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Enya

Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin (born 17 May 1961) known mononymously as Enya, is an Irish composer and singer-songwriter. Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist, with an estimated 80 million albums sold worldwide, and the second-best-selling music act from Ireland overall, after the rock band U2. Her music has been widely recognised for featuring multi-layers of her own vocals and instrumentation, lengthened reverb, and interwoven elements of Celtic music. She has been composing her own repertoire for over four decades.

Enya was raised in the Irish-speaking region of Gweedore. In 1980, as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, Enya began her musical career playing alongside her family's Irish folk band Clannad. She left Clannad in 1982 to pursue a solo career, working with the former Clannad manager and producer, Nicky Ryan, and his partner Roma, as their lyricist. Over the following four years, Enya further developed her sound by combining multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements from a variety of musical genres, such as Celtic, classical, church, jazz, ambient, world, hip-hop and Irish folk.

The earliest releases by Enya as a solo artist were two piano/synthesiser instrumentals for the Touch Travel T4 cassette compilation (1984) composed around 1982–83. The majority of the soundtrack for The Frog Prince (1985) was composed by Enya, and she sang two songs with lyrics, however these were altered, and not heard in-film. Enya composed a body of work for the 1986 BBC documentary series named The Celts. A selection of her pieces for The Celts were released as her debut album, Enya (1987). Former chairman of Warner Music, Rob Dickins, found himself enjoying the music from The Celts. He happened to meet the trio, expressed his interest in Enya's music, and so the trio agreed to sign with Warner Music UK. The initial record deal granted her considerable artistic freedom and minimal interference. The success of the album Watermark (1988) propelled Enya to worldwide fame, primarily through her international hit single "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)". the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of A Day Without Rain and its lead single, "Only Time", surged in the United States following its use in media coverage of the 9/11 attacks. After Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took a four-year break from music, returning to the recording studio in 2012 to begin work on her eighth studio album Dark Sky Island (2015).

Regarding a new album, there have been several mentions by close sources of Enya, particularly from her siblings, about Enya recording new music since her 2015 album. According to her sister Moya, Enya was recording music as of 2019. Enya's latest statement in-print was from the vinyl release of A Box of Dreams in late June 2023. It read in Irish: "Beidh muid ag teacht le chéile gan mhoile", which is approximated as "we will meet again soon".

Early life
Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin was born in the Dore area of Gaoth Dobhair (Gweedore) in County Donegal on 17 May 1961. She is the sixth of nine children in the Brennan family of musicians, born to Máire "Baba" and Leopold "Leo" Brennan. In 1968, the couple took ownership of a pub in Meenaleck, Co. Donegal, naming it Leo's Tavern. Leo Brennan (1925–2016) was the leader of an Irish showband named the Slieve Foy Band, before performing solo. Baba Brennan (née Duggan; born 1930) has remote Spanish roots with ancestors who settled on Tory Island and she was an amateur musician who played with the Slieve Foy Band. Enya's mother also taught music at Gweedore Community School.

Gweedore is a Gaeltacht region, where the Irish language, also known as Gaelic, is primarily spoken. Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin, her name, is anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan, with "Enya" being the phonetic spelling of how "Eithne" is pronounced in the Donegal Ulster dialect. "Ní Bhraonáin" translates to "daughter of Brennan".

The name Brennan was accidentally added to Leo's name at his birth registration in 1925; his family name was Hardin; Leo used Brennan (Bhraonáin) for his children's surname. Harry Hardin was a pianist, and he died performing on stage. Enya's paternal grandmother, Minna Lenehan, played the drums. They were both believed to have been born in England. Regarding Baba's parents, Enya's maternal grandfather, Aodh, affectionately addressed as "Gog", was the headmaster of the primary school in Dore; her grandmother, Máire Gillespie, was a teacher. Aodh was also the founder of the Aisteoiri Ghaodobhair, the Gweedore Theatre company.

Enya has described her upbringing as "very quiet and happy" and expressed that "it was difficult to be heard, but I was very comfortable with that because I was able to be myself, able to be let alone.” However, she has acknowledged that there was "continual hustle and bustle and crying and chaos" amongst the nine siblings. Their maternal grandparents were quite involved with the siblings' upbringing at home, as their parents were travelling with the showband; Leo entertaining at the pub, and Baba leading the choir.

Along with the siblings' enjoyment of their childhood spent in Gweedore, they also grew up amid The Troubles. Enya recalls that when her family visited shops in Derry for instance, "you’d be checked by people standing with guns”, and even speaking in Irish in Derry was "pinpointing where you came from, and it was too political at the time. Whereas for us [Enya and family] it was our first language, and we didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

At three-and-a-half years of age, Enya took part in her first singing competition at the annual Feis Ceoil music festival. She also participated in pantomimes at Gweedore Theatre and sang with her siblings in their mother's choir at St Mary's church in Derrybeg. At the age of four, Enya began piano lessons and was learning English throughout primary school. She later said, "I had to do school work and then travel to a neighbouring town for piano lessons, and then more school work. I remember my brothers and sisters playing outside and I would be inside playing the piano, this one big book of scales, practising them over and over."

As well as traditional Irish music, Enya and her siblings were introduced to a variety of music in the 1960s and 70s, and enjoyed watching musical films. In a radio interview with Elaine Page in November 2008, Enya shared a selection of favourite songs from musicals. She said of Jesus Christ Superstar, "it was such an original piece of music in 1970 [...] played in my house every single day, and myself and my sisters would sing word for word".

From the age of 11, Enya attended a convent boarding school in Milford, Milford College, run by the Sisters of Loreto; Enya's education there was paid for by her grandfather. The boarding school, now Loreto Community School, was where Enya developed a taste for classical music, art, Latin, and watercolour painting. She said, "It was devastating to be torn away from such a large family but it was good for my music." Enya finished boarding school at age 17 in the late 1970s, and she spent a year at college studying classical music. She previously saw herself as teaching the piano, like both her mother and grandmother, rather than composing and performing her own music.

1980–1982: Clannad
In 1970, several members of Enya's family formed Clannad, a Celtic folk band. Clannad hired Nicky Ryan as their manager, sound engineer, and producer, and Ryan's girlfriend, Roma Shane (later his wife, Roma Ryan) as tour manager and administrator. In 1980, after a year at college, Enya decided not to pursue a music degree and instead accepted Nicky Ryan's invitation to play alongside the band Clannad, with him having wanted to expand their sound with keyboards and an additional vocalist. Enya performed an uncredited role on their sixth studio album, Crann Úll (1980), with a line-up of her eldest siblings Moya, Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, and twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. She features in their follow-up, Fuaim (1981), singing lead vocals on the song "An tÚll" (The Apple).

It is acknowledged by the current and former members of Clannad that Enya was not actually considered a member. In a late 2000s interview, Ciarán mentioned that Enya was a "hired hand" and not a full member, commenting that "she was 18, 19 and we were paying her £500 sterling a week." In a BBC Radio Ulster interview with Moya in late 2023, she also noted that Enya was considered a hired hand with Clannad. Nicky Ryan also said it was not his intention to make Enya a permanent member, as she was "fiercely independent [...] intent on playing her own music. She was just not sure of how to go about it." Nicky discussed the idea of layering vocals to create a "choir of one" with Enya, a concept inspired by Phil Spector's Wall of Sound technique that had interested them both.

During a Clannad tour in 1982, Nicky called for a band meeting to address internal issues that had arisen, which he put down to the excessive drinking of one or two members. He recalled: "It was short and only required a vote, I was a minority of one and lost. Roma and I were out. This left the question of what happened with Enya. I decided to stand back and say nothing." Enya chose to leave with the Ryans and pursue a solo career, having felt confined in the group and disliking being "somebody in the background". In an extended interview from 1989, Enya said that "I wasn't composing it [the music], I was just there, you know." The split caused some friction between the parties but, in time, they settled their differences. Enya's brother Ciarán also spoke to Nicky Ryan around 2006, interested in recording in their studio with her, but Ryan suggested that this was unlikely to occur. Moya often praises Enya for what she has gone on to achieve in her solo career, and supposes that there were some musical foundations that Enya had built from her short time with the band.

1982–1985: Early solo career
Nicky suggested to Enya that either she return to Gweedore "with no particular definite future", or live with him and Roma in suburban Artane, in Dublin, "and see what happens, musically", the latter of which Enya decided was best for her career. After their bank denied them a loan, Enya sold her saxophone, which she had been learning to play at the time, and also gave piano lessons as a source of income. Nicky Ryan used what they could afford to build a recording facility in the Ryans' garden shed, which they named "Aigle Studio", after the French word for eagle. Enya lived with the Ryans from 1982, shortly after leaving Clannad, until 1989, when she bought a penthouse apartment in Killiney.

Enya and the Ryans rented Aigle Studio out to other musicians to help recoup the costs. The trio formed a musical and business partnership, with Nicky as Enya's producer and arranger and Roma as her lyricist. They called their company, of which each owns a third, Aigle Music, French for In the following two years, Enya developed her technique and composition by listening to recordings of her reciting pieces of classical music and repeated this process until she started to improvise sections and develop her own arrangements.

In the early 1980s following her Clannad departure, Enya recorded with a few artists, often on keyboards or backing vocals, with Nicky Ryan as producer. She also played the synthesiser on the group Ragairne's Ceol Aduaidh, led by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy. Being one of the earlier choices to sing the song before Maggie Reilly, Enya declined an offer from Mike Oldfield to sing on his single "Moonlight Shadow", likely due to existing contracts. "Bailieboro and Me" is a Charlie McGettigan song with the group Jargon; an early recording features Enya singing backing vocals, primarily credited as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin playing the grand piano for the song.

Enya's first solo endeavour was in 1982, when she composed and later released two piano instrumentals, "An Ghaoth Ón Ghrian" (Irish for "The Solar Wind") and "Miss Clare Remembers". Both were recorded at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin and released on Touch Travel (1984), a limited-release cassette compilation of music from various artists on the UK Touch label. She is credited as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin in the liner notes.

After several months of preparation, Enya's first live solo performance took place at the National Stadium in Dublin on 23 September 1983, and was televised for RTÉ's music show Festival Folk. Niall Morris, a musician who worked with her during this time, recalled she "was so nervous she could barely get on stage, and she cowered behind the piano until the gig was over". Morris assisted Enya in the production of a demo tape, adding additional keyboards to her compositions.

Roma thought the music would suit accompanying visuals and sent it to various film producers. Among them was David Puttnam, after Roma had read an interview where he stated a particular interest in strong melodies. Puttnam liked the tape and offered Enya to compose the soundtrack to the upcoming romantic comedy film, The Frog Prince (1984), directed by Brian Jameson. Enya scored nine pieces for the soundtrack; later, against her wishes, the instrumental pieces for the film were rearranged and orchestrated by Richard Myhill. Enya's two songs with vocals were not in the film, but on the soundtrack album, those being "The Frog Prince" and "Dreams". The words to "Dreams" were penned by Charlie McGettigan. The film editor Jim Clark said the rearrangements were necessary as Enya found it difficult to compose to picture.

Released in 1985, the album is the first commercial release that credits her as "Enya". She supposes that "Enya" for her began in 1983. Nicky Ryan suggested the phonetic spelling of her name, thinking that Eithne would be mispronounced by non-Irish speakers. Enya looked back at her composition work on the film as a good career move, but a disappointing one as "we weren't part of it at the end". Also in 1985, she sang on three tracks on Ordinary Man (1985) by Christy Moore.

1985–1989: The Celts and Watermark
In 1985, producer Tony McAuley asked Enya to contribute a track for the six-part BBC television documentary series The Celts. She had already written a Celtic-influenced song called "March of the Celts", and submitted it to the project. Each episode was to feature a different composer at first, but director David Richardson liked her track so much that he had Enya score the entire series. Enya recorded 72 minutes of music at Aigle Studio and the BBC studios in Wood Lane, London, without recording to the picture. She was required to portray certain themes and ideas that the producers wanted; however, in contrast with The Frog Prince, she worked with little interference, which granted her freedom to establish the sound that she would adopt throughout her future career, signified by layered vocals, keyboard-oriented music, and percussion with elements of Celtic, classical, church, and folk music.

In March 1987, two months before The Celts aired, a 40-minute selection of Enya's score was released as her debut solo album, Enya, by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and by Atlantic Records in the United States. The latter promoted it with a new-age imprint on the packaging, which Nicky later thought was "a cowardly thing for them to do". The album gained enough public attention to reach number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69 on the UK Albums Chart. "I Want Tomorrow" was released as Enya's first single. "Boadicea" was later sampled by The Fugees on their 1996 song "Ready or Not"; the group neither sought permission nor gave credit. Enya took legal action and the group subsequently gave her credit; they paid a fee of approximately $3 million. Later in 1987, Enya appeared on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra, reciting Psalm 91 in Irish on "Never Get Old".

Several weeks after the release of Enya, Enya secured a recording contract with Warner Music UK after Rob Dickins, the label's chairman and a fan of Clannad, took a liking to Enya and found himself playing it "every night before I went to bed". He later met Enya and the Ryans at a chance meeting at the Irish Recorded Music Association award ceremony in Dublin, where he learned that Enya had entered negotiations with a rival label. Dickins seized the opportunity and signed her, in doing so granting her wish to write and record with artistic freedom, minimal interference from the label, and without set deadlines to finish albums. Dickins said: "Sometimes you sign an act to make money, and sometimes you sign an act to make music. This was the latter... I just wanted to be involved with this music." Enya left Atlantic and signed with the Warner-led Geffen Records to handle her American distribution.

When asked about whether women in pop have a hard time, she responded "yes, they do. Definitely." However, Enya has considered her position as a composer rather than just a vocalist to be an advantage "because I write and perform much of the music, I'm taken more seriously than the girls who just walk into a studio, do a vocal and that's it. I can't even imagine what that would be like."

With the green light to produce a new album, Enya recorded Watermark from June 1987 to April 1988. It was initially recorded in analogue at Aigle before Dickins requested to have it re-recorded digitally at Orinoco Studios in Bermondsey, London.

Watermark was released in September 1988 and became an unexpected hit, reaching number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States following its release there in January 1989. Its lead single, "Orinoco Flow", was the last song written for the album. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans chose it after Dickins jokingly asked for a single; he knew that Enya's music was not made for the Top 40 chart. Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are referenced in the song's lyrics. "Orinoco Flow" became an international top 10 hit and was number one in the United Kingdom for three weeks. The new-found success propelled Enya to international fame and she received endorsement deals and offers to use her music in television commercials. She spent a year traveling worldwide to promote the album which increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performances.

1989–1998: Shepherd Moons, The Memory of Trees and Paint the Sky with Stars
After promoting Watermark, Enya purchased new recording equipment and started work on her next album, Shepherd Moons. She found that the success of Watermark caused a considerable amount of pressure when it came to writing new songs, stating, "I kept thinking, 'Would this have gone on Watermark? Is it as good?' Eventually I had to forget about this and start on a blank canvas and just really go with what felt right".

Enya wrote songs based on several ideas, including entries from her diary, the Blitz in London, and her grandparents. Shepherd Moons was released in November 1991, her first album released under Warner-led Reprise Records in the United States. It became a greater commercial success than Watermark, reaching number one in the UK for one week and number 17 in the United States. "Caribbean Blue", its lead single, charted at number 13 in the United Kingdom.

In 1991, Warner Music released a collection of five Enya music videos as Moonshadows for home video. In 1993 Enya won her first Grammy Award in the Best New Age Album category for Shepherd Moons. Soon after, Enya and Nicky entered discussions with Industrial Light & Magic, founded by George Lucas, regarding an elaborate stage lighting system for a proposed concert tour, but nothing resulted from those discussions. In November 1992, Warner obtained the rights to Enya and re-released the album as The Celts with new artwork. It surpassed its initial sale performance, reaching number 10 in the UK.

After travelling worldwide to promote Shepherd Moons, Enya started to write and record her fourth album, The Memory of Trees.

By this time, the Ryans had moved to the southern Dublin suburb of Killiney, and a new Aigle Studio had been built alongside their home, with new recording facilities which eliminated the need to go to London to finish recording for the album. The new album was released in November 1995 and peaked at number 5 in the UK and number 9 in the US, where it sold over 3 million copies. Its lead single, "Anywhere Is", reached number 7 in the UK. The second, "On My Way Home", reached number 26 in the UK. In late 1994, Enya put out an extended play of Christmas music titled The Christmas EP. Enya was offered the opportunity to compose the film score for Titanic but declined as it would be a collaboration, rather than solely her composition. A recording of her singing "Oíche Chiúin", an Irish-language version of "Silent Night", appeared on the charity album A Very Special Christmas 3, released in benefit of the Special Olympics in October 1997.

In early 1997, Enya began to select tracks for her first compilation album, "trying to select the obvious ones, the hits, and others." She chose to work on the collection following the promotional tour for The Memory of Trees as she felt it was the right time in her career, and that her contract with WEA required her to release a "best of" album. The set, named Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, features two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...". Released in November 1997, the album was a worldwide commercial success, reaching number 4 in the UK and number 30 in the US, where it went on to sell over 4 million copies.

"Only If..." was released as a single in 1997. Enya described the album as "like a musical diary... each melody has a little story and I live through that whole story from the beginning... your mind goes back to that day and what you were thinking."

1998–2007: A Day Without Rain and Amarantine
Enya started work on her fifth studio album, titled A Day Without Rain, in mid-1998. In a departure from her previous albums, she incorporated the use of a string section into her compositions, something that was not a conscious decision at first, but Enya and Nicky Ryan agreed that it complemented the songs that were being written. The album was released in November 2000 and reached number 6 in the UK and an initial peak of number 17 in the US.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, US sales of the album and its lead single "Only Time" surged after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the events, leading to its description as "a post-September 11th anthem". The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to outperform its original chart performance to peak at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and the release of a maxi-single containing the original and a pop remix of "Only Time" in November 2001. Enya donated its proceeds in aid of the International Association of Firefighters. The song topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and went to number 10 on the Hot 100 singles, Enya's highest charting US single to date.

In 2001, Enya agreed to write and perform on two tracks for the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) at the request of director Peter Jackson. Its composer Howard Shore "imagined her voice" as he wrote the film's score, making an uncommon exception to include another artist in one of his soundtracks. After flying to New Zealand to observe the filming and to watch a rough cut of the film, Enya returned to Ireland and composed "Aníron" (the theme for Aragorn and Arwen), with lyrics by Roma in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Elvish language Sindarin, and "May It Be", sung in English and another Tolkien language, Quenya. Shore then based his orchestrations around Enya's recorded vocals and themes to create "a seamless sound".

In 2002, Enya released "May It Be" as a single which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live with an orchestra at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.

Enya undertook additional studio projects in 2001 and 2002. The first was work on the soundtrack of the Japanese romantic film Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001), which was subsequently released as Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001).

This release is formed of tracks spanning her career from Enya to A Day Without Rain with two B-sides. The album went to number 2 in Japan and became Enya's second album to sell one million copies in the country.

In 2004, Enya had another significant "Boadicea" sampling request from Diddy, for the song "I Don't Wanna Know" performed by Mario Winans. She said that the producer "phoned the studio we were working in and Nicky took the call and he [Diddy] just said he had this fantastic singer that he was working with and it was Mario Winans. Immediately we said “send the song” and it was a great song."

In September 2003, Enya returned to Aigle Studio to start work on her sixth studio album, Amarantine. Roma said the title means "everlasting". The album marks the first instance of Enya singing in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma that came about when Enya was working on "Water Shows the Hidden Heart". After numerous attempts to sing the song in English, Irish, and Latin, Roma suggested a new language based on some of the sounds Enya would sing along to when developing her songs. It was a success, and Enya sang "Less Than a Pearl" and "The River Sings" in the same way. Roma worked on the language further, creating a "culture and history" behind it surrounding the Loxian people who are on another planet, questioning the existence of life outside of Earth. "Sumiregusa (Wild Violet)" is sung in Japanese. Amarantine was a global success, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK. It has sold over 1 million certified copies in the US, a considerable drop in sales in comparison to her previous albums. Enya dedicated the album to BBC producer Tony McAuley who had commissioned Enya to write the soundtrack to The Celts, following his death in 2003. The lead single, "Amarantine", was released in December 2005.

2008–2017: And Winter Came... and Dark Sky Island
Enya wrote music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came... Initially, she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007 but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead.

The second promotional single of the album "My! My! Time Flies!", is a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first guitar solo on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. The lyrics also include some musical pop-culture references, such as The Beatles' famous photo shoot for the cover of Abbey Road, and "a rap on a rhapsody" possibly referring to "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached number 6 in the UK and number 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.

After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and featured songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aníron" and a DVD compiling most of her music videos to date.

In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name refers to the island of Sark, which became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan.

In 2013, "Only Time" was used in the "Epic Split" advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries.

Upon the album's release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to number 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to number 1, and to number 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK, Europe, the US, and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Irish television show Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first Irish television appearance in over seven years. She sang "Adeste Fideles", "Oiche Chiúin", and "The Spirit of Christmas Past".

2019–present; future project potential
Since late 2019 there has been a significant increase in activity from Enya's official social platforms online. There have been more official Enya posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, updates to Enya tracks and playlists on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music, as well as YouTube channel updates and new content. Several music videos on Enya's official YouTube channel have undergone 4K/HD conversion since 2020. Numerous YouTube "watch party" videos and vinyl re-releases marking anniversaries of Enya's music albums and compilations have been released since.

The first of these videos was in November 2020, posted on Enya's official YouTube channel to commemorate the 20th anniversary of A Day Without Rain. In addition to the individual tracks from the album, it included handwritten introductory messages from Enya and Roma Ryan, plus a closing message from Nicky Ryan. Some behind-the-scenes clips from the making of the music videos for "Only Time" and "Wild Child", both directed by Graham Fink, were also included.

For the Shepherd Moons 30th Anniversary Watch Party video in November 2021, Nicky Ryan's introductory message noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Aigle Studio underwent some renovations, with new recording equipment and instruments installed, and that with this done, Enya and the Ryans were eager to start working on new music.

A 20th-anniversary vinyl picture disc re-release of the "May It Be" single was also released in late 2021.

Enya's music continues to be sampled or interpolated by many modern-day producers, particularly her 1986 humming song "Boadicea", in songs within the R&B or hip-hop genres. Enya had previously noted for her 2015 album Dark Sky Island, that "several songs here have a stronger beat, and even a little hip-hop influence".

In 2022, for Metro Boomin and The Weeknd's song "Creepin'", Enya didn't approve of the song to be released under the working title "IDWK" (referring to the song I Don't Wanna Know) so Metro reportedly asked Enya to select song titles that she would be happy with, which included "Undecided," "Creepin'", "Don't Come Back to Me", "Better Off That Way" and "Wanna Let You Know". Metro said "Creepin ''' was the one [...] It ended up being a blessing because it's the best name for it."

In June 2023, Enya's 1997 limited compilation A Box of Dreams was re-issued on 6 vinyl LPs, featuring new liner notes. Nicky Ryan confirmed that they were working on a new album and the possibility of a book based on the trio's thoughts regarding the Oceans tracks was also mentioned. Enya's note, in Irish, read "Beidh muid ag teacht le chéile gan mhoile", which roughly translates to "We will meet again soon".

On 19 September 2023, a watch party video for the 35th anniversary of Watermark was also presented. Alongside this, vinyl LPs of Watermark and a Dolby Atmos upmixed audio for "Orinoco Flow" were also released.

Enya's official website was rebooted, returned to Warner ownership and stylised in late 2023.

Musical style
Enya has cited her musical foundations as "the classics", church music, and "Irish reels and jigs" with a particular interest in Sergei Rachmaninoff, a favourite composer of hers. She has an autographed picture of him in her home. Since 1982, she has recorded her music with Nicky Ryan as producer and arranger and his wife Roma Ryan as a lyricist. While in Clannad, Enya chose to work with Nicky as the two shared an interest in vocal harmonies, and Ryan, influenced by The Beach Boys and the "Wall of Sound" technique that Phil Spector pioneered, wanted to explore the idea of "the multi-vocals" for which her music became known. According to Enya, "Angeles" from Shepherd Moons has roughly 500 vocals recorded individually and layered. Enya performs all vocals and the majority of instruments in her songs, apart from guest musicians (playing percussion, guitar, violin, uilleann pipes, cornet, and double bass). Her early works, including Watermark, feature piano and numerous keyboard synthesisers including the Yamaha KX88 Master, Yamaha DX7, Oberheim Matrix, Kurzweil K250, Fairlight III E-mu Emulator II, Akai S900, PPG Wave Computer 360, Roland D-50 (with the "Pizzagogo" patch, famously used in "Orinoco Flow"), and the Roland Juno-60, the latter a particular favourite of hers. Her vocal range has been classified as mezzo-soprano.

Numerous critics and reviewers classify Enya's albums as new-age music and she has won four Grammy Awards in the category. However, Enya does not consider her music as part of the genre; "the only way I can describe it [...] it's Enya music". Nicky Ryan commented on the new age designation: "Initially it was fine, but it's really not new age. Enya plays a whole lot of instruments, not just keyboards. Her melodies are strong and she sings a lot. So I can't see a comparison." In 1988, Enya is believed to have said about New Age music "it's air, thin air. It's a musical drug" and noted its spineless nature, unlike her own music. In a later interview, Enya said that she "felt that title was given to any musician whom critics didn't know how to pigeonhole."

Older artwork often inspires some of the visuals that accompany Enya's music. The 1991 music video for "Caribbean Blue", and the 1995 album cover artwork for The Memory of Trees both feature adapted works from artist Maxfield Parrish. In the 1996 music video for "On My Way Home", scenes of girls lighting paper lanterns to hang in flowery foliage were inspired by John Singer Sargent's painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.

In addition to her native Irish, Enya has recorded songs in languages including English, French, Latin, Spanish, and Welsh. She has recorded music influenced by works from fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, including the instrumental "Lothlórien" from Shepherd Moons. For The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, she sang "May It Be" in English and Tolkien's fictional language Quenya, and she sang "Aníron" in another of Tolkien's fictional languages, Sindarin. Amarantine and Dark Sky Island include songs sung in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma Ryan, that has no official syntax. Its vocabulary was formed by Enya singing the song's notes to which Roma wrote their phonetic spelling.

Enya adopted a composing and songwriting method that has deviated little throughout her career. At the start of the recording process for an album, she enters the studio, forgetting about her previous success, fame, and songs of hers that became hits. "If I did that", she said, "I'd have to call it a day". She then develops ideas on the piano, keeping note of any arrangement that can be worked on further. During her time writing the music, Enya works a five-day week, takes weekends off, and does not work on her music at home. With Irish as her first language, Enya initially records her songs in Irish as she can express "feeling much more directly" in Irish than in English. After some time, Enya presents her ideas to Nicky to discuss what pieces work best, while Roma works in parallel to devise lyrics for the songs. Enya considered "Fallen Embers" from A Day Without Rain a perfect time when the lyrics reflect how she felt while writing the song. In 2008, she realised her tendency to write "two or three songs" during the winter months, work on the arrangements and lyrics the following spring and summer, and then work on the next couple of songs when autumn arrives.

Live performances
Enya says that Warner Music and she "did not see eye to eye" initially as the label imagined her performing on stage "with a piano... maybe two or three synthesizer players and that's it". Enya also explained that the time put into her studio albums caused her to "run overtime", leaving little time to plan for other such projects. She also expressed the difficulty in recreating her studio-oriented sound for the stage. In 1996, Ryan said Enya had received an offer worth almost £500,000 to perform a concert in Japan. In 2016, Enya spoke about the prospect of a live concert when she revealed talks with the Ryans during her three-year break after And Winter Came... (2008) to perform a show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City that would be simulcast to cinemas worldwide. Before such an event could happen, Nicky suggested that she enter a studio and record "all the hits" live with an orchestra and choir to see how they would sound.

Enya has sung with live and lip-syncing vocals on various talk and music shows, events, and ceremonies throughout her career, most often during her worldwide press tours for each album. In December 1995, she performed "Anywhere Is" at a Christmas concert at Vatican City with Pope John Paul II in attendance; he later met and thanked her for performing. In April 1996, Enya performed the same song during her surprise appearance at the fiftieth birthday celebration for Carl XVI Gustaf, the king of Sweden and a fan of Enya's. In 1997, Enya participated in a live Christmas Eve broadcast in London and flew to County Donegal afterward to join her family for their annual midnight Mass choral performance, in which she participates each year. In March 2002, she performed "May It Be" with an orchestra at the year's Academy Awards ceremony. Enya and her sisters performed as part of the local choir Cor Mhuire in July 2005 at St. Mary's church in Gweedore during the annual Earagail Arts Festival.

Personal life
Known for her private lifestyle, Enya has said, "The music is what sells. Not me, or what I stand for... that's the way I've always wanted it." She has not married and is childfree, but has many nieces and nephews and is considered an aunt to the Ryans' two daughters, having shared their Artane home for almost a decade. In 1991, she said, "I'm afraid of marriage because I'm afraid someone might want me because of who I am instead of because they loved me... I wouldn't go rushing into anything unexpected, but I do think a great deal about this." A relationship she had with one man ended in 1997, around the time when she considered taking time out of music to have a family, but found she was putting pressure on herself over the matter and "gone the route [she] wanted to go".

At an auction in 1997, Enya spent £2.5 million on a 157-year-old Victorian listed castellated mansion in Killiney. Formerly known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle, the house was renamed by Enya as Manderley Castle after the house featured in Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca (1938). Prior to moving into the castle, Enya was believed to have resided in London, and spent time there throughout the 2000s. She spent several years renovating the castle, and installing considerable security measures because of threats from stalkers. The improvements covered gaps in the house's outer wall, installed new solid timber entrance gates and 1.2 m iron railings, and brought the surrounding 41 m of stone wall up to a new height of 2.7 m. In late 2005, the property had two security breaches; during one incident, two people attacked and tied up one of her housekeepers before stealing several items. Enya alerted police by raising an alarm from her safe room. Enya oversaw most of the interior design (decorations and furnishings of her castle); she was "not going to trust that to anyone else".

Enya admires the authors Oscar Wilde and J. R. R. Tolkien, in addition to Pope Francis. Enya has identified herself as "more spiritual than religious" and has said that she sometimes prays, but prefers "going into churches when they're empty".

Aside from music, Enya has an appreciation for art, and as of 2000 was collecting artworks by Irish artists including Jack Butler Yeats and Louis le Brocquy and the British artist Albert Goodwin. First editions of books are also something Enya enjoys collecting. Enya recalled reading books in her youth such as The Lord of the Rings, and Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton, prior to going to boarding school herself. Visual-media-wise, she has mentioned watching operas, such as Madame Butterfly at the Sydney Opera House, and enjoying classic black-and-white films, especially those directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She is also drawn to crime drama or period drama series, such as Breaking Bad, and Mad Men, saying "myself, Nicky, and Roma are huge fans of Breaking Bad. We just didn't miss an episode."

Discography
The discography of Enya includes 26.5 million certified album sales in the United States and an estimated 82 million record sales worldwide, making her one of the best-selling musicians of all time. A Day Without Rain is the best-selling new-age album, with an estimated 16 million copies sold worldwide. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Enya's most successful single in the charts was "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)", reaching number one on 23 October 1988, holding the top placing for three consecutive weeks. In 1991, Enya's album Shepherd Moons entered the charts at number one on 16 November 1991. Enya's awards include seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album, and an Ivor Novello Award. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for "May It Be", a song she wrote for the film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).

Studio albums so far:
 * Enya (1987) (reissued in 1992 as The Celts)
 * Watermark (1988)
 * Shepherd Moons (1991)
 * The Memory of Trees (1995)
 * A Day Without Rain (2000)
 * Amarantine (2005)
 * And Winter Came... (2008)
 * Dark Sky Island (2015)

Awards and nominations
Billboard Music Awards

 * rowspan=4|2001
 * rowspan=2|Enya
 * Top Billboard 200 Artist - Female
 * Won
 * Top New Age Artist
 * Won
 * rowspan=3|A Day Without Rain
 * Top Internet Album
 * Nominated
 * rowspan=2|Top New Age Album
 * Won
 * rowspan=3|2002
 * Won
 * rowspan=2|Enya
 * Top New Age Artist
 * Won
 * Top Adult Contemporary Artist
 * Nominated
 * rowspan=2|Enya
 * Top New Age Artist
 * Won
 * Top Adult Contemporary Artist
 * Nominated
 * Top Adult Contemporary Artist
 * Nominated

BRIT Awards

! Grammy Awards
 * rowspan="2"|1989
 * rowspan="4"|Enya
 * International Female Solo Artist
 * Nominated
 * International Breakthrough Act
 * Nominated
 * 1992
 * International Solo Artist
 * Nominated
 * 1993
 * International Solo Artist
 * Nominated
 * 1993
 * International Solo Artist
 * Nominated
 * Nominated
 * }

 * rowspan=2|1990
 * rowspan=2|"Orinoco Flow"
 * Best New Age Performance
 * Nominated
 * Best Music Video
 * Nominated
 * 1993
 * Shepherd Moons
 * rowspan=3|Best New Age Album
 * Won
 * 1997
 * The Memory of Trees
 * Won
 * 2002
 * A Day Without Rain
 * Won
 * 2003
 * "May It Be"
 * Best Song Written for Visual Media
 * Nominated
 * rowspan="2"|2007
 * "Drifting"
 * Best Pop Instrumental Performance
 * Nominated
 * Amarantine
 * rowspan=2|Best New Age Album
 * Won
 * 2017
 * Dark Sky Island
 * Nominated
 * Nominated
 * Amarantine
 * rowspan=2|Best New Age Album
 * Won
 * 2017
 * Dark Sky Island
 * Nominated
 * Dark Sky Island
 * Nominated

IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Awards

!Ref.
 * 2001
 * A Day Without Rain
 * Top 10 Best Sales Foreign Albums
 * Won
 * Won

Japan Gold Disc Awards

 * 1990
 * Enya
 * New Artist of the Year
 * Won
 * 1998
 * Paint the Sky with Stars
 * Best 3 Albums
 * Won
 * 2001
 * A Day Without Rain
 * International Pop Album of the Year
 * Won
 * 2002
 * Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati
 * Best 3 Albums
 * Won
 * 2006
 * Amarantine
 * International Album of the Year
 * Won
 * 2006
 * Amarantine
 * International Album of the Year
 * Won
 * Won

World Music Awards

 * rowspan="2"|2001
 * rowspan="7"| Enya
 * World's Best Selling Irish Artist
 * Won
 * rowspan=2|World's Best Selling New Age Artist
 * Won
 * rowspan=3|2002
 * Won
 * World's Best Selling Female Artist
 * Won
 * rowspan=3|World's Best Selling Irish Artist
 * Won
 * 2003
 * Won
 * 2006
 * Won
 * Won
 * 2003
 * Won
 * 2006
 * Won
 * 2006
 * Won

Žebřík Music Awards

!Ref.
 * 1993
 * rowspan=3|Enya
 * rowspan=3|Best International Female
 * Nominated
 * 1997
 * Nominated
 * 2005
 * Nominated
 * Nominated
 * 2005
 * Nominated
 * 2005
 * Nominated

Other awards

!scope="row"|1989 !scope="row"|1990 !scope="row"|1992 !scope="row" rowspan="3"|1993 !scope="row" rowspan=1|1998 !scope="row"|2001 !scope="row"|2001 !scope="row"|2002 !scope="row"|2002 !scope="row" rowspan="4"|2002 !scope="row" rowspan="1"|2003 !scope="row" rowspan="3"|2004 !scope="row"|2005 !scope="row"|2016
 * Enya
 * IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
 * Won
 * "Orinoco Flow"
 * BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
 * Won
 * rowspan="1"|Shepherd Moons
 * NARM Award for Best Selling New Age Album
 * Won
 * Enya
 * IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
 * Won
 * "Book of Days"
 * Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song
 * Nominated
 * Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song
 * Nominated
 * Enya, Nicky Ryan, and Roma Ryan
 * Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement
 * Won
 * rowspan="4"| "May It Be"
 * Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song
 * Won
 * Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Original Song
 * Won
 * Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
 * Nominated
 * Academy Award for Best Original Song
 * Nominated
 * rowspan="2"| Enya
 * American Music Award for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist
 * Nominated
 * Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
 * Won
 * rowspan=3|"Only Time"
 * ECHO Award for Best Single of the Year (International)
 * Won
 * BDSCertified Spin Awards – 300,000 Spins
 * Won
 * BDSCertified Spin Awards – 300,000 Spins
 * Won
 * Won
 * rowspan="1"|BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
 * Won
 * rowspan=4|"I Don't Wanna Know"
 * Vibe Award for R&B Song of the Year
 * Nominated
 * MOBO Award for Best Single
 * Nominated
 * MOBO Award for Best Ringtone
 * Won
 * MOBO Award for Best Ringtone
 * Won
 * BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
 * Won
 * Dark Sky Island
 * ECHO Award for Best Female of the Year (International)
 * Nominated
 * }
 * }

Honorary degrees and namings
In 1991, a minor planet first discovered in 1978, 6433 Enya, was named after her. In June 2007, she received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway, for her contributions to music. A month later, she also received an honorary DLitt from the University of Ulster. In 2017, a newly discovered species of fish, Leporinus enyae, found in the Orinoco River drainage area, was named after Enya, in reference to her song, "Orinoco Flow".

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Enya


text:
East Berlin

East Berlin (Ost-Berlin; ) was the partially recognised capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. The Western Allied powers did not recognize East Berlin as the GDR's capital, nor the GDR's authority to govern East Berlin. For most of its administrative existence, East Berlin was officially known as Berlin, capital of the GDR (Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR) by the GDR government. On 3 October 1990, the day Germany was officially reunified, East and West Berlin formally reunited as the city of Berlin.

Overview
With the London Protocol of 1944 signed on 12 September 1944, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union decided to divide Germany into three occupation zones and to establish a special area of Berlin, which was occupied by the three Allied Forces together. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city government for the whole city that was called "Magistrate of Greater Berlin", which existed until 1947. After the war, the Allied Forces initially administered the city together within the Allied Kommandatura, which served as the governing body of the city. However, in 1948 the Soviet representative left the Kommandatura and the common administration broke apart during the following months. In the Soviet sector, a separate city government was established, which continued to call itself the "Magistrate of Greater Berlin".

When the German Democratic Republic was established in 1949, it immediately claimed East Berlin as its capital—a claim that was recognized by all communist countries. Nevertheless, East Berlin's representatives to the Volkskammer were not directly elected and did not have full voting rights until 1981.

In June 1948, all railways and roads leading to West Berlin were blocked, and East Berliners were not allowed to emigrate. Nevertheless, more than 1,000 East Germans were escaping to West Berlin each day by 1960, caused by the strains on the East German economy from war reparations owed to the Soviet Union, massive destruction of industry, and lack of assistance from the Marshall Plan. In August 1961, the East German Government tried to stop the population exodus by separating West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. It was very dangerous for fleeing residents to cross because armed soldiers were trained to shoot illegal emigrants.

East Germany was a socialist republic. Eventually, Christian churches were allowed to operate without restraint after years of harassment by authorities. In the 1970s, the wages of East Berliners rose and working hours fell.

The Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc recognized East Berlin as the GDR's capital. However, Western Allies (the United States, United Kingdom, and France) never formally acknowledged the authority of the East German government to govern East Berlin. Official Allied protocol recognized only the authority of the Soviet Union in East Berlin in accordance with the occupation status of Berlin as a whole. The United States Command Berlin, for example, published detailed instructions for U.S. military and civilian personnel wishing to visit East Berlin. In fact, the three Western commandants regularly protested against the presence of the East German National People's Army in East Berlin, particularly on the occasion of military parades. Nevertheless, the three Western Allies eventually established embassies in East Berlin in the 1970s, although they never recognized it as the capital of East Germany. Treaties instead used terms such as "seat of government".

On 3 October 1990, East and West Germany and East and West Berlin were reunited, thus formally ending the existence of East Berlin. Citywide elections in December 1990 resulted in the first "all-Berlin" mayor being elected to take office in January 1991, with the separate offices of mayors in East and West Berlin expiring at the time, and Eberhard Diepgen (a former mayor of West Berlin) became the first elected mayor of a reunited Berlin.

Historical population
East Berlin reached its highest population in 1988 with 1.28 million. The lowest value was in 1961, the year the Berlin Wall was built, with under 1.06 million registered. The figures in the following table, unless otherwise indicated, are from the official central statistical office of East Germany.

¹ Census

East Berlin today
Since reunification, the German government has spent vast amounts of money on reintegrating the two halves of the city and bringing services and infrastructure in the former East Berlin up to the standard established in West Berlin.

After reunification, the East German economy suffered significantly. Under the adopted policy of privatization of state-owned firms under the auspices of the Treuhandanstalt, many East German factories were shut down—which also led to mass unemployment—due to gaps in productivity with and investment compared to West German companies, as well as an inability to comply with West German pollution and safety standards in a way that was deemed cost-effective. Because of this, a massive amount of West German economic aid was poured into East Germany to revitalize it. This stimulus was part-funded through a 7.5% tax on income for individuals and companies (in addition to normal income tax or company tax) known as the Solidaritätszuschlaggesetz (SolZG) or "solidarity surcharge", which though only in effect for 1991–1992 (later reintroduced in 1995 at 7.5 and then dropped down to 5.5% in 1998 and continues to be levied to this day) led to a great deal of resentment toward the East Germans.

Despite the large sums of economic aid poured into East Berlin, there still remain obvious differences between the former East and West Berlins. East Berlin has a distinct visual style; this is partly due to the greater survival of prewar façades and streetscapes, with some still showing signs of wartime damage. The unique look of Socialist Classicism that was used in East Berlin (along with the rest of the former GDR) also contrasts markedly with the urban development styles employed in the former West Berlin. Additionally, the former East Berlin (along with the rest of the former GDR) retains a small number of its GDR-era street and place names commemorating German socialist heroes, such as Karl-Marx-Allee, Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, and Karl-Liebknecht-Straße. Many such names, however, were deemed inappropriate (for various reasons) and, through decommunization, changed after a long process of review (so, for instance, Leninallee reverted to Landsberger Allee in 1991, and Dimitroffstraße reverted to Danziger Straße in 1995).

Another symbolic icon of the former East Berlin (and of East Germany as a whole) is the Ampelmännchen (tr. "little traffic light men"), a stylized version of a fedora-wearing man crossing the street, which is found on traffic lights at many pedestrian crosswalks throughout the former East. Following a civic debate about whether the Ampelmännchen should be abolished or disseminated more widely (due to concerns of consistency), several crosswalks in some parts of the former West Berlin began to employ the Ampelmännchen.

Twenty-five years after the two cities were reunified, the people of East and West Berlin still had noticeable differences between them, and these differences became more apparent among the older generations. The two groups also had sometimes-derogatory slang terms to refer to each other. A former East Berliner (or East German) was known as an "Ossi" (from the German word for east, Ost), and a former West Berliner (or West German) was known as a "Wessi" (from the German word for west, West). Both sides also engaged in stereotyping the other. A stereotypical Ossi had little ambition or poor work ethic and was chronically bitter, while a stereotypical Wessi was arrogant, selfish, impatient and pushy.

Boroughs

At the time of German reunification, East Berlin comprised the boroughs of
 * Friedrichshain
 * Hellersdorf (since 1986)
 * Hohenschönhausen (since 1985)
 * Köpenick
 * Lichtenberg
 * Marzahn (since 1979)
 * Mitte
 * Pankow
 * Prenzlauer Berg
 * Treptow
 * Weißensee

title: East Berlin


text:
Talk:Edmund Stoiber

Improvement
Is this the same man who is charged with cleaning up EU bureaucracy? The article doesn't seem to have been touched since 2007? 86.165.83.112 (talk) 11:37, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

This entry could be further improved. For instance it mentions "maintenance of internal security". What is this security internal to? There is probably also a standard translation of the German Ministerpresident. --Mjausson

I don't know the standard translations of special German words, cause I'm German, not English. However, "maintenance of internal security" means, among other things, making stricter laws against violence and terrorism if violence and terrorism occurs. -- IAm

So would "maintaining strict anti-terrorist laws" work for the phrase about internal security? --Mjausson

It's not only that. Not every kind of violence is caused by terrorism. Mr Stoiber just wants a country in which people feel save -- IAm

I think "prime minister" should be ok. It is used for all heads of governments, mostly of countries, but if you consider Germany's federal structure ... Governor means someone who was appointed by the central government in order to administer a province, which is not the case here. The US governors are called so because they were appointed by the British crown before the independence. "Land" is to be translated by "state", except if you want discuss the entity "Bundesland" in the German constitution, when you would leave the German word as it is. But in this case, state parliament is appropriate (imho). Any professional translators here? --zeno

Deutsche Welle uses in its English programme the term "Premier" for "Ministerpräsident". See: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1681951,00.html --Timo

PS: "internal security" means mostly "crime prevention". During election campaigns you may add anti-immigration/anti-immigrants politics, well, not only then :-(.

The image was from a CSU-Server, I think they are glad having people using their images (voters... ;-))

There is a GNU FDL Picture on the German Wikipedia, maybe someone could take it instead. -80.185.244.138 11:18, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

86.165.83.112 (talk) 11:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC) Is this the same man charged with cleaning up EU bureaucracy? The article doesn't seem to have been touched since 2007? 86.165.83.112 (talk) 11:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Given Name
Are you sure the name is right? In Germany we only know him as Edmund Stoiber, and "Rüdiger Rudi" sounds very strange because "Rudi" is in fact the short form of "Rüdiger". --80.129.187.171 22:35, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

His name is simply "Edmund Stoiber". "Rüdiger" or even "Rudi" is not mentioned on any official website. --84.154.91.59 14:55, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Portrait
Is there no Portrait of Stoiber alone? Having Villepin at the top of his page is quite ridiculous, don't you think? Jules LT 18:11, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

FDP conservative?
Food for thought. The classification of the FDP as part of Germany's conservative political wing in the "criticisms of Stoiber" section of the article is partly inaccurate if not wholely misleading. Most political scientists would not place the FDP in this category even if they have been the traditional coaltion partner of the CDU/CSU in the last 20 years. I think the article, and the section in particular, would have more accuracy by removing the FDP reference. Anyway. My two cents worth. --Robert Carter 18:05, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Compare with Oskar Lafontaine
This compare is objectiv wrong. It gives two arguments for that. The first is: Mr. Lafontaine is more left as Mr. Stoiber is right, and the second is: both are not coming from the end of the political spectrum. This would mean, that Eddie is rightextrem and Ossie is leftextrem. This is wrong. Ede is really not rightextrem, he´s conservative. And Ossi is even really far left, but extrem? I don´t think so! He isn´t a communist and was many years in the SPD!

Xcuse me for the bad English!

The infamous August 2005 campaign speech
I could have sworn he said something really stupid about eastern Germans while giving a speech in Schwandorf, Oberpfalz, not Baden-Wuerttemburg, and that's what got him in some hot water. --Texmandie 14:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Stoiber's fate is Viktor Orban's replay: bavarians learn from huge hungarian mistake!
I wish the general bavarian population would spend a minute to look at the situation in Hungary since 2002. They will note the striking similarity. The conservative hungarian PM Viktor Orbán was daemonized by the vastly opposition-leaning (liberal and ex-communist financed) media and turned people against him based on few personal attitude issues, like Orban's fancy of celebrations, everybody forgetting about his undeniable and well visible ecomomic and development achievements, first in almost 25 years!

Orban was sacked in the 2002 elections and then came two ex-communists PMs, who both admitted in most vulgar style to not doing anything and vastly fucking up state matters in their four-year term 2002-2006 (someone taped and leaked their close-quarters speeches). Yet, they refused to step down and the country of Hungary is now in economic and political turmoil and the ex-commie + libertine party gov't is now imposing huge tax increases to regain what they stole and wasted between 2002-2006. Mr. Viktor Orban remains diabolized in press and TV as heavily as ever.

Mr. Stoiber may be a disturbing or unsymphatetic person, but he led Bavaria to prosperity, way above Germany's average, BMW cars grow on trees and dogs pass beer there, almost. Seen from outside, current Bavaria is a fairy-tale princedom, who would not wish to live there? Dump him, why? What can be more important than prosperity?

Just because a young lady has hysteria, bavarians should not buy into an unknown new leader who may wreck the country quite easily. The Merkel witch, who is the main driving force behind killing off Stoiber is on the same poitical agenda as the hungarian ex-communist - libertine party alliance. They are on short leash control from the middle east and USA, would lick Bush's feet voluntarily. Competent, prosperity-bringing european leaders are not in isamerica's interest! 193.226.227.153 21:13, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Education - failing in the early years
Stoiber failed Latin in 7th grade at High School and hat to repeat the year. http://www.wissen.de/wde/generator/wissen/ressorts/geschichte/zeitgeschehen/index,page=1309532.html

There's nothing wrong about saying this. It only shows that Stoiber still could reach a lot in life although he had problems in school as a teenager! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.204.216.246 (talk) 11:02, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of Stoiber
I have the feeling that a cleanup of this section is needed, e.g., Angela Merkel's position on fiscal policy etc. is described in only a few words, without any references. This does not seem to meet Wikipedia standards. --Abrech (talk) 18:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

IPA
German being rhotic, isn't the terminal R pronounced?
 * No, it is not. The terminal R in "-er" is almost never pronounced. --zeno (talk) 13:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Role in 2005
He himself lost 10% of the Bavarian vote and it is unfair to blame him for this, since a) the comparison is the situation with a Bavarian candidate, himself; b) he might himself be campaigning but the people knew they wouldn't get Stoiber but Merkel.--77.4.61.142 (talk) 08:07, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

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List of international environmental agreements

This is a list of international environmental agreements.

Most of the following agreements are legally binding for countries that have formally ratified them. Some, such as the Kyoto Protocol, differentiate between types of countries and each nation's respective responsibilities under the agreement. Several hundred international environmental agreements exist but most cover only a limited number of countries. These bilateral or sometimes trilateral agreements are only binding for the countries that have ratified them but are nevertheless essential in the international environmental regime. Including the major conventions listed below, more than 3,000 international environmental instruments have been identified by the IEA Database Project.

Alphabetical order

 * Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, Aarhus, 1998
 * Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds
 * Alpine Convention together with its nine protocols
 * Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) (ABMT)
 * ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution
 * Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate
 * Barcelona Convention for Protection against Pollution in the Mediterranean Sea, 1976
 * Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, Basel, 1989
 * Biological Weapons Convention (Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological [Biological] and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction) (BWC)
 * Bonn Agreement
 * Carpathian Convention Framework Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians
 * Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
 * Chemical Weapons Convention
 * China Australia Migratory Bird Agreement
 * Coastal Marine and Island Biodiversity Conservation Project (Eritrea)
 * Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), 1996
 * Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), Canberra, 1980
 * Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora
 * Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
 * Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals
 * Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty
 * Convention for Co-operation in the Protection and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the West and Central African Region, Abidjan, 198
 * Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, Cartagena de Indias, 1983
 * Convention of the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region, Nairobi, 1985
 * Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and Coastal Area of the South-east Pacific, Lima, 1981
 * Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-east Atlantic (OSPAR Convention), Paris, 1992
 * Convention for the Protection of the Natural Resources and Environment of the South Pacific Region, Nouméa, 1986
 * Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (Assistance Convention), Vienna, 1986
 * Convention on the Ban of the Import into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movements and Management of Hazardous Wastes within Africa, Bamako, 1991
 * Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Nairobi, 1992
 * Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons
 * Convention on Civil Liability for Damage Caused during Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road, Rail, and Inland Navigation Vessels (CRTD), Geneva, 1989
 * Convention on Cluster Munitions
 * Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats
 * Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), Bonn, 1979
 * Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (Notification Convention), Vienna, 1986
 * Convention on Fishing and Conservation of Living Resources of the High Seas
 * Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), Washington, DC, 1973
 * Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution
 * Convention on Nature Protection and Wild Life Preservation in the Western Hemisphere, Washington, DC, 1940
 * Convention on Nuclear Safety, Vienna, 1994
 * EMEP Protocol
 * Heavy Metals Protocol
 * Multi-effect Protocol (Gothenburg protocol)
 * Nitrogen Oxide Protocol
 * POP Air Pollution Protocol
 * Sulphur Emissions Reduction Protocols 1985 and 1994
 * Volatile Organic Compounds Protocol
 * Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping Wastes and Other Matter
 * Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques
 * Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (ECE Water Convention), Helsinki, 1992
 * Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution, Bucharest, 1992
 * Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area 1992 Helsinki Convention, Helsinki, 1992
 * Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents, Helsinki, 1992
 * Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially As Waterfowl Habitat (notably not a Multilateral Environmental Agreement)
 * Convention to Ban the Importation into Forum Island Countries of Hazardous and Radioactive Wastes and to Control the Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within the South Pacific Region, Waigani, 1995
 * Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), Paris, 1994
 * Conventions within the UNEP Regional Seas Programme
 * Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions
 * Energy Community (Energy Community South East Europe Treaty) (ECSEE)
 * Espoo Convention Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context, Espoo, 1991
 * European Agreement Concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Inland Waterways (ADN), Geneva, 2000
 * European Agreement Concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR), Geneva, 1957
 * FAO International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides, Rome, 1985
 * FAO International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, Rome, 1983
 * Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea
 * Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), New York, 1992
 * Geneva Protocol (Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare)
 * International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), Rio de Janeiro, 1966
 * International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships
 * International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil, London, 1954, 1962, 1969
 * International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), Washington, 1946
 * International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
 * International Tropical Timber Agreement (expired), 1983
 * International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA), Geneva, 1994
 * Kuwait Regional Convention for Co-operation on the Protection of the Marine Environment from Pollution, Kuwait, 1978
 * Kyoto Protocol - greenhouse gas emission reductions
 * Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918
 * Minamata Convention on Mercury, 2013
 * Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, Montreal, 1989
 * Nagoya Protocol
 * North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation
 * Paris Agreement, France, 2015
 * Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty
 * Putrajaya Declaration of Regional Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Seas of East Asia, Malaysia, 2003
 * Ramsar Convention Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat, Ramsar, 1971
 * Regional Convention for the Conservation of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden Environment, Jeddah, 1982
 * Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, Rotterdam, 1998
 * Stockholm Convention Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants Stockholm, 2001
 * Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under Water
 * United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
 * United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
 * United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
 * Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, Vienna, 1985, including the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, Montreal, 1987
 * Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage, Vienna, 1963
 * Western Regional Climate Action Initiative
 * Working Environment (Air Pollution, Noise and Vibration) Convention, 1977

General

 * Aarhus Convention Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, Aarhus, 1998
 * Espoo Convention Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context, Espoo, 1991

Atmosphere

 * Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP), Geneva, 1979
 * Environmental Protection: Aircraft Engine Emissions, Annex 16, vol. 2 to the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, Montreal, 1981
 * Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), New York, 1992, including the Kyoto Protocol, 1997, and the Paris Agreement, 2015
 * Georgia Basin-Puget Sound International Airshed Strategy, Vancouver, Statement of Intent, 2002
 * U.S.-Canada Air Quality Agreement (bilateral U.S.-Canadian agreement on acid rain), 1986
 * Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, Vienna, 1985, including the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, Montreal, 1987

Freshwater resources

 * Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (ECE Water Convention), Helsinki, 1992

Hazardous substances

 * Convention on Civil Liability for Damage Caused during Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road, Rail, and Inland Navigation Vessels (CRTD), Geneva, 1989
 * Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, Basel, 1989
 * Convention on the Ban of the Import into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movements and Management of Hazardous Wastes Within Africa, Bamako, 1991
 * Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, Rotterdam, 1998
 * Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents, Helsinki, 1992
 * European Agreement Concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Inland Waterways (AND), Geneva, 2000
 * European Agreement Concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR), Geneva, 1957
 * FAO International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides, Rome, 1985
 * Minamata Convention on Mercury, Minamata, 2013
 * Stockholm Convention Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants Stockholm, 2001
 * Convention to Ban the Importation into Forum Island Countries of Hazardous and Radioactive Wastes and to Control the Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within the South Pacific Region, Waigani, 1995

Marine environment – global conventions

 * Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (London Convention), London, 1972
 * International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973, as modified by the Protocol of 1978 relating thereto (MARPOL 73/78), London, 1973 and 1978
 * International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil, London, 1954, 1962 and 1969
 * International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage (CLC), Brussels, 1969, 1976,1984 and 1992
 * International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage(FUND)1971 and 1992, Brussels, 1971/1992
 * International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea (HNS), London, 1996
 * International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation (OPRC), London, 1990
 * International Convention Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Oil Pollution Casualties Intervention Convention, Brussels, 1969
 * Protocol on Preparedness, Response and Co-operation to Pollution Incidents by Hazardous and Noxious Substances OPRC-HNS Protocol, London, 2000
 * United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea LOS Convention, Montego Bay, 1982

Marine environment – regional conventions

 * Convention for Co-operation in the Protection and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the West and Central African Region, Abidjan, 1981
 * Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment and Coastal Region of the Mediterranean Sea Barcelona Convention, Barcelona, 1976
 * Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, Cartagena de Indias, 1983
 * Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region (Nairobi Convention), Nairobi, 1985
 * Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and Coastal Area of the South-east Pacific, Lima, 1981
 * Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-east Atlantic OSPAR Convention, Paris, 1992
 * Convention for the Protection of the Natural Resources and Environment of the South Pacific Region, Nouméa, 1986
 * Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution, Bucharest, 1992
 * Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area Helsinki Convention (HELCOM), Helsinki, 1974, 1992
 * Conventions within the UNEP Regional Seas Programme
 * Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea
 * Kuwait Regional Convention for Co-operation on the Protection of the Marine Environment from Pollution, Kuwait, 1978
 * Regional Convention for the Conservation of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden Environment, Jeddah, 1982

Marine living resources

 * Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels
 * Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic area (ACCOBAMS), Monaco, 1996
 * Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas (ASCOBANS), New York, 1992
 * Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), Canberra, 1980
 * Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora
 * Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
 * Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals
 * Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty
 * Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), Bonn, 1979
 * International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), Rio de Janeiro, 1966
 * International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), Washington, 1946

Nature conservation and terrestrial living resources

 * Antarctic Treaty, Washington, DC, 1959
 * Amazon Cooperation Treaty, Brasilia, 1978
 * Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Nairobi, 1992
 * Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), Bonn, 1979
 * Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), Washington, DC, 1973
 * Organization of American States Convention on Nature Protection and Wild Life Preservation in the Western Hemisphere, Washington, DC, 1940
 * United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Paris, 1994
 * Food and Agriculture Organization International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources, Rome, 1983
 * the 1983 "voluntary undertaking" was updated and strengthened as the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Madrid, 2001
 * International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA), Geneva, 1994
 * Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Birds of Prey in Africa and Eurasia (Raptors MoU)
 * Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (a.k.a. the Convention on Wetlands), Ramsar, 1971
 * UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (a.k.a. the World Heritage Convention), Paris, 1972

Noise pollution

 * Working Environment (Air Pollution, Noise and Vibration) Convention, 1977

Nuclear safety

 * Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, 1996
 * Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (Assistance Convention), Vienna, 1986
 * Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (Notification Convention), Vienna, 1986
 * Convention on Nuclear Safety, Vienna, 1994
 * Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under Water
 * Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage, Vienna, 1963


text:
Epsilon

Epsilon (, ; uppercase Ε, lowercase ε or ϵ; έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel  or. In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was derived from the Phoenician letter He. Letters that arose from epsilon include the Roman E, Ë and Ɛ, and Cyrillic Е, È, Ё, Є and Э. The name of the letter was originally εἶ, but it was later changed to (e psilon 'simple e') in the Middle Ages to distinguish the letter from the digraph αι, a former diphthong that had come to be pronounced the same as epsilon.

The uppercase form of epsilon is identical to Latin $⟨E⟩$ but has its own code point in Unicode:. The lowercase version has two typographical variants, both inherited from medieval Greek handwriting. One, the most common in modern typography and inherited from medieval minuscule, looks like a reversed number "3" and is encoded. The other, also known as lunate or uncial epsilon and inherited from earlier uncial writing, looks like a semicircle crossed by a horizontal bar: it  is encoded. While in normal typography these are just alternative font variants, they may have different meanings as mathematical symbols: computer systems therefore offer distinct encodings for them. In TeX,  ( $$\epsilon\!$$ ) denotes the lunate form, while   ( $$\varepsilon\!$$ ) denotes the reversed-3 form. Unicode versions 2.0.0 and onwards use ɛ as the lowercase Greek epsilon letter, but in version 1.0.0, ϵ was used. The lunate or uncial epsilon provided inspiration for the euro sign, €.

There is also a 'Latin epsilon', $⟨ɛ⟩$ or "open e", which looks similar to the Greek lowercase epsilon. It is encoded in Unicode as and  and is used as an IPA phonetic symbol. This Latin uppercase epsilon, Ɛ, is not to be confused with the Greek uppercase Σ (sigma)

The lunate epsilon, $⟨ϵ⟩$, is not to be confused with the set membership symbol ∈. The symbol $$\in$$, first used in set theory and logic by Giuseppe Peano and now used in mathematics in general for set membership ("belongs to"), evolved from the letter epsilon, since the symbol was originally used as an abbreviation for the Latin word est. In addition, mathematicians often read the symbol ∈ as "element of", as in "1 is an element of the natural numbers" for $$1\in\N$$, for example. As late as 1960, ɛ itself was used for set membership, while its negation "does not belong to" (now ∉) was denoted by ε' (epsilon prime). Only gradually did a fully separate, stylized symbol take the place of epsilon in this role. In a related context, Peano also introduced the use of a backwards epsilon, ϶, for the phrase "such that", although the abbreviation s.t. is occasionally used in place of ϶ in informal cardinals.

Origin
The letter $⟨Ε⟩$ was adopted from the Phoenician letter He when Greeks first adopted alphabetic writing. In archaic Greek writing, its shape is often still identical to that of the Phoenician letter. Like other Greek letters, it could face either leftward or rightward, depending on the current writing direction, but, just as in Phoenician, the horizontal bars always faced in the direction of writing. Archaic writing often preserves the Phoenician form with a vertical stem extending slightly below the lowest horizontal bar. In the classical era, through the influence of more cursive writing styles, the shape was simplified to the current $⟨E⟩$ glyph.

Sound value
While the original pronunciation of the Phoenician letter He was, the earliest Greek sound value of Ε was determined by the vowel occurring in the Phoenician letter name, which made it a natural choice for being reinterpreted from a consonant symbol to a vowel symbol denoting an sound. Besides its classical Greek sound value, the short phoneme, it could initially also be used for other -like sounds. For instance, in early Attic before c. 500 BC, it was used also both for the long, open, and for the long close. In the former role, it was later replaced in the classic Greek alphabet by Eta ($⟨Η⟩$), which was taken over from eastern Ionic alphabets, while in the latter role it was replaced by the digraph spelling ΕΙ.

Epichoric alphabets
Some dialects used yet other ways of distinguishing between various e-like sounds.

In Corinth, the normal function of $⟨Ε⟩$ to denote and  was taken by a glyph resembling a pointed B, while $⟨Ε⟩$ was used only for long close. The letter Beta, in turn, took the deviant shape.

In Sicyon, a variant glyph resembling an $⟨X⟩$ was used in the same function as Corinthian.

In Thespiai (Boeotia), a special letter form consisting of a vertical stem with a single rightward-pointing horizontal bar was used for what was probably a raised variant of  in pre-vocalic environments. This tack glyph was used elsewhere also as a form of "Heta", i.e. for the sound.

Glyph variants
After the establishment of the canonical classical Ionian (Euclidean) Greek alphabet, new glyph variants for Ε were introduced through handwriting. In the uncial script (used for literary papyrus manuscripts in late antiquity and then in early medieval vellum codices), the "lunate" shape became predominant. In cursive handwriting, a large number of shorthand glyphs came to be used, where the cross-bar and the curved stroke were linked in various ways. Some of them resembled a modern lowercase Latin "e", some a "6" with a connecting stroke to the next letter starting from the middle, and some a combination of two small "c"-like curves. Several of these shapes were later taken over into minuscule book hand. Of the various minuscule letter shapes, the inverted-3 form became the basis for lower-case Epsilon in Greek typography during the modern era.

International Phonetic Alphabet
Despite its pronunciation as mid, in the International Phonetic Alphabet, the Latin epsilon represents open-mid front unrounded vowel, as in the English word pet.

Symbol
The uppercase Epsilon is not commonly used outside of the Greek language because of its similarity to the Latin letter E. However, it is commonly used in structural mechanics with Young's Modulus equations for calculating tensile, compressive and areal strain.

The Greek lowercase epsilon ε, the lunate epsilon symbol ϵ, and the Latin lowercase epsilon ɛ (see above) are used in a variety of places:

 * In engineering mechanics, strain calculations ϵ = increase of length / original length. Usually this relates to extensometer testing of metallic materials.
 * In mathematics
 * (In early calculus or nonstandard analysis) An infinitesimally small positive quantity is commonly denoted ε.
 * (In analysis) By extension, a quantity thought of as "small," "negligible," or, especially, "arbitrarily small," is often denoted ε. For instance, quantities subject to a limit which takes them towards zero are often denoted ε; see (ε, δ)-definition of limit.
 * Hilbert introduced epsilon terms $$\epsilon x.\phi$$ as an extension to first-order logic; see epsilon calculus.
 * it is used to represent the Levi-Civita symbol.
 * it is used to represent dual numbers: $$a+b \varepsilon$$, with $$\varepsilon^{2}=0$$ and $$\varepsilon \neq 0$$.
 * it is sometimes used to denote the Heaviside step function.
 * in set theory, the epsilon numbers are ordinal numbers that satisfy the fixed point ε = ωε. The first epsilon number, ε0, is the limit ordinal of the set {ω, ωω, ωω ω, ...}.
 * in numerical analysis and statistics it is used as the error term
 * in group theory it is used as the idempotent group when e is in use as a variable name
 * In computer science
 * it often represents the empty string, though different writers use a variety of other symbols for the empty string as well; usually the lower-case Greek letter lambda (λ).
 * the machine epsilon indicates the upper bound on the relative error due to rounding in floating point arithmetic.
 * In physics,
 * it indicates the permittivity of a medium; with the subscript 0 (ε0) it is the permittivity of free space.
 * it can also indicate the strain of a material (a ratio of extensions).
 * In automata theory, it shows a transition that involves no shifting of an input symbol.
 * In astronomy,
 * it stands for the fifth-brightest star in a constellation (see Bayer designation).
 * Epsilon is the name for the most distant and most visible ring of Uranus.
 * In planetary science, ε denotes the axial tilt.
 * In chemistry, it represents the molar extinction coefficient of a chromophore.
 * In economics, ε refers to elasticity.
 * In statistics,
 * it is used to refer to error terms.
 * it also can to refer to the degree of sphericity in repeated measures ANOVAs.
 * In agronomy, it is used to represent the "photosynthetic efficiency" of a particular plant or crop.

Unicode

 * Greek Epsilon

 * Coptic Eie

 * Latin Open E

 * Mathematical Epsilon

These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style.

title: Epsilon


text:
Eta

Eta (uppercase ', lowercase '; ἦτα ē̂ta or  ita ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel,. Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative,, in most dialects of Ancient Greek, its sound value in the classical Attic dialect was a long open-mid front unrounded vowel, , which was raised to in Hellenistic Greek, a process known as iotacism or itacism.

In the ancient Attic number system (Herodianic or acrophonic numbers), the number 100 was represented by "", because it was the initial of ΗΕΚΑΤΟΝ, the ancient spelling of ἑκατόν = "one hundred". In the later system of (Classical) Greek numerals eta represents 8.

Eta was derived from the Phoenician letter heth. Letters that arose from eta include the Latin H and the Cyrillic letters И and Й.

Consonant h

The letter shape 'H' was originally used in most Greek dialects to represent the voiceless glottal fricative,. In this function, it was borrowed in the 8th century BC by the Etruscan and other Old Italic alphabets, which were based on the Euboean form of the Greek alphabet. This also gave rise to the Latin alphabet with its letter H.

Other regional variants of the Greek alphabet (epichoric alphabets), in dialects that still preserved the sound, employed various glyph shapes for consonantal heta side by side with the new vocalic eta for some time. In the southern Italian colonies of Heracleia and Tarentum, the letter shape was reduced to a "half-heta" lacking the right vertical stem (Ͱ). From this sign later developed the sign for rough breathing or spiritus asper, which brought back the marking of the   sound into the standardized post-classical (polytonic) orthography. Dionysius Thrax in the second century BC records that the letter name was still pronounced heta (ἥτα), correctly explaining this irregularity by stating "in the old days the letter Η served to stand for the rough breathing, as it still does with the Romans."

Long e
In the East Ionic dialect, however, the sound disappeared by the sixth century BC, and the letter was re-used initially to represent a development of a long open front unrounded vowel,, which later merged in East Ionic with the long open-mid front unrounded vowel,  instead. In 403 BC, Athens took over the Ionian spelling system and with it the vocalic use of H (even though it still also had the sound itself at that time). This later became the standard orthography in all of Greece.

Itacism
During the time of post-classical Koiné Greek, the sound represented by eta was raised and merged with several other formerly distinct vowels, a phenomenon called iotacism or itacism, after the new pronunciation of the letter name as ita instead of eta.

Itacism is continued into Modern Greek, where the letter name is pronounced and represents the close front unrounded vowel,. It shares this function with several other letters (ι, υ) and digraphs (ει, οι), which are all pronounced alike.

Cyrillic script
Eta was also borrowed with the sound value of into the Cyrillic script, where it gave rise to the Cyrillic letter И.

Letter
In Modern Greek, due to iotacism, the letter (pronounced ) represents a close front unrounded vowel,. In Classical Greek, it represented the long open-mid front unrounded vowel,.

Upper case
The uppercase letter Η is used as a symbol in textual criticism for the Alexandrian text-type (from Hesychius, its once-supposed editor).

In chemistry, the letter H as symbol of enthalpy sometimes is said to be a Greek eta, but since enthalpy comes from ἐνθάλπος, which begins in a smooth breathing and epsilon, it is more likely a Latin H for 'heat'.

In information theory the uppercase Greek letter Η is used to represent the concept of entropy of a discrete random variable.

Lower case
The lowercase letter η is used as a symbol in:
 * Thermodynamics, the efficiency of a Carnot heat engine, or packing fraction.
 * Aeronautics, the propulsive efficiency, or percentage of chemical energy converted to kinetic energy.
 * Chemistry, the hapticity, or the number of atoms of a ligand attached to one coordination site of the metal in a coordination compound. For example, an allyl group can coordinate to palladium in the η¹ mode (only one atom of an allyl group attached to palladium) or the η³ mode (3 atoms attached to palladium).
 * Optics, the electromagnetic impedance of a medium, or the quantum efficiency of detectors.
 * Particle physics, to represent the η mesons.
 * Experimental particle physics, η stands for pseudorapidity.
 * Cosmology, η represents conformal time; dt = adη.
 * Cosmology, baryon–photon ratio.
 * Relativity and Quantum field theory (physics), η (with two subscripts) represents the metric tensor of Minkowski space (flat spacetime).
 * Statistics, η2 is the "partial regression coefficient". η is the symbol for the linear predictor of a generalized linear model, and can also be used to denote the median of a population, or thresholding parameter in Sparse Partial Least Squares regression.
 * Economics, η is the elasticity.
 * Astronomy, the seventh-brightest (usually) star in a constellation. See Bayer designation.
 * Mathematics, η-reduction in lambda calculus.
 * Mathematics, the Dirichlet eta function, Dedekind eta function, and Weierstrass eta function.
 * In category theory, the unit of an adjunction or monad is usually denoted η.
 * Biology, a DNA polymerase found in higher eukaryotes and implicated in Translesion Synthesis.
 * Neural network backpropagation, and stochastic gradient descent more generally, η stands for the learning rate.
 * Telecommunications, η stands for efficiency
 * Electronics, η stands for the ideality factor of a bipolar transistor, and has a value close to 1.000. It appears in contexts where the transistor is used as a temperature sensing device, e.g. the thermal "diode" transistor that is embedded within a computer's microprocessor.
 * Power electronics, η stands for the efficiency of a power supply, defined as the output power divided by the input power.
 * Atmospheric science, η represents absolute atmospheric vorticity.
 * Rheology, η represents viscosity.
 * Oceanography, η is the measurement (usually in metres) of sea-level height above or below the mean sea-level at that same location.

Mathematical Eta
These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style.

title: Eta