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Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greek ἐπίγραμμα (epígramma, "inscription", from ἐπιγράφειν [epigráphein], "to write on, to inscribe"). This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia.

The presence of wit or sarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams from aphorisms and adages, which typically do not show those qualities.

Ancient Greek
The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuaries – including statues of athletes – and on funerary monuments, for example "Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby...". These original epigrams did the same job as a short prose text might have done, but in verse. Epigram became a literary genre in the Hellenistic period, probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigrams.

Though modern epigrams are usually thought of as very short, Greek literary epigram was not always as short as later examples, and the divide between "epigram" and "elegy" is sometimes indistinct (they share a characteristic metre, elegiac couplets). In the classical period, the clear distinction between them was that epigrams were inscribed and meant to be read, while elegies were recited and meant to be heard. Some elegies could be quite short, but only public epigrams were longer than ten lines. All the same, the origin of epigram in inscription exerted a residual pressure to keep things concise, even when they were recited in Hellenistic times. Many of the characteristic types of literary epigram look back to inscriptional contexts, particularly funerary epigram, which in the Hellenistic era becomes a literary exercise. Many "sympotic" epigrams combine sympotic and funerary elements – they tell their readers (or listeners) to drink and live for today because life is short. Generally, any theme found in classical elegies could be and were adapted for later literary epigrams.

Hellenistic epigrams are also thought of as having a "point" – that is, the poem ends in a punchline or satirical twist. By no means do all Greek epigrams behave this way; many are simply descriptive, but Meleager of Gadara and Philippus of Thessalonica, the first comprehensive anthologists, preferred the short and witty epigram. Since their collections helped form knowledge of the genre in Rome and then later throughout Europe, Epigram came to be associated with 'point', especially because the European epigram tradition takes the Latin poet Martial as its principal model; he copied and adapted Greek models (particularly the contemporary poets Lucillius and Nicarchus) selectively and in the process redefined the genre, aligning it with the indigenous Roman tradition of "satura", hexameter satire, as practised by (among others) his contemporary Juvenal. Greek epigram was actually much more diverse, as the Milan Papyrus now indicates.

A major source for Greek literary epigram is the Greek Anthology, a compilation from the 10th century AD based on older collections, including those of Meleager and Philippus. It contains epigrams ranging from the Hellenistic period through the Imperial period and Late Antiquity into the compiler's own Byzantine era – a thousand years of short elegiac texts on every topic under the sun. The Anthology includes one book of Christian epigrams as well as one book of erotic and amorous homosexual epigrams called the Μοῦσα Παιδικἠ (Mousa Paidike, "The Boyish Muse").

Ancient Roman
Roman epigrams owe much to their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. Roman epigrams, however, were often more satirical than Greek ones, and at times used obscene language for effect. Latin epigrams could be composed as inscriptions or graffiti, such as this one from Pompeii, which exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to have been composed by a less educated person. Its content makes it clear how popular such poems were:

 * Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis
 * qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.

 * I'm astonished, wall, that you haven't collapsed into ruins,
 * since you're holding up the weary verse of so many poets.

However, in the literary world, epigrams were most often gifts to patrons or entertaining verse to be published, not inscriptions. Many Roman writers seem to have composed epigrams, including Domitius Marsus, whose collection Cicuta (now lost) was named after the poisonous plant Cicuta for its biting wit, and Lucan, more famous for his epic Pharsalia. Authors whose epigrams survive include Catullus, who wrote both invectives and love epigrams – his poem 85 is one of the latter.

 * Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
 * Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

 * I hate and I love. Maybe you'd like to know why I do?
 * I don't know, but I feel it happening, and I am tormented.

Martial, however, is considered to be the master of the Latin epigram. His technique relies heavily on the satirical poem with a joke in the last line, thus drawing him closer to the modern idea of epigram as a genre. Here he defines his genre against a (probably fictional) critic (in the latter half of 2.77):

 * Disce quod ignoras: Marsi doctique Pedonis
 * saepe duplex unum pagina tractat opus.
 * Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis,
 * sed tu, Cosconi, disticha longa facis.

 * Learn what you don't know: one work of (Domitius) Marsus or learned Pedo
 * often stretches out over a doublesided page.
 * A work isn't long if you can't take anything out of it,
 * but you, Cosconius, write even a couplet too long.

Poets known for their epigrams whose work has been lost include Cornificia.

English
In early English literature the short couplet poem was dominated by the poetic epigram and proverb, especially in the translations of the Bible and the Greek and Roman poets.

Two successive lines of verse that rhyme with each other are known as a couplet. Since 1600, the couplet has been featured as a part of the longer sonnet form, most notably in William Shakespeare's sonnets. Sonnet 76 is an example. The two-line poetic form as a closed couplet was also used by William Blake in his poem "Auguries of Innocence", and also by Byron in his poem Don Juan, by John Gay in his fables, and by Alexander Pope in his An Essay on Man.

The first work of English literature penned in North America was Robert Hayman's Quodlibets, Lately Come Over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland, which is a collection of over 300 epigrams, many of which do not conform to the two-line rule or trend. While the collection was written between 1618 and 1628 in what is now Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, it was published shortly after his return to Britain. In Victorian times the epigram couplet was often used by the prolific American poet Emily Dickinson. Her poem No. 1534 is a typical example of her eleven poetic epigrams. The novelist George Eliot also included couplets throughout her writings. Her best example is in her sequenced sonnet poem entitled Brother and Sister in which each of the eleven sequenced sonnet ends with a couplet. In her sonnets, the preceding lead-in-line, to the couplet ending of each, could be thought of as a title for the couplet, as is shown in Sonnet VIII of the sequence.

During the early 20th century, the rhymed epigram couplet form developed into a fixed verse image form, with an integral title as the third line. Adelaide Crapsey codified the couplet form into a two-line rhymed verse of ten syllables per line with her image couplet poem On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees, first published in 1915.

By the 1930s, the five-line cinquain verse form became widely known in the poetry of the Scottish poet William Soutar. These were originally labelled epigrams but later identified as image cinquains in the style of Adelaide Crapsey.

J. V. Cunningham was also a noted writer of epigrams (a medium suited to a "short-breathed" person).

Poetic epigrams

 * What is an Epigram? a dwarfish whole,
 * Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
 * — Samuel Taylor Coleridge ("Epigram", 1809)

 * Some can gaze and not be sick
 * But I could never learn the trick.
 * There's this to say for blood and breath;
 * They give a man a taste for death.
 * — A. E. Housman

 * Little strokes
 * Fell great oaks.
 * — Benjamin Franklin

 * Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
 * Now she's at rest – and so am I.
 * — John Dryden

 * Three Poets, in three distant Ages born,
 * Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
 * The First in loftiness of thought surpassed;
 * The Next in Majesty; in both the Last.
 * The force of Nature could no farther go:
 * To make a third she joined the former two.
 * — John Dryden ("Epigram on Milton", 1688 (Epigram about John Milton: many poets commented on Milton, including Dryden

 * We have a pretty witty king,
 * Whose word no man relies on.
 * He never said a foolish thing,
 * And never did a wise one.
 * — John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (epigram about Charles II of England)

 * I am His Highness' dog at Kew;
 * Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
 * — Alexander Pope

 * I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.
 * But Money gives me pleasure all the time.
 * — Hilaire Belloc

 * I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.
 * — Nikos Kazantzakis

 * To define the beautiful is to misunderstand it.
 * — Charles Robert Anon (Fernando Pessoa)

 * This Humanist whom no belief constrained
 * Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.
 * — J.V. Cunningham

 * All things pass
 * Love and mankind is grass.
 * — Stevie Smith

In art

 * "When Guns Speak, Death Settles Disputes" is Charles Marion Russell's epigrammatic title for a clash by gunfighters of the Old West in America.

title: Epigram


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El Cid

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (c. 1043 – 10 July 1099) was a Castilian knight and ruler in medieval Spain. Fighting both with Christian and Muslim armies during his lifetime, he earned the Arabic honorific as-Sayyid ("the Lord" or "the Master"), which would evolve into El Çid, and the Spanish honorific El Campeador ("the master of the Battlefield"). He was born in Vivar, a village near the city of Burgos.

As the head of his loyal knights, he came to dominate the Levante of the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 11th century. He reclaimed the Taifa of Valencia from Moorish control for a brief period during the Reconquista, ruling the principality as its Lordship of Valencia from 17 June 1094 until his death in 1099. His wife, Ximena Díaz, inherited the city and maintained it until 1102 when it was reconquered by the Moors.

Díaz de Vivar became well known for his service in the armies of both Christian and Muslim rulers. After his death, El Cid became Spain's most celebrated national hero and the protagonist of the most significant medieval Spanish epic poem, El Cantar de mio Cid, which presents him as the ideal medieval knight: strong, valiant, loyal, just, and pious.

There are various theories on his family history, which remains uncertain; however, he was the grandfather of García Ramírez de Pamplona, King of Navarre, the first son of his daughter Cristina Rodríguez. To this day, El Cid remains a popular Spanish folk hero and national icon, with his life and deeds remembered in popular culture.

Etymology: Cid and Campeador
Rodrigo Díaz was recognized with the honorary title of "Campeador" during his lifetime, as is evidenced by a document that he signed in 1098, which he signed in the Latinized expression, ego Rudericus Campidoctor. The title "Campeador" thus comes from the Latin Campidoctor, literally meaning "Teacher of the Field", but translatable as "Master of the Battlefield". Arabic sources from the late 11th century and early 12th century call him الكنبيطور (al-Kanbīṭūr), القنبيطور (al-Qanbīṭūr), also preceded by Rudrīq or Ludrīq, which are Arabized forms of his name and title.

The epithet of "El Cid" meant "the Lord", probably from the original Arabic (السَّيِّد), and was a title given to other Christian leaders. It has been conjectured that Rodrigo Díaz received the honorific title and respectful treatment of contemporaries in Zaragoza because of his victories in the service of the King of the Taifa of Zaragoza between 1081 and 1086; however, he more likely received the epithet after his conquest of Valencia in 1094. This title appears for the first time, as Meo Çidi, in the Poema de Almería, composed between 1147 and 1149.

The combination of "Cid Campeador" is documented from 1195 in Linaje de Rodrigo Díaz (The Lineage of Rodrigo Díaz) in Navarro-Aragonese which form part of the Liber regum written as mio Cit el Campiador; and in El Cantar de mio Cid.

Summary
Born a member of the minor nobility, El Cid was brought up at the court of Ferdinand the Great and served Ferdinand's son, Sancho II of León and Castile. He rose to become the commander and royal standard-bearer (armiger regis) of Castile upon Sancho's ascension in 1065. El Cid went on to lead the Castilian military campaigns against Sancho's brothers, Alfonso VI of León and García II of Galicia, as well as in the Muslim kingdoms in al-Andalus. He became renowned for his military prowess in these campaigns, which helped expand the territory of the Crown of Castile at the expense of the Muslims and Sancho's brothers' kingdoms.

When conspirators murdered Sancho in 1072, El Cid found himself in a difficult situation. Since Sancho was childless, the throne passed to his brother Alfonso, whom El Cid had helped remove from power. Although El Cid continued to serve the sovereign, he lost his ranking in the new court, which treated him suspiciously and kept him at arm's length. Finally, in 1081, he was exiled.

El Cid found work fighting for the Muslim rulers of Zaragoza, whom he defended from its traditional enemy, Aragon. While in exile, he regained his reputation as a strategist and formidable military leader. He was repeatedly victorious in battle against the Muslim rulers of Lérida and their Christian allies, as well as against a large Christian army under King Sancho Ramírez of Aragon. In 1086, an expeditionary army of North African Almoravids inflicted a severe defeat to Castile, compelling Alfonso to overcome the resentment he harboured against El Cid. The terms for El Cid's return to Christian service must have been attractive enough since El Cid soon found himself fighting for his former lord. Over the next several years, however, El Cid set his sights on the kingdom-city of Valencia, operating more or less independently of Alfonso, while politically supporting the Banu Hud and other Muslim dynasties opposed to the Almoravids. He gradually increased his control over Valencia; the Islamic ruler, Yahya al-Qadir, became his tributary in 1092. When the Almoravids instigated an uprising that resulted in the death of al-Qadir, El Cid responded by laying siege to the city. Valencia finally fell in 1094, and El Cid established an independent principality on the Mediterranean coast of Iberia. He ruled over a pluralistic society with the popular support of Christians and Muslims alike.

El Cid's final years were spent fighting the Almoravid Berbers. He inflicted upon them their first major defeat in 1094, on the plains of Caurte, outside Valencia, and continued opposing them until his death. Although El Cid remained undefeated in Valencia, Diego Rodríguez, his only son and heir, died fighting against the Almoravids in the service of Alfonso in 1097. After El Cid's death in 1099, his wife, Jimena Díaz, succeeded him as ruler of Valencia, but she was eventually forced to surrender the principality to the Almoravids in 1102.

Title

The name El Cid is a modern Spanish denomination composed of the article el meaning "the" and Cid, which derives from the Old Castilian loan word Çid borrowed from the dialectal Arabic word سيد sîdi or sayyid, which means "lord" or "master". The Mozarabs or the Arabs that served in his ranks may have addressed him in this way, which the Christians may have transliterated and adopted. Historians, however, have not yet found contemporary records referring to Rodrigo as Cid. Arab sources use instead Rudriq, Ludriq al-Kanbiyatur or al-Qanbiyatur (Rodrigo el Campeador).

The cognomen Campeador derives from Latin campi doctor, which means "battlefield master". He probably gained it during the campaigns of King Sancho II of Castile against his brothers, kings Alfonso VI of León and García II of Galicia. While his contemporaries left no historical sources that would have addressed him as Cid, they left plenty of Christian and Arab records, some even signed documents with his autograph, addressing him as Campeador, which prove that he used the Christian cognomen himself. The whole combination Cid Campeador is first documented c. 1195 in the Navarro-Aragonese Linage de Rodric Díaz included in the Liber Regum under the formula mio Cid el Campeador.

Origins
El Cid was born Rodrigo Díaz circa 1043 in Vivar, also known as Castillona de Bivar, a small town about ten kilometers (or six miles) north of Burgos, the capital of Castile. His father, Diego Laínez, was a courtier, bureaucrat, and cavalryman who had fought in several battles. Despite the fact that El Cid's mother's family was aristocratic, in later years, the peasants would consider him one of their own. However, his relatives were not major court officials; documents show that El Cid's paternal grandfather, Laín, confirmed only five documents of Ferdinand I's; his maternal grandfather, Rodrigo Álvarez, certified only two of Sancho II's; and El Cid's father confirmed only one.

Service under Sancho II
As a young man in 1057, El Cid fought against the Moorish stronghold of Zaragoza, making its emir al-Muqtadir a vassal of Sancho. In the spring of 1063, El Cid fought in the Battle of Graus, where Ferdinand's half-brother, Ramiro I of Aragon, was laying siege to the Moorish town of Graus, which was fought on Zaragozan lands in the valley of the river Cinca. Al-Muqtadir, accompanied by Castilian troops including El Cid, fought against the Aragonese. The party slew Ramiro I, setting the Aragonese army on the run, and emerged victorious. One legend has said that during the conflict, El Cid killed an Aragonese knight in single combat, thereby receiving the honorific title "Campeador".

When Ferdinand died, Sancho continued to enlarge his territory, conquering both Christian strongholds and the Moorish cities of Zamora and Badajoz. When Sancho learned that Alfonso was planning on overthrowing him in order to gain his territory, Sancho sent Cid to bring Alfonso back so that Sancho could speak to him.

Service under Alfonso VI

Sancho was assassinated in 1072, during a siege of his sister's town of Zamora. Since Sancho died unmarried and childless, all of his power passed to his brother Alfonso who, almost immediately, returned from exile in Toledo and took his seat as king of Castile and León. He was, however, deeply suspected of having been involved in Sancho's murder. According to the 11th century epic poem Cantar de mio Cid, the Castilian nobility led by El Cid and a dozen "oath-helpers" forced Alfonso to swear publicly on holy relics multiple times in front of Santa Gadea (Saint Agatha) Church in Burgos that he did not participate in the plot to kill his brother. This is not mentioned in the more reliable 12th century chronicle Historia Roderici, however. El Cid's position as armiger regis was taken away and given to his enemy, Count García Ordóñez.

In 1079, El Cid was sent by Alfonso VI to Seville to the court of al-Mutamid to collect the parias owed by that taifa to León–Castile. While he was there Granada, assisted by other Castilian knights, attacked Seville, and El Cid and his forces repulsed the Christian and Grenadine attackers at the Battle of Cabra, in the (probably mistaken) belief that he was defending the king's tributary. During the aftermath of this battle the Muslim troops under El Cid's command would hail him as Sayyidi. Count García Ordóñez and the other Castilian leaders were taken captive and held for three days before being released.

Exile
In the Battle of Cabra (1079), El Cid rallied his troops and turned the battle into a rout of Emir Abdullah of Granada and his ally García Ordóñez. This unauthorized expedition into Granada, however, greatly angered Alfonso and May 8, 1080 was the last time El Cid confirmed a document in King Alfonso's court. The most likely reason was El Cid's incursion into Toledo, which happened to be under the control of Alfonso’s vassal, Yahya Al-Qadir. Alfonso's anger over El Cid's unsanctioned incursion into his vassal's territory would lead him to exile the knight. This is the generally accepted reason for the exile of El Cid, although several others are plausible and indeed may have been contributing factors to the exile: jealous nobles turning Alfonso against El Cid through court intrigue, and Alfonso's own personal animosity towards El Cid. The song of El Cid and subsequent tales state that Alfonso’s and his court’s animosity toward Rodrigo was the primary reason the expulsion of the knights from León, as well as a possible misappropriation of some of the tribute from Seville by El Cid.

At first he went to Barcelona, where Ramon Berenguer II refused his offer of service.

Moorish service

The exile was not the end of El Cid, either physically or as an important figure. After being rejected by Ramon Berenguer II, El Cid journeyed to the Taifa of Zaragoza, where he received a warmer welcome. In 1081, El Cid went on to offer his services to the king of Zaragoza, Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud, and served both him and his successor, al-Musta'in II. He was given the title El Cid (The Master) and served as a leading figure in a diverse Moorish force consisting of Muwallads, Berbers, Arabs, and Malians within the respective Taifa.

According to Moorish accounts:

"Andalusi Knights found El Cid their foe ill, thirsty and exiled from the court of Alfonso, he was presented before the elderly Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud and accepted command of the forces of the Taifa of Zaragoza as their Master."

In his History of Medieval Spain (Cornell University Press, 1975), Joseph F. O'Callaghan writes:

"That kingdom was divided between al-Mutamin (1081–1085) who ruled Zaragoza proper, and his brother al-Mundhir, who ruled Lérida and Tortosa. El Cid entered al-Mutamin's service and successfully defended Zaragoza against the assaults of al-Mundhir, Sancho I of Aragón, and Ramon Berenguer II, whom he held captive briefly in 1082."

In 1082, the army of the Taifa of Zaragoza under El Cid defeated the Taifa of Lleida at the Battle of Almenar. In 1084, he defeated the Aragonese at the Battle of Morella near Tortosa, but in autumn the Castilians started a loose siege of Toledo and later the next year the Christians captured Salamanca, a stronghold of the Taifa of Toledo.

In 1086, the Almoravid invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, through and around Gibraltar, began. The Almoravids, a Berber dynasty from North Africa, led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, were asked to help defend the divided Moors from Alfonso. The Almoravid army, joined by that of several Taifas, including Badajoz, Málaga, Granada, Tortosa and Seville, defeated a combined army of León, Aragón, and Castile at the Battle of Sagrajas.

In 1087, Raymond of Burgundy and his Christian allies attempted to weaken the Taifa of Zaragoza's northernmost stronghold by initiating the Siege of Tudela and Alfonso captured Aledo, Murcia, blocking the route between the Taifas in the eastern and western Iberian Peninsula.

Recall from exile

Terrified after his crushing defeat, Alfonso recalled El Cid, rewarding him lavishly with lands and lordships, such as the fortress of Gormaz. In the year 1087 Alfonso sent him to negotiate with the emboldened Taifa kingdoms.

El Cid returned to Alfonso, but now he had his own plans. He only stayed a short while and then returned to Zaragoza. El Cid was content to let the Almoravid armies and the armies of Alfonso fight without his help, even when there was a chance that the Almoravids might defeat Alfonso and take over all of Alfonso's lands. El Cid chose not to fight because he was hoping that both armies would weaken themselves.

Conquest of Valencia
Around this time, El Cid, with a combined Christian and Moorish army, began maneuvering in order to create his own fief in the Moorish Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia. Several obstacles lay in his way. First was Berenguer Ramon II, who ruled nearby Barcelona. In May 1090, El Cid defeated and captured Berenguer in the Battle of Tébar (nowadays Pinar de Tévar, near Monroyo, Teruel). Berenguer was later released and his nephew Ramon Berenguer III married El Cid's youngest daughter Maria to ward against future conflicts.

Along the way to Valencia, El Cid also conquered other towns, many of which were near Valencia, such as El Puig and Quart de Poblet.

El Cid gradually came to have more influence in Valencia, then ruled by Yahya al-Qadir, of the Hawwara Berber Dhulnunid dynasty. In October 1092 an uprising occurred in Valencia, inspired by the city's chief judge Ibn Jahhaf and the Almoravids. El Cid began a siege of Valencia. A December 1093 attempt to break the siege failed. By the time the siege ended in May 1094, El Cid had carved out his own principality on the coast of the Mediterranean. Officially, El Cid ruled in the name of Alfonso; in practice, El Cid was fully independent. The city was both Christian and Muslim, and both Moors and Christians served in the army and as administrators. Jerome of Périgord was made bishop.

Death

El Cid and his wife Jimena Díaz lived peacefully in Valencia until the Almoravids besieged the city. But he defeated them and died 5 years later, on July 10, 1099.

Afterward Valencia was captured by Mazdali on May 5, 1102. Jimena fled to Burgos, Castile, in 1101. She rode into the town with her retinue and the body of El Cid. Originally buried in Castile in the monastery of, his body now lies at the center of Burgos Cathedral.

Legend of posthumous victory
After his demise, but still during the siege of Valencia, legend holds that Jimena ordered that the corpse of El Cid be fitted with his armor and set on his horse, Babieca, to bolster the morale of his troops. In several variations of the story, the dead Rodrigo and his knights win a thundering charge against Valencia's besiegers, resulting in a war-is-lost-but-battle-is-won catharsis for generations of Christian Spaniards to follow. It is believed that the legend originated shortly after Jimena entered Burgos, and that it is derived from the manner in which Jimena's procession rode into the city, i.e. alongside her deceased husband.

Battle tactics
During his campaigns, El Cid often ordered that books by classic Roman and Greek authors on military themes be read aloud to him and his troops, for both entertainment and inspiration before battle. El Cid's army had a novel approach to planning strategy as well, holding what might be called "brainstorming" sessions before each battle to discuss tactics. They frequently used unexpected strategies, engaging in what modern generals would call psychological warfare—waiting for the enemy to be paralyzed with terror and then attacking them suddenly; distracting the enemy with a small group of soldiers, etc. (El Cid used this distraction in capturing the town of Castejón as depicted in Cantar de mio Cid (The Song of my Cid).) El Cid accepted or included suggestions from his troops. In The Song the man who served him as his closest adviser was his vassal and kinsman Álvar Fáñez "Minaya" (meaning "My brother", a compound word of Spanish possessive Mi (My) and Anaia, the basque word for brother), although the historical Álvar Fáñez remained in Castile with Alfonso VI.

Babieca

Babieca, or Bavieca, was El Cid's warhorse. Several stories exist about El Cid and Babieca. One well-known legend about El Cid describes how he acquired the stallion. According to this story, Rodrigo's godfather, Pedro El Grande, was a monk at a Carthusian monastery. Pedro's coming-of-age gift to El Cid was his pick of a horse from an Andalusian herd. El Cid picked a horse that his godfather thought was a weak, poor choice, causing the monk to exclaim "Babieca!" (stupid!). Hence, it became the name of El Cid's horse. Another legend states that in a competition of battle to become King Sancho's "Campeador", or champion, a knight on horseback wished to challenge El Cid. The King wished a fair fight and gave El Cid his finest horse, Babieca, or Bavieca. This version says Babieca was raised in the royal stables of Seville and was a highly trained and loyal war horse, not a foolish stallion. The name in this instance could suggest that the horse came from the Babia region in León, Spain. In the poem Carmen Campidoctoris, Babieca appears as a gift from "a barbarian" to El Cid, so its name could also be derived from "Barbieca", or "horse of the barbarian".

Regardless, Babieca became a great warhorse, famous to the Christians, feared by El Cid's enemies, and loved by El Cid, who allegedly requested that Babieca be buried with him in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña. Babieca is mentioned in several tales and historical documents about El Cid, including The Lay of El Cid.

Swords
A weapon traditionally identified as El Cid's sword, Tizona, used to be displayed in the Army Museum (Museo del Ejército) in Toledo. In 1999, a small sample of the blade underwent metallurgical analysis which confirmed that the blade was made in Moorish Córdoba in the eleventh century and contained amounts of Damascus steel.

In 2007, the Autonomous Community of Castile and León bought the sword for €1.6 million, and it is currently on display at the Museum of Burgos.

El Cid also had a sword called Colada.

Wife and children

El Cid married Jimena Díaz, who was said to be part of an aristocratic family from Asturias, in the mid-1070s. The Historia Roderici calls her a daughter of a Count Diego Fernández de Oviedo. Tradition states that when El Cid first laid eyes on her, he was enamoured of her great beauty. El Cid and Jimena had two daughters, Cristina and María, and a son. The latter, Diego Rodríguez, was killed while fighting against the invading Muslim Almoravids from North Africa at the Battle of Consuegra in 1097. El Cid's daughters Cristina Rodríguez and María both married into noble families. Cristina married Ramiro, Lord of Monzón and grandson of García Sánchez III of Navarre.

Her own son, El Cid's grandson, would be elevated to the throne of Navarre as King García Ramírez. The other daughter, María (also known as Sol), is said first to have married a prince of Aragon, presumably the son of Peter I, and she later married Ramon Berenguer III, count of Barcelona. Both the poem and the chronicle may state a previous marriage to the infantes de Carrión; however, these marriages are not a historical fact and are an important element in the construction of the poem.

In literature, music, video games, and film
The figure of El Cid has been the source for many literary works, beginning with the Cantar de mio Cid, an epic poem from the 12th century which gives a partly-fictionalized account of his life, and was one of the early chivalric romances. This poem, along with similar later works such as the Mocedades de Rodrigo, contributed to portray El Cid as a chivalric hero of the Reconquista, making him a legendary figure in Spain. El Cid is one of the few examples of knight errantry formally recognized by the priest in Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605-1615).

In the early 17th century, the Spanish writer Guillén de Castro wrote a play called Las Mocedades del Cid, on which French playwright Pierre Corneille based one of his most famous tragicomedies, Le Cid. He was also a popular source of inspiration for Spanish writers of the Romantic period, such as Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, who wrote La Jura de Santa Gadea, or José Zorrilla, who wrote a long poem called La Leyenda del Cid. In 2019, Arturo Pérez-Reverte published the novel entitled Sidi: Un relato de frontera.

Herman Melville references El Cid when introducing the character of Samoa in Chapter 21 of Mardi (1849): "He alighted about six paces from where we stood, and balancing his weapon, eyed us bravely as the Cid".

In 1929, Chilean writer Vicente Huidobro published his poetic novel ''Mío Cid Campeador. Hazaña.'' This work, together with other novels (and plays) he published between 1929 and 1939, defied the traditional realistic style of the early 20th century Chilean novel. The English version was published in 1931.

Georges Bizet worked on Don Rodrigue in 1873 that was set aside and never completed. Jules Massenet wrote an opera, Le Cid, in 1885, based on Corneille's play of the same name. Claude Debussy began work in 1890 on an opera, Rodrigue et Chimène, which he abandoned as unsuitable for his temperament; it was orchestrated for performance by Edison Denisov circa 1993.

El Cid is portrayed by American actor Charlton Heston in a 1961 epic film of the same name directed by Anthony Mann, where the character of Doña Ximena is portrayed by Italian actress Sophia Loren. In 2020, Amazon Prime Video premiered a Spanish TV series with Jaime Lorente starring as El Cid.

In 1979, Crack, one of the most prominent progressive rock bands from Spain, released their first and only album Si Todo Hiciera Crack including "Marchando una del Cid", a song based on the epic legend of El Cid.

In 1980, Ruy, the Little Cid was an animated series based on El Cid's childhood made by Nippon Animation.

El Cid was described to inspire Ferny about his Spanish heritage in "The Legend of Raloo", episode 16 of season 1 of Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks in 2004.

In the second Age of Empires video game installment, The Conquerors expansion pack, there is a campaign starring El Cid Campeador.

In both the first and second Medieval: Total War games, El Cid appears as a powerful independent general in the castle of Valencia.

In 2003, the Spanish animated film El Cid: The Legend was released.

The Ministry of Time, a Spanish science fiction television series, portrayed El Cid in season 2, episode 1.

El Cid is a playable character in the Mobile/PC Game Rise of Kingdoms.

El Cid is a playable character in Crusader Kings II and Crusader Kings III in start dates corresponding to his historical rule over Valencia.

Primary

 * Kurtz, Barbara E. El Cid. University of Illinois.
 * I. Michael. The Poem of El Cid. Manchester: 1975.
 * The Song of El Cid. Translated by Burton Raffel. Penguin Classics, 2009.
 * Cantar de mío Cid – Spanish (free PDF)
 * Poema de Mio Cid, Códice de Per Abbat in the European Library (third item on page)
 * R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon (trans.) The Lay of El Cid. Semicentennial Publications of the University of California: 1868–1918. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.
 * Romancero e historia del muy valeroso caballero El Cid Ruy Díaz de Vibar (1828)
 * Cronica del muy esforçado cavallero el Cid ruy diaz campeador (1533)
 * Carmen Campidoctoris, a Latin poem on El Cid

Secondary (not cited)

 * Simon Barton and Richard Fletcher. The world of El Cid, Chronicles of the Spanish reconquest. Manchester: University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-7190-5225-4 hardback, ISBN 0-7190-5226-2 paperback.
 * Gonzalo Martínez Díez, "El Cid Histórico: Un Estudio Exhaustivo Sobre el Verdadero Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar", Editorial Planeta (Spain, June 1999). ISBN 84-08-03161-9
 * C. Melville and A. Ubaydli (ed. and trans.), Christians and Moors in Spain, vol. III, Arabic sources (711–1501). (Warminster, 1992).
 * Joseph F. O'Callaghan. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975
 * Peter Pierson. The History of Spain. Ed. John E. Findling and Frank W. Thacheray. Wesport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999. 34–36.
 * Bernard F. Reilly. The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, 1065–1109 Princeton, New Jersey: University Press, 1988.
 * Steven Thomas. 711–1492: Al-Andalus and the Reconquista.
 * M. J. Trow,El Cid The Making of a Legend, Sutton Publishing Limited, 2007.
 * Henry Edwards Watts. "The Story of El Cid (1026–1099)" in The Christian Recovery of Spain: The Story of Spain from the Moorish Conquest to the Fall of Granada (711–1492 AD). New York: Putnam, 1894. 71–91.
 * T.Y. Henderson. "Conquests Of Valencia"
 * J. I. Garcia Alonso, J. A. Martinez, A. J. Criado, "Origin of El Cid's sword revealed by ICP-MS metal analysis", Spectroscopy Europe, 11/4 (1999).
 * J. I. Garcia Alonso, J. A. Martinez, A. J. Criado, "Origin of El Cid's sword revealed by ICP-MS metal analysis", Spectroscopy Europe, 11/4 (1999).

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

title: El Cid


text:
Enjambment

In poetry, enjambment ( or ; from the French enjamber) is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next, without punctuation. Lines without enjambment are end-stopped. The origin of the word is credited to the French word enjamber, which means 'to straddle or encroach'.

In reading, the delay of meaning creates a tension that is released when the word or phrase that completes the syntax is encountered (called the rejet); the tension arises from the "mixed message" produced both by the pause of the line-end, and the suggestion to continue provided by the incomplete meaning. In spite of the apparent contradiction between rhyme, which heightens closure, and enjambment, which delays it, the technique is compatible with rhymed verse. Even in couplets, the closed or heroic couplet was a late development; older is the open couplet, where rhyme and enjambed lines co-exist.

Enjambment has a long history in poetry. Homer used the technique, and it is the norm for alliterative verse where rhyme is unknown. In the 32nd Psalm of the Hebrew Bible enjambment is unusually conspicuous. It was used extensively in England by Elizabethan poets for dramatic and narrative verses, before giving way to closed couplets. The example of John Milton in Paradise Lost laid the foundation for its subsequent use by the English Romantic poets; in its preface he identified it as one of the chief features of his verse: "sense variously drawn out from one verse into another".

Examples
The start of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, with only lines 4 and 7 end-stopped: "April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers."

These lines from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (c. 1611) are heavily enjambed (meaning enjambment is used): "I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are; the want of which vain dew Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have That honourable grief lodged here which burns Worse than tears drown."

Meaning flows as the lines progress, and the reader's eye is forced to go on to the next sentence. It can also make the reader feel uncomfortable or the poem feel like "flow-of-thought" with a sensation of urgency or disorder. In contrast, the following lines from Romeo and Juliet (c. 1595) are completely end-stopped:

"A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun for sorrow will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things. Some shall be pardon'd, and some punishèd."

Each line is formally correspondent with a unit of thought—in this case, a clause of a sentence. End-stopping is more frequent in early Shakespeare: as his style developed, the proportion of enjambment in his plays increased. Scholars such as Goswin König and A. C. Bradley have estimated approximate dates of undated works of Shakespeare by studying the frequency of enjambment.

Endymion by John Keats, lines 2–4: "Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us..."

The song "One Night In Bangkok", from the musical Chess, written by Tim Rice and Björn Ulvaeus, includes examples such as :

"The creme de la creme of the chess world in a Show with everything but Yul Brynner This grips me more than would a Muddy old river or reclining Buddha"

Closely related to enjambment is the technique of "broken rhyme" or "split rhyme" which involves the splitting of an individual word, typically to allow a rhyme with one or more syllables of the split word. In English verse, broken rhyme is used almost exclusively in light verse, such as to form a word that rhymes with "orange", as in this example by Willard Espy, in his poem "The Unrhymable Word: Orange": "The four eng- ineers Wore orange brassieres."

The clapping game "Miss Susie" uses the break "... Hell / -o operator" to allude to the taboo word "Hell", then replaces it with the innocuous "Hello".

title: Enjambment


text:
European Convention on Nationality

The European Convention on Nationality (E.T.S. No. 166 ) was signed in Strasbourg on 6 November 1997. It is a comprehensive convention of the Council of Europe dealing with the law of nationality. The convention is open for signature by the member States of the Council of Europe and the non-member States which have participated in its elaboration and for accession by other non-member States. The Convention came into force on 1 March 2000 after ratification by 3 countries. , the convention has been signed by 29 countries and ratified by 21 of those countries.

Provisions
Article 4(d) provides that neither marriage nor dissolution of marriage shall automatically affect the nationality of either spouse, nor shall a change of nationality by one spouse during marriage automatically affect the nationality of their spouse. Common practice among states at the beginning of the 20th century was that a woman was to have the nationality of her husband; i.e., upon marrying a foreigner the wife would automatically acquire the nationality of her husband, and lose her previous nationality. Even after the nationality of a married woman was no longer dependent on the nationality of her husband, legal provisions were still retained which automatically naturalised married women, and sometimes married men as well. This led to a number of problems, such as loss of the spouses' original nationality, the spouse losing the right to consular assistance (since consular assistance cannot be provided to nationals under the jurisdiction of a foreign state of which they are also nationals), and becoming subject to military service obligations. Article 4d addresses this situation.

Article 5 provides that no discrimination shall exist in a state's internal nationality law on the grounds of "sex, religion, race, colour or national or ethnic origin". It also provides that a state shall not discriminate amongst its nationals on the basis of whether they hold their nationality by birth or acquired it subsequently.

Article 6 relates to the acquisition of nationality. It provides for nationality to be acquired at birth by descent from either parent to those born within the territory of the state. (States may exclude partially or fully children born abroad). It also provides for nationality by virtue of birth in the territory of state; however, states may limit this to only children who would be otherwise stateless. It requires the possibility of naturalisation, and provides that the period of residence required for eligibility cannot be more than ten years lawful and habitual residence. It also requires to "facilitate" the acquisition of nationality by certain persons, including spouses of nationals, children of its nationals born abroad, children one of whose parents has acquired the nationality, children adopted by a national, persons lawfully and habitually resident for a period before the age of eighteen, and stateless persons and refugees lawfully and habitually resident on its territory.

Article 7 regulates the involuntary loss of nationality. It provides that states may deprive their nationals of their nationality in only the cases of voluntary acquisition of another nationality, fraud or failure to provide relevant information when acquiring nationality, voluntary military service in a foreign military force, or adoption as a child by foreign nationals. It also provides for the possibility of loss of nationality for nationals habitually residing abroad. Finally, it provides loss of nationality for "conduct seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the State Party".

Article 8 provides nationals with the right to renounce their nationality, providing they do not thereby become stateless. States may however restrict this right with respect to nationals residing abroad.

Status
, the following countries have signed or ratified the convention:

title: European Convention on Nationality


text:
English orthography

English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.

Like the orthography of most world languages, English orthography has a broad degree of standardisation. This standardisation began to develop when movable type spread to England in the late 15th century. However, unlike with most languages, there are multiple ways to spell every phoneme, and most letters also represent multiple pronunciations depending on their position in a word and the context.

This is partly due to the large number of words that have been borrowed from a large number of other languages throughout the history of English, without successful attempts at complete spelling reforms, and partly due to accidents of history, such as some of the earliest mass-produced English publications being typeset by highly trained, multilingual printing compositors, who occasionally used a spelling pattern more typical for another language. For example, the word ghost was spelled gost in Middle English, until the Flemish spelling pattern was unintentionally substituted, and happened to be accepted. Most of the spelling conventions in Modern English were derived from the phonemic spelling of a variety of Middle English, and generally do not reflect the sound changes that have occurred since the late 15th century (such as the Great Vowel Shift). As a result of this, many words are spelled the way that they were pronounced more than 600 years ago, instead of being spelled like they are pronounced in the 21st century.

Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most recognised variations being British and American spelling, and its overall uniformity helps facilitate international communication. On the other hand, it also adds to the discrepancy between the way English is written and spoken in any given location.

Phonemic representation
Letters in English orthography positioned at one location within a specific word usually represent a particular phoneme. For example, at consists of 2 letters  and, which represent  and , respectively.

Sequences of letters may perform this role as well as single letters. Thus, in thrash, the digraph (two letters) represents. In hatch, the trigraph represents.

Less commonly, a single letter can represent multiple successive sounds. The most common example is, which normally represents the consonant cluster (for example, in tax ).

The same letter (or sequence of letters) may be pronounced differently when occurring in different positions within a word. For instance, represents  at the end of some words (tough ) but not in others (plough ). At the beginning of syllables, is pronounced, as in ghost. Conversely, $⟨gh⟩$ is never pronounced in syllable onsets other than in inflected forms, and is almost never pronounced  in syllable codas (the proper name Pittsburgh is an exception).

Some words contain silent letters, which do not represent any sound in modern English pronunciation. Examples include the in talk, half, calf, etc., the  in two and sword,  as mentioned above in numerous words such as though, daughter, night, brought, and the commonly encountered silent  (discussed further below).

Word origin
Another type of spelling characteristic is related to word origin. For example, when representing a vowel, represents the sound  in some words borrowed from Greek (reflecting an original upsilon), whereas the letter usually representing this sound in non-Greek words is the letter. Thus, myth is of Greek origin, while pith  is a Germanic word. However, a large number of Germanic words have in word-final position.

Some other examples are pronounced  (which is most commonly $⟨f⟩$), and  pronounced  (which is most commonly  or ). The use of these spellings for these sounds often marks words that have been borrowed from Greek.

Some researchers, such as Brengelman (1970), have suggested that, in addition to this marking of word origin, these spellings indicate a more formal level of style or register in a given text, although Rollings (2004) finds this point to be exaggerated as there would be many exceptions where a word with one of these spellings, such as for  (like telephone), could occur in an informal text.

Homophone differentiation
Spelling may also be useful to distinguish in written language between homophones (words with the same pronunciation but different meanings), and thus resolve potential ambiguities that would arise otherwise. However in most cases the reason for the difference is historical, and it was not introduced to resolve amibiguity.

 * Examples

 * heir and air are pronounced identically in most dialects, but spelt differently.

 * pain and pane are both pronounced but have two different spellings of the vowel . This arose because the two words were originally pronounced differently: pain used to be pronounced as, with a diphthong, and pane as , but the diphthong  merged with the long vowel  in pane, making pain and pane homophones (pane–pain merger). Later  became a diphthong.

 * break and brake: (She's breaking the car vs. She's braking the car).

Nevertheless, many homophones remain that are unresolved by spelling (for example, the word bay has at least five fundamentally different meanings).

Marking sound changes in other letters
Some letters in English provide information about the pronunciation of other letters in the word. Rollings (2004) uses the term "markers" for such letters. Letters may mark different types of information.

For instance, in once  indicates that the preceding  is pronounced, rather than the more common value of  in word-final position as the sound , such as in attic.

also often marks an altered pronunciation of a preceding vowel. In the pair mat and mate, the of mat has the value, whereas the  of mate is marked by the  as having the value. In this context, the is not pronounced, and is referred to as a "silent e".

A single letter may even fill multiple pronunciation-marking roles simultaneously. For example, in the word ace, marks not only the change of  from  to, but also of  from  to. In the word vague, marks the long  sound, but  keeps the  hard rather than soft.

Doubled consonants usually indicate that the preceding vowel is pronounced short. For example, the doubled in batted indicates that the  is pronounced, while the single  of bated gives. Doubled consonants only indicate any lengthening or gemination of the consonant sound itself when they come from different morphemes, as with the in unnamed (un+named).

Multiple functionality
Any given letters may have dual functions. For example, in statue has a sound-representing function (representing the sound ) and a pronunciation-marking function (marking the  as having the value  opposed to the value ).

Underlying representation
Like many other alphabetic orthographies, English spelling does not represent non-contrastive phonetic sounds (that is, minor differences in pronunciation which are not used to distinguish between different words).

Although the letter is pronounced by most speakers with aspiration  at the beginning of words, this is never indicated in the spelling, and, indeed, this phonetic detail is probably not noticeable to the average native speaker not trained in phonetics.

However, unlike some orthographies, English orthography often represents a very abstract underlying representation (or morphophonemic form) of English words.

"[T]he postulated underlying forms are systematically related to the conventional orthography ... and are, as is well known, related to the underlying forms of a much earlier historical stage of the language. There has, in other words, been little change in lexical representation since Middle English, and, consequently, we would expect ... that lexical representation would differ very little from dialect to dialect in Modern English ... [and] that conventional orthography is probably fairly close to optimal for all modern English dialects, as well as for the attested dialects of the past several hundred years."

In these cases, a given morpheme (i.e., a component of a word) has a fixed spelling even though it is pronounced differently in different words. An example is the past tense suffix -, which may be pronounced variously as, , or (for example, pay , payed , hate , hated ). As it happens, these different pronunciations of - can be predicted by a few phonological rules, but that is not the reason why its spelling is fixed.

Another example involves the vowel differences (with accompanying stress pattern changes) in several related words. For instance, photographer is derived from photograph by adding the derivational suffix -. When this suffix is added, the vowel pronunciations change largely owing to the moveable stress:

Other examples of this type are the - suffix (as in agile vs. agility, acid vs. acidity, divine vs. divinity, sane vs. sanity). See also: Trisyllabic laxing.

Another example includes words like mean and meant, where  is pronounced differently in the two related words. Thus, again, the orthography uses only a single spelling that corresponds to the single morphemic form rather than to the surface phonological form.

English orthography does not always provide an underlying representation; sometimes it provides an intermediate representation between the underlying form and the surface pronunciation. This is the case with the spelling of the regular plural morpheme, which is written as either - (as in tat, tats and hat, hats) or - (as in glass, glasses). Here, the spelling - is pronounced either or  (depending on the environment, e.g., tats  and tails ) while - is usually pronounced  (e.g. classes ). Thus, there are two different spellings that correspond to the single underlying representation || of the plural suffix and the three surface forms. The spelling indicates the insertion of before the  in the spelling -, but does not indicate the devoiced  distinctly from the unaffected  in the spelling -.

The abstract representation of words as indicated by the orthography can be considered advantageous since it makes etymological relationships more apparent to English readers. This makes writing English more complex, but arguably makes reading English more efficient. However, very abstract underlying representations, such as that of Chomsky & Halle (1968) or of underspecification theories, are sometimes considered too abstract to accurately reflect the communicative competence of native speakers. Followers of these arguments believe the less abstract surface forms are more "psychologically real" and thus more useful in terms of pedagogy.

Diacritics
English has some words that can be written with accents. These words are mostly loanwords, usually from French. As they become increasingly naturalised, there is an increasing tendency to omit the accent marks, even in formal writing. For example, rôle and hôtel originally had accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accents are almost never used. The words were originally considered foreign—and some people considered that English alternatives were preferable—but today their foreign origin is largely forgotten. Words most likely to retain the accent are those atypical of English morphology and therefore still perceived as slightly foreign. For example, café and pâté both have a pronounced final, which would otherwise be silent under the normal English pronunciation rules. Moreover, in pâté, the acute accent is helpful to distinguish it from pate.

Further examples of words sometimes retaining diacritics when used in English are: ångström (partly because the scientific symbol for this unit of measurement is "Å"), appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac, Brötchen, cliché, crème, crêpe, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, jalapeño, naïve, naïveté, né(e), papier-mâché, passé, piñata, protégé, résumé, risqué, and voilà. Italics, with appropriate accents, are generally applied to foreign terms that are uncommonly used in or have not been assimilated into English: for example, adiós, belles-lettres, crème brûlée, pièce de résistance, raison d'être, and vis-à-vis.

It was formerly common in American English to use a diaeresis to indicate a hiatus, e.g. coöperate, daïs, and reëlect. The New Yorker and Technology Review magazines still use it for this purpose, even though it is increasingly rare in modern English. Nowadays, the diaeresis is normally left out (cooperate), or a hyphen is used (co-operate) if the hiatus is between two morphemes in a compound word. It is, however, still common in monomorphemic loanwords such as naïve and Noël.

Written accents are also used occasionally in poetry and scripts for dramatic performances to indicate that a certain normally unstressed syllable in a word should be stressed for dramatic effect, or to keep with the metre of the poetry. This use is frequently seen in archaic and pseudoarchaic writings with the -ed suffix, to indicate that the should be fully pronounced, as with cursèd.

The acute and grave accents are occasionally used in poetry and lyrics: the acute to indicate stress overtly where it might be ambiguous (rébel vs. rebél) or nonstandard for metrical reasons (caléndar); the grave to indicate that an ordinarily silent or elided syllable is pronounced (warnèd, parlìament).

Ligatures
In certain older texts (typically British), the use of the ligatures and  is common in words such as archæology, diarrhœa, and encyclopædia, all of Latin or Greek origin. Nowadays, the ligatures have been generally replaced by the digraphs $⟨ed⟩$ and $⟨ae⟩$ (encyclopaedia, diarrhoea) in British English or just (encyclopedia, diarrhea) in American English, though both spell some words with only  (economy, ecology) and others with  and  (paean, amoeba, oedipal, Caesar). In some cases, usage may vary; for instance, both encyclopedia and encyclopaedia are current in the UK.

Phonic irregularities
Partly because English has never had any official regulating authority for spelling, such as the Spanish Real Academia Española, the French Académie française, and the German Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung, English spelling, compared to many other languages, is quite irregular and complex. Although French, among other languages, presents a similar degree of difficulty when encoding (writing), English is more difficult when decoding (reading), as there are clearly many more possible pronunciations of a group of letters. For example, in French, (as in "true", but short), can be spelled  (ou, nous, tout, choux), but the pronunciation of each of those sequences is always the same. In English, can be spelled in up to 24 different ways, including  (spook, truth, suit, blues, to, shoe, group, through, few) (see Sound-to-spelling correspondences below), but all of these have other pronunciations as well (e.g., as in foot, us, build, bluest, so, toe, grout, plough, sew) (See the Spelling-to-sound correspondences below). Thus, in unfamiliar words and proper nouns, the pronunciation of some sequences, Ough (orthography) being the prime example, is unpredictable to even educated native English speakers.

Spelling irregularities
Attempts to regularise or reform the spelling of English have usually failed. However, Noah Webster popularised more phonetic spellings in the United States, such as flavor for British flavour, fiber for fibre, defense for defence, analyze for analyse, catalog for catalogue, and so forth. These spellings already existed as alternatives, but Webster's dictionaries helped standardise them in the US. (See American and British English spelling differences for details.)

Besides the quirks the English spelling system has inherited from its past, there are other irregularities in spelling that make it tricky to learn. English contains, depending on dialect, 24–27 consonant phonemes and 13–20 vowels. However, there are only 26 letters in the modern English alphabet, so there is not a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds. Many sounds are spelled using different letters or multiple letters, and for those words whose pronunciation is predictable from the spelling, the sounds denoted by the letters depend on the surrounding letters. For example, represents two different sounds (the voiced and voiceless dental fricatives) (see Pronunciation of English th), and the voiceless alveolar sibilant can be represented by  or.

It is, however, not (solely) the shortage of letters which makes English spelling irregular. Its irregularities are caused mainly by the use of many different spellings for some of its sounds, such as and  (too, true, shoe, flew, through; sleeve, leave, even, seize, siege; stole, coal, bowl, roll, old, mould), and the use of identical sequences for spelling different sounds (over, oven, move).

Furthermore, English no longer makes any attempt to anglicise the spellings of loanwords, but preserves the foreign spellings, even when they do not follow English spelling conventions like the Polish in Czech (rather than *Check) or the Norwegian  in fjord (although fiord was formerly the most common spelling). In early Middle English, until roughly 1400, most imports from French were respelled according to English rules (e.g. bataille–battle, bouton–button, but not double, or trouble). Instead of loans being respelled to conform to English spelling standards, sometimes the pronunciation changes as a result of pressure from the spelling, e.g. ski, adopted from Norwegian in the mid-18th century. It used to be pronounced, similar to the Norwegian pronunciation, but the increasing popularity of the sport after the mid-20th century helped the pronunciation replace it.

There was also a period when the spelling of a small number of words was altered to make them conform to their perceived etymological origins. For example, was added to debt (originally dette) to link it to the Latin debitum, and  in island to link it to Latin insula instead of its true origin, the Old English word īġland. in ptarmigan has no etymological justification whatsoever, only seeking to show Greek origin despite being a Gaelic word.

The spelling of English continues to evolve. Many loanwords come from languages where the pronunciation of vowels corresponds to the way they were pronounced in Old English, which is similar to the Italian or Spanish pronunciation of the vowels, and is the value the vowel symbols have in the International Phonetic Alphabet. As a result, there is a somewhat regular system of pronouncing "foreign" words in English, and some borrowed words have had their spelling changed to conform to this system. For example, Hindu used to be spelled Hindoo, and the name Maria used to be pronounced like the name Mariah, but was changed to conform to this system. This only further complicates the spelling, however. On the one hand, words that retained anglicised spellings may be misread in a hyperforeign way. On the other hand, words that are respelled in a 'foreign' way may be misread as if they are English words, e.g. Muslim was formerly spelled Mooslim because of its original pronunciation.

Commercial advertisers have also had an effect on English spelling. They introduced new or simplified spellings like lite instead of light, thru instead of through, and rucsac instead of rucksack. The spellings of personal names have also been a source of spelling innovations: diminutive versions of women's names that sound the same as men's names have been spelled differently: Nikki and Nicky, Toni and Tony, Jo and Joe. The differentiation in between names that are spelled differently but have the same phonetic sound may come from modernisation or different countries of origin. For example, Isabelle and Isabel sound the same but are spelled differently; these versions are from France and Spain respectively.

As an example of the irregular nature of English spelling, can be pronounced at least nine different ways:  in out,  in soul,  in soup,  in touch,  in could,  in four,  in journal,  in cough, and  in famous (See Spelling-to-sound correspondences). In the other direction, can be spelled in at least 18~21 different ways: be (cede), ski (machine), bologna (GA), algae, quay, beach, bee, deceit, people, key, keyed, field (hygiene), amoeba, chamois (GA) , dengue (GA) , beguine, guyot, and ynambu (See Sound-to-spelling correspondences). (These examples assume a more-or-less standard non-regional British English accent. Other accents will vary.)

Sometimes everyday speakers of English change a counterintuitive spelling simply because it is counterintuitive. Changes like this are not usually seen as "standard", but can become standard if used enough. An example is the word miniscule, which still competes with its original spelling of minuscule, though this might also be because of analogy with the word mini.

History
Inconsistencies and irregularities in English pronunciation and spelling have gradually increased in number throughout the history of the English language. There are a number of contributing factors. First, gradual changes in pronunciation, such as the Great Vowel Shift, account for a tremendous number of irregularities. Second, relatively recent loan words generally carry their original spellings, which are often not phonetic in English. The Romanization of languages (e.g., Chinese) has further complicated this problem, for example when pronouncing Chinese proper names (of people or places).

The regular spelling system of Old English was swept away by the Norman Conquest, and English itself was supplanted in some spheres by Norman French for three centuries, eventually emerging with its spelling much influenced by French. English had also borrowed large numbers of words from French, and kept their French spellings. The spelling of Middle English is very irregular and inconsistent, with the same word being spelled in different ways, sometimes even in the same sentence. However, these were generally much better guides to the then-pronunciation than modern English spelling is.

For example,, normally written , is spelled with an in one, some, love, etc., due to Norman spelling conventions which prohibited writing  before  due to the graphical confusion that would result. ( were written identically with two minims in Norman handwriting; was written as two  letters;  was written with three minims, hence  looked like, etc.). Similarly, spelling conventions also prohibited final. Hence the identical spellings of the three different vowel sounds in love, move, and cove are due to ambiguity in the Middle English spelling system, not sound change.

In 1417, Henry V began using English, which had no standardised spelling, for official correspondence instead of Latin or French which had standardised spelling, e.g. Latin had one spelling for right (rectus), Old French as used in English law had six and Middle English had 77. This motivated writers to standardise English spelling, an effort which lasted about 500 years.

There was also a series of linguistic sound changes towards the end of this period, including the Great Vowel Shift, which resulted in the in ate, for example, changing from a pure vowel to a diphthong. These changes for the most part did not detract from the rule-governed nature of the spelling system; but, in some cases, they introduced confusing inconsistencies, like the well-known example of the many pronunciations of (tough, through, though, cough, plough, etc.). Most of these changes happened before the arrival of printing in England. However, the arrival of the modern printing press in 1476 froze the current system, rather than providing the impetus for a realignment of spelling with pronunciation. Furthermore, it introduced further inconsistencies, partly because of the use of typesetters trained abroad, particularly in the Low Countries. For example, the $⟨oe⟩$ in ghost was influenced by Flemish. The addition and deletion of a silent e at the ends of words was also sometimes used to make the right-hand margin line up more neatly.

By the time dictionaries were introduced in the mid-17th century, the spelling system of English had started to stabilise. By the 19th century, most words had set spellings, though it took some time before they diffused throughout the English-speaking world. In The Mill on the Floss (1860), English novelist George Eliot satirised the attitude of the English rural gentry of the 1820s towards orthography:

"Mr. Tulliver did not willingly write a letter, and found the relation between spoken and written language, briefly known as spelling, one of the most puzzling things in this puzzling world. Nevertheless, like all fervid writing, the task was done in less time than usual, and if the spelling differed from Mrs. Glegg's,–why, she belonged, like himself, to a generation with whom spelling was a matter of private judgment."

The modern English spelling system, with its national variants, spread together with the expansion of public education later in the 19th century.

"Ough" words
The tetragraph can be pronounced in at least ten different ways, six of which are illustrated in the construct, Though the tough cough and hiccough plough him through, which is quoted by Robert A. Heinlein in The Door into Summer to illustrate the difficulties facing automated speech transcription and reading. Ough itself is a word, an exclamation of disgust similar to ugh, though rarely known or used. The following are typical pronunciations of this string of letters:

 * (as in so) in though and dough
 * (as in cuff) in tough, rough, enough, and the name Hough
 * (as in off) in trough, cough, and Gough
 * (as in blue) in through
 * (as in saw) in thought, ought, sought, nought, brought, etc.
 * (as in comma) in thorough, borough, and names ending in -borough; however, American English pronounces this as
 * (as in how) in bough, sough, drought, plough (plow in North America), doughty, and the names Slough and Doughty
 * (as in loch; mainly in words of Gaelic origin) in the word lough (an anglicised variant of loch used in Ireland) and in Irish place names, such as Ardclough, Glendalough, Loughmoe, Loughrea, etc.

The following pronunciations are found in uncommon single words: The place name Loughborough uses two different pronunciations of : the first has the sound as in cuff and the second rhymes with thorough.
 * hough: (more commonly spelled "hock" now)
 * hiccough (a now-uncommon variant of hiccup): as in up
 * Oughterard (Irish place name):

Spelling-to-sound correspondences
Notes:
 * In the tables, the hyphen has two different meanings. A hyphen after the letter indicates that it must be at the beginning of a syllable, e.g., - in jumper and ajar. A hyphen before the letter indicates that it cannot be at the beginning of a word, e.g., - in sick and ticket.
 * More specific rules take precedence over more general ones, e.g., "- before " takes precedence over "".
 * Where the letter combination is described as "word-final", inflectional suffixes may be added without changing the pronunciation, e.g., catalogues.
 * The dialects used are Received Pronunciation and General American. When pronunciations differ idiosyncratically, a pronunciation that only applies to one of the dialects is noted as being (RP) or (GA). When pronunciations differ systematically in a way that is not accounted for by the diaphonemic transcription system (i.e. the trap-bath and lot-cloth splits), the pronunciations in both dialects are given.
 * Isolated foreign borrowings are excluded.

Vowels
In a generative approach to English spelling, Rollings (2004) identifies twenty main orthographic vowels of stressed syllables that are grouped into four main categories: "Lax", "Tense", "Heavy", "Tense-R".

For instance, can represent the lax vowel, tense , heavy , or tense-r. Heavy and tense-r vowels are the respective lax and tense counterparts followed by.

Tense vowels are distinguished from lax vowels with a "silent" that is added at the end of words. Thus, in hat is lax, but when  is added in the word hate  is tense. Heavy and tense-r vowels follow a similar pattern, e.g. in car is heavy,  followed by silent  in care is. represents two different vowel patterns, one being, the other. There is no distinction between heavy and tense-r, and in the  pattern does not have a heavy vowel.

Besides silent, another strategy for indicating tense and tense-r vowels is the addition of another orthographic vowel forming a digraph. In this case, the first vowel is usually the main vowel while the second vowel is the "marking" vowel. For example, man has a lax, but the addition of  (as the digraph ) in main marks the  as tense. These two strategies produce words that are spelled differently but pronounced identically, which helps differentiate words that would otherwise be homonyms, as in mane (silent strategy), main (digraph strategy) and Maine (both strategies).

Besides the 20 basic vowel spellings, has a reduced vowel category (representing the sounds ) and a miscellaneous category (representing the sounds  and +V, +V, V+V).

Combinations of vowel letters (excluding followed by $⟨h⟩$)
To reduce dialectal difficulties, the sound values given here correspond to the conventions at Help:IPA/English. This table includes when they represent vowel sounds. If no information is given, it is assumed that the vowel is in a stressed syllable.

Deriving the pronunciation of an English word from its spelling requires not only a careful knowledge of the rules given below (many of which are not explicitly known even by native speakers: speakers merely learn the spelling of a word along with its pronunciation) and their many exceptions, but also:

 * a knowledge of which syllables are stressed and which are unstressed (not derivable from the spelling: compare hallow and allow)
 * which combinations of vowels represent monosyllables and which represent disyllables (ditto: compare waive and naive, creature and creator)

The pronunciation of vowel letters when followed by $⟨r⟩$ is covered in a separate table below.

Sound-to-spelling correspondences
The following table shows for each sound the various spelling patterns used to denote it, starting with the prototypical pattern(s) followed by others in alphabetical order. Some of these patterns are very rare or unique (such as for,  for ,  for ). An ellipsis stands for an intervening consonant.

Consonants
Arranged in the order of the IPA consonant tables.

Vowels
Nasal vowels used by some speakers in words of French origin such as enceinte ({{IPAc-en|Q~|"|s|{~|t}}), are not included.

Vowels followed by $⟨r⟩$
Nasal vowels used by some speakers in words of French origin such as enceinte ({{IPAc-en|Q~|"|s|{~|t}}), are not included.

Orthographies of English-related languages

 * Germanic languages
 * Danish
 * Dutch
 * German
 * Icelandic
 * Scots

 * Romance languages
 * French
 * Italian
 * Milanese
 * Portuguese
 * Spanish

 * Celtic languages
 * Irish
 * Scottish Gaelic
 * Welsh

 * Historical languages
 * Latin
 * Old Norse
 * Old English

 * Constructed languages
 * Esperanto

title: English orthography