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British Central Africa Protectorate

The British Central Africa Protectorate (BCA) was a British protectorate proclaimed in 1889 and ratified in 1891 that occupied the same area as present-day Malawi: it was renamed Nyasaland in 1907. British interest in the area arose from visits made by David Livingstone from 1858 onward during his exploration of the Zambezi area. This encouraged missionary activity that started in the 1860s, undertaken by the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, the Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland, and which was followed by a small number of settlers. The Portuguese government attempted to claim much of the area in which the missionaries and settlers operated, but this was disputed by the British government. To forestall a Portuguese expedition claiming effective occupation, a protectorate was proclaimed, first over the south of this area, then over the whole of it in 1889. After negotiations with the Portuguese and German governments on its boundaries, the protectorate was formally ratified by the British government in May 1891.

Origin
The Shire Highlands south of Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi) and the lands west of the lake were explored by David Livingstone between the 1858 and 1864 as part of his Zambezi expeditions. Livingstone suggested that what he claimed was the area's benign climate and fertility would make it ideal for the promotion of Christianity and commerce. As a result of Livingstone's writings, several Anglican and Presbyterian missions were established in the area in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1878 The African Lakes Company Limited, predecessor to the African Lakes Corporation Limited, was established in Glasgow by a group of local businessmen with links to the Presbyterian missions. Their aim was to set up a trade and transport concern that would work in close cooperation with the missions to combat the slave trade by introducing legitimate trade, to make a commercial profit, and to develop European influence in the area. A mission and small trading settlement was established at Blantyre in 1876 and a British consul took up residence there in 1883.

Concessionaires holding prazo estates from the Portuguese crown were active in the lower valley of the Shire River from the 1830s and the Portuguese government claimed suzerainty over much of Central Africa, without maintaining effective occupation over more than a small part of it. In 1879, the Portuguese government formally claimed the area south and east of the Ruo River (which currently forms the southeastern border of Malawi), and in 1882 occupied the lower Shire River valley as far north as the Ruo River. The Portuguese then attempted to negotiate British acceptance of their territorial claims, but the convening of the Berlin Conference (1884) ended these bilateral discussions. Meanwhile, the African Lakes Company was attempting to obtain the status of a Chartered company from the British government, but it had not managed to do so by 1886. In 1885-86 Alexandre de Serpa Pinto undertook a Portuguese expedition which reached the Shire Highlands, but it failed make any treaties of protection with the Yao chiefs in territories west of Lake Malawi.

As late as 1888, the British Foreign Office declined to accept responsibility for protecting the rudimentary British settlements in the Shire Highlands, despite unsubstantiated claims by the African Lakes Company of Portuguese interference with their trading activities. However, it also declined to negotiate with the Portuguese government on their claim that the Shire Highlands should be considered part of Portuguese East Africa, as it was not regarded by the Foreign Office as under effective Portuguese occupation. In order to prevent Portuguese occupation, the British government sent Henry Hamilton Johnston as British consul to Mozambique and the Interior, with instructions to report on the extent of Portuguese rule in the Zambezi and Shire valleys and the vicinity, and to make conditional treaties with local rulers beyond Portuguese jurisdiction. These conditional treaties of friendship did not amount to the establishment of a British protectorate but prevented those rulers from accepting protection from another state. On his way to take up his appointment, Johnston spent six weeks in Lisbon in early 1889 attempting to negotiate an acceptable agreement on Portuguese and British spheres of influence in Central Africa. The draft agreement reached in March 1889 would have created a British sphere including all the area west of Lake Nyasa and also Mashonaland but not including the Shire Highlands and Lower Shire valley, which were to be part of the Portuguese sphere. This went beyond what the Foreign Office was prepared to accept, and the proposal was later rejected.

In 1888, the Portuguese government instructed its representatives in Portuguese East Africa to attempt to make treaties of protection with the Yao chiefs southeast of Lake Malawi and in the Shire Highlands, and an expedition organised under Antonio Cardoso, a former governor of Quelimane, set off in November 1888 for the lake. Rather later, in early 1889, a second expedition led by Alexandre de Serpa Pinto moved up the Shire valley. Between them, these two expeditions made over twenty treaties with chiefs in what is now Malawi. Serpa Pinto met Johnston in August 1889 east of the Ruo River, when Johnston advised him not to cross the river into the Shire Highlands. Previously, Serpa Pinto had acted with caution, but in September, following minor clashes between Serpa Pinto's advancing force and Kololo who had been left behind by Livingstone at the end of his Zambezi expedition in 1864 and had formed minor chieftainships, he crossed the Ruo to Chiromo, now in Malawi. In response to this incursion, Johnston's deputy John Buchanan declared a Shire Highlands Protectorate in Johnston's absence, despite the contrary Foreign Office instructions. It seems probable that Buchanan's action, made without reference to the Foreign Office, but following instructions that Johnston had left before he departed for the north, was to prevent any further advance by Serpa Pinto rather than to establish British rule in the area. However, in October 1889 Serpa Pinto's soldiers attacked one of the Kololo chiefs, killing around 70 of his followers and, with two armed river boats, pushed up the Shire River through the area over which Buchanan had established a protectorate. After Serpa Pinto's departure owing to serious illness in November 1889, his second-in-command, João Coutinho, pushed on as far as Katunga, the nearest river port to Blantyre, and some Kololo chiefs fled to Blantyre for safety.

Johnston's proclamation of a further protectorate, the Nyasaland Districts Protectorate, west of Lake Malawi was also contrary to Foreign Office instructions. However, it was endorsed by the Foreign Office in May 1891. This was because the discovery of the Chinde channel in the Zambezi delta, which was deep enough to allow sea-going ships to enter the Zambezi, which was an international waterway, without having to enter Portuguese territory, whereas previously such ships had to use the port of Quelimane. Salisbury was also influenced by the offer by the British South Africa Company to fund the administration of the protectorate, which convinced him to bow to popular pressure. There followed an Anglo-Portuguese Crisis in which a British refusal of arbitration was followed by the 1890 British Ultimatum of 11 January 1890. This demanded that the Portuguese give up all claims to territories beyond the Ruo River and west of Lake Malawi. The Portuguese government accepted under duress and ordered their troops in the Shire valley to withdraw to the south bank of the Ruo. This order was received by the commander at Katunga on 8 March 1890 and all Portuguese forces had evacuated Katunga and Chiromo by 12 March.

An 1891 Anglo-Portuguese treaty fixed the southern borders of what had been renamed the British Central Africa Protectorate. Although the Ruo River had been the provisional boundary between Portuguese and British spheres of influence since 1879, as part of the 1891 treaty and under strong British pressure, an area west of the Shire and south of its confluence with the Ruo which had been controlled by an Afro-Portuguese family, was allocated to Britain and now forms the Nsanje District. The treaty also granted Britain a 99-year lease over Chinde, a port at one of the Zambezi delta mouths where sea-going ships could transfer goods and passengers to river boats. The northern border of the protectorate was agreed at the Songwe River as part of the Anglo-German Convention in 1890. Its western border with Northern Rhodesia was fixed in 1891 at the drainage divide between Lake Malawi and the Luangwa River by agreement with the British South Africa Company, which governed what is today Zambia under Royal Charter until 1924.

Consolidation
In 1891, Johnston only controlled a fraction of the Shire Highlands, itself a small part of the whole protectorate, and initially had a force of only 70 Indian troops to impose British rule. These troops, later reinforced by Indian and African recruits, were used up to 1895 to fight several small wars against those unwilling to give up their independence. After this, until 1898, troops were used to assist the locally recruited police force to suppress the slave trade. The three main groups resisting British occupation were Yao chiefs in the south of the protectorate and Swahili groups around the centre and north of Lake Nyasa, both involved in the slave trade, and Ngoni people who had formed two aggressively expansionists kingdoms in the west and north.

The Yao chiefdoms were closest to the European settlements in the Shire Highlands and, as early as August 1891, Johnston used his small force against three minor chiefs before attacking the most important Yao chief, who was based on the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa. After initial success, Johnston's forces were ambushed and forced to retreat and, during 1892, undertook no further action against the several Yao chief that rejected British control. However, in 1893, Cecil Rhodes made a special grant to allow Johnston to recruit a further 200 Indian troops and also African mercenaries to take action to counter armed resistance and, by the end of 1895, the only Yao resistance was from small armed bands without fixed bases that were able to cross into Mozambique when challenged. Next, Johnston prepared to attack Mlozi bin Kazbadema, the leader of the so-called "north end Arabs", although most of those that contemporary Europeans in East Africa described as Arabs were either Muslim Swahili from the east coast of Africa or Nyamwezi people, who imitated Arab dress and customs but were rarely Muslims. Mlozi had defeated two attempts which the African Lakes Company Limited in the Karonga War had made between 1887 and 1889, with some unofficial British government support, to dislodge him and his followers and end the slave trade. Johnston had signed a truce with him in October 1889 and left him in peace until late 1895, despite Mlozi often breaking the terms of that truce. Johnston first secured the neutrality of the Swahili ruler of Nkhotakota by paying him a subsidy and, in November 1895, he embarked a force of over 400 Sikh and African riflemen with artillery and machine guns on steamers at Fort Johnston and set out for Karonga. Without any prior warning, Johnston assaulted two of Mlozi's smaller stockades on 2 December and, on the same day, surrounded Mlozi's large, double-fenced fortified town, bombarding it for two days and finally assaulting it on 4 December, facing stiff resistance. Mlozi was captured, given a cursory trial and hanged on 5 December: between 200 and 300 of his fighters were killed, many while attempting to surrender, as well as several hundred non-combatants, who were killed in the bombardment. The other Swahili stockades did not resist and were destroyed after their surrender.

The Maseko Ngoni kingdom in the west of the protectorate had been the most powerful state in the region in the 1880s but was weakened by internal disputes and a civil war. Initially, Gomani, the victor in the civil war that ended in 1891, was on good terms with British officials and missionaries, but he became concerned at the number of his young men going to work on European-owned estates in the Shire Highlands and by Johnston's forceful reaction to Yao resistance. In November 1895, he forbade his subjects either to pay taxes to, or work for, the British, and he was also accused of harassing nearby missions which had told their members not to obey Gomani's instructions. Johnston's deputy Alfred Sharpe attacked and defeated Gomani's forces on 23 October 1896. Gomani was sentenced to death by a court martial and shot on 27 October. Within a year, 5,000 of his former subjects were working in the Blantyre area.

As the northern Ngoni kingdom did not threaten European trading interests, as it was far from European-owned estates, and as the Scottish mission at Livingstonia was influential within the kingdom, Johnston did not use force against it. It accepted British rule in 1904 on condition of retaining its own traditions. Its king was recognised as a paramount chief, the only one in the protectorate at that time, and received a government salary, whereas Gomani's son only received comparable recognition in the 1930s.

Administration and the land issue
The offer by the British South Africa Company to fund the administration of the newly-formed protectorate was part of an attempt by Cecil Rhodes to take over the administration of all the territory claimed by Britain north of the Zambezi. This was resisted, particularly by the Scottish missionaries and, in February 1891, Salisbury agreed to a compromise under which what later became Northern Rhodesia would be under company administration and what later became Nyasaland would be administered by the Foreign Office. However Henry Hamilton Johnston would be both the Administrator of the British South Africa Company's territory and Commissioner and Consul-General of the protectorate, and would receive a payment of £10,000 a year from Rhodes towards the expenses of administering both territories. This arrangement lapsed in 1900, when North-Eastern Rhodesia was formed as a separate protectorate with its own Administrator

Harry Johnston, who became Sir Henry at the end of his term, was Commissioner and Consul-General from 1 February 1891 to 16 April 1896. Alfred Sharpe, Sir Alfred from 1903, who had been Johnston's deputy from 1891, took over as Commissioner and Consul-General in 1896, serving until 1 April 1910 (first as Commissioner and Consul-General and then as Governor of the Nyasaland Protectorate from 1907), with Francis Barrow Pearce as acting Commissioner from 1 April 1907 to 30 September 1907 and William Henry Manning as acting Commissioner from 1 October 1907 to 1 May 1908. Although the first Consul appointed in 1883 had used Blantyre as his base, the second moved to Zomba because it was closer to the slave route running from Lake Malawi to the coast. Johnston also preferred Zomba because of its relative isolation, healthiness and superb scenery, and it became the governor's residence and administrative capital throughout the colonial period although Blantyre remained the commercial centre.

In 1896, Johnston set up a small government Secretariat in Zomba which, with the addition of a few technical advisers appointed soon after, formed the nucleus of his central administration. In 1892, Johnston received powers to set up courts and divide the protectorate into districts and, until 1904 when the Colonial Office assumed this responsibility, he selected district officials with the title of Collectors of Revenue, Their official title later became Residents, and they were the predecessors of District Commissioners. Their main duties were to collect taxes, to ensure a supply of labour to European-owned estates and government projects and ensure government instructions and regulations were carried out. Johnston's Collectors included ex-soldiers, ex-missionaries and ex-employees of the African Lakes Company: the main consideration was that they had African experience. A few Collectors in strategically important locations had contingents of troops attached to their district, but most had no more than one or two assistants. By 1905 there were 12 Collectors and 26 Assistant Collectors The power of existing chiefs were minimised in favour of direct rule by the Residents, as Johnston did not consider the chiefs should play any part in the administration of the protectorate. The exception was the Northern Ngoni Kingdom, which retained a significant degree of autonomy. In practice, however, the relatively few district officers required the cooperation of local chiefs it administer their districts and allowed chiefs to continue in their traditional roles.

One of the major legal problems facing Johnston was that of land claims. For up to 25 years before the protectorate was formed, a number of European traders, missionaries and others had claimed to have acquired often large areas of land through contracts signed with local chiefs, usually for derisory payment. Although Johnston had a duty to look into the validity of these land deals, and although he accepted that the land belonged to its tribes and that their chiefs had no right to alienate it, he put forward the legal fiction that each chief's people had tacitly accepted he could assume such a right. As a result, Johnston accepted the validity of those claims where the signatory was the chief of the tribe occupying the land, provided that the terms of the contract were not inconsistent with British sovereignty. Where claims were accepted, Johnston issued Certificates of Claim (in effect the grant of freehold, or fee simple, title). Out of 61 claims made, only two were rejected outright and a handful reduced in size. These Certificate of Claim were issued at a time when no professional judges had been appointed to the protectorate, and the work of Johnston and his assistants was subsequently criticised by judges and later administrators.

In total, 59 Certificates of Claim to land rights were registered, mostly between 1892 and 1894, covering an area of 3,705,255 acre, or 15% of the total land area of the Protectorate. This included 2,702,379 acre in the North Nyasa District that the British South Africa Company had acquired for its mineral potential and which was never turned into plantation estates. Except for this large grant in the Northern Region, much of the remaining land, some 867,000 acre of estates, included much of the best arable land in the Shire Highlands, which was the most densely populated part of the country.

In the first years of the protectorate, very little of the alienated land was planted. Settlers wanted labour and encouraged existing Africans to stay on the undeveloped land, and new workers (often migrants from Mozambique) to move onto it, and grow their own crops. From the late 1890s, when the estates started to produce coffee, the owners began to charge these tenants a rent, usually satisfied by two months’ labour a year, of which one month was to meet the worker's tax obligation; however, some owners demanded longer periods of labour.

In order to raise revenue, and also to increase the supply of labour, a Hut tax was imposed from 1895 in the Shire Highlands. This was gradually extended to the rest of the protectorate, becoming universal in 1906. It was nominally three shillings a year, but could be satisfied by one month's labour a year spent on a settler estate or working for the government.

The name of the protectorate was changed to the Nyasaland Protectorate on 6 July 1907.

Population
There was only one, rather limited, official census in this period, in 1901, which returned a population of 736,724. However, the African population was estimated on the basis of hut tax records with a multiplier for the average inhabitants per hut. As no taxes were collected in some areas in the north of the protectorate in 1901, their inhabitants were estimated on the basis of occasional official visits. It is believed that much of the country was reasonably well populated in the mid-19th century, but by the 1880s large areas had become underpopulated through devastating raids by the Ngoni people and the famines which they caused or as the result of slave raiding. There may well have been large areas in the Shire Highlands that had been virtually depopulated.

Some of the shortfall in population may have been made good by the inward migration of families groups of so-called "Anguru", Lomwe speaking migrants from the parts of Mozambique east of the Shire Highlands estates, who became estate tenants. They began to arrive from 1899, and the 1921 census counted 108,204 "Anguru". Neither the 1901 nor the 1911 censuses recorded tribal affiliation, but the very substantial population increases in districts adjacent to Mozambique, especially Blantyre and Zomba districts, whose recorded populations more than doubled in this decade, suggest substantial immigration. In this period, relatively few Africans left the protectorate as migrant workers, but outward labour migration became more common later.

British occupation did not significantly change African society within the protectorate until the First World War, with most people continuing to live under the social and political systems that existed before 1891. No attempt was made to remove or limit the powers of the Yao, Ngoni or Makololo chiefs (who had first entered the area in the 19th century) over the original inhabitants they had displaced, subjugated or assimilated, although the Swahili slave traders had been killed in the warfare of the 1890s or had left. One area in which early efforts to change the system manifestly failed was that of domestic slavery. Although slave-trading had been eliminated, and Johnston issued instructions that domestic slaves were to be emancipated, this particular form of slavery endured, particularly in the Central Region, well into the first quarter of the 20th century

Economy and transport
Throughout the period of the protectorate, most of its people were subsistence farmers growing maize, millet and other food crops for their own consumption. As the protectorate had no economic mineral resources, its colonial economy had to be based on agriculture, but before 1907 this had hardly started to develop. In pre-colonial times trade was limited to the export of ivory and forest products such as natural rubber in exchange for cloth and metals and, for the first few years of the protectorate, ivory and rubber collected from indigenous vines were the principal elements of a tiny export trade. The first estate crop was coffee, grown commercially in quantity from around 1895, but competition from Brazil, which had flooded the world markets with coffee by 1905, and droughts led to its decline in favour of tobacco and cotton. Both these crops had previously been grown in small quantities, but the decline of coffee prompted planters to turn to tobacco in the Shire Highlands and cotton in the Shire Valley. Tea was also first planted commercially in 1905 in the Shire Highlands, but significant development of tobacco and tea growing only took place after the opening of the Shire Highlands Railway in 1908.

Before the railway opened, water was the most efficient means of transport. From the time of Livingstone's 1859 expedition, small steamers navigated the Zambezi-Lower Shire river system, and they were later introduced on the Upper Shire and Lake Malawi. The Upper and Lower Shire were separated by about 60 mi of the Middle Shire, where rapids and shallows made navigation impractical, and both the Upper and Lower Shire were often too shallow for larger vessels, particularly in the dry season. In addition, the main areas of economic activity in the early protectorate were in the Shire Highlands, mainly near Blantyre, which was 25 mi from Chikwawa, a small Shire River port. Transport of goods to river ports was by inefficient and costly head porterage, as the Shire valley was unsuitable for draught animals.

Shallow draught steamers carrying 100 tons or less had to negotiate Lower Shire marshes and low-water hazards in the Zambezi and its delta to reach the small, poorly equipped coastal port of Chinde in Mozambique. Low water levels in Lake Nyasa reduced the Shire River's flow from 1896 to 1934, so the main river port was moved, first to Chiromo, further from the main settlements below a steep escarpment and from 1908 to Port Herald (now Nsanje).

As early as 1895, Johnston suggested a line from the protectorate's main commercial town, Blantyre, to Quelimane in Mozambique. However, most of its proposed route was in Portuguese territory and Quelimane was only suitable for small ships. Also in 1895, Eugene Sharrer proposed building a railway from Blantyre to Chiromo, and he formed the Shire Highlands Railway Company Limited in December 1895 to achieve this. Although Johnston urged the Foreign Office to finance this railway, it declined to do so, but in 1901 it agreed in principle to the company building the proposed railway, and granted the company 361,600 acre of land adjacent to the railway route. Because of delays over raising the funds needed for construction, and disputes over its route, it was not until early 1903 that construction began. The line was opened from Blantyre to Chiromo in 1907.

Modern communications began to be established in 1891, with the opening of the territory's first post office at Chiromo. This remained the main sorting office until after the railway was opened, when Limbe became the postal hub. A telegraph connection from Blantyre to Cape Town via Umtali was established in April 1898.

title: British Central Africa Protectorate


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David Sylvian

David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt; 23 February 1958) is an English musician, singer and songwriter who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly electronic sound made them an important influence on the UK's early-1980s New Romantic scene.

Following their break-up, Sylvian embarked on a solo career with his debut album Brilliant Trees (1984). His solo work has been described by AllMusic as "far-ranging and esoteric", and has included collaborations with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robert Fripp, Holger Czukay, Jon Hassell, Bill Nelson and Fennesz.

While his recordings of the 1980s and 1990s were a mixture of pop, jazz fusion, and avant-garde experimentalism mixed with ambient, his more recent compositions have drawn increasingly on musical minimalism and free improvisation.

Early years
David Sylvian was born David Alan Batt in Beckenham, Kent, England. He grew up in nearby Lewisham, South London, in a working-class home. His father Bernard was a plasterer by trade, his mother Sheila a housewife. He had an older sister and a younger brother, Steve. Sylvian later said he never enjoyed his childhood, mainly because of the environment of mid-1960s Lewisham. In 1966, he and Steve applied to appear in an advertisement for Mattel's Major Matt Mason action figures. As an escape and emotional release from his discomfort he found an interest in music via his sister, who brought Motown and soul records to the home. He attended Catford Boys School where he became a friend of Anthony Michaelides, later known as Mick Karn. When David received an acoustic guitar and his brother a drum kit as Christmas presents from their father, the three boys began to play music together.

1970s–early 1980s: Japan
The band Japan, whose other members included Mick Karn on bass, guitarist Rob Dean, keyboardist Richard Barbieri and Sylvian's brother Steve as drummer (under the name Steve Jansen), began as a group of friends. As youngsters they played music as a means of escape, playing Sylvian's two-chord numbers – sometimes with Karn as the frontman, sometimes with Sylvian at the fore.

They christened themselves Japan in 1974, signed a recording contract with Hansa Records, and became an alternative glam rock outfit in the mould of David Bowie, T. Rex, and the New York Dolls. A fan of the New York Dolls, Sylvian adopted his stage name from Sylvain Sylvain, while his brother took Jansen from David Johansen. Over a period of a few years, their music became more sophisticated, drawing initially on the art rock stylings of Roxy Music. Their visual image also evolved and, although they had worn make-up since their creation in the mid-1970s, the band was tagged with the New Romantic label in the early 1980s. The band themselves disputed any connection with the New Romantic movement, and Sylvian stated: "I don't like to be associated with them. The attitudes are so very different." Of Japan's fashion sense, Sylvian said: "For them [New Romantics], fancy dress is a costume. But ours is a way of life. We look and dress this way every day." In an October 1981 interview, at the pinnacle of the New Romantic movement in mainstream pop music, Sylvian commented: "There's a period going past at the moment that may make us look as though we're in fashion."

Japan released five studio albums between March 1978 and November 1981. In 1980, the band signed with Virgin Records, where Sylvian remained as a recording artist for the next twenty years. The band suffered from personal and creative clashes, particularly between Sylvian and Karn, with tensions springing from Sylvian's relationship with Yuka Fujii, a photographer, artist, and designer, and Karn's former girlfriend. Fujii quickly became an influential figure in Sylvian's life. She was the first person to introduce Sylvian seriously to jazz, which in turn inspired him to follow musical avenues not otherwise open to him. She also encouraged Sylvian to incorporate spiritual discipline into his daily routine. Throughout his solo career, Fujii maintained a large role in the design of artwork for his albums. Japan played their final concerts in December 1982 before dissolving.

1980s–1990s: Solo career
In 1982, Sylvian released his first solo collaborative effort with Ryuichi Sakamoto, entitled "Bamboo Houses/Bamboo Music". Sakamoto's first contribution to Sylvian's work, though, had been as co-writer of "Taking Islands in Africa" on the Japan album Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980). Sylvian also worked with Sakamoto on the UK Top 20 song "Forbidden Colours" for the 1983 Nagisa Oshima film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.

Sylvian's debut solo album, Brilliant Trees, released in June 1984, was a critical and commercial success. The album included contributions from Sakamoto, Kenny Wheeler, Jon Hassell, Holger Czukay, Ronny Drayton, Danny Thompson, and from Sylvian's former bandmates Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri. The lead single became the UK Top 20 single "Red Guitar", with a promo video directed by Anton Corbijn.

Between 19 June and 30 June 1984, Hamiltons Gallery in London held an exhibition, Perspectives, of Polaroid photographs by Sylvian. The major exhibition of his work coincided with the release of his book Perspectives – Polaroids 82-84, documenting these pictures. There were also exhibitions in Tokyo and Turin.

In 1985, Sylvian released an instrumental EP Words with the Shaman, in collaboration with Jansen, Hassell, and Czukay. The recording was re-released the same year on a compilation album, Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities, with the addition of "Steel Cathedrals", a piece recorded with Sakamoto, Czukay, Jansen, Wheeler, Robert Fripp and Masami Tsuchiya. "Steel Cathedrals" was the soundtrack to a 20-minute video. The short film was shot in two days during November 1984 in and around the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan. A large part of the music was completed during that same month and recorded over a period of three days. Sylvian later updated the material in London in an attempt to elaborate on the theme started earlier in Japan, and to further improve the quality of the soundtrack. He would identify "Steel Cathedrals" as his first experience with improvisations.

Sylvian's demo "Sylvian's Machine" became Propaganda's single "p:Machinery", released in 1985. Singer Claudia Brücken stated that Sylvian helped them with his writing and musical skills on "p:Machinery", pretty much influencing the final structure and atmosphere of the piece.

His next release was the two-record set Gone to Earth, which featured one record of atmospheric vocal tracks and a second record consisting of ambient instrumentals. The album contained significant contributions from noted guitarists Bill Nelson (formerly of Be-Bop Deluxe) and Robert Fripp (of King Crimson), and a rhythm section comprising Steve Jansen on drums and Ian Maidman of Penguin Cafe Orchestra on bass. Released on 13 September 1986, the album reached Number 24 on the UK Album chart.

Composition of new material in early 1987 was followed by recording sessions at Chateau Miraval in the south of France, and by May 1987 Secrets of the Beehive was completed, finally being released in October 1987.

Secrets of the Beehive made greater use of acoustic instruments and was musically oriented towards sombre, emotive ballads laced with string arrangements by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Brian Gascoigne. It reached number 37 in the UK charts and remained for two weeks.

The album was followed by his first live outing as a solo artist, in an 80-day world tour called "In Praise of Shamans", from March to June 1988. Alongside Sylvian were Jansen, Barbieri, guitars and keyboards from Robbie Aceto, brass and sax from Mark Isham, bass from Ian Maidman and lead guitar from David Torn. There were no songs from Sylvian's former band Japan in the setlist.

"Beehive was the summation of all the solo material that went before it", Sylvian said. "I knew when I had finished I wouldn't be returning to quite the same waters again. The period following on from...Beehive was the hardest of my life. A descent into hell."

Following Secrets of the Beehive, it would be 1999 before he released his next solo offering, as he descended into a prolonged period of clinical depression. The crisis began to gather momentum prior to undertaking a 1988 tour. That took its toll and Sylvian found himself in a frighteningly unstable state, which he would experience in varying degrees of intensity over the next 3 or 4 years. Sylvian was unable to work in isolation, but at the same time felt the need to throw himself into collaborative project after collaborative project in a hope of recognising via his response something of what he was dealing with. At these times, manifestations of the crisis were less apparent.

Ultimately he left behind his Christian roots and via explorations of widely varied philosophies ranging from the writings of Gurdjieff to Gnosticism to Zen Buddhism, all of which left its traces in his lyrics and music, he settled on Buddhism as his primary spiritual path.

Never one to conform to commercial expectations, Sylvian then collaborated with Holger Czukay. Sylvian was at Can's studio in Cologne in 1986 to do a vocal for Czukay's record. But instead they started improvise, and recorded the first piece in three nights. Plight and Premonition was finally released in March 1988 while Sylvian was still on tour. Flux and Mutability was released the following year, and it also included contributions from Can members Jaki Liebezeit and Michael Karoli. Flux and Mutability was less spontaneous in its conception than Plight and Premonition. For Flux, Sylvian travelled to Cologne for a two-week creative Christmas break at the end of 1988, so this was planned unlike the unexpected genesis of Plight.

Virgin decided to close out the 1980s with the release of Weatherbox, an elaborate boxed-set compilation designed by Russell Mills, consisting of Sylvian's four previous solo albums. Concurrent with Weatherbox, Sylvian released the non-album single "Pop Song".

In 1990, Sylvian collaborated with artists Russell Mills and Ian Walton on the elaborate multi-media installation using sculpture, sound, and light titled Ember Glance – The Permanence of Memory. The exhibition was staged in September and October 1990 at the temporary museum 'Space FGO-Soko' on Tokyo Bay, Shinagawa, Tokyo.

1991–1994: Rain Tree Crow and Robert Fripp
The members of Japan came together once more, as Rain Tree Crow, after a nine-year hiatus. The majority of the material was written as a result of group improvisations, with no rehearsals. This approach to writing was an integral element to the whole project, and in many ways it was the reason for the collaboration. The Rain Tree Crow project had initially been conceived as a long term album deal, with Sylvian's insistence that the name Japan would not be used in conjunction with its promotion. But the recording went over budget and Virgin refused to put in any more money unless the name Japan could be used. The resulting deadlock was resolved by Sylvian's decision to personally finance the mixing of the album. However, the group was no longer interested in re-forming, and the album was released as a one-off.

Sylvian first thought of collaborating with guitarist Robert Fripp in 1986, but, characteristically, it took them a while to manage it. They only began to improvise and write as a duo at the end of 1991. That same year, Fripp had approached Sylvian to front a possible new version of the band King Crimson, but Sylvian declined.

Fripp had encouraged Sylvian to return to the live-stage, a place he admitted he did not find comfortable ('Sylvian didn't like being the centre of attention'). The pair's concerts were, like Sylvian's work in the studio, largely improvised. On the few dates they undertook in Japan and Italy in 1992, they had no idea when they walked out into the lights what might happen, even what time they would finish their night's work. One evening Sylvian found himself confronted with his past. He felt moved to play an acoustic version of "Ghosts", Japan's biggest hit. It was the first time he'd touched it since 1983. 'It was quite nice because it somehow satisfied the expectation of the audience that I should play something from my songbook'. Sylvian stated. It was the trio work that they did first, only in Europe, Trey Gunn, Robert Fripp and Sylvian, that was the eyeopener. They had some material which was kind of knocked up one week before they went on the road, and so it was very unstable, and just sitting there on stage and just trying to keep a hold of it was fascinating. There were periods in the evening when Sylvian was doing nothing, and he was just absorbed in what Robert Fripp was doing. And Sylvian began to realize that it was a comfortable place to be. He enjoyed the environment. Up until that point it was all about reproducing the songs and presenting them in such-and-such way. But that was different, and it began to interest him, and it opened up his eyes to the pleasures of performing.

Fripp and Sylvian then recorded the album The First Day between December 1992 and March 1993 at studios in New York and New Orleans, and released the album in July 1993. Something of a departure for Sylvian, the album melded his own philosophical lyrics to funk workouts and aggressive rock stylings very much in the mould of Fripp's King Crimson.

To capitalise on the album's success, they went back out on the road on their "The Road to Graceland Tour" which began in Tokyo on 14 October 1993. The additional musicians on stage with Sylvian, Fripp and Gunn were Michael Brook and Pat Mastelotto. A live recording, titled Damage, released in 1994, was culled from the final shows of the tour.

Sylvian and Fripp's final collaboration was the installation Redemption – Approaching Silence. The exhibition was held at the P3 Art and Environment centre in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and ran from 30 August to 18 September 1994. The accompanying music was composed by Sylvian, with text written and recited by Fripp.

1995-1999: Slow Fire Tour and Dead Bees on a Cake
At the end of August 1995, Sylvian undertook a one-man solo tour which he called 'Slow Fire – A Personal Retrospective', with dates in Italy, Germany, Japan, Belgium, The Netherlands, England, Canada and North America. The last show on the tour was played in New York City at The Town Hall 11 November 1995. The show featured songs drawn from throughout Sylvian's career, singing and playing piano and guitar.

In 1999, Sylvian released Dead Bees on a Cake, his first solo album proper since Secrets of the Beehive 12 years earlier. Once the album was mixed at Dave Kents Napa Studio, the project was finished, from the beginning to end a process that extended from 1993 to the late summer of 1998, Dead Bees on a Cake eventually being released in March 1999.

The album gathered together the most eclectic influences of all his recordings, ranging from soul music to jazz fusion to blues to Eastern-inflected spiritual chants, and most of the songs' lyrics reflected the now 41-year-old Sylvian's inner peace resulting from his marriage, family, and beliefs. Guest musicians included long-time friend Ryuichi Sakamoto, classically trained tabla player Talvin Singh, avant-garde guitarist Marc Ribot, jazz trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, and contemporary jazz guitarist Bill Frisell. In 2010, Sylvian said, "Since the early '80s I've been interested in deconstructing the familiar forms of popular song, in retaining the structure but removing the pillars of support. My work continually returns to this question: how much of the framework can you remove while still being able to identify what is, after all, a familiar form?"

2000 to 2009: Samadhi Sound
Following Dead Bees, Sylvian released two compilation albums on Virgin Records: a two-disc retrospective, Everything and Nothing (2000), and an instrumental collection, Camphor (2002). Both albums contained previously released material, remixes and several new or previously unreleased tracks which Sylvian finished especially for the projects. Combined, the retrospective releases effectively marked a full stop to Sylvian's association with Virgin, the split coming at the beginning of 2001.

Also in 2001, the track "Linoleum" was released on Tweaker's album The Attraction to All Things Uncertain. Sylvian co-wrote and sang on the collaboration.

Sakamoto wanted some English lyrics for his project Zero Landmine, and asked Sylvian to write a simple, tender lyric that could be sung by children. Included on the release were various versions of the song, one being a Sylvian vocal with just the backing of Sakamoto's piano.

In September 2001 Sylvian embarked on the 'Everything and Nothing Tour', which kicked off in Osaka on 17 September, and wound its way through Europe until 27 October that year. The tour continued into 2002, revisiting Japan and taking concerts to the US and Canada. Sylvian was accompanied on stage by Jansen, keyboard player Matt Cooper, guitarist Timothy Young and bassist Keith Lowe.

After Sylvian left Virgin Records he launched his own independent label, Samadhi Sound. He released the album Blemish, which included contributions from Christian Fennesz and Derek Bailey. Sylvian used a different approach with this album, starting each day in the studio with a very simple improvisation on guitar. Once recorded, he would listen back and use cues from the improv—the dynamic and so on—to dictate the structure of the piece. He wrote lyrics and melody on the spot, and would follow that up with the vocal recording.

Sylvian recorded the EP World Citizen with Sakamoto, which was released in Japan in October 2003, and in Europe in April 2004. Sylvian also collaborated with Chris Vrenna's Tweaker again, on the track "Pure Genius", which was released on the album 2 a.m. Wakeup Call.

In the period 23 September 2003 to 27 April 2004 Sylvian toured in Europe and in Japan, on the "Fire in the Forest Tour" featuring Steve Jansen, with visuals and video images by Masakatsu Takagi.

In 2004, Sylvian was commissioned by Madhouse to compose the ending theme for the anime adaptation of Naoki Urasawa's Monster, titled "For the Love of Life", alongside Japanese composer Kuniaki Haishima. Sylvian said that he was "attracted to the Monster material by the moral dilemma faced by its central character."

Simultaneously Sylvian had started a project with Jansen and Berndt Friedman called Nine Horses. They released the album Snow Borne Sorrow in October 2005, and mini-album Money for All in January 2007.

Sylvian took to the road again on 17 September to 30 October 2007 for 'The World Is Everything' tour, which included concerts in Europe, Hong Kong and Japan, featuring Steve Jansen, Keith Lowe, and Takuma Watanabe. A fusion of styles, including jazz and electronica, the tour enabled Sylvian to perform music from the Nine Horses project, as well as various selections from his back catalogue. Jansen also released his solo album Slope in 2007, with two tracks co-written by Sylvian: "Ballad of a Dead Man" (a duet with singer Joan Wasser), and "Playground Martyrs".

A solo album entitled Manafon was released on 14 September 2009 in two editions – a regular CD/digipak edition and a twin boxset deluxe edition with two books that include the CD and a DVD featuring the film 'Amplified Gesture'. Manafon featured contributions from leading figures in electroacoustic improvisation, such as saxophonist Evan Parker, multi-instrumentalist Otomo Yoshihide, laptop and guitarist Christian Fennesz, Polwechsel's double bassist Werner Dafeldecker and cellist Michael Moser, sinewaves specialist Sachiko M and AMM alumni guitarist Keith Rowe, percussionist Eddie Prévost and pianist John Tilbury. In 2010, talking about Manafon, Sylvian said:"'What happened with Manafon was that the work abandoned me. As I was writing and developing the material, the spirit holding all these disparate elements together just left me. I sat stunned for a moment and then realised: It's over; this is as far as it goes…In a sense, I'd been steadily working my way toward Manafon since I was a young man listening to Stockhausen and dabbling in deconstructing the pop song. Having said that, I don't think we only develop as artists practising in our chosen fields. For me, that meant an exploration of intuitive states via meditation and other related disciplines which, the more I witnessed free-improv players at work, appeared to be crucially important to enable a being there in the moment, a sustained alertness and receptivity.'"

2010 to present
In 2010, Sylvian released Sleepwalkers, a compilation album of his collaborative works with musicians over the previous 10 years, including songs with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tweaker, Nine Horses, Steve Jansen, Christian Fennesz and Arve Henriksen. Also included were a few new songs, such as "Sleepwalkers" which was co-written with drummer Martin Brandlmayr of Radian and Polwechsel.

In 2011, the double album Died in the Wool was released as variations on the 2009 release Manafon with the addition of six new pieces, including collaborations with composer Dai Fujikura, producers Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, and a roster of contemporary musicians and improvisers. For the first time, a stereo mix of the audio installation "When We Return You Won't Recognise Us" was available on CD, pairing a group of improvisers – John Butcher, Arve Henriksen, Günter Müller, Toshimaru Nakamura, and Eddie Prévost – with a string sextet directed by Fujikura.

Also in 2011, Sylvian acted as the artist in residence at the Punkt Festival in Norway. In addition to curating the events of the festival, Sylvian performed both compositions from the Holger Czukay-collaborated album Plight & Premonition, backed by John Tilbury, Jan Bang, Phillip Jeck, Eivind Aarset, Erik Honoré, and Arve Henriksen. The positive reception led to the decision to tour throughout Europe in 2012. "The Implausible Beauty" tour was due to feature a line-up of musicians including Jan Bang, guitarist Eivind Aarset, pianist Sebastian Lexer, cellist Hildur Gudnadottir and trumpeter Gunnar Halle, but was cancelled in late January 2012 due to a back injury Sylvian had sustained.

In 2013, Sylvian released the single "Do You Know Me Now?", a one-time vinyl pressing released with a re-mastered version of "Where's Your Gravity?" on the B-side.

In 2014, Sylvian released There's a Light That Enters Houses with No Other House in Sight, a long-form composition with contributions from Christian Fennesz and John Tilbury and featuring spoken word by American Pulitzer Prize winning poet Franz Wright of excerpts from Wright's own Kindertotenwald.

In 2015, Sylvian released Playing The Schoolhouse with Confront Recordings in two limited editions. The release, a 15-minute long composition, was composed based on improvisations by Sylvian and Jan Bang – with contributions by Otomo Yoshihide and Toshimaru Nakamura – and was recorded in a schoolhouse in Norway. Sylvian collaborated again with Confront Recordings in 2017, with Mark Wastell (who runs Confront Recordings) and Rhodri Davies for the first release of the Confront Core Series, There Is No Love. The long-form composition was created with previously recorded materials, and features text from Bernard-Marie Koltès's In the Solitude of Cotton Fields.

In July 2021 Grönland Records announced 'ERR', a photographic essay by Sylvian, with text by Shinya Fujiwara and an untitled original poem by Daisy Lafarge.

Sylvian contributed to the album To the Moon and Back (2022), a tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto recorded by various artists who reworked his material. In January 2023, Sylvian announced that a compilation of his Samadhisound works would be released later in 2023 as a boxset entitled Do You Know Me Now? on the Groenland Records label.

French actress Isabelle Adjani recorded a duet with David Sylvian, back in 2010, and it was finally included on her album with duets, Adjani Bande Originale, released on 10 November 2023. Sylvian sang on the track Il Manque Un Mot.

Personal life
In 1992, while working on the Sakamoto single "Heartbeat", Sylvian met Ingrid Chavez, a singer and actress who had been a member of Prince's inner circle. That same year, the couple married and moved to Minneapolis. The couple have two daughters, Ameera-Daya (born 1993) and Isobel (born 1997). The family moved from Minneapolis, to a house outside of Sonoma, California, in 1997. They moved again, setting up a new home and studio in a property in Temple, New Hampshire, but Sylvian and Chavez were divorced in 2003.

Sylvian lived in the woods of southern New Hampshire in the former site of an ashram, doing most of his work in a barn containing his home recording studio.

In July 2018, Sylvian said: "I'm not currently thinking about a future in the arts. To quote Sarah Kendzior from her book The View From Flyover Country, 'In an article for Slate, Jessica Olien debunks the myth that originality and inventiveness are valued in U.S. society: 'This is the thing about creativity that is rarely acknowledged: Most people don't actually like it.''"

Japan/Rain Tree Crow

 * Adolescent Sex (1978)
 * Obscure Alternatives (1978)
 * Quiet Life (1979)
 * Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980)
 * Tin Drum (1981)
 * Oil On Canvas (1983)
 * Rain Tree Crow (1991) same line-up as Japan

Solo

 * Brilliant Trees (1984)
 * Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities (1985)
 * Gone to Earth (1986)
 * Secrets of the Beehive (1987)
 * Dead Bees on a Cake (1999)
 * Blemish (2003)
 * When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima (2007)
 * Manafon (2009)
 * Died in the Wool – Manafon Variations (2011)
 * There's a Light That Enters Houses with No Other House in Sight (2014)

with Robert Fripp

 * The First Day (David Sylvian and Robert Fripp album) (1993)
 * Darshan (The Road to Graceland) (1993)
 * Damage: Live (1994)

with Holger Czukay

 * Plight and Premonition (1988)
 * Flux and Mutability (1989)

Nine Horses

 * Snow Borne Sorrow (2005)
 * Money for All (2007)

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

title: David Sylvian


text:
Sharpbill

The sharpbill (Oxyruncus cristatus) is a small passerine bird in the family Tityridae. Its range is from the mountainous areas of tropical South America and southern Central America (Panama and Costa Rica).

It inhabits the canopy of wet forest and feeds on fruit and some invertebrates. It has an orange erectile crest, black-spotted yellowish underparts and scaling on the head and neck. As its name implies, it has a straight, pointed beak, which gives its common name.

Sharpbills are most commonly found in tall dense forests but occasionally venture to the forest edge. Their diet consists of primarily of fruit, but they will also take insects, hanging upside down in from twigs to obtain insect larvae. They will also travel in mixed-species feeding flocks with ovenbirds, tanagers, woodpeckers and cotingas. The breeding system employed by this species is polygamous with closely grouped males displaying in from a lek. The nest of the sharpbill is built by the female and is a small cup built on a slender branch. Chicks are fed by regurgitation.

The genus Oxyruncus was erected by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1820. The sharpbill was described in 1821 by the English naturalist William John Swainson under the binomial name Oxyrhuncus cristatus with an "h" inserted into the name of the genus. The word Oxyruncus is from the Ancient Greek oxus for "sharp" or "pointed" and rhunkhos "bill". The specific epithet is from the Latin cristatus for "crested" or "plumed".

Molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that the sharpbill occupies a basal position in a clade containing the Tityridae. The sharpbill is sometimes placed in its own family Oxyruncidae.

There are four subspecies:
 * Oxyruncus cristatus frater (Sclater, PL & Salvin, 1868) – Costa Rica and west Panama
 * Oxyruncus cristatus brooksi Bangs & Barbour, 1922 – east Panama
 * Oxyruncus cristatus hypoglaucus (Salvin & Godman, 1883) – southeast Venezuela, the Guianas and north Brazil
 * Oxyruncus cristatus cristatus Swainson, 1821 – southeast Brazil, east Paraguay and northeast Argentina

title: Sharpbill


text:
Albanian lek

The lek (leku shqiptar; indefinite singular lek, definite plural lekët, indefinite plural lekë; sign: L; code: ALL) is the currency of Albania. Historically, it was subdivided into 100 qintars (qindarka; singular qindarkë).

History
The lek was introduced as the first Albanian currency in February 1926.

Before then, Albania was a country without a currency, adhering to a gold standard for the fixation of commercial values. Before the First World War, the Ottoman Turkish piastre was in full circulation. During the occupation of Albania by Austria-Hungary, paper notes of the Austro-Hungarian krone were imposed on the population. Although transactions using krone notes were limited to exchanges between Albanians and the occupiers, the majority of the population used gold and silver piastre or, gave up on money altogether and bartered instead. In 1923 Italian paper circulated at Shkodër, Durrës, Vlorë, and Gjirokastër, and the Greek drachma at Korçë, the values of which varied according to locality and the prevailing rates of exchange as compared with gold.

Gold standard
From 1926–1939, the Albanian lek adhered to the gold standard de jure with lek banknotes being convertible to gold. The lek's conversion to gold was guaranteed and the issue of gold francs was limited to three million units. Due to the gold standard, up until 1939, the lek did not experience significant inflation and the currency in circulation remained relatively constant. Following the Italian invasion of Albania, the entire gold reserves of Albania, totaling 300,000 gold francs, were confiscated and sent to the Reichsbank in Berlin. This action, coupled with the introduction of the Italian lira in Albania, led to significant inflation and the devaluation of the lek.

Etymology
The lek was named after Alexander the Great, whose name is often shortened to Leka in Albanian. Alexander's portrait appeared on the obverse of the 1 lek coin, while the reverse showed him on his horse.

The word qindarkë comes from the Albanian qind, meaning one hundred, or from Arabic qintār ("hundredweight"). The word is thus comparable to centime, cent, Latin centenarius, etc.

Franga
Between 1926 and 1939, the main unit of Albanian currency was the franga ari (English: gold franc) (Fr.A.), worth 5 Lek and divided into 100 qindar ar (gold cent), used in international transactions. This unit was similar in concept to the Belga, a unit worth five Belgian francs.

First lek
In 1926, bronze coins were introduced in denominations of 5 and 10 qintars, together with nickel $1/100$ Lek, $1/4$ Lek and 1 Lek, and silver Fr.A. 1, Fr.A. 2 and Fr.A. 5. The obverse of the franc coins depicts King Zog. In 1935, bronze 1 and 2 gold cents were issued, equal in value to the 5 and 10 qintars respectively. This coin series depicted distinct neoclassical motifs, said to have been influenced by the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III who was known to have been a coin collector. These coins depict the mint marks "R", "V" or "L", indicating Rome, Vienna or London.

Under the direction of Benito Mussolini, Italy invaded and occupied Albania and issued a new series of coins in 1939 in denominations of Lek 0.20, Lek 0.50, 1 Lek and 2 Lek in stainless steel, and silver 5 Lek, and 10 Lek. Aluminium-bronze Lek 0.05 and Lek 0.10 were introduced in 1940. A fixed exchange with the Italian lira was established at 5:6.25 (1 Lek = Lit.1.25, or Fr.A.1 = Lit.6.25). These coins were issued until 1941 and bear the portrait of Italian King Victor Emmanuel III on the obverse and the Albanian eagle with fasces on the reverse.

In 1947, shortly after the Communist Party took power, older coins were withdrawn from circulation and a new coinage was introduced, consisting of zinc $1/2$ Lek, 1 Lek, 2 Lek and 5 Lek. These all depicted the socialist national crest. This coinage was again minted in 1957 and used until the currency reform of 1965.

Second lek
In 1965, a confiscatory monetary form was carried out at a rate of 10:1.

Aluminium coins (dated 1964) were introduced in denominations of 5, 10, 20 and 50 qintars and 1 Lek. All coins show the socialist state emblem.

In 1969, a second series of aluminium 5, 10, 20, 50 qintars and 1 Lek coins was released commemorating the 1944 liberation from fascism. The three smallest denominations remained similar in design to the 1964 series but depicted "1944-1969" on the obverse. The 50 qintar and lek coins showed patriotic and military images.

In 1988, a third redesign of aluminium 5, 10, 20, 50 qintars and 1 Lek coins was released. The 50 qindarka and 1 Lek coins were problematically identical in size, weight, and appearance, so aluminium-bronze 1 Lek coins with the inscription "Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë" were released later that year for better identification. In 1989, a cupro-nickel 2 Lek coin was introduced.

All three of these coin series remained in circulation during and shortly after the 1991 revolution. On 1 January 1992, those coins lost their legal tender status, effectively making qintars obsolete.

Foreign exchange certificates
Similar to many other socialist countries, Albania issued foreign exchange certificates, which only circulated in specially designated shops, and their exchange into regular lek banknotes was prohibited.

Third lek
In 1995 and 1996, new coins were introduced in denominations of 1 Lek, 5 Lekë, 10 Lekë, 20 Lekë and 50 Lekë, with a bimetallic 100 Lekë added in 2000.These coins use the letter e instead of the correct ë, but banknotes are spelt correctly.

Commemorative coins
In 2001, 100 Lekë and 200 Lekë were issued under the theme of Albania's integration into the EU and 50, 100, and 200 lekë under the 500th anniversary of the Statue of David. In 2002, 50 Lekë and 100 Le5k were issued for the 90th Anniversary of the Independence of Albania and 20 Lek under the Albanian Antiquity theme. In 2003, 50 lekë was issued in memory of the 100th anniversary of the death of Jeronim De Rada. In 2004, 50 Lekë was issued under the Albanian Antiquity theme depicting traditional costumes of Albania and the ancient Dea. In 2005, 50 Lekë were issued for the 85th anniversary of the proclamation of Tirana as capital and the theme of traditional costumes of Albania.

First lek
In 1926, the National Bank of Albania (Banka Kombëtare e Shqipnis) introduced notes in denominations of Fr.A. 1, Fr.A. 5, Fr.A. 20 and Fr.A. 100. In 1939, notes were issued in denominations of Fr.A. 5 and Fr.A. 20. These were followed in 1944 with notes for 2 Lek, 5 Lek, 10 Lek, and Fr.A. 100.

In 1945, the People's Bank of Albania (Banka e Shtetit Shqiptar) issued overprints on National Bank notes for 10 Lek, Fr.A. 20 and Fr.A. 100. Regular notes were also issued in 1945 in denominations of 1, Fr.A. 5, Fr.A. 20, Fr.A. 100 and Fr.A. 500. In 1947, the franga-ari was discontinued and the lek was adopted as the main currency unit, with notes issued for 10 Lek, 50 Lek, 100 Lek, 500 Lek and 1000 Lek.

Second lek
In 1965, notes (dated 1964) were introduced by the Banka e Shtetit Shqiptar in denominations of 1 Lek, 3 Lek, 5 Lek, 10 Lek, 25 Lek, 50 Lek and 100 Lek. A second series of notes was issued in 1976 when the country changed its name to the People's Socialist Republic.

1992 series
Due to the shortage of cash in circulation, in 1992, banknotes of 10 and 50 foreign currency leks (Lek Valutë ) were issued, while their value was increased 50 times: 10 foreign currency leks = 500 leks, 50 foreign currency leks = 2500 leks. The banknotes were in circulation for only one year and were soon replaced by banknotes of the 1992 model. A banknote of 1 currency lek was printed, but not put into circulation.

1997 series
On 11 July 1997, a new series of banknotes dated 1996-97 was introduced.

Notes dated 1996 were printed by De La Rue in the United Kingdom.

The 2000 lek note was introduced in 2008.

2019–2022 series
In 2019, the Bank of Albania unveiled a new series of banknotes, featuring the same themes as seen on the 1997 series, but with improved security features and a change in material for the 200 Lek banknote; now being issued as a polymer banknote.

This series has also introduced a new denomination, the 10,000 Lek, its highest denominated banknote issued for general circulation. The first two denominations issued for this series, the 200 and 5,000 lekë banknote were issued for circulation on 30 September 2019, with the 1,000 Lek and 10,000 Lek banknotes being released on 30 June 2021, and the 2,000 Lek and 500 Lek banknotes being released on 17 January 2022.

title: Albanian lek


text:
Plantcutter

The plantcutters are a group of passerine birds in the cotinga family, Cotingidae. They were previously in their own family, Phytotomidae. The three plantcutters are all placed in the genus Phytotoma.

These are robust birds of open woodland, scrub and farmland in southern and western South America. They resemble finches, and are among the few primarily folivorous birds, though they also take some fruits, berries and flowers. The common name is a reference to their stubby bills with fine serrations along the cutting edge – an adaptation for cutting plant material.

They are sexually dichromatic, with males having black wings with white patches, and at least partially rufous underparts. The plumage of the females is greyish-white or brownish-white with dense dark streaking throughout.

These pair-living birds lay 2 - 4 brown-spotted green eggs in a tree nest. Only the female incubates, but both sexes participate in the nest-building and feeding of the chicks. The chicks are fed almost exclusively with insects.

title: Plantcutter


text:
Operation Mandrel

The United States's Mandrel nuclear test series was a group of 52 nuclear tests conducted in 1969–1970. These tests followed the Operation Bowline series and preceded the Operation Emery series.

title: Operation Mandrel


text:
Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe (baptised November 1567 – c. 1601; also Nash) was an Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel The Unfortunate Traveller, his pamphlets including Pierce Penniless, and his numerous defences of the Church of England.

Life
Nashe was the son of the parson William Nashe and Janeth (née Witchingham). He was born and baptised in Lowestoft, on the coast of Suffolk, where his father, William Nashe, or Nayshe as it is recorded, was curate. Though his mother bore seven children, only two survived childhood: Israel (born in 1565) and Thomas.

The family moved to West Harling, near Thetford, in 1573 after Nashe's father was awarded the living there at the church of All Saints. Around 1581 Thomas went up to St John's College, Cambridge, as a sizar, gaining his bachelor's degree in 1586. From references in his own polemics and those of others, he does not seem to have proceeded Master of Arts there. Most of his biographers agree that he left his college about summer 1588, as his name appears on a list of students due to attend philosophy lectures in that year. His reasons for leaving are unclear; his father may have died the previous year, but Richard Lichfield maliciously reported that Nashe had fled possible expulsion for his role in Terminus et non-terminus, one of the raucous student theatricals popular at the time. Some years later, William Covell wrote in Polimanteia that Cambridge "has been unkind to the one [i.e., Nashe] to wean him before his time." Nashe himself said he could have become a fellow had he wished (in Have With You to Saffron-Walden).

He moved to London and began his literary career. The remaining decade of his life was dominated by two concerns: finding employment and participating in controversies, most famously with Richard and Gabriel Harvey. He arrived in London with his one exercise in euphuism, The Anatomy of Absurdity. His first appearance in print was his preface to Robert Greene's Menaphon, which offers a brief definition of art and overview of contemporary literature.

In 1590, he contributed a preface to an unlicensed edition of Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, but the edition was called in, and the authorised second edition removed Nashe's work.

Nashe was alive in 1599, when his last known work, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, was published, and dead by 1601, when he was memorialised in a Latin verse in Affaniae by Charles Fitzgeoffrey. It is not known where he died, or where he is buried. He is featured in Thomas Dekker's News from Hell (1606), and is referred to in the anonymous Parnassus plays (1598−1602), which provide this eulogy:

In London, Marprelate controversy
He was drawn into the Martin Marprelate controversy on the side of the bishops. As with the other writers in the controversy, his share is difficult to determine. He was formerly credited with the three "Pasquill" tracts of 1589–1590, which were included in R. B. McKerrow's standard edition of Nashe's works: however McKerrow himself later argued strongly against their being by Nashe. The anti-Martinist An Almond for a Parrot (1590), ostensibly credited to one "Cutbert Curry-knave", is now universally recognised as Nashe's work, although its author humorously claims, in its dedication to the comedian William Kempe, to have met Harlequin in Bergamo while returning from a trip to Venice in the summer of 1589. But there is no evidence Nashe had either time or means to go abroad, and he never subsequently refers to having visited Venice in his work.

Feud with the Harvey brothers
His friendship with Greene drew Nashe into the Harvey controversy, involving the brothers Richard and Gabriel Harvey. In 1590, Richard Harvey's The Lamb of God complained of the anti-Martinist pamphleteers in general, including a side-swipe at the Menaphon preface. Two years later, Greene's A Quip for an Upstart Courtier contained a passage on "rope makers" that clearly refers to the Harveys (whose father made ropes). The passage, which was removed from subsequent editions, may have been Nashe's. After Gabriel Harvey mocked Greene's death in Four Letters, Nashe wrote Strange News (1592). Nashe attempted to apologise in the preface to Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem (1593), but the appearance of Pierce's Supererogation shortly after offended Nashe anew. He replied with Have with You to Saffron-Walden (1596), with a possibly sardonic dedication to Richard Lichfield, a barber of Cambridge. Harvey did not publish a reply, but Lichfield answered in a tract called "The Trimming of Thomas Nash," (1597). This pamphlet also contained a crude woodcut portrait of Nashe, shown as a man disreputably dressed and in fetters.

Works
While staying in the household of Archbishop John Whitgift at Croydon Palace in October 1592 he wrote an entertainment called Summer's Last Will and Testament, a "show" with some resemblance to a masque. In brief, the plot describes the death of Summer, who, feeling himself to be dying, reviews the performance of his former servants and eventually passes the crown on to Autumn. The play was published in 1600. Nashe is widely remembered for three short poems, all drawn from this play and frequently reprinted in anthologies of Elizabethan verse: “Adieu, farewell, earth’s bliss,” “Fair summer droops” and “Autumn hath all the summer’s fruitful treasure.” Nashe may also have contributed to Henry VI, Part 1, the play later published under Shakespeare's name as the first part of the Henry VI trilogy. Gary Taylor believes that Nashe was the principal author of the first act. Nashe subsequently promoted the play in his pamphlet Pierce Penniless. In 1593 Nashe published Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem, a pamphlet dedicated to Lady Elizabeth Carey. Despite the work's apparently devotional nature it contained satirical material which gave offence to the London civic authorities and Nashe was briefly imprisoned in Newgate Prison. The intervention of Lady Elizabeth's husband Sir George Carey gained his release.

He remained in London, apart from periodic visits to the countryside to avoid the plague—a fear reflected in the play Summer's Last Will and Testament, written in the autumn of 1592. William Sommers, whose comments frame the play, was Henry VIII's jester. It includes the famous lyric:

In 1597 Nashe co-wrote the play The Isle of Dogs with Ben Jonson. The work caused a major controversy for its "seditious" content. The play was suppressed and never published. Jonson was jailed; Nashe's house was raided and his papers seized but he had already escaped to the country. He remained for some time in Great Yarmouth before returning to London.

Pierce Penniless
Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to the Divell is a tall tale, or a prose satire, published in 1592. It was among the most popular of the Elizabethan pamphlets. It was reprinted in 1593 and 1595, and in 1594 was translated into French. It is written from the point of view of Pierce, a man who has not met with good fortune, who bitterly complains of the world’s wickedness, and addresses his complaints to the devil. At times the identity of Pierce seems to conflate with Nashe's own. But Nashe also portrays Pierce at times as an arrogant fool. The story is told in a style that is complex, witty, anecdotal, and peppered with newly-minted words and Latin phrases. The satire can be mocking and bitingly sharp, and at times Nashe’s style seems to relish its own obscurity.

The Choise of Valentines
At some time in the early 1590s Nashe produced an erotic poem, The Choise of Valentines that begins with a sonnet to "Lord S". It has been suggested that The Choise of Valentines was written possibly for the private circle of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby (then known as Lord Strange). It has alternatively been suggested that "Lord S." refers to the Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's patron, just as Nashe had inscribed The Unfortunate Traveler, to "Lord Henry Wriothesley Earl of Southampton".

The Choise of Valentines circulated only in manuscript. It describes the Valentine's Day visit of a young man named 'Tomalin' to the brothel where his lover, "Mistris Francis", has recently become employed. Tomalin poses as a customer. Having paid ten gold pieces for her favours, Tomalin makes his way towards his erotic goal.

The object of his desire, "A pretty rising womb", is revealed. Unfortunately Tomalin finds the moment so exciting that he "spends" his all before the "fight" has begun. Mistress Frances is disappointed and does what she can to revive things.

She perseveres in arousing him, is successful, and they make love. This begins a lengthy and witty erotic passage. But to her disappointment, Tomalin is prematurely satisfied—"the well is drye that should refresh". Mistress Frances then decides to take matters into her own hands, reaches for the device of the poem's informal title, Nashe's Dildo.

This poem comes to an end with Tomalin ranting against the "Eunike dilldo" that has taken his place. It was sharply criticised for its obscenity by contemporary authors Joseph Hall and John Davies of Hereford. Nashe had tried to pre-empt criticism by placing it in the tradition of classical erotica: "Yet Ovid's wanton muse did not offend".

It appears not to have been Nashe's only foray into this category of writing. When he was accused of "prostituting" his pen, he answered, in 1596, by writing:

"It may and it may not bee so ... [but] when ... the bottom of my purse is turnd downeward, & my conduit of incke will no longer flowe for want of reparations, I am faine to let my Plow stand still in the midst of a furrow, and follow some of these new-fangled Galiardos and Senior Fantasticos, to whose amorous Villanellas and Quipassas I prostitute my pen in hope of gaine."

On the question of what this poem might say about Nashe's own sexuality, Nashe biographer Charles Nicholl, says "not a lot perhaps", but points out that "there is nothing second hand" about Nashe's "evocations of sex."

The Terrors of the Night
In 1594, Nashe wrote a book titled The Terrors of the Night; Or A Discourse of Apparitions, which sceptically considers dreams, nightmares, and apparitions, which Nashe considers born of superstition, melancholy or imagination. He says, "A dream is nothing else but a bubbling scum or froth of the fancy which the day hath left undigested, or an after-feast made of the fragments of idle imagination". He dismisses efforts to interpret dreams, saying "What sense is there that the yolk of an egg should signify gold… that everything must be interpreted backward as Witches say their pater-noster, good being the character of bad, and bad of good." He disregards various spirits mentioning "Robbin-good-fellowes, elves, fairies, hobgoblins". He does, however, see some possible value in visions (not dreams) that are heaven-sent, including the visions of Caesar and Alexander. Correspondence can be seen between the rationalism expressed in Act 5 of Shakespeare’s play Midsummer Night’s Dream and the ideas expressed in The Terrors of the Night; for example when Theseus in the play describes "the poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling" and Nashe describes the constant "wheeling and rolling on of our braines".

Chronology of Nashe's works

 * 1589 The Anatomy of Absurdity
 * 1589 Preface to Greene's Menaphon
 * 1590 An Almond for a Parrot
 * 1591 Preface to Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella
 * 1592 Pierce Penniless
 * 1592 Summer's Last Will and Testament (play performed 1592, published 1600)
 * 1592 Strange News
 * 1593 Christ's Tears over Jerusalem
 * 1594 Terrors of the Night
 * 1594 The Unfortunate Traveller
 * 1596 Have with You to Saffron-Walden
 * 1597 Isle of Dogs (Lost)
 * 1599 Nashe's Lenten Stuffe

He is also credited with the erotic poem The Choise of Valentines and his name appears on the title page of Christopher Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage, though there is uncertainty as to what Nashe's contribution was. Some editions of this play, still extant in the 18th century but now unfortunately lost, contained memorial verses on Marlowe by Nashe, who was his friend.

title: Thomas Nashe


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Burmese alphabet

The Burmese alphabet (မြန်မာအက္ခရာ myanma akkha.ya, ) is an abugida used for writing Burmese. It is ultimately adapted from a Brahmic script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet of South India. The Burmese alphabet is also used for the liturgical languages of Pali and Sanskrit. In recent decades, other, related alphabets, such as Shan and modern Mon, have been restructured according to the standard of the Burmese alphabet (see Mon–Burmese script.)

Burmese is written from left to right and requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability and to avoid grammar complications. There are several systems of transliteration into the Latin alphabet; for this article, the MLC Transcription System is used.

History

The Burmese alphabet was derived from the Pyu script, the Old Mon script, or directly from a South Indian script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet. The earliest evidence of the Burmese alphabet is dated to 1035, while a casting made in the 18th century of an old stone inscription points to 984. Burmese calligraphy originally followed a square format but the cursive format took hold from the 17th century when popular writing led to the wider use of palm leaves and folded paper known as parabaiks. A stylus would rip these leaves when making straight lines. The alphabet has undergone considerable modification to suit the evolving phonology of the Burmese language.

Arrangement
As with other Brahmic scripts, the Burmese alphabet is arranged into groups of five letters for stop consonants called wek (ဝဂ်, from Pali ) based on articulation. Within each group, the first letter is tenuis ("plain"), the second is the aspirated homologue, the third and fourth are the voiced homologues and the fifth is the nasal homologue. This is true of the first twenty-five letters in the Burmese alphabet, which are called grouped together as wek byi (ဝဂ်ဗျည်း, from Pali ). The remaining eight letters ($⟨ယ⟩$, $⟨ရ⟩$, $⟨လ⟩$, $⟨ဝ⟩$, $⟨သ⟩$, $⟨ဟ⟩$, $⟨ဠ⟩$, $⟨အ⟩$) are grouped together as a wek (အဝဂ်, lit. 'without group'), as they are not arranged in any particular pattern.

Letters
A letter is a consonant or consonant cluster that occurs before the vowel of a syllable. The Burmese alphabet has 33 letters to indicate the initial consonant of a syllable and four diacritics to indicate additional consonants in the onset. Like other abugidas, including the other members of the Brahmic family, vowels are indicated in Burmese alphabet by diacritics, which are placed above, below, before or after the consonant character. A consonant character with no vowel diacritic has the inherent vowel (often reduced to  when another syllable follows in the same word).

The following table provides the letter, the syllable onset in IPA and the way the letter is referred to in Burmese, which may be either a descriptive name or just the sound of the letter, arranged in the traditional order:

 * ဃ, ဈ , ဋ , ဌ , ဍ , ဎ , ဏ , ဓ , ဘ , and ဠ are primarily used in words of Pali origin.
 * ၐ and ၑ  are exclusively used in Sanskrit words, as they have merged to သ in Pali.
 * ည has an alternate form ဉ, used with the vowel diacritic ာ as a syllable onset and alone as a final.
 * With regard to pronunciation, the corresponding letters of the dentals and alveolars are phonetically equivalent.
 * In formal speech, ရ is often pronounced in words of Pali or foreign origin.
 * အ is nominally treated as a consonant in the Burmese alphabet; it represents an initial glottal stop in syllables with no other consonant.
 * The letter န (n) uses a different form when there is a diacritic under it like in နု (nu.)

Consonant letters may be modified by one or more medial diacritics (three at most), indicating an additional consonant before the vowel. These diacritics are:
 * Ya pin (ယပင့်) – Written ျ (MLCTS -y-, indicating /j/ medial or palatalization of a velar consonant )
 * Ya yit (ရရစ်) – Written ြ (MLCTS -r-, indicating /j/ medial or palatalization of a velar consonant)
 * Wa hswe (ဝဆွဲ) – Written ွ (MLCTS -w-, usually indicating /w/ medial)
 * Ha hto (ဟထိုး) – ှ (MLCTS h-, indicating that a sonorant consonant is voiceless)

A few Burmese dialects use an extra diacritic to indicate the /l/ medial, which has merged to /j/ in standard Burmese:
 * La hswe (လဆွဲ) – Written ္လ (MLCTS -l, indicating /l/ medial

All the possible diacritic combinations are listed below:

Stroke order
Letters in the Burmese alphabet are written with a specific stroke order. The letter forms of the Burmese script are based on circles. Typically, one circle should be done with one stroke, and all circles are written clockwise. Exceptions are mostly letters with an opening on top. The circle of these letters is written with two strokes coming from opposite directions.

The ten following letters are exceptions to the clockwise rule: ပ, ဖ, ဗ, မ, ယ, လ, ဟ, ဃ, ဎ, ဏ. Some versions of stroke order may be slightly different.

The Burmese stroke order can be learned from ပထမတန်း မြန်မာဖတ်စာ ၂၀၁၇-၂၀၁၈ (Burmese Grade 1, 2017-2018), a textbook published by the Burmese Ministry of Education. The book is available under the LearnBig project of UNESCO. Other resources include the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University and an online learning resource published by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan.

Syllable rhymes
Syllable rhymes (i.e. vowels and any consonants that may follow them within the same syllable) are indicated in Burmese by a combination of diacritic marks and consonant letters marked with the virama character ် which suppresses the inherent vowel of the consonant letter. This mark is called asat in Burmese, which means "nonexistence" (see Sat (Sanskrit)).

Diacritics and symbols
One or more of these accents can be added to a consonant to change its sound. In addition, other modifying symbols are used to differentiate tone and sound, but are not considered diacritics.

History
La hswe (လဆွဲ) was used in old Burmese from the Bagan to Innwa periods (12th century – 16th century), and could be combined with other diacritics (ya pin, ha hto and wa hswe) to form ◌္လျ ◌္လွ ◌္လှ. Similarly, until the Innwa period, ya pin was also combined with ya yit to form ◌ျြ. From the early Bagan period to the 19th century, ဝ် was used instead of ◌ော် for the rhyme. Early Burmese writing also used ဟ်, not the high tone marker ◌း, which came into being in the 16th century. Moreover, အ်, which disappeared by the 16th century, was subscripted to represent creaky tone (now indicated with ◌့). During the early Bagan period, the rhyme (now represented with the diacritic ◌ဲ) was represented with ◌ါယ်). The diacritic combination ◌ိုဝ် disappeared in the mid-1750s (typically designated as Middle Burmese), having been replaced with the ◌ို combination, introduced in 1638. The standard tone markings found in modern Burmese can be traced to the 19th century.

Stacked consonants
Certain sequences of consonants are written one atop the other, or stacked. A pair of stacked consonants indicates that no vowel is pronounced between them.

For example, the word ကမ္ဘာ (kambha), which means "world", contains the stacked consonant မ္ဘ (m-bh). The first consonant is မ (m) and the second consonant is ဘ (bh). No vowel is pronounced between m and bh.

When stacked, the first consonant is written normally (i.e., not super- or subscripted). It has an implied virama ◌် and is the final of the preceding syllable. In the case of ကမ္ဘာ, an implied virama is applied to the first consonant (မ်), which is the final of the preceding syllable က, producing ကမ် (kam).

The second consonant is subscripted beneath the first consonant and is the onset of the following syllable. In the case of ကမ္ဘာ, ဘ is the second consonant and is the onset of ◌ာ (the following syllable), producing ဘာ (bha).

The equivalent form of ကမ္ဘာ is thus read *ကမ်ဘာ (kambha). If the မ (m) and ဘ (bh) were not stacked (i.e., ကမဘာ), the pronunciation would be different as the inherent vowel "a" would apply to the မ (i.e., *ကမဘာ kamabha).

Stacked consonants are always homorganic (pronounced in the same place in the mouth), which is indicated by the traditional arrangement of the Burmese alphabet into the seven five-letter rows of letters (called ဝဂ်). Consonants not found in the rows beginning with က, စ, ဋ, တ, or ပ can only be doubled — that is, stacked with themselves.

Stacked consonants are largely confined to loan words from languages like Pali, Sanskrit, and occasionally English. For instance, the Burmese word for "self" (via Pali ) is spelt အတ္တ, not *အတ်တ, although both would be read the same.

Stacked consonants are generally not found in native Burmese words, with a major exception being abbreviations. For example, the Burmese word သမီး "daughter" is sometimes abbreviated to သ္မီး, even though the stacked consonants do not belong to the same row in the ဝဂ် and a vowel is pronounced between. Similarly, လက်ဖက် "tea" is commonly abbreviated to လ္ဘက်. Also, ss is written ဿ, not သ္သ.

Digits
A decimal numbering system is used, and numbers are written in the same order as Hindu–Arabic numerals.

The digits from zero to nine are: ၀၁၂၃၄၅၆၇၈၉ (Unicode 1040 to 1049). The number 1945 would be written as ၁၉၄၅. Separators, such as commas, are not used to group numbers.

Punctuation
There are two primary break characters in Burmese, drawn as one or two downward strokes: ၊ (called ပုဒ်ဖြတ်, ပုဒ်ကလေး, ပုဒ်ထီး, or တစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်) and ။ (called ပုဒ်ကြီး, ပုဒ်မ, or နှစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်), which respectively act as a comma and a full stop. There is a Shan exclamation mark ႟. Other abbreviations used in literary Burmese are: -possessive particle( 's, of)
 * ၏ – used as a full stop if the sentence immediately ends with a verb.
 * ၍ – used as a conjunction.
 * ၌ – locative ('at').
 * ၎င်း – ditto (used in columns and lists)

Unicode
Myanmar script was added to the Unicode Standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0.

The Unicode block for Myanmar is U+1000–U+109F:

Fonts supporting Burmese characters

 * Burmese Wikipedia:Font page
 * Burmese Unicode & NLP Research Centre
 * Parabaik Myanmar Unicode Project GPLed and OFLed
 * Ayar Myanmar online dictionary and download
 * Download KaNaungConverter_Window_Build200508.zip from the Kanaung project page and Unzip Ka Naung Converter Engine
 * Padauk – Free Burmese Unicode font distributed by SIL International
 * U.N.O.B. USA has separate download links for Zawgyi font for Windows, MAC-Apple, and iPhone/iPad.

Font сonverters

 * A Guide to Using Myanmar Unicode: Convert from old Myanmar fonts to Unicode
 * Zawgyi Unicode Converter | Myanmar Tools – Open Source Zawgyi-One & Standard Myanmar Unicode Converter

title: Burmese alphabet


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Lek mating

A lek is an aggregation of male animals gathered to engage in competitive displays and courtship rituals, known as lekking, to entice visiting females which are surveying prospective partners with which to mate. It can also refer to a space used by displaying males to defend their own share of territory for the breeding season. A lekking species is characterised by male displays, strong female mate choice, and the conferring of indirect benefits to males and reduced costs to females. Although most prevalent among birds such as black grouse, lekking is also found in a wide range of vertebrates including some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and arthropods including crustaceans and insects.

A classical lek consists of male territories in visual and auditory range of each other. An exploded lek, as seen in the kākāpō (the owl parrot), has more widely separated territories, but still in auditory range. Lekking is associated with an apparent paradox: strong sexual selection by females for specific male traits ought to erode genetic diversity by Fisherian runaway, but diversity is maintained and runaway does not occur. Many attempts have been made to explain it away,  but the paradox remains.

Etymology
The term derives from the Swedish lek, a noun which typically denotes pleasurable and less rule-bound games and activities ("play", as by children), or from the Swedish verb "leka", to play. Written English use of lek dates from the late 1860s and early 1870s. Llewelyn Lloyd's The Game birds and wild fowl of Sweden and Norway (1867) introduces it (capitalised and in single quotes, as 'Lek') explicitly as a Swedish term.

Taxonomic range
Lekking was originally described in the Tetraonidae (grouse, boldface in cladogram), in particular the black grouse (Swedish: "orrlek") and capercaillie (Swedish: "tjäderlek"), but it is widely distributed phylogenetically among other birds, and in many other animal groups within the vertebrates and the arthropods, as shown in the cladogram.

The presence of a group name means that some species in that group lek; groups with no lekking members are not shown.

Types
There are two types of lekking arrangement: classical and exploded. In the classic lekking system, male territories are in visual and auditory range of their neighbours. In an exploded lek, males are further away from one another than they would be in a classical lek. Males in an exploded lek are outside visual range of one another, but they stay within earshot. Exploded lek territories are much larger than classic systems and more variable in size. A well-known example of exploded leks is the "booming" call of the kākāpō, the males of which position themselves many kilometres apart from one another to signal to potential mates.

Stability
Lek territories of different taxa are stable and do not vary in terms of size and location. Males often return to the same mating sites because of female fidelity. Avian females such as the black grouse and great snipe are faithful to males and not to mating sites. Successful males congregate in the same area as the previous breeding season because it is familiar to them, while females return to reunite with their males. Females do not return to a mating site if their male partner is not present. Another possible explanation for lek stability is from male hierarchies within a lek. In some species of manakin, subordinate betas may inherit an alpha's display site, increasing the chances of female visitation. Rank may also contribute to the stability of lek size, as lower ranking males may congregate to achieve a perceived optimal size to attract females.

Female mating preferences
A meta analysis of 27 species found that qualities such as lekking size, male display rate, and the rate of male aggression exhibit positive correlation with male success rates. A positive correlation was also found between attendance, magnitude of exaggerated traits, age, frequency of fights, and mating success. This female preference leads to mating skew, with some males being more successful at copulating with females. The variation in mating success is quite large in lek mating systems with 70–80% of matings being attributed to only 10–20% of the males present.

Costs and benefits

The main benefit for both sexes is mating success. For males, the costs stem from females' preferences. The traits that are selected for may be energetically costly to maintain and may cause increased predation. For example, increased vocalization rate caused a decrease in the mass of male great snipes. Other costs can derive from male combat. For example, male great snipes regularly fight to display dominance or defend their territory, with females preferring victorious males. Aggressive male black grouse are preferred over non-aggressive males and when the males fight they tear feathers from each other's tails. Lekking is associated with sexual dimorphism across a range of bird taxa.

At first glance, it may seem that females receive no direct benefits from lekking, since the males are only contributing genes to the offspring in the absence of parental care or other benefits. However, lekking reduces the cost of female searching because the congregating of males makes mate selection easier. Females do not have to travel as far, since they are able to evaluate and compare multiple males within the same vicinity. Further, having the males in one place may reduce the amount of time a female is vulnerable to predators. When under predatory pressure, female marbled reed frogs consistently choose leks near their release sites; high male calling rates were observed to reduce female search time.

The lek paradox

Since sexual selection by females for specific male trait values should erode genetic diversity, the maintenance of genetic variation in lekking species constitutes a paradox in evolutionary biology. Many attempts have been made to explain it away, but the paradox remains. There are two conditions in which the lek paradox arises. The first is that males contribute only genes and the second is that female preference does not affect fecundity. Female choice should lead to directional runaway selection, resulting in a greater prevalence for the selected traits. Stronger selection should lead to impaired survival, as it decreases genetic variance and ensures that more offspring have similar traits. However, lekking species do not exhibit runaway selection. In a lekking reproductive system, what male sexual characteristics can signal to females is limited, as the males provide no resources to females or parental care to their offspring. This implies that a female gains indirect benefits from her choice in the form of "good genes" for her offspring.

Amotz Zahavi argued that male sexual characteristics only convey useful information to the females if these traits confer a handicap on the male. Zahavi's handicap principle may offer a resolution to the lek paradox, for if females select for the condition of male ornaments, then their offspring have better fitness. Another potential resolution to the lek paradox is Rowe and Houle's theory that sexually selected traits depend on physical condition, which might in turn, summarize many genetic loci. This is the genic capture hypothesis, which describes how a significant amount of the genome is involved in shaping the traits that are sexually selected. There are two assumptions in the genic capture hypothesis: the first is that sexually selected traits are dependent upon condition, and the second is that general condition is attributable to high genetic variance. In addition, W. D. Hamilton and Marlene Zuk proposed that sexually selected traits might signal resistance to parasites. One resolution to the lek paradox involves female preferences and how preference alone does not cause a drastic enough directional selection to diminish the genetic variance in fitness. Another conclusion is that the preferred trait is not naturally selected for or against and the trait is maintained because it implies increased attractiveness to the male.

Evolution
Several possible mechanisms have been proposed as to why males cluster into leks, including the hotshot, hotspot, black hole, kin selection, and predation protection hypotheses, as described below.

Hotshot hypothesis

The hotshot hypothesis is the only model that attributes males as the driving force behind aggregation. The hotshot model hypothesizes that attractive males, known as hotshots, garner both female and male attention. Females go to the hotshots because they are attracted to these males. Other males form leks around these hotshots as a way to lure females away from the hotshot. A manipulative experiment using the little bustard, Tetrax tetrax, was done to test the various lek evolution models. The experiment involved varying the size and sex ratio of leks using decoys. To test whether or not the presence of a hotshot determined lek formation, a hotshot little bustard decoy was placed within a lek. After the fake hotshot was added to the lek, both male and female visitation to the lek increased, tending to confirm the hypothesis.

Hotspot model

The hotspot model considers the female density to be the catalyst for the clustering of males. This model predicts that leks will form where females tend to reside as a way to increase female interaction. Female manakin traffic has been observed to be concentrated around leks, bathing sites, and fruiting areas, with males aggregated near the most visited fruiting resources. The hotspot model also predicts that lek size is dependent upon the number of females inhabiting a patch of land. To test if the number of females affects lek formation, a group of female little bustard decoys were added to a lek. The presence of these female decoys did not have an effect on lek size, tending to refute the hypothesis.

Blackhole model
The blackhole model proposes that females have a preference for neither size nor type of male, but rather that females tend to be mobile and mate wherever leks may be located. This model predicts that female mobility is a response to male harassment. This prediction is difficult to test, but there was a negative correlation found between male aggressiveness and female visitation in the little bustard population, suggesting that the model might be correct. Evidence supporting the black hole model is mainly found in ungulates.

Kin selection
An alternative hypothesis for lekking is kin selection, which assumes that males within a lek are related to one another. As females rarely mate outside of leks, it is advantageous for males to form leks. Although not all males within a lek mate with a female, the unmated males still receive fitness benefits. Kin selection explains that related males congregate to form leks, as a way to attract females and increase inclusive fitness. In some species, the males at the leks show a high degree of relatedness, but this does not apply as a rule to lek-forming species in general. In a few species such as peacocks and black grouse, leks are composed of brothers and half-brothers. The lower-ranking males gain some fitness benefit by passing their genes on through attracting mates for their brothers, since larger leks attract more females. Peacocks recognize and lek with their brothers, even if they have never met before.

Predation protection
Another hypothesis is predation protection, or the idea that there is a reduction in individual predation risk in a larger group. This could work both for the males within the group and any female who visits the lek. Protection also explains the presence of mixed leks, when a male of one species joins a lek of another species for protection from a common set of predators. This occurs with manakins, as well as other birds such as grouse species.

title: Lek mating