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Lake Travis

Lake Travis is a reservoir on the Colorado River in central Texas in the United States. It is named in honor of William B. Travis.

Serving principally as a flood-control reservoir, Lake Travis' historical minimum to maximum water height change is nearly 100 feet. For example, following the 2018 Llano River flood (the Llano River feeds into the Colorado River), Lake Travis saw a 20-foot depth increase within a single 24-hour period of time. With 30 square miles of surface area, Lake Travis has the largest storage capacity of the seven reservoirs known as the Highland Lakes, and stretches 65 miles (105 km) upriver from western Travis County (near Lago Vista, Texas) in a highly serpentine course into southern Burnet County to Max Starcke Dam, southwest of the town of Marble Falls. Besides being used for flood control and as a water supply, the lake is also used for electrical power generation and recreation.

The Pedernales River, a major tributary of the Colorado River, flows into the lake from southwestern Travis County.

Creation
The reservoir was formed in 1942 by the construction of Mansfield Dam on the western edge of Austin, Texas by the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), and was built specifically to contain floodwaters in a flash-flood prone region. During its construction, after a severe flood in July 1938, the height of the dam was raised to add storage capacity for floodwaters.

Ferry service
Regularly scheduled ferry service between Point Venture and the south side of Hurst Creek began in April 1971, operated by Point Venture Development Co. The trip took 20 minutes and was the only inland ferry service in Texas at the time.

September 2020 boat sinkings
On September 5, 2020, a boat parade took place in support of Donald Trump. The Travis County Sheriff's office reported that they had received multiple calls involving boats in distress, and that several boats had sunk. The weather was calm, but the boats generated significant wake as they began to move together, which subsequently sank at least five boats.

Recreational uses
Lake Travis is well known for its outdoor recreation opportunities, including fishing, boating, swimming, scuba diving, picnicking, camping, and zip lining. Hippie Hollow Park, located near the eastern end of Lake Travis, is the only legal clothing optional park in Texas. Lake Travis is generally considered one of the clearest lakes in Texas. It is a vital water supply for the nearby city of Austin, Texas and the surrounding metropolitan area.

Fatality rankings
In a ranking of Texas lakes by accidental fatalities, Lake Travis was in first place in 2011 and tied for second place for total deaths from 2000–2015.

Six people drowned in Lake Travis in 2018, out of 29 total boating deaths reported across Texas that year.

Fish populations
Lake Travis has been stocked with several species of fish intended to improve the utility of the reservoir for recreational fishing. Fish present in Lake Travis include largemouth bass, guadalupe bass, white bass, striped bass, catfish and sunfish.

In spring 2008 there were several reports of leeches residing in Lake Travis. The leeches are generally harmless to humans but can be a nuisance.

Lake levels
Lake Travis is considered "full" (at maximum desired capacity) when the lake's water level is at 681 ft above mean sea level (msl). Above 681 ft, flood control gates at Mansfield Dam are opened under the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The level of the lake can vary dramatically—with an over 96-foot range between its historical high and low—depending on the amount of rainfall in the Colorado River basin upstream. The historic high level on the lake was 710.4 ft above msl on December 25, 1991, a little less than four feet below the dam's top/spillway at 714 ft above msl. The historic low was 614.2 ft above msl on August 14, 1951.

Droughts
The extreme drought of 2008–2009 brought the lake to its fourth lowest level at 626.09 ft above msl in November 2009. The second lowest level was 615.02 ft above msl on November 8, 1963. During the 2010–13 Southern United States drought, levels went as low as 618 feet, making it the third lowest level ever. The LCRA, a public utility whose responsibilities include the management of Lake Travis, makes water level reports available on the internet. In April 2016, the lake returned to its full capacity at 681 ft.

Floods
Lake Travis serves as the primary flood control reservoir of the Highland Lake chain. The LCRA, under advisement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is responsible for floodgate operations at Mansfield Dam. Ideally, this is done in a time-delayed fashion after a major rainfall so as to either mitigate or outright prevent downstream flooding which otherwise would have been both immediate and extreme without the dam's presence. As Lake Travis levels increase during major floods, floodgate operations are conducted to protect property around Lake Travis as well as the dam itself.

While the dam's physical design assists in its own protection during floods, extensive spillway operations, a worst-case scenario which has not happened in the lake's history, could undermine the dam's base and affect its overall integrity. Under such conditions, operations are primarily intended to protect the dam, and lake water may be released to the dam's full, 24-floodgate capacity—regardless of downstream effects—to prevent the catastrophic loss of the dam. Including its hydroelectric generators but not the spillway, at 681 feet above msl the dam's total maximum discharge capacity is more than 130,000 cubic feet per second (cfs); a bit under one million gallons per second. Rates of discharge increase as water levels/pressures increase.

title: Lake Travis


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Lake Austin

Lake Austin, formerly Lake McDonald, is a water reservoir on the Colorado River in Austin, Texas. The reservoir was formed in 1939 by the construction of Tom Miller Dam by the Lower Colorado River Authority. Lake Austin is one of the seven Highland Lakes created by the LCRA, and is used for flood control, electrical power generation, and recreation.

Hydrology
Lake Austin is a part of Texas' Colorado River; it begins below Mansfield Dam and is principally fed by the outflow of Lake Travis. The lake meanders generally from northwest to southeast, with few significant tributaries; the largest are Bull Creek, entering from the north near where Loop 360 spans the lake at the Pennybacker Bridge, and Bee Creek, entering from the west just above Tom Miller Dam, where the lake ends. Its outflow through Tom Miller Dam then becomes the principal inflow for Lady Bird Lake.

Lake Austin is maintained as a constant-level lake by releases of water from Lake Travis upstream. The other Highland Lake reservoirs on the Colorado River are Lake Buchanan, Inks Lake, Lake LBJ, Lake Marble Falls, and Lake Travis upstream, and Lady Bird Lake downstream.

History
The first lake on the same site was named Lake McDonald, a reservoir formed by the construction of Austin Dam between 1890 and 1893. In 1900 a heavy rainstorm overwhelmed and destroyed the first Austin Dam, causing extensive flooding. The dam began to be rebuilt in 1915, but repairs were abandoned because of a contract dispute, and the unfinished dam was again destroyed in a heavy storm later that year. In 1938 the Lower Colorado River Authority began building the Tom Miller Dam; the dam was completed and the lake filled in 1939.

Recreational uses
Lake Austin is a popular fishing and boating destination.

Boating
Numerous companies rent out sailboats, motorboats, jet skis/waverunners, canoes, pontoon boats, and large party boats in the Austin area.

The Austin Parks and Recreation Department offers classes in canoeing, kayaking, and sailing.

Fish and wildlife populations
Lake Austin has been stocked with several species of fish intended to improve the utility of the reservoir for recreational fishing. The lake is considered to have an excellent stock of largemouth bass. Other fish present include catfish and sunfish.

Lake Austin is one of the Texas Highland Lakes infested with hydrilla, a non-native aquatic plant species. The Lower Colorado River Authority has intentionally lowered the water levels in the lake in the months of January and February so that freezing air temperatures might destroy substantial portions of the hydrilla in the lake each winter. As of March 2014, hydrilla has been completely eliminated from the lake through the stocking of Asian grass carp by the City of Austin. As of September 2016 the grass carp released into Lake Austin have begun to devastate the lake’s natural resources. This has led to a decline in the wildlife native to this section of the Colorado River.

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

title: Lake Austin


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Ulster Scots dialect

Ulster Scots or Ulster-Scots (Ulstèr-Scotch, Albainis Uladh),  also known as Ulster Scotch and Ullans, is the dialect of Scots spoken in parts of Ulster, being almost exclusively spoken in parts of Northern Ireland and County Donegal. It is generally considered a dialect or group of dialects of Scots, although groups such as the Ulster-Scots Language Society and Ulster-Scots Academy consider it a language in its own right, and the Ulster-Scots Agency and former Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure have used the term Ulster-Scots language.

Some definitions of Ulster Scots may also include Standard English spoken with an Ulster Scots accent. This is a situation like that of Lowland Scots and Scottish Standard English with words pronounced using the Ulster Scots phonemes closest to those of Standard English. Ulster Scots has been influenced by Hiberno-English, particularly Ulster English, and by Ulster Irish. As a result of the competing influences of English and Scots, varieties of Ulster Scots can be described as "more English" or "more Scots".

Names
While once referred to as Scotch-Irish by several researchers, that has now been superseded by the term Ulster Scots. Speakers usually refer to their vernacular as 'Big Scots', 'Scotch' or 'the hamely tongue'. Since the 1980s Ullans, a neologism popularized by the physician, amateur historian and politician Ian Adamson, merging Ulster and Lallans, the Scots for Lowlands, but also an acronym for "Ulster-Scots language in literature and native speech" and Ulstèr-Scotch, the preferred revivalist parlance, have also been used. Occasionally, the term Habitual-Scots appears, whether for the vernacular or the ethnic group.

Speaker population and spread
During the middle of the 20th century, the linguist Robert John Gregg established the geographical boundaries of Ulster's Scots-speaking areas based on information gathered from native speakers. By his definition, Ulster Scots is spoken in mid and east Antrim, north Down, north-east County Londonderry, and in the fishing villages of the Mourne coast. It is also spoken in the Laggan district and parts of the Finn Valley in east Donegal and in the south of Inishowen in north Donegal. Writing in 2020, the Fintona-born linguist Warren Maguire argued that some of the criteria that Gregg used as distinctive of Ulster Scots are common in south-west Tyrone and were found in other sites across Northern Ireland investigated by the Linguistic Survey of Scotland.

The 1999 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey found that 2% of Northern Ireland residents claimed to speak Ulster Scots, which would mean a total speech community of approximately 30,000 in the territory. Other estimates range from 35,000 in Northern Ireland, to an "optimistic" total of 100,000 including the Republic of Ireland (mainly the east of County Donegal). Speaking at a seminar on 9 September 2004, Ian Sloan of the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) accepted that the 1999 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey "did not significantly indicate that unionists or nationalists were relatively any more or less likely to speak Ulster Scots, although in absolute terms there were more unionists who spoke Ulster Scots than nationalists".

In the 2021 census of Northern Ireland, 20,930 people (1.14% of the population) stated that they can speak, read, write and understand Ulster Scots, 26,570 people (1.45% of the population) stated they can speak but cannot read or write Ulster Scots, and 190,613 people (10.38% of the population) reported having some knowledge of it.

Linguistic status

The majority of linguists treat Ulster Scots as a variety of the Scots language; Caroline Macafee, for example, writes that "Ulster Scots is [...] clearly a dialect of Central Scots." The Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure considers Ulster Scots to be "the local variety of the Scots language." Some linguists, such as Raymond Hickey, treat Ulster Scots (and other forms of Scots) as a dialect of English. It has been said that its "status varies between dialect and language".

Enthusiasts such as Philip Robinson (author of Ulster-Scots: a Grammar of the Traditional Written and Spoken Language ), the Ulster-Scots Language Society and supporters of an Ulster-Scots Academy are of the opinion that Ulster Scots is a language in its own right. That position has been criticised by the Ulster-Scots Agency, a BBC report stating: "[The Agency] accused the academy of wrongly promoting Ulster-Scots as a language distinct from Scots." This position is reflected in many of the Academic responses to the "Public Consultation on Proposals for an Ulster-Scots Academy"

Legal status
Ulster Scots is defined in an Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Ireland establishing implementation bodies done at Dublin on the 8th day of March 1999 in the following terms:

"'Ullans' is to be understood as the variety of the Scots language traditionally found in parts of Northern Ireland and Donegal."

The North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999, which gave effect to the implementation bodies incorporated the text of the agreement in its Schedule 1.

The declaration made by the British Government regarding the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages reads as follows:

"The United Kingdom declares, in accordance with Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Charter that it recognises that Scots and Ulster Scots meet the Charter's definition of a regional or minority language for the purposes of Part II of the Charter."

This recognition differed significantly from the commitments entered into under the Charter in relation to Irish, for which specific provisions under Part III were invoked for the protection and promotion of that language. The definition of Ullans from the North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999 above was used on 1 July 2005 Second Periodical Report by the United Kingdom to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe outlining how the UK met its obligations under the Charter.

The Good Friday Agreement (which does not refer to Ulster Scots as a "language") recognises Ulster Scots as "part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland", and the Implementation Agreement established the cross-border Ulster-Scots Agency (Tha Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch).

The legislative remit laid down for the agency by the North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999 is: "the promotion of greater awareness and the use of Ullans and of Ulster-Scots cultural issues, both within Northern Ireland and throughout the island".

The agency has adopted a mission statement: to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster Scots as a living language; to encourage and develop the full range of its attendant culture; and to promote an understanding of the history of the Ulster-Scots people. Despite the Agency's reference to Ulster Scots as "a language", this eliding of the distinction between Ulster Scots as a linguistic form, and "Ulster Scots culture" broadly referring to cultural forms associated with the Scottish-descended population, continued thereafter.

The Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 amended the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to insert a section (28D) entitled Strategies relating to Irish language and Ulster Scots language etc. which inter alia laid on the Executive Committee a duty to "adopt a strategy setting out how it proposes to enhance and develop the Ulster Scots language, heritage and culture." This reflects the wording used in the St Andrews Agreement to refer to the enhancement and development of "the Ulster Scots language, heritage and culture". There is still controversy on the status of Ulster Scots.

History and literature
Scots, mainly Gaelic-speaking, had been settling in Ulster since the 15th century, but large numbers of Scots-speaking Lowlanders, some 200,000, arrived during the 17th century following the 1610 Plantation, with the peak reached during the 1690s. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one.

Literature from shortly before the end of the unselfconscious tradition at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost identical with contemporary writing from Scotland. W. G. Lyttle, writing in Paddy McQuillan's Trip Tae Glesco, uses the typically Scots forms kent and begood, now replaced in Ulster by the more mainstream Anglic forms knew, knowed or knawed and begun. Many of the modest contemporary differences between Scots as spoken in Scotland and Ulster may be due to dialect levelling and influence from Mid Ulster English brought about through relatively recent demographic change rather than direct contact with Irish, retention of older features or separate development.

The earliest identified writing in Scots in Ulster dates from 1571: a letter from Agnes Campbell of County Tyrone to Queen Elizabeth on behalf of Turlough O'Neil, her husband. Although documents dating from the Plantation period show conservative Scots features, English forms started to predominate from the 1620s as Scots declined as a written medium.

In Ulster Scots-speaking areas there was traditionally a considerable demand for the work of Scottish poets, often in locally printed editions. These include Alexander Montgomerie's The Cherrie and the Slae in 1700; shortly over a decade later an edition of poems by Sir David Lindsay; nine printings of Allan Ramsay's The Gentle shepherd between 1743 and 1793; and an edition of Robert Burns' poetry in 1787, the same year as the Edinburgh edition, followed by reprints in 1789, 1793 and 1800. Among other Scottish poets published in Ulster were James Hogg and Robert Tannahill.

That was complemented by a poetry revival and nascent prose genre in Ulster, which started around 1720. The most prominent of these was the rhyming weaver poetry, of which, some 60 to 70 volumes were published between 1750 and 1850, the peak being in the decades 1810 to 1840, although the first printed poetry (in the Habbie stanza form) by an Ulster Scots writer was published in a broadsheet in Strabane in 1735. These weaver poets looked to Scotland for their cultural and literary models and were not simple imitators but clearly inheritors of the same literary tradition following the same poetic and orthographic practices; it is not always immediately possible to distinguish traditional Scots writing from Scotland and Ulster. Among the rhyming weavers were James Campbell (1758–1818), James Orr (1770–1816), Thomas Beggs (1749–1847), David Herbison (1800–1880), Hugh Porter (1780–1839) and Andrew McKenzie (1780–1839).

Scots was also used in the narrative by Ulster novelists such as W. G. Lyttle (1844–1896) and Archibald McIlroy (1860–1915). By the middle of the 19th century the Kailyard school of prose had become the dominant literary genre, overtaking poetry. This was a tradition shared with Scotland which continued into the early 20th century. Scots also frequently appeared in Ulster newspaper columns, especially in Antrim and Down, in the form of pseudonymous social commentary employing a folksy first-person style. The pseudonymous Bab M'Keen (probably successive members of the Weir family: John Weir, William Weir, and Jack Weir) provided comic commentaries in the Ballymena Observer and County Antrim Advertiser for over a hundred years from the 1880s.

A somewhat diminished tradition of vernacular poetry survived into the 20th century in the work of poets such as Adam Lynn, author of the 1911 collection Random Rhymes frae Cullybackey, John Stevenson (died 1932), writing as "Pat M'Carty", and John Clifford (1900–1983) from East Antrim. In the late 20th century the poetic tradition was revived, albeit often replacing the traditional Modern Scots orthographic practice with a series of contradictory idiolects. Among the significant writers is James Fenton, mostly using a blank verse form, but also occasionally the Habbie stanza. He employs an orthography that presents the reader with the difficult combination of eye dialect, dense Scots, and a greater variety of verse forms than employed hitherto. The poet Michael Longley (born 1939) has experimented with Ulster Scots for the translation of Classical verse, as in his 1995 collection The Ghost Orchid. The writing of Philip Robinson (born 1946) has been described as verging on "post-modern kailyard". He has produced a trilogy of novels Wake the Tribe o Dan (1998), The Back Streets o the Claw (2000) and The Man frae the Ministry (2005), as well as story books for children Esther, Quaen o tha Ulidian Pechts and Fergus an tha Stane o Destinie, and two volumes of poetry Alang the Shore (2005) and Oul Licht, New Licht (2009).

A team in Belfast has begun translating portions of the Bible into Ulster Scots. The Gospel of Luke was published in 2009 by the Ullans Press. It is available in the YouVersion Bible Project.

Since the 1990s

In 1992 the Ulster-Scots Language Society was formed for the protection and promotion of Ulster Scots, which some of its members viewed as a language in its own right, encouraging use in speech, writing and in all areas of life.

Within the terms of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages the British Government is obliged, among other things, to:
 * Facilitate and/or encourage of the use of Scots in speech and writing, in public and private life.
 * Provide appropriate forms and means for the teaching and study of the language at all appropriate stages.
 * Provide facilities enabling non-speakers living where the language is spoken to learn it if they so desire.
 * Promote study and research of the language at universities of equivalent institutions.

The Ulster-Scots Agency, funded by DCAL in conjunction with the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, is responsible for promotion of greater awareness and use of Ullans and of Ulster-Scots cultural issues, both within Northern Ireland and throughout the island. The agency was established as a result of the Belfast Agreement of 1998. Its headquarters are on Great Victoria Street in central Belfast, while the agency has a major office in Raphoe, County Donegal.

In 2001 the Institute of Ulster Scots Studies was established at the University of Ulster.

An Ulster Scots Academy has been planned with the aim of conserving, developing, and teaching the language of Ulster-Scots in association with native speakers to the highest academic standards.

The 2010 documentary The Hamely Tongue by filmmaker Deaglán O Mocháin traces back the origins of this culture and language, and relates its manifestations in today's Ireland.

New orthographies
By the early 20th century the literary tradition was almost extinct, though some 'dialect' poetry continued to be written. Much revivalist Ulster Scots has appeared, for example as "official translations", since the 1990s. However, it has little in common with traditional Scots orthography as described in Grant and Dixon's Manual of Modern Scots (1921). Aodán Mac Póilin, an Irish language activist, has described these revivalist orthographies as an attempt to make Ulster Scots an independent written language and to achieve official status. They seek "to be as different to English (and occasionally Scots) as possible". He described it as a hotchpotch of obsolete words, neologisms (example: stour-sucker for vacuum cleaner), redundant spellings (example: qoho for who) and "erratic spelling". This spelling "sometimes reflects everyday Ulster Scots speech rather than the conventions of either modern or historic Scots, and sometimes does not". The result, Mac Póilin writes, is "often incomprehensible to the native speaker". In 2000, John Kirk described the "net effect" of that "amalgam of traditional, surviving, revived, changed, and invented features" as an "artificial dialect". He added,"It is certainly not a written version of the vestigial spoken dialect of rural County Antrim, as its activists frequently urge, perpetrating the fallacy that it's wor ain leid. (Besides, the dialect revivalists claim not to be native speakers of the dialect themselves!) The colloquialness of this new dialect is deceptive, for it is neither spoken nor innate. Traditional dialect speakers find it counter-intuitive and false..."

In 2005, Gavin Falconer questioned officialdom's complicity, writing: "The readiness of Northern Ireland officialdom to consign taxpayers' money to a black hole of translations incomprehensible to ordinary users is worrying". Recently produced teaching materials, have, on the other hand, been evaluated more positively.

Sample texts
The three text excerpts below illustrate how the traditional written form of Ulster Scots from the 18th to early 20th century was virtually indistinguishable from contemporary written Scots from Scotland.

The Muse Dismissed (Hugh Porter 1780–1839)

 * Be hush'd my Muse, ye ken the morn
 * Begins the shearing o' the corn,
 * Whar knuckles monie a risk maun run,
 * An' monie a trophy's lost an' won,
 * Whar sturdy boys wi' might and main
 * Shall camp, till wrists an' thumbs they strain,
 * While pithless, pantin' wi' the heat,
 * They bathe their weazen'd pelts in sweat
 * To gain a sprig o' fading fame,
 * Before they taste the dear-bought cream—
 * But bide ye there, my pens an' papers,
 * For I maun up, an' to my scrapers—
 * Yet, min', my lass— ye maun return
 * This very night we cut the churn.

To M.H. (Barney Maglone 1820?–1875)

 * This wee thing's o' little value,
 * But for a' that it may be
 * Guid eneuch to gar you, lassie,
 * When you read it, think o' me.

 * Think o' whan we met and parted,
 * And o' a' we felt atween—
 * Whiles sae gleesome, whiles doon-hearted—
 * In yon cosy neuk at e'en.

 * Think o' when we dander't
 * Doon by Bangor and the sea;
 * How yon simmer day, we wander't
 * 'Mang the fields o' Isle Magee.

 * Think o' yon day's gleefu' daffin'
 * (Weel I wot ye mind it still)
 * Whan we had sic slips and lauchin',
 * Spielin' daftly up Cave Hill.

 * Dinna let your e'en be greetin'
 * Lassie, whan ye think o' me,
 * Think upo' anither meetin',
 * Aiblins by a lanward sea.

From The Lammas Fair (Robert Huddleston 1814–1889)

 * Tae sing the day, tae sing the fair,
 * That birkies ca' the lammas;
 * In aul' Belfast, that toun sae rare,
 * Fu' fain wad try't a gomas.
 * Tae think tae please a', it were vain,
 * And for a country plain boy;
 * Therefore, tae please mysel' alane,
 * Thus I began my ain way,
 * Tae sing that day.

 * Ae Monday morn on Autumn's verge
 * To view a scene so gay,
 * I took my seat beside a hedge,
 * To loiter by the way.
 * Lost Phoebus frae the clouds o' night,
 * Ance mair did show his face—
 * Ance mair the Emerald Isle got light,
 * Wi' beauty, joy, an' grace;
 * Fu' nice that day.

The examples below illustrate how 21st century Ulster Scots texts seldom adhere to the previous literary tradition, Yer guide tae the cheenge-ower, perhaps being a rare exception. Instead there has been an increase in the use of somewhat creative phonetic spellings based on the perceived sound-to-letter correspondences of Standard English, i.e. dialect writing, as exemplified in Alice's Carrànts in Wunnerlan or the adoption of a more esoteric "amalgam of traditional, surviving, revived, changed, and invented features" as exemplified in Hannlin Rede.

From Yer guide tae the cheenge-ower (digitaluk 2012)

 * Dae A need a new aerial?
 * Gin ye hae guid analogue reception the nou, ye'r like no tae need tae replace yer ruiftap or set-tap aerial for the cheenge-ower – thare nae sic thing as a 'deegital aerial'. But gin ye hae ill analogue reception the nou, ye'll mebbe need tae replace it.
 * Find oot by gaun til the aerial-pruifer on Teletext page 284. Anither wey is tae wait until efter the cheenge-ower for tae see if yer pictur's affect.

From Alice's Carrànts in Wunnerlan (Anne Morrison-Smyth, 2013)

 * The Caterpillar an Alice lukt at ither fur a quare while wi'oot taakin: finally the Caterpillar tuk the hookah oot o its mooth, an spoke tae hir in a languid, dozy voice.
 * "Wha ir yae?" said the Caterpillar.
 * This wusnae a pooerfu guid openin fur a yarn. Alice answert brev an baakwardly, "A—A harly know, Sir, jest at this minute—at least A know wha A wus this moarnin, but heth, A hae bin changed a wheen o times since thin."
 * "What dae yae mean bae that?" said the Caterpillar sternly. "Explain yersel!"
 * "A cannae explain maesel, A'm feart, Sir," said Alice, "baecaas A'm naw maesel, yae see."
 * "A dinnae see," said the Caterpillar.
 * "A cannae mak it onie mair clear," Alice answer, while polite, "fur A cannae unnerstan it maesel tae stairt wi; an baein sae monie different sizes in yin dae haes turnt mae heid."

From Hannlin Rede [annual report] 2012–2013 (Männystèr o Fairms an Kintra Fordèrin, 2012)

 * We hae cum guid speed wi fettlin tae brucellosis, an A'm mintin at bein haleheidit tae wun tae tha stannin o bein redd o brucellosis aathegither. Forbye, A'm leukkin tae see an ettlin in core at fettlin tae tha TB o Kye, takkin in complutherin anent a screengin ontak, tha wye we'll can pit owre an inlaik in ootlay sillert wi resydentèrs. Mair betoken, but, we'll be leukkin forbye tae uphaud an ingang airtit wi tha hannlins furtae redd ootcum disayses. An we'r fur stairtin in tae leukk bodes agane fur oor baste kenmairk gate, 'at owre tha nixt wheen o yeirs wull be tha ootcum o sillerin tae aboot £60m frae resydentèrs furtae uphaud tha hale hannlin adae wi beef an tha mïlk-hoose.

title: Ulster Scots dialect


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Ottoman military reforms

Ottoman military reforms began in the late 18th century.

Janissary Corps
The Janissary Corps had long been the mainstay of the Ottoman infantry and remained so until its disbandment in 1826. However, estimates of the strength of the Corps vary greatly: by 1790, some 12,000 (2,000 combat) were said to reside in Istanbul alone, yet when summoned for campaign in 1810, only 13,000 assembled. Various other estimates place the total strength between 150,000 and 400,000, of which only 50,000 actually served as soldiers (with the remainder collecting pay but refusing to fight). Despite their backwardness in terms of combat, the Corps possessed immense espirit de corps, showing great initiative and often fighting to the death. While engaged in combat, the Janissaries would at times mock Western soldiers for their tendency to fight in close order formations. Their older matchlock muskets, despite being slower to fire, were preferred over newer flintlocks, on account of their greater range and accuracy.

Bosanji
These were the palace guards of the empire and numbered no more than a few thousand throughout the period and were an elite reserve around Edirne and Istanbul.

Other formations
The Bosnians were organised into the panduks and the anatolian Turks into the Sekban. The Tufenkis who were mounted infantry were largely Kurdish in origin.

Cavalry
The Sipahis, traditionally paid by Timars, had degenerated considerably by the 18th century, shrinking from an earlier peak of 30,000 to as few as 2,000 to 3,000. By the end of Selim III's reign, however, they experienced a renewal, expanding to some 10,000 salaried Sipahis (not including provincial cavalry or irregular Deli horsemen). This was a considerable cavalry force, with many of the troopers being instructed by the French advisors to the Porte.

Artillery
The artillery was divided into the topcu ocagi (artillery corps) and the humbaraci ocagi (mortar corps), these 2 groups received the most attention from the reformers with French and Spanish assistance during the 1807 Anglo-Turkish war the Ottoman artillery assembled 322 cannons and mortars alongside thousands of troops to defend the coastline of the Sea of Marmara necessitating a British withdrawal. The Topcu corps alone contained 30,000 men and the suratci ocagi (rapid-fire gun corps) had 2,000 men. The artillery corps had 10 infantry assigned per gun and they jointly garrisoned the European side of the Boshporus.

Asia
In Antatolia the majority of local musketeers were Kurdish and the governor of Trabzon organised his own army and proclaimed his independence thought the majority of the Ayans remained loyal even those in the Caucauss with the Kabartay princes and their 30,000 soldiers remaining loyal to the Sultan.

In Iraq mamluks were used for local law and order whilst Arab troops occupied the forts around Baghdad and they proved adept in combat rebelling the Wahhabi raiders.

In Syria local government was more divided with many of the Pashas maintaining sizable personal armies ranging from 1,000 cavalry and 900 cavalry to 300 cavalry and 100 infantry. The troops were of an ethnic mix and some zamburaks were noted to be used in the Syrian armies.

Egypt
The Mamluks were the pre-eminent force in Egypt with their forces numbering 10,000 men in strength with 3,000 assistants with 8,500 mamluks in training in the 1780s. The Mamluks spent their entire time dedicated to training and fighting and jealously guarded their military privileges banning anyone from riding a horse in Egypt. The mamluks had by this period fully adopted firearms and trained with these and had abandoned horse archery.

There were also musketeers, janissaries, sipahis and other Ottoman units though these had long since degenerated and the Arabs and Mamluks provided the main forces in Egypt.

Reforms of Selim III
When Selim III came to the throne in 1789, an ambitious effort of military reform was launched, geared towards securing the Ottoman Empire. The sultan and those who surrounded him were conservative and desired to preserve the status quo. No one in power in the Empire had any interest in social transformation. Selim III in 1789 to 1807 set up the "Nizam-i Cedid" [new order] army to replace the inefficient and outmoded imperial army. The old system depended on Janissaries, who had largely lost their military effectiveness. Selim closely followed Western military forms. It would be expensive for a new army, so a new treasury ['Irad-i Cedid'] had to be established. The result was the Porte now had an efficient, European-trained army equipped with modern weapons. However it had fewer than 10,000 soldiers in an era when Western armies were ten to fifty times larger. Furthermore, the Sultan was upsetting the well-established traditional political powers. As a result it was rarely used, apart from its use against Napoléon's expeditionary force at Gaza and Rosetta. The new army was dissolved by reactionary elements with the overthrow of Selim in 1807, but it became the model of the new Ottoman Army created later in the 19th century.

Introduction of advisors
Western military advisors were imported as advisors but their abilities to enact change were limited. A parade of French officers were brought in, and none of them could do a great deal. One example of an advisor who achieved limited success was the François Baron de Tott, a French officer. He did succeed in having a new foundry built to make artillery. As well he directed the construction of a new naval base. Unfortunately it was almost impossible for him to divert soldiers from the regular army into the new units. The new ships and guns that made it into service were too few to have much of an influence on the Ottoman army and de Tott returned home. He was succeeded by a Scot known as Ingiliz Mustafa.

When they had requested French help, General Napoleon Bonaparte was to be sent to Constantinople in 1795 to help organize Ottoman artillery. He did not go, for just days before he was to embark for the Near East he proved himself useful to the Directory by putting down a Parisian mob in the whiff of grapeshot and was kept in France.

New Order army
The most important change was the creation of an elite new infantry unit: the Nizam-i Djedid was set up with western uniforms, weapons, and training. This group would offend the Janissaries. Once elite forces, the Janissaries had become a conservative elite using their military power to advance themselves commercially and politically. In 1806 the Janissaries, with support of the ulema and the provincial governors, revolted against the Sultan and his new force and replaced him with Mustafa IV.

Reforms of Mahmud II
In 1808 Mustafa IV was replaced by Mahmud II with martial law of Alemdar Mustafa Pasha who restarted the reform efforts. His first task was to ally with the Janissaries in order to break the power of the provincial governors. He then turned on the Janissaries, massacring them in their barracks in Istanbul and the provincial capitals in 1826, which is known as the Auspicious Incident. The Sultan now set himself to replace the Janissaries by other regular troops. The Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829 did not give him time to organize a new army, and the Sultan was forced to fight with these young and undisciplined recruits against the veterans of the Tsar. The war was brought to a close by the disastrous Treaty of Adrianople. While the reforms in question were mainly implemented to improve the military, the most notable development that arose out of these efforts was a series of schools teaching everything from math to medicine to train new officers.

Reforms of Abdulmejid I

Sultan Abdulmejid I enjoyed several years of peace, which enabled him to form a powerful and well disciplined army that was established at the beginning of the year 1842.

The chain-of-command in the general staff of each army was composed of a commander-in-chief, two lieutenant-generals, three brigadiers of infantry, one of whom commands the reserve, two brigadiers of cavalry, and one brigadier of artillery. In each corps there were three regiments of infantry, two of cavalry, and one of artillery, with thirty-three guns. The total strength of these twelve regiments of active forces was 30,000 men, but it was diminished in time of peace by furlough to an effective strength of about 25,000 men in three of the six armies, as well as 15,000 troops in the other three, a consequence of the recruiting system being as yet incomplete in its application all over the Ottoman Empire. The whole establishment of this branch amounts, therefore, to 180,000 men, belonging to the active service, but its effective strength is at present 123,000.

The reserve of four of the six armies consisted of eleven regiments, six of which were infantry, four of cavalry, and one of artillery. The total combined force equalled 12,000 troops, while the other two armies have not met their reserve of soldiers who have served five years. In time of war, however, the reserve would form two corps of 25,000 men in each army; giving a total of 300,000. The two services, therefore, as they stood, formed an effective force of 135,000 men; and when their full strength shall have been filled up it will amount to 480,000.

Besides these six armies there were four detached corps. These corps raise the effective strength of the standing army to 365,000 men.

Deployment at the time consisted of the following:

 * the Island of Crete was assigned three regiments of infantry and one of cavalry, in all 11,000 men;
 * the Pashalik of Tripoli in Africa was assigned one regiment of infantry and one of cavalry, about 5,000 strong;
 * the Pashalik of Tunis was assigned one regiment of infantry and one of cavalry, about 5,000 strong.

Aside from deployed troops, the Ottoman military also had the following units:

 * the central artillery corps,
 * a standing brigade of sappers and miners with engineer officers,
 * the veteran artillery brigade,
 * permanent artillery garrisons of the fortresses on
 * The Hellespont,
 * The Bosphorus,
 * The Danube, in Serbia, on the Adriatic,
 * The coast of Asia Minor, in the islands of the Archipelago,
 * the southern shores of the Black Sea, constituting a combined force of approximately 9,000 troops.

Besides augmentation of 32,000 men by the submission of Bosnia and Northern Albania to the new system; and a further increase of 40,000 men, which Serbia had arranged to furnish, 18,000 men served in Egypt, which would act to reinforce the reserve of the fifth army.

The marines, sailors, and workmen, enrolled in brigades that amounted to 34,000 total men. The grand total of armed men at the disposal of Ottoman Empire at the time could be calculated at no less than 664,000 men. In addition, the Ottomans could call-up occasional levies, which were more easily and efficiently utilized in the Ottoman Empire than in any other country at the time. After years of peace and stability the modernized army was put to test in the Crimean War.

Reforms of Abdul Hamid II
Abdul Hamid II attached utmost importance to the reorganization of the military. As early as 1880 he sought, and two years later secured, German assistance, which culminated in the appointment of Lt. Col. Kohler and, finally, Colmar Von der Goltz as military advisors.

The curriculum of Harbiye (War College) was specialized further to train staff officers in the European style. The school’s name was changed to Mekteb-i Fununu Harb (School of War Science). It was during his reign that the officers’ training was upgraded and regularized, starting with the mid-level military rt2diye and idadi schools and culminating in the Mekteb-i Harbiye (War College) or, for the most capable, in the Erkan-i Harbiye (Chiefs of Staff). The last, as a concept and an organization, was largely the work of von der Goltz.

However, although the consensus that Abdulhamid favoured the modernization of the Ottoman army and the professionalization of the officer corps was fairly general, it seems that he neglected the military during the last fifteen years of his reign, and he also cut down the military budget. The problem with the army (numbering Ca. 700,000 at the end of the century) The annual army expenditures were some 7,756,000 liras out of a total national budget of 18,927,000 liras for 1897; when the Debt Administration claimed 6,483.000 liras, little was left for investment in economic development.

title: Ottoman military reforms


text:
Talk:Ottoman military reforms

= Comments =

POV
Hm. This isn't very NPOV and looks like someone's term paper. Basic formatting would also be nice. --mav
 * factual elements of it can probably be incorporated into a history of the Ottoman Empire. But each sultan should have his own, so Regime of Selim III and Regime of Mahmoud II could be separate articles, etc.  This might be better to keep separate from their biographies as persons.

 * we should probably support and help people who dump academic papers here, as opposed to just removing their work - they are clearly willing to write in a standard form. However the paper has to be pretty good to start with... a PhD thesis' background material or something that we know didn't come from a guy who got an 'F'.

I replace Russo-Ottoman Wars with Russo-Turkish Wars, the correct article.--Kross | Talk 15:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

1826
It was NOT Alemdar Pasa who anhiliated the unruly Jannissary corps in 1826. Yes, it was him who first tried it 18 years ago and paid with his life heroically, but it was still the same Sultan, Mahmut II (this is the correct spelling) who bid his time and prepared for years and then had this mob destroyed once and for all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.77.156.90 (talk) 23:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Contemporary reforms in Meiji Japan
Sorry, but by no stretch of the imagination is 1789 "contemporary" with 1868.... 86.183.196.28 (talk) 18:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ottoman military reforms


text:
Jurchen people

Jurchen (Manchu: Jušen, ; 女真, Nǚzhēn ) is a term used to collectively describe a number of East Asian Tungusic-speaking people. They lived in northeastern China, also known as Manchuria, before the 18th century. The Jurchens were renamed Manchus in 1635 by Hong Taiji. Different Jurchen groups lived as hunter-gatherers, pastoralist semi-nomads, or sedentary agriculturists. Generally lacking a central authority, and having little communication with each other, many Jurchen groups fell under the influence of neighbouring dynasties, their chiefs paying tribute and holding nominal posts as effectively hereditary commanders of border guards.

Han officials of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) classified them into three groups, reflecting relative proximity to the Ming:

Many "Yeren Jurchens", like the Nivkh (speaking a language isolate), Negidai, Nanai, Oroqen and many Evenks, are today considered distinct ethnic groups.
 * 1) Jianzhou (Chinese: 建州) Jurchens, some of whom were mixed with Chinese populations, lived in the proximity of the Mudan river, the Changbai mountains, and Liaodong. They were noted as able to sew clothes similar to the Chinese, and lived by hunting and fishing, sedentary agriculture, and trading in pearls and ginseng.
 * 2) Haixi (Chinese: 海西) Jurchens, named after the Haixi or Songhua river, included several populous and independent tribes, largely divided between semi-nomadic pastoralists in the west and sedentary agriculturalists in the east. They were the Jurchens most strongly influenced by the Mongols.
 * 3) Yeren (Chinese: 野人, lit. 'Wild People,' or, 'savage,' 'barbarian'), a term sometimes used by Chinese and Korean commentators to refer to all Jurchens. It more specifically referred to the inhabitants of the sparsely populated north of Manchuria beyond the Liao and Songhua river valleys, supporting themselves by hunting, fishing, pig farming, and some migratory agriculture.

The Jurchens are chiefly known for producing the Jin (1115–1234) and Qing (1644–1912) conquest dynasties on the Chinese territory. The latter dynasty, originally calling itself the Later Jin, was founded by a Jianzhou commander, Nurhaci (r. 1616–26), who unified most Jurchen tribes, incorporated their entire population into hereditary military regiments known as the Eight Banners, and patronized the creation of an alphabet for their language based on the Mongolian script. The term Manchu, already in official use by the Later Jin at that time, was in 1635 decreed to be the sole acceptable name for that people.

Name

The name Jurchen is derived from a long line of other variations of the same name.

The initial Khitan form of the name was said to be Lüzhen. The variant Nrjo-tsyin (now Nüzhen, whence English Nurchen) appeared in the 10th century under the Liao dynasty. The Jurchens were also interchangeably known as the Nrjo-drik (now Nüzhi). This is traditionally explained as an effect of the Chinese naming taboo, with the character being removed after the 1031 enthronement of Zhigu, Emperor Xingzong of Liao, because it appeared in the sinified form of his personal name. Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun, however, argues that this was a later folk etymology and the original reason was uncertainty among dialects regarding the name's final -n (Nussin, Naisin).

The form Niuche was introduced to the West by Martino Martini in his 1654 work De bello tartarico historia, and it soon appeared, e.g., on the 1660 world map by Nicolas Sanson.

Jurchen (Jyrkin) is an anglicization of Jurčen, an attempted reconstruction of this unattested original form of the native name, which has been transcribed into Middle Chinese as Trjuwk-li-tsyin  and into Khitan small script as Julisen(sulaisin). The ethnonyms Sushen (Old Chinese: */siwk-[d]i[n]-s/) and Jizhen (, Old Chinese: */tsək-ti[n]/) recorded in geographical works like the Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Book of Wei are possibly cognates. It was the source of Fra Mauro's Zorça and Marco Polo's Ciorcia, reflecting the Persian form of their name. Vajda considers that the Jurchens' name probably derives from the Tungusic words for "reindeer people" and is cognate with the names of the Orochs (urakka, uroot, urhot,) of Khabarovsk Province and the Oroks of Sakhalin. ("Horse Tungus" and "Reindeer Tungus" are still the primary divisions among the Tungusic cultures.)

Janhunen argues that these records already reflect the Classical Mongolian plural form of the name, recorded in the Secret History as J̌ürčät (Jyrkät), and further reconstructed as *Jörcid, The modern Mongolian form is Зүрчид (Zürčid, Suurseita)) whose medial -r- does not appear in the later Jurchen Jucen or Jušen (Jussin)(Jurchen:) or Manchu Jushen(Jussin). In Manchu, this word was more often used to describe the serfs—though not slaves—of the free Manchu people, who were themselves mostly the former Jurchens. To describe the historical people who founded the Jin dynasty, they reborrowed the Mongolian name as Jurcit(Jyrkät).

Appearance
According to William of Rubruck, the Jurchens were "swarthy like Spaniards."

Sin Chung-il, a Korean emissary who in 1595 had visited the Jurchen living north-west of the Yalu River, notes that during his visit to Fe Ala all those who served Nurhaci were uniform in their dress and hairstyle. They all shaved a portion of their scalp and kept the remaining hair in a long plaited braid. All men wore leather boots, breeches, and tunics.

Mohe origin
When the Jurchens first entered Chinese records in 748, they inhabited the forests and river valleys of the land which is now divided between China's Heilongjiang Province and Russia's Primorsky Krai province. In earlier records, this area was known as the home of the Sushen (c. 1100 BC), the Yilou (around AD 200), the Wuji (c. 500), and the Mohe (c. 700). Scholarship since the Qing period traces the origin of the Jurchens to the "Wanyen tribe of the Mohos" around Mt Xiaobai, or to the Heishui or Blackwater Mohe, and some sources stress the continuity between these earlier peoples with the Jurchen but this remains conjectural.

The tentative ancestors of the Jurchens, the Tungusic Mohe tribes, were people of the multi-ethnic kingdom of Balhae. The Mohe enjoyed eating pork, practiced pig farming extensively, and were mainly sedentary. They used both pig and dog skins for coats. They were predominantly farmers and grew soybean, wheat, millet, and rice in addition to hunting. Like all Tungus people, the Mohe practiced slavery. Horses were rare in the region they inhabited until the 10th century under the domination of the Khitans. The Mohe rode reindeer.

Wanyan origin
There is no dated evidence of the Jurchens before the time of Wugunai (1021-74), when the Jurchens began to coalesce into a nation-like federation. According to tradition passed down via oral transmission, Wugunai was the 6th generation descendant of Hanpu, the founder of the Wanyan clan, who therefore must have lived around the year 900. Hanpu originally came from the Heishui Mohe tribe of Balhae. According to the History of Jin, when he came to the Wanyan tribe, it was for the repayment of a murder and a form of compensation. He had two brothers, one who stayed in Goryeo and the other in Balhae when he left. By the time he arrived and settled among the Wanyan, he was already 60 years old and accepted as a "wise man". He succeeded in settling a dispute between two families without resorting to violence, and as a reward, was betrothed to a worthy unmarried maiden also 60 years old. The marriage was blessed with the gift of a dark ox, which was revered in Jurchen culture, and from this union came one daughter and three sons. With this, Hanpu became the chief of the Wanyan and his descendants became formal members of the Wanyan clan.

Because Hanpu arrived from Goryeo, some South Korean scholars have claimed that Hanpu hailed from Goryeo. According to Alexander Kim, this cannot be easily identified as him being Korean because many Balhae people lived in Goryeo at that time. Later when Aguda appealed to the Balhae people in the Liao dynasty for support by emphasizing their common origin, he only mentioned those who descended from the "seven Wuji tribes", which the Goguryeo people were not a part of. It seems by that point, the Jurchens saw only the Mohe tribes as a related people. Some western scholars consider the origin of Hanpu to be legendary in nature. Herbert Franke described the narrative provided in the History of Jin as an "ancestral legend" with a historical basis in that the Wanyan clan had absorbed immigrants from Goryeo and Balhae during the 10th century. Frederick W. Mote described it as a "tribal legend" that may have born the tribe's memories. The two brothers remaining in Goryeo and Balhae may represent ancestral ties to those two peoples while Hanpu's marriage may represent the tribe's transformation from a matrilineal to patrilineal society.

Qing origin
The Qing dynasty emperor of the Aisin Gioro clan, Hongtaiji claimed that their progenitor, Bukūri Yongšon (布庫里雍順), was conceived from a virgin birth. According to the legend, three heavenly maidens, namely Enggulen (恩古倫), Jenggulen (正古倫) and Fekulen (佛庫倫), were bathing at a lake called Bulhūri Omo near the Changbai Mountains. A magpie dropped a piece of red fruit near Fekulen, who ate it. She then became pregnant with Bukūri Yongšon. However, another older version of the story by the Hurha (Hurka) tribe member Muksike recorded in 1635 contradicts Hongtaiji's version on location, claiming that it was in Heilongjiang province close to the Amur river where Bulhuri lake was located where the "heavenly maidens" took their bath. This was recorded in the Jiu Manzhou Dang and is much shorter and simpler in addition to being older. This is believed to be the original version and Hongtaiji changed it to the Changbai mountains. It shows that the Aisin Gioro clan originated in the Amur area and the Heje (Hezhen) and other Amur valley Jurchen tribes had an oral version of the same tale. It also fits with Jurchen history since some ancestors of the Manchus originated north before the 14th-15th centuries in the Amur and only later moved south.

Liao vassals
By the 11th century, the Jurchens had become vassals of the Khitan rulers of the Liao dynasty. The Jurchens in the Yalu River region had been tributaries of Goryeo since the reign of Wang Geon, who called upon them during the wars of the Later Three Kingdoms period, but the Jurchens opportunistically switched allegiance between Liao and Goryeo multiple times. They offered tribute to both courts out of political necessity and the desire for material benefits.

In 1019, Jurchen pirates raided Japan for slaves. The Jurchen pirates slaughtered Japanese men while seizing Japanese women as prisoners. Fujiwara Notada, the Japanese governor was killed. In total, 1,280 Japanese were taken prisoner, 374 Japanese were killed and 380 Japanese owned livestock were killed for food. Only 259 or 270 were returned by Koreans from the eight ships. The woman Uchikura no Ishime's report was copied down.

One of the causes of the Jurchen rebellion and the fall of the Liao was the custom of raping married Jurchen women and Jurchen girls by Khitan envoys, which caused resentment from the Jurchens. The custom of having sex with unmarried girls by Khitan was itself not a problem, since the practice of guest prostitution - giving female companions, food and shelter to guests - was common among Jurchens. Unmarried daughters of Jurchen families of lower and middle classes in Jurchen villages were provided to Khitan messengers for sex, as recorded by Hong Hao. Song envoys among the Jin were similarly entertained by singing girls in Guide, Henan. There is no evidence that guest prostitution of unmarried Jurchen girls to Khitan men was resented by the Jurchens. It was only when the Khitans forced aristocratic Jurchen families to give up their beautiful wives as guest prostitutes to Khitan messengers that the Jurchens became resentful. This suggests that in Jurchen upper classes, only a husband had the right to his married wife while among lower class Jurchens, the virginity of unmarried girls and sex with Khitan men did not impede their ability to marry later. The Jurchens and their Manchu descendants had Khitan linguistic and grammatical elements in their personal names like suffixes. Many Khitan names had a "ju" suffix.

Goryeo-Jurchen war
The Jurchens in the Yalu River region were tributaries of Goryeo since the reign of Taejo of Goryeo (r. 918-943), who called upon them during the wars of the Later Three Kingdoms period. Taejo relied heavily on a large Jurchen cavalry force to defeat Later Baekje. The Jurchens switched allegiances between Liao and Goryeo multiple times depending on which they deemed the most appropriate. The Liao and Goryeo competed to gain the allegiance of Jurchen settlers who effectively controlled much of the border area beyond Goryeo and Liao fortifications. These Jurchens offered tribute but expected to be rewarded richly by the Goryeo court in return. However the Jurchens who offered tribute were often the same ones who raided Goryeo's borders. In one instance, the Goryeo court discovered that a Jurchen leader who had brought tribute had been behind the recent raids on their territory. The frontier was largely outside of direct control and lavish gifts were doled out as a means of controlling the Jurchens. Sometimes Jurchens submitted to Goryeo and were given citizenship. Goryeo inhabitants were forbidden from trading with Jurchens.

The tributary relations between Jurchens and Goryeo began to change under the reign of Jurchen leader Wuyashu (r. 1103–1113) of the Wanyan clan. The Wanyan clan was intimately aware of the Jurchens who had submitted to Goryeo and used their power to break the clans' allegiance to Goryeo, unifying the Jurchens. The resulting conflict between the two powers led to Goryeo's withdrawal from Jurchen territory and acknowledgment of Jurchen control over the contested region.

As the geopolitical situation shifted, Goryeo unleashed a series of military campaigns in the early 12th century to regain control of its borderlands. Goryeo had already been in conflict with the Jurchens before. In 1080, Munjong of Goryeo led a force of 30,000 to conquer ten villages. However by the rise of the Wanyan clan, the quality of Goryeo's army had degraded and it mostly consisted of infantry. There were several clashes with the Jurchens, usually resulting in Jurchen victory with their mounted cavalrymen. In 1104, the Wanyan Jurchens reached Chongju while pursuing tribes resisting them. Goryeo sent Lim Gan to confront the Jurchens, but his untrained army was defeated, and the Jurchens took Chongju castle. Lim Gan was dismissed from office and reinstated, dying as a civil servant in 1112. The war effort was taken up by Yun Kwan, but the situation was unfavorable and he returned after making peace.

Yun Kwan believed that the loss was due to their inferior cavalry and proposed to the king that an elite force known as the Byeolmuban (別武班; "Special Warfare Army") be created. it existed apart from the main army and was made up of cavalry, infantry, and a Hangmagun ("Subdue Demon Corps"). In December 1107, Yun Kwan and O Yŏnch’on set out with 170,000 soldiers to conquer the Jurchens. The army won against the Jurchens and built Nine Fortresses over a wide area on the frontier encompassing Jurchen tribal lands, and erected a monument to mark the boundary. However due to unceasing Jurchen attacks, diplomatic appeals, and court intrigue, the Nine Fortresses were handed back to the Jurchens. In 1108, Yun Kwan was removed from office and the Nine Fortresses were turned over to the Wanyan clan. It is plausible that the Jurchens and Goryeo had some sort of implicit understanding where the Jurchens would cease their attacks while Goryeo took advantage of the conflict between the Jurchens and Khitans to gain territory. According to Breuker, Goryeo never really had control of the region occupied by the Nine Fortresses in the first place and maintaining hegemony would have meant a prolonged conflict with militarily superior Jurchen troops that would prove very costly. The Nine Fortresses were exchanged for Poju (Uiju), a region the Jurchens later contested when Goryeo hesitated to recognize them as their suzerain.

Later, Wuyashu's younger brother Aguda founded the Jin dynasty (1115–1234). When the Jin was founded, the Jurchens called Goryeo their "parent country" or "father and mother" country. This was because it had traditionally been part of their system of tributary relations, its rhetoric, advanced culture, as well as the idea that it was "bastard offspring of Koryŏ". The Jin also believed that they shared a common ancestry with the Balhae people in the Liao dynasty. The Jin went on to conquer the Liao dynasty in 1125 and capture the Song capital of Kaifeng in 1127 (Jingkang incident). The Jin also put pressure on Goryeo and demanded that Goryeo become their subject. While many in Goryeo were against this, Yi Cha-gyöm was in power at the time and judged peaceful relations with the Jin to be beneficial to his own political power. He accepted the Jin demands and in 1126, the king of Goryeo declared himself a Jin vassal (tributary). However the Goryeo king retained his position as "Son of Heaven" within Goryeo. By incorporating Jurchen history into that of Goryeo and emphasizing the Jin emperors as bastard offspring of Goryeo, and placing the Jin within the template of a "northern dynasty", the imposition of Jin suzerainty became more acceptable.

Jin dynasty

Wanyan Aguda, chief of the Wanyan tribe, unified the various Jurchen tribes in 1115 and declared himself emperor. In 1120 he seized Shangjing, also known as Linhuang Prefecture, the northern capital of the Liao dynasty. During the Jin–Song Wars, the Jurchens invaded the Northern Song dynasty and overran most of northern China. The Jurchens initially created the puppet regimes of Da Qi and Da Chu but later adopted a dynastic name and became known as "Jin" 金, which means "gold", not to be confused with the earlier Jin 晋 dynasties named after the region around Shanxi and Henan provinces. The name of the Jurchen dynasty in Chinese — meaning "gold"—is derived from the "Gold River" (Jurchen: antʃu-un; Manchu: Aisin) in their ancestral homeland. The Jurchens who settled into urban communities eventually intermarried with other ethnicities in China. The Jin rulers themselves came to follow Confucian norms. The Jin dynasty captured the Northern Song dynasty's capital, Bianjing, in 1127. Their armies pushed the Song all the way south to the Yangtze River and eventually settled on a border with the Southern Song dynasty along the Huai River.

Poor Jurchen families in the southern Routes (Daming and Shandong) Battalion and Company households tried to live the lifestyle of wealthy Jurchen families and avoid doing farming work by selling their own Jurchen daughters into slavery and renting their land to Han tenants. The Wealthy Jurchens feasted and drank and wore damask and silk. The History of Jin (Jinshi) says that Emperor Shizong of Jin took note and attempted to halt these things in 1181.

After 1189, the Jin dynasty became increasingly involved in conflicts with the Mongols. By 1215, after losing much territory to the Mongols, the Jurchens moved their capital south from Zhongdu to Kaifeng. The Jin emperor Wanyan Yongji's daughter, Jurchen Princess Qiguo was married to Mongol leader Genghis Khan in exchange for relieving the Mongol siege upon Zhongdu. After a siege lasting about a year, Kaifeng fell to the Mongols in 1233. Emperor Aizong fled to Caizhou for shelter, but Caizhou also fell to the Mongols in 1234, marking the end of the Jin dynasty.

Ming dynasty

Chinese chroniclers of the Ming dynasty distinguished three different groups of Jurchens: the Wild Jurchens of what became Outer Manchuria, the Haixi Jurchens  of modern Heilongjiang Province and the Jianzhou Jurchens of modern Jilin Province. They led a pastoral-agrarian lifestyle, hunting, fishing, and engaging in limited agriculture. In 1388, the Hongwu Emperor dispatched a mission to establish contact with the Odoli, Huligai and T'owen tribes.

The issue of controlling the Jurchens was a point of contention between Joseon Korea and the early Ming.

The Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424) found allies among the various Jurchen tribes against the Mongols. He bestowed titles and surnames to various Jurchen chiefs and expected them to send periodic tribute. One of the Yongle Emperor's consorts was a Jurchen princess, which resulted in some of the eunuchs serving him being of Jurchen origin.

Chinese commanderies were established over tribal military units under their own hereditary tribal leaders. In the Yongle period, 178 commanderies were set up in Manchuria. Later on, horse markets were established in the northern border towns of Liaodong. Increased contact with the Chinese gave Jurchens the more complex and sophisticated organizational structures.

The Koreans dealt with the Jurchen military through appeals to material benefits and launching punitive expeditions. To appease them the Joseon court handed out titles and degrees, trading with them, and sought to acculturate them by having Korean women marry Jurchens and integrating them into Korean culture. These measures were unsuccessful and fighting continued between the Jurchen and the Koreans. This relationship between the Jurchens and Koreans was ended by the Ming which envisioned the Jurchens as a form of protective border to the north. In 1403, Ahacu, chieftain of Huligai, paid tribute to the Yongle Emperor. Soon after, Mentemu, chieftain of Odoli clan of the Jianzhou Jurchens, defected from paying tribute to Korea, becoming a tributary to China instead. Yi Seong-gye, the first ruler of Joseon, asked the Ming dynasty to send Mentemu back but was refused. The Yongle Emperor was determined to wrest the Jurchens out of Korean influence and have China dominate them instead. The Koreans tried to persuade Mentemu to reject the Ming dynasty's overtures but were unsuccessful. The Jurchen tribes presented tribute to the Ming dynasty in succession. They were divided in 384 guards by the Ming dynasty and the Jurchen became vassals to the Ming emperors. The name given to the Jurchen land by the Ming dynasty was Nurgan. Later, a Korean army led by Yi-Il and Yi Sun-sin would expel them from Korea.

In 1409, the Ming government created the Nurgan Command Post at Telin (present-day Tyr, Russia, about 100 km upstream from Nikolayevsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East) in the vicinity of Heilongjiang. The Jurchens came under the nominal administration of the Nurgan Command Post which lasted only 25 years and was abolished in 1434. Leaders of the Haixi and Jianzhou tribes did, however, accept the Ming titles.

From 1411 to 1433, the Ming eunuch Yishiha (who himself was a Haixi Jurchen ) led ten large missions to win over the allegiance of the Jurchen tribes along the Songhua River and Amur River. His fleet sailed down the Songhua into the Amur, and set up the Nurgan Command at Telin near the mouth of the Amur River. These missions are not well recorded in the Ming histories, but there exist two stone steles erected by Yishiha at the site of the Yongning Temple, a Guanyin temple commissioned by him at Telin. The inscriptions on the steles are in four languages: Chinese, Jurchen, Mongol, and Tibetan. There is probably quite a lot of propaganda in the inscriptions, but they give a detailed record of the Ming court's efforts to assert suzerainty over the Jurchen. When Yishiha visited Nurgan for the 3rd time in 1413, he built a temple called Yongning Temple at Telin and erected the Yongning Temple Stele in front of it. Yishiha paid his 10th visit to Nurgan in 1432, during which he rebuilt the Yongning Temple and re-erected a stele in front of it. The stele bore the heading "Record of Re-building Yongning Temple". The setting up of the Nurgan Command Post and the repeated declarations to offer blessings to this region by Yishiha and others were all recorded in this and the first steles.

In the ninth year of the Ming Xuande emperor the Jurchens in Manchuria under Ming rule suffered from famine forcing them to sell their daughters into slavery and moving to Liaodong to beg for help and relief from the Ming dynasty government.

Establishment of the Manchu

Over a period of 30 years from 1586, Nurhaci, a chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens, united the Jurchen tribes. In 1635, his son and successor, Hong Taiji, renamed his people the Manchus as a clear break from their past as Chinese vassals. During the Ming dynasty, the Koreans of Joseon referred to the Jurchen-inhabited lands north of the Korean peninsula, above the rivers Yalu and Tumen as part of the "superior country" (sangguk) which they called Ming China. The Qing deliberately excluded references and information that showed the Jurchens (Manchus) as subservient to the Ming dynasty, when composing the History of Ming to hide their former subservient relationship. The Veritable Records of Ming were not used to source content on Jurchens during Ming rule in the History of Ming because of this. The Yongzheng Emperor attempted to rewrite the historical record and claim that the Aisin Gioro were never subjects of past dynasties and empires trying to cast Nurhaci's acceptance of Ming titles like Dragon Tiger General (longhu jiangjun 龍虎將軍) by claiming he accepted to "please Heaven".

During the Qing dynasty, the two original editions of the books of the "Qing Taizu Wu Huangdi Shilu" and the "Manzhou Shilu Tu" (Taizu Shilu Tu) were kept in the palace, forbidden from public view because they showed that the Manchu Aisin Gioro family had been ruled by the Ming dynasty.

Culture

Jurchen culture shared many similarities with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of Siberian-Manchurian tundra and coastal peoples. Like the Khitan people and Mongols, they took pride in feats of strength, horsemanship, archery, and hunting. Both Mongols and Jurchens used the title Khan for the leaders of a political entity, whether "emperor" or "chief". A particularly powerful chief was called beile ("prince, nobleman"), corresponding with the Mongolian beki and Turkic baig or bey. Also like the Mongols and the Turks, the Jurchens did not observe primogeniture. According to tradition, any capable son or nephew could be chosen to become leader.

Unlike the Mongols, the Jurchens were a sedentary and agrarian society. They farmed grain and millet as their primary cereal crops, grew flax and raised oxen, pigs, sheep, and horses. "At the most", the Jurchen could only be described as "semi-nomadic" while the majority of them were sedentary.

Jurchen similarities and differences with the Mongols were emphasized to various degrees by Nurhaci out of political expediency. Nurhaci once said to the Mongols that "the languages of the Chinese and Koreans are different, but their clothing and way of life is the same. It is the same with us Manchus (Jušen) and Mongols. Our languages are different, but our clothing and way of life is the same." Later, Nurhaci indicated that the bond with the Mongols was not based on any real shared culture, but rather on pragmatic reasons of "mutual opportunism". He said to the Mongols, "You Mongols raise livestock, eat meat and wear pelts. My people till the fields and live on grain. We two are not one country and we have different languages".

During the Ming dynasty, the Jurchens lived in sub-clans (mukun or hala mukun) of ancient clans (hala). Not all clan members were blood related, and division and integration of different clans was common. Jurchen households (boo) lived as families (booigon) consisting of five to seven blood-related family members and a number of slaves. Households formed squads (tatan) to engage in tasks related to hunting and food gathering and formed companies (niru) for larger activities, such as war.

Haixi, Jianzhou, Yeren
The Haixi Jurchens were "semi-agricultural, the Jianzhou Jurchens and Maolian Jurchens were sedentary, while hunting and fishing was the way of life of the "Wild Jurchens". Hunting, horseback archery, horsemanship, livestock raising, and sedentary agriculture were all practiced by Jianzhou Jurchens. The Jurchen way of life (economy) was described as agricultural. They farmed crops and raised animals. Jurchens practiced slash-and-burn agriculture in the areas north of Shenyang.

Queue
In 1126, the Jurchens initially ordered male Han Chinese within their conquered territories to adopt the Jurchen hairstyle by shaving the front of their heads and adopting Jurchen dress, but the order was later lifted. Jurchens were impersonated by Han rebels who wore their hair in the Jurchen queue to strike fear within their population. During the Qing dynasty, the Manchus, who descended from the Jurchens, similarly made Han Chinese men shave the front of their head and wear the rest of their hair in a queue, or soncoho, the traditional Manchu hairstyle.

Dogs
Although their Mohe ancestors did not revere dogs, the Jurchens began to revere dogs around the time of the Ming dynasty and passed this tradition on to the Manchus. It was prohibited in Jurchen culture to use dog skin, and forbidden for Jurchens to harm, kill, or eat dogs. The Jurchens believed that the "utmost evil" was the usage of dog skin by Koreans.

Sex and marriage
Pre-marital sex was probably accepted in lower class Jurchen society since the practice of guest prostitution - providing visitors with sex - did not impede their ability to marry later. The Jurchens also allowed marriage with in-laws, a practice considered taboo in Chinese society. Abduction marriages were common.

Burial
Until recently, it was uncertain what kind of burial rites existed among the Jurchens. In July 2012, Russian archaeologists discovered a Jurchen burial ground in Partizansky District of Primorye in Russia. Fifteen graves dating to the 12th or 13th century were found, consisting of the grave of a chieftain placed in the centre, with the graves of 14 servants nearby. All the graves contained pots with ashes, prompting the scientists to conclude that the Jurchens cremated the corpses of their dead. The grave of the chieftain also contained a quiver with arrows and a bent sword. The archaeologists propose that the sword was purposely bent, to signify that the owner would no longer need it in earthly life. The researchers planned to return to Primorye to establish whether this was a singular burial or a part of the larger burial ground.

Agriculture
Only the Mongols and the northern "wild" Jurchen were semi-nomadic, unlike the mainstream Jianzhou Jurchens descended from the Jin dynasty, who were farmers that foraged, hunted, herded and harvested crops in the Liao and Yalu river basins. They gathered ginseng root, pine nuts, hunted for came pels in the uplands and forests, raised horses in their stables, and farmed millet and wheat in their fallow fields. They engaged in dances, wrestling and drinking strong liquor as noted during midwinter by the Korean Sin Chung-il when it was very cold. These Jurchens who lived in the northeast's harsh cold climate sometimes half sunk their houses in the ground which they constructed of brick or timber and surrounded their fortified villages with stone foundations on which they built wattle and mud walls to defend against attack. Village clusters were ruled by beile, hereditary leaders. They fought each other and dispensed weapons, wives, slaves and lands to their followers in them. This was how the Jurchens who founded the Qing lived and how their ancestors lived before the Jin. Alongside Mongols and Jurchen clans there were migrants from Liaodong provinces of Ming China and Korea living among these Jurchens in a cosmopolitan manner. Nurhaci, who was hosting Sin Chung-il, was uniting all of them into his own army, having them adopt the Jurchen hairstyle of a long queue and a shaved forecrown and wearing leather tunics. His armies had black, blue, red, white and yellow flags. These became the Eight Banners, initially capped to 4 then growing to 8 with three different types of ethnic banners as Han, Mongol and Jurchen were recruited into Nurhaci's forces. Jurchens like Nurhaci spoke both their native Tungusic language and Chinese, adopting the Mongolian script for their own language, unlike the Jin Jurchen's use of the Khitan large script. They adopted Confucian values and practiced shamanist traditions. Most Jurchens raised pigs and stock animals and were farmers.

The Qing stationed the "New Manchu" Warka foragers in Ningguta and attempted to turn them into normal agricultural farmers but then the Warka just reverted to hunter gathering and requested money to buy cattle for beef broth. The Qing wanted the Warka to become soldier-farmers and imposed this on them, but the Warka simply left their garrison at Ningguta and went back to the Sungari to their homes to herd, fish and hunt. The Qing accused them of desertion.

Religion
Jurchens practiced shamanic rituals and believed in a supreme sky goddess (abka hehe, literally sky woman). The Jurchens of the Jin dynasty practiced Buddhism, which became the prevalent religion of the Jurchens, and Daoism. The Jurchen word for "sorceress" was shanman. Under Confucian influence during the Qing dynasty the gender of the female sky deity was switched to a male sky father, Abka Enduri (abka-i enduri, abka-i han).

Language
The early Jurchen script was invented in 1120 by Wanyan Xiyin, acting on the orders of Wanyan Aguda. It was based on the Khitan script that was inspired in turn by Chinese characters. The written Jurchen language died out soon after the fall of the Jin dynasty. The Translators' Bureau of the Ming tributary bureaucracy received a communication from the Jurchens in 1444 stating that nobody among them understood the Jurchen script, so all letters sent to them should be written in Mongolian.

Until the end of the 16th century, when Manchu became the new literary language, the Jurchens used a combination of Mongolian and Chinese. The pioneering work on studies of the Jurchen script was done by Wilhelm Grube at the end of the 19th century.

Genetics
Haplogroup C3b2b1*-M401(xF5483)  has been identified as a possible marker of the Aisin Gioro and is found in ten different ethnic minorities in northern China, but completely absent from Han Chinese.

Genetic testing also showed that the haplogroup C3b1a3a2-F8951 of the Aisin Gioro family came to southeastern Manchuria after migrating from their place of origin in the Amur river's middle reaches, originating from ancestors related to Daurs in the Transbaikal area. The Tungusic speaking peoples mostly have C3c-M48 as their subclade of C3 which drastically differs from the C3b1a3a2-F8951 haplogroup of the Aisin Gioro which originates from Mongolic speaking populations like the Daur. Jurchen (Manchus) are a Tungusic people. The Mongol Genghis Khan's haplogroup C3b1a3a1-F3796 (C3*-Star Cluster) is a fraternal "brother" branch of C3b1a3a2-F8951 haplogroup of the Aisin Gioro. A genetic test was conducted on 7 men who claimed Aisin Gioro descent with 3 of them showing documented genealogical information of all their ancestors up to Nurhaci. 3 of them turned out to share the C3b2b1*-M401(xF5483) haplogroup, out of them, 2 of them were the ones who provided their documented family trees. The other 4 tested were unrelated. The Daur Ao clan carries the unique haplogroup subclade C2b1a3a2-F8951, the same haplogroup as Aisin Gioro and both Ao and Aisin Gioro only diverged merely a couple of centuries ago from a shared common ancestor. Other members of the Ao clan carry haplogroups like N1c-M178, C2a1b-F845, C2b1a3a1-F3796 and C2b1a2-M48. People from northeast China, the Daur Ao clan and Aisin Gioro clan are the main carriers of haplogroup C2b1a3a2-F8951. The Mongolic C2*-Star Cluster (C2b1a3a1-F3796) haplogroup is a fraternal branch to Aisin Gioro's C2b1a3a2-F8951 haplogroup.

In fiction
In the Alternative History timeline of Harry Turtledove's novel Agent of Byzantium, the Jurchens migrate westwards, reach Europe and become a serious threat to the Byzantine Empire.

title: Jurchen people