant of the north.

Typological features of present-day standard Albanian Albanian language is structurally an analytical-synthetic language, with a dominance of synthetic elements tending towards being analytical. Part of its phonetic and grammatical features date back from the ancient Indo-European period, others have developed later.

Albanian language has its own phonological system, which comprises 7 vowel phonemes and 29 consonant phonemes. It is written in the Latin alphabet decided upon in 1908 at the Congress of Manastir.

The Albanian language has an elaborated system of grammatical forms, a binary declension system: definite and indefinite, it retains the case forms (it has five cases), three genders (masculine, feminine and neutral); the latter is going out of use and is used only with a certain category of verbal nouns .

Word order is generally free but the most common form is subject + verb + object. The vocabulary of the Albanian language consists of certain layers. Native words date back from an ancient Indo-European period (dite, Nat, dimer, moter, etc.), or are formed in a later period out of Albanian words (ditor, dimëror, i përnatshëm). Another layer consists of words borrowed from other languages as a result of the contacts the Albanian people have had with other nations over the centuries. Words have been borrowed from Greek, both ancient and modern, from Latin and Romance languages, from Slavonic and Turkish. Despite the numerous borrowings, Albanian language has retained its originality as a separate Indo-European language.

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The spread of the Albanian language

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Albanian is currently spoken by over six million people in the Republic of Albania, in Kosovo, by the Albanians of Macedonia, Montenegro and south Serbia as well as in the territory of Çamëri in Greece. Albanian is also spoken in the Albanian settlements in Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, the Ukraine and by Albanians who have migrated to various parts of the world before the Second World War and over the last decade. The Albanian language is being taught and studied in several universities and Albanological centres abroad, as in Paris, Rome, Naples, Cosenza, Palermo, Petersburg, Beijing, Munches, Bucharest, Salonika, Sophia, etc.

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Stephen Hawking

The Beginning of Time

In this lecture, I would like to discuss whether time itself has a beginning, and whether it will have an end. All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. Yet it is now taken for granted. We are not yet certain whether the universe will have an end. When I gave a lecture in Japan, I was asked not to mention the possible re-collapse of the universe, because it might affect the stock market. However, I can re-assure anyone who is nervous about their investments that it is a bit early to sell: even if the universe does come to an end, it won't be for at least twenty billion years. By that time, maybe the GATT trade agreement will have come into effect.

The time scale of the universe is very long compared to that for human life. It was therefore not surprising that until recently, the universe was thought to be essentially static, and unchanging in time. On the other hand, it must have been obvious, that society is evolving in culture and technology. This indicates that the present phase of human history can not have been going for more than a few thousand years. Otherwise, we would be more advanced than we are. It was therefore natural to believe that the human race, and maybe the whole universe, had a beginning in the fairly recent past. However, many people were unhappy with the idea that the universe had a beginning, because it seemed to imply the existence of a supernatural being who created the universe. They preferred to believe that the universe, and the human race, had existed forever. Their explanation for human progress was that there had been periodic floods, or other natural disasters, which repeatedly set back the human race to a primitive state.

This argument about whether or not the universe had a beginning, persisted into the 19th and 20th centuries. It was conducted mainly on the basis of theology and philosophy, with little consideration of observational evidence. This may have been reasonable, given the notoriously unreliable character of cosmological observations, until fairly recently. The cosmologist, Sir Arthur Eddington, once said, 'Don't worry if your theory doesn't agree with the observations, because they are probably wrong.' But if your theory disagrees with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it is in bad trouble. In fact, the theory that the universe has existed forever is in serious difficulty with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Second Law, states that disorder always increases with time. Like the argument about human progress, it indicates that there must have been a beginning. Otherwise, the universe would be in a state of complete disorder by now, and everything would be at the same temperature. In an infinite and everlasting universe, every line of sight would end on the surface of a star. This would mean that the night sky would have been as bright as the surface of the Sun. The only way of avoiding this problem would be if, for some reason, the stars did not shine before a certain time.

In a universe that was essentially static, there would not have been any dynamical reason, why the stars should have suddenly turned on, at some time. Any such "lighting up time" would have to be imposed by an intervention from outside the universe. The situation was different, however, when it was realised that the universe is not static, but expanding. Galaxies are moving steadily apart from each other. This means that they were closer together in the past.

One can plot the separation of two galaxies, as a function of time. If there were no acceleration due to gravity, the graph would be a straight line. It would go down to zero separation, about twenty billion years ago. One would expect gravity, to cause the galaxies to accelerate towards each other. This will mean that the graph of the separation of two galaxies will bend downwards, below the straight line. So the time of zero separation, would have been less than twenty billion years ago.

At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.

Although the laws of science seemed to predict the universe had a beginning, they also seemed to predict that they could not determine how the universe would have begun. This was obviously very unsatisfactory. So there were a number of attempts to get round the conclusion, that there was a singularity of infinite density in the past. One suggestion was to modify the law of gravity, so that it became repulsive. This could lead to the graph of the separation between two galaxies, being a curve that approached zero, but didn't actually pass through it, at any finite time in the past. Instead, the idea was that, as the galaxies moved apart, new galaxies were formed in between, from matter that was supposed to be continually created. This was the Steady State theory, proposed by Bondi, Gold, and Hoyle.

The Steady State theory, was what Karl Popper would call, a good scientific theory: it made definite predictions, which could be tested by observation, and possibly falsified. Unfortunately for the theory, they were falsified. The first trouble came with the Cambridge observations, of the number of radio sources of different strengths. On average, one would expect that the fainter sources would also be the more distant. One would therefore expect them to be more numerous than bright sources, which would tend to be near to us. However, the graph of the number of radio sources, against there strength, went up much more sharply at low source strengths, than the Steady State theory predicted.

There were attempts to explain away this number count graph, by claiming that some of the faint radio sources, were within our own galaxy, and so did not tell us anything about cosmology. This argument didn't really stand up to further observations. But the final nail in the coffin of the Steady State theory came with the discovery of the microwave background radiation, in 1965. This radiation is the same in all directions. It has the spectrum of radiation in thermal equilibrium at a temperature of 2 point 7 degrees above the Absolute Zero of temperature. There doesn't seem any way to explain this radiation in the Steady State theory. Another attempt to avoid a beginning to time, was the suggestion, that maybe all the galaxies didn't meet up at a single point in the past. Although on average, the galaxies are moving apart from each other at a steady rate, they also have small additional velocities, relative to the uniform expansion. These so-called "peculiar velocities" of the galaxies, may be directed sideways to the main expansion. It was argued, that as you plotted the position of the galaxies back in time, the sideways peculiar velocities, would have meant that the galaxies wouldn't have all met up. Instead, there could have been a previous contracting phase of the universe, in which galaxies were moving towards each other. The sideways velocities could have meant that the galaxies didn't collide, but rushed past each other, and then started to move apart.

There wouldn't have been any singularity of infinite density, or any breakdown of the laws of physics. Thus there would be no necessity for the universe, and time itself, to have a beginning. Indeed, one might suppose that the universe had oscillated, though that still wouldn't solve the problem with the Second Law of Thermodynamics: one would expect that the universe would become more disordered each oscillation. It is therefore difficult to see how the universe could have been oscillating for an infinite time.

This possibility, that the galaxies would have missed each other, was supported by a paper by two Russians. They claimed that there would be no singularities in a solution of the field equations of general relativity, which was fully general, in the sense that it didn't have any exact symmetry. However, their claim was proved wrong, by a number of theorems by Roger Penrose and myself. These showed that general relativity predicted singularities, whenever more than a certain amount of mass was present in a region. The first theorems were designed to show that time came to an end, inside a black hole, formed by the collapse of a star. However, the expansion of the universe, is like the time reverse of the collapse of a star. I therefore want to show you, that observational evidence indicates the universe contains sufficient matter, that it is like the time reverse of a black hole, and so contains a singularity. In order to discuss observations in cosmology, it is helpful to draw a diagram of events in space and time, with time going upward, and the space directions horizontal. To show this diagram properly, I would really need a four dimensional screen. However, because of government cuts, we could manage to provide only a two dimensional screen. I shall therefore be able to show only one of the space directions.

As we look out at the universe, we are looking back in time, because light had to leave distant objects a long time ago, to reach us at the present time. This means that the events we observe lie on what is called our past light cone. The point of the cone is at our position, at the present time. As one goes back in time on the diagram, the light cone spreads out to greater distances, and its area increases. However, if there is sufficient matter on our past light cone, it will bend the rays of light towards each other. This will mean that, as one goes back into the past, the area of our past light cone will reach a maximum, and then start to decrease. It is this focussing of our past light cone, by the gravitational effect of the matter in the universe, that is the signal that the universe is within its horizon, like the time reverse of a black hole. If one can determine that there is enough matter in the universe, to focus our past light cone, one can then apply the singularity theorems, to show that time must have a beginning. How can we tell from the observations, whether there is enough matter on our past light cone, to focus it? We observe a number of galaxies, but we can not measure directly how much matter they contain. Nor can we be sure that every line of sight from us will pass through a galaxy. So I will give a different argument, to show that the universe contains enough matter, to focus our past light cone. The argument is based on the spectrum of the microwave background radiation. This is characteristic of radiation that has been in thermal equilibrium, with matter at the same temperature. To achieve such an equilibrium, it is necessary for the radiation to be scattered by matter, many times. For example, the light that we receive from the Sun has a characteristically thermal spectrum. This is not because the nuclear reactions, which go on in the centre of the Sun, produce radiation with a thermal spectrum. Rather, it is because the radiation has been scattered, by the matter in the Sun, many times on its way from the centre.

In the case of the universe, the fact that the microwave background has such an exactly thermal spectrum indicates that it must have been scattered many times. The universe must therefore contain enough matter, to make it opaque in every direction we look, because the microwave background is the same, in every direction we look. Moreover, this opacity must occur a long way away from us, because we can see galaxies and quasars, at great distances. Thus there must be a lot of matter at a great distance from us. The greatest opacity over a broad wave band, for a given density, comes from ionised hydrogen. It then follows that if there is enough matter to make the universe opaque, there is also enough matter to focus our past light cone. One can then apply the theorem of Penrose and myself, to show that time must have a beginning.

The focussing of our past light cone implied that time must have a beginning, if the General Theory of relativity is correct. But one might raise the question, of whether General Relativity really is correct. It certainly agrees with all the observational tests that have been carried out. However these test General Relativity, only over fairly large distances. We know that General Relativity can not be quite correct on very small distances, because it is a classical theory. This means, it doesn't take into account, the Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics, which says that an object can not have both a well defined position, and a well defined speed: the more accurately one measures the position, the less accurately one can measure the speed, and vice versa. Therefore, to understand the very high-density stage, when the universe was very small, one needs a quantum theory of gravity, which will combine General Relativity with the Uncertainty Principle.

Many people hoped that quantum effects, would somehow smooth out the singularity of infinite density, and allow the universe to bounce, and continue back to a previous contracting phase. This would be rather like the earlier idea of galaxies missing each other, but the bounce would occur at a much higher density. However, I think that this is not what happens: quantum effects do not remove the singularity, and allow time to be continued back indefinitely. But it seems that quantum effects can remove the most objectionable feature, of singularities in classical General Relativity. This is that the classical theory, does not enable one to calculate what would come out of a singularity, because all the Laws of Physics would break down there. This would mean that science could not predict how the universe would have begun. Instead, one would have to appeal to an agency outside the universe. This may be why many religious leaders, were ready to accept the Big Bang, and the singularity theorems.

It seems that Quantum theory, on the other hand, can predict how the universe will begin. Quantum theory introduces a new idea, that of imaginary time. Imaginary time may sound like science fiction, and it has been brought into Doctor Who. But nevertheless, it is a genuine scientific concept. One can picture it in the following way. One can think of ordinary, real, time as a horizontal line. On the left, one has the past, and on the right, the future. But there's another kind of time in the vertical direction. This is called imaginary time, because it is not the kind of time we normally experience. But in a sense, it is just as real, as what we call real time.

The three directions in space, and the one direction of imaginary time, make up what is called a Euclidean space-time. I don't think anyone can picture a four dimensional curve space. But it is not too difficult to visualise a two dimensional surface, like a saddle, or the surface of a football. In fact, James Hartle of the University of California Santa Barbara, and I have proposed that space and imaginary time together, are indeed finite in extent, but without boundary. They would be like the surface of the Earth, but with two more dimensions. The surface of the Earth is finite in extent, but it doesn't have any boundaries or edges. I have been round the world, and I didn't fall off.

If space and imaginary time are indeed like the surface of the Earth, there wouldn't be any singularities in the imaginary time direction, at which the laws of physics would break down. And there wouldn't be any boundaries, to the imaginary time space-time, just as there aren't any boundaries to the surface of the Earth. This absence of boundaries means that the laws of physics would determine the state of the universe uniquely, in imaginary time. But if one knows the state of the universe in imaginary time, one can calculate the state of the universe in real time. One would still expect some sort of Big Bang singularity in real time. So real time would still have a beginning. But one wouldn't have to appeal to something outside the universe, to determine how the universe began. Instead, the way the universe started out at the Big Bang would be determined by the state of the universe in imaginary time. Thus, the universe would be a completely self-contained system. It would not be determined by anything outside the physical universe, that we observe.

The no boundary condition, is the statement that the laws of physics hold everywhere. Clearly, this is something that one would like to believe, but it is a hypothesis. One has to test it, by comparing the state of the universe that it would predict, with observations of what the universe is actually like. If the observations disagreed with the predictions of the no boundary hypothesis, we would have to conclude the hypothesis was false. There would have to be something outside the universe, to wind up the clockwork, and set the universe going. Of course, even if the observations do agree with the predictions, that does not prove that the no boundary proposal is correct. But one's confidence in it would be increased, particularly because there doesn't seem to be any other natural proposal, for the quantum state of the universe.

The no boundary proposal, predicts that the universe would start at a single point, like the North Pole of the Earth. But this point wouldn't be a singularity, like the Big Bang. Instead, it would be an ordinary point of space and time, like the North Pole is an ordinary point on the Earth, or so I'm told. I have not been there myself. According to the no boundary proposal, the universe would have expanded in a smooth way from a single point. As it expanded, it would have borrowed energy from the gravitational field, to create matter. As any economist could have predicted, the result of all that borrowing, was inflation. The universe expanded and borrowed at an ever-increasing rate. Fortunately, the debt of gravitational energy will not have to be repaid until the end of the universe.

Eventually, the period of inflation would have ended, and the universe would have settled down to a stage of more moderate growth or expansion. However, inflation would have left its mark on the universe. The universe would have been almost completely smooth, but with very slight irregularities. These irregularities are so little, only one part in a hundred thousand, that for years people looked for them in vain. But in 1992, the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite, COBE, found these irregularities in the microwave background radiation. It was an historic moment. We saw back to the origin of the universe. The form of the fluctuations in the microwave background agree closely with the predictions of the no boundary proposal. These very slight irregularities in the universe would have caused some regions to have expanded less fast than others. Eventually, they would have stopped expanding, and would have collapsed in on themselves, to form stars and galaxies. Thus the no boundary proposal can explain all the rich and varied structure, of the world we live in. What does the no boundary proposal predict for the future of the universe? Because it requires that the universe is finite in space, as well as in imaginary time, it implies that the universe will re-collapse eventually. However, it will not re-collapse for a very long time, much longer than the 15 billion years it has already been expanding. So, you will have time to sell your government bonds, before the end of the universe is nigh. Quite what you invest in then, I don't know.

Originally, I thought that the collapse, would be the time reverse of the expansion. This would have meant that the arrow of time would have pointed the other way in the contracting phase. People would have gotten younger, as the universe got smaller. Eventually, they would have disappeared back into the womb. However, I now realise I was wrong, as these solutions show. The collapse is not the time reverse of the expansion. The expansion will start with an inflationary phase, but the collapse will not in general end with an anti inflationary phase. Moreover, the small departures from uniform density will continue to grow in the contracting phase. The universe will get more and more lumpy and irregular, as it gets smaller, and disorder will increase. This means that the arrow of time will not reverse. People will continue to get older, even after the universe has begun to contract. So it is no good waiting until the universe re-collapses, to return to your youth. You would be a bit past it, anyway, by then.

The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition.

This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again. However, the contracting phase, will not have the opposite arrow of time, to the expanding phase. So we will keep on getting older, and we won't return to our youth. Because time is not going to go backwards, I think I better stop now.

Poetry

Byron

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found ...
a mode of proving that the earth turn'd round
in a most natural whirl, called gravitation;
and thus is the sole mortal who could grapple
since Adam, with a fall or with an apple



Albert Einstein

Watch the stars, and from them learn.
To the Master's honor all must turn,
each in its track, without a sound,
forever tracing Newton's ground.



John Fitzgerald Kennedy

When power leads man toward arrogance,
poetry reminds him of his limitations.
When power narrows the areas of man's concern,
poetry reminds him of the richness
and diversity of his existence.
When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.