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Concept
Festival
Summary
A festival is an extraordinary event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival constitutes typical cases of glocalization, as well as the high culture-low culture interrelationship. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern.
Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanking to the gods, goddesses or saints: they are called patronal festivals. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. Festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics also seek to inform community members of their traditions; the involvement of elders sharing stories and experience provides a means for unity among families. Attendants of festivals are often motivated by a desire for escapism, socialization and camaraderie; the practice has been seen as a means of creating geographical connection, belonging and adaptability.
The word "festival" was originally used as an adjective from the late fourteenth century, deriving from Latin via Old French. In Middle English, a "festival dai" was a religious holiday. Its first recorded used as a noun was in 1589 (as "Festifall"). Feast first came into usage as a noun 1200, and its first recorded use as a verb was circa 1300.
The word gala comes from Arabic word khil'a, meaning robe of honor. The word gala was initially used to describe "festive dress", but came to be a synonym of "festival" starting in the 18th century.
Festivals have long been significant in human culture and are found in virtually all cultures.
Official source
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