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Marjapussi

Marjapussi is a traditional Finnish trick taking game for 4 players playing in 2 partnerships and is one of the Mariage family, its key feature being that the trump suit is determined in the middle of the play by declaring a marriage (a king and a queen of a same suit). There are variants of marjapussi for two and three players.

Origin
Marjapussi is Finnish for 'bag of berries', but is derived from the French mariage which is the name of the game ancestral to it in which a 'marriage' is a king/queen combination held by one of the players. According to Kokko, the game was originally Spanish, although Mariage itself, despite its French name, appears to be a 17th-century German game. Later, marjapussi evolved into huutopussi ("auction bag"), which involves bidding and contracts. The exact winning condition was dropped, but the trump determining process remained. In fact, in huutopussi the trump suit may even change in the middle of the play if players declare further marriages.

Rules
Marjapussi is a trick taking game for four players in fixed partnerships with the partners sitting opposite one another.

Cards
Marjapussi is played with a pack of 36 French-suited Finnish pattern cards. This may be replicated by removing the 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s from a standard 52-card pack. Cards rank in the usual ace–ten order: A > 10 > K > Q > J > 9 > 8 > 7 > 6. The aces and tens are called 'checkmaters' (mateiksi) and play a key role in scoring points.

Deal
The first dealer may be chosen by any method. After the first deal, the player who was forehand in the previous hand deals. The dealer gives an equal number of cards to each player.

Play
In the first deal, forehand, the player who leads to the first trick, is either the one who has the A or is the player to the left of the dealer.

Forehand leads to the first trick and then, clockwise and in turn, each player plays a card to the table. A trick is formed when each player has played one card on the table. Players must follow suit if possible. Once a trump is determined, players who cannot follow, must play a trump if able. Players must always head the trick if possible, even if their partner has played the best card so far. The trick is taken by the person who played the highest trump or by the highest card of the led suit if no trumps are played and that person leads to the next trick. The tricks are collected face down in front of the player separately from the cards in the hand. The game continues until everyone runs out of cards and points are counted. After this, a new deal is started.

Marriages and trumps
A deal always starts as a no trump game, but a suit can be declared trumps during a hand. A player who has won a trick may declare trumps if a 'marriage', i.e. king and a queen of the same suit, is held. There are three options:

 * A player with a marriage in hand may declare that suit as trumps.
 * A player may ask if the partner has a 'whole' i.e. a marriage in hand by saying e.g. "do you have a whole marriage?" If yes, that suit becomes trumps. The asker may not nominate a suit when asking.
 * A player with a king or a queen in hand may ask if the partner has "a half" of that suit, that is the other card of the pair in his hand by saying e.g. "do you have a half-marriage in spades?" If yes, that suit becomes trumps. The asker specifies the suit, but not the denomination.

After each trick, the winner of the trick is entitled to one of the actions mentioned above. Once trumps have been declared:

 * The trump suit may not be changed by further marriage declarations.
 * The declaring team may subsequently ask for half-marriages but not whole ones.
 * Players may declare 'little ones' or 'little trumps', i.e. other marriages in a similar fashion, but they only affect scoring and do not change the trump suit.

Each suit can be declared only once during a hand.

Scoring
Game points are scored as follows:
 * Trump (Valtti): 2 points for declaring trumps.
 * Litte Trump (Pikkuvaltti) 1 point for each 'little marriage'
 * Last (Viimeinen): 1 point for winning the last trick
 * Victory (Voitto): 1 point for the team that has more card points in tricks (see table)

The card points are counted after all cards have been played. Game is 10 or 12 game points. To win, a team must score exactly 12. If they get more, they go back down to 7 game points. If a team takes no tricks in a deal, they lose all their points so far. This is sometimes called 'going to Porvoo'.

Avomarjapussi
This two-handed variant of marjapussi is known as avomarjapussi ("open marjapussi"). Each player is dealt four hand cards, followed by a row of seven downcards on the table and a row of seven upcards on the top of the downcards. To declare marriages and play cards to tricks, the players can use both their own upcards and hand cards. When a player plays an upcard to a trick and there is a downcard beneath it, the latter is turned face up.

Other rules are the same as the four-handed game, except that there are no partnerships, and consequently the rules on asking a partner for a whole or a half do not apply.

Related games
A very similar game evidently related to Sixty-six, but with a curious resonance of All Fours is played in Sweden under the name Bondtolva ("Farmer's Dozen").

Literature

 * Kokko, Petri (1999). Pelien parhaat, WSOY (rules of avomarjapussi).
 * Kurki-Suonio, Ilmo (1962). MMM Korttipelikirja, Otava.
 * Parlett, David (1996). Oxford Dictionary of Card Games, Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-869173-4
 * Parlett, David (2008). Penguin Book of Card Games, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (mention only)
 * Ranta, Pekka (1993). Marjapussissa Porvooseen. Porvoo: WSOY.
 * Sandgren, Tore (2003). Pelataan korttia. WS Bookwell OY.

title: Marjapussi


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Caudipteryx

Caudipteryx (meaning "tail feather") is a genus of small oviraptorosaur dinosaurs that lived in Asia during the Early Cretaceous, around 124.6 million years ago. They were feathered and extremely birdlike in their overall appearance, to the point that some paleontologists suggested it was a bird. Two species have been described: C. zoui (the type species), in 1998, and C. dongi, in 2000.

It had a stout trunk, long legs and was probably a swift runner. The discovery of Caudipteryx has led to many intensive studies and debate over the relationship of birds and dinosaurs.

History
In 1997, several well-preserved dinosaur skeletons were recovered from the Jiulongsong Member of the Chaomidianzi Formation (now Jianshangou Bed of the Yixian Formation), at the Sihetun locality of Liaoning province, China. The fossils were later described in 1998 and used as the type specimens for the new dinosaur taxa Caudipteryx and Protarchaeopteryx. Caudipteryx was erected with the type species C. zoui and the holotype is NGMC 97-4-A, a nearly complete indivudal preserving conspicuous feather impressions and gastroliths. The paratype is NGMC 97-9-A, another relatively complete individual with feather impressions. The generic name, Caudipteryx, means "tail feather", and the specific name, zoui, is in honor of Zou Jiahua for his prominent support to the scientific community as the vice premier of China.

Around the summer of 1988, a partially complete skeleton of Caudipteryx lacking the skull was found in sediments of the "Layer 6" of the Yixian Formation, at the Zhangjiagou locality, which is set apart 3 km from Sihetun. This specimen, IVPP V 12344, was in 2000 described and designed as the holotype for new species Caudipteryx dongi, and in a similar fashion to previous specimens of the genus, it preserves exquisite traces of feather integument. The specific name dongi honors Zhiming Dong, a Chinese paleontologist.

Additional specimens
During 2000, Zhong-He Zhou and colleagues described two additional specimens of Caudipteryx, BPM 0001 and IVPP V 12430, referred to C. zoui and C. sp. respectively. Both individuals preserve nearly complete skulls and have feather impressions. Further analyses to IVPP V 12430 have revealed the preservation of propatagium on its left arm.

In 2021 Xiaoting Zheng and team described STM4-3 representing an articulated individual lacking the skull and tail tip, including abundant integument, gastroliths, but also a cartilage fragment that was reported to preserve chondrocytes. The specimen was collected from outcrops of the Yixian Formation at Dapingfang Town near Chaoyang city, west Liaoning.

Size
Caudipteryx was a small theropod, measuring 72.5 - 89 cm long and weighing about 5 kg based on femur length. Like many other maniraptorans, has a mix of reptile- and bird-like anatomical features.

Skull
It had a short, boxy skull with a beak-like snout that retained only a few tapered teeth in the front of the upper jaw.

Postcranial skeleton
Its short tail was stiffened toward the tip, with few vertebrae, like in birds and other oviraptorosaurs. It has a primitive pelvis and shoulder, and primitive skull details in the quadratojugal, squamosal, quadrate, jugal, and mandibular fenestra (in the cheek, jaw, and jaw joint). It has a hand skeleton with a reduced third finger, like that of early birds and the oviraptorid Heyuannia.

Caudipteryx had uncinate processes on the ribs, birdlike teeth, a first toe which may or may not be partially reversed and overall body proportions that are comparable to those of modern flightless birds.

Feathers
The hands of Caudipteryx supported symmetrical, pennaceous feathers that had vanes and barbs, measuring between 15 – long. The primary feathers were arranged in a wing-like fan along the second finger, just like primary feathers of birds and other maniraptorans. An additional fan of feathers existed on its tail. The body of C. zoui was covered in black feathers, with a visible banding pattern preserved on tail feathers.

A study on the number of flight feathers has concluded that Caudipteryx was secondarily flightless.

Classification
The consensus view, based on several cladistic analyses, is that Caudipteryx is a basal (primitive) member of the Oviraptorosauria, and the oviraptorosaurians are non-avian theropod dinosaurs. Incisivosaurus is the only oviraptorosaur that is more primitive.

Halszka Osmólska et al. (2004) ran a cladistic analysis that came to a different conclusion. They found that the most birdlike features of oviraptorids actually place the whole clade within Aves itself, meaning that Caudipteryx is both an oviraptorid and a bird. In their analysis, birds evolved from more primitive theropods, and one lineage of birds became flightless, re-evolved some primitive features, and gave rise to the oviraptorids. This analysis was persuasive enough to be included in paleontological textbooks like Benton's Vertebrate Paleontology (2005). The view that Caudipteryx was secondarily flightless is also preferred by Gregory S. Paul, Lü et al., and Maryańska et al.

Others, such as Stephen Czerkas and Larry Martin have concluded that Caudipteryx is not a theropod dinosaur at all. They believe that Caudipteryx, like all maniraptorans, is a flightless bird, and that birds evolved from non-dinosaurian archosaurs.

A weighted cladogram from 2014, using TNT, is shown below.

Relationship with birds
Because Caudipteryx has clear and unambiguously pennaceous feathers, like modern birds, and because several cladistic analyses have consistently recovered it as a non-avian oviraptorid dinosaur, it provided, at the time of its description, the clearest and most succinct evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Lawrence Witmer stated: “The presence of unambiguous feathers in an unambiguously non-avian theropod has the rhetorical impact of an atomic bomb, rendering any doubt about the theropod relationships of birds ludicrous.”

However, not all scientists agreed that Caudipteryx was unambiguously non-avian, and some of them continued to doubt that general consensus. Paleornithologist Alan Feduccia sees Caudipteryx as a flightless bird evolving from earlier archosaurian dinosaurs rather than from late theropods. Jones et al. (2000) found that Caudipteryx was a bird based on a mathematical comparison of the body proportions of flightless birds and non-avian theropods. Dyke and Norell (2005) criticized this result for flaws in their mathematical methods, and produced results of their own which supported the opposite conclusion. Other researchers not normally involved in the debate over bird origins, such as Zhou, acknowledged that the true affinities of Caudipteryx were debatable.

Diet
Caudipteryx is thought to have been an omnivore. In at least two specimens of Caudipteryx (NGMC 97 4 A and NGMC 97 9 A), gastroliths are preserved. As in some herbivorous dinosaurs, the avialan Sapeornis, and modern birds, these gastroliths remain in the position where the animals' gizzards would have been.

Paleoenvironment
All Caudipteryx fossils were recovered from the Yixian Formation in Liaoning, China. Specifically, they come from a small area of the Jianshangou bed, near the town of Zhangjiakou. They appear to have been fairly common, though isolated to this small region. The specific region in which Caudipteryx lived was home to the other feathered dinosaurs Dilong and Sinornithosaurus.

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

title: Caudipteryx


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Teatro di San Carlo

The Real Teatro di San Carlo ("Royal Theatre of Saint Charles"), as originally named by the Bourbon monarchy but today known simply as the Teatro (di) San Carlo, is a historic opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and adjacent to the Piazza del Plebiscito. It is the oldest continuously active venue for opera in the world, having opened in 1737, decades before either Milan's La Scala or Venice's La Fenice.

The opera season runs from late November to July, with the ballet season taking place from December to early June. The house once had a seating capacity of 3,285, but has now been reduced to 1,386 seats. Given its size, structure and antiquity, it was the model for theatres that were later built in Europe.

History of the opera house
The Real Teatro di San Carlo was commissioned by the Bourbon King Charles VII of Naples (Carlo VII in Italian), who wanted to endow Naples with a new and larger theatre to replace the old, dilapidated, and too-small Teatro San Bartolomeo of 1621, which had served the city well, especially after Scarlatti had moved there in 1682 and had begun to create an important opera centre which existed well into the 18th century.

Thus the San Carlo was inaugurated on 4 November 1737, the king's name day, with the performance of the opera Domenico Sarro's Achille in Sciro, based on the 1736 libretto by Metastasio which had been set to music that year by Antonio Caldara. As was customary, the role of Achilles was played by a woman, Vittoria Tesi, called "Moretta"; the opera also featured soprano Anna Peruzzi, called "the Parrucchierina" and tenor Angelo Amorevoli. Sarro also conducted the orchestra in two ballets as intermezzi, created by Gaetano Grossatesta, with scenes designed by Pietro Righini. The first seasons highlighted the royal preference for dance numbers, and featured among the performers famous castrati.

In the late 18th century, Christoph Willibald Gluck was called to Naples by the impresario Tufarelli to direct his 1752 Clemenza di Tito at the theatre, and Johann Christian Bach in 1761-62 brought two operas, Catone in Utica and Alessandro nell'Indie.

1737: Construction of the Teatro di San Carlo
The new opera house was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano, a military architect, chief engineer of the kingdom and the "Major Regius Praefectus Mathematicis Regni Neapolitani" (Major Royal Governor of Mathematics of the Kingdom of Naples). Angelo Carasale, the former director of the San Bartolomeo held the primary responsibility for designing the elaborate furnishings of the Teatro di San Carlo. The horseshoe-shaped auditorium is the oldest in the world. It was built at a cost of 75,000 ducats. The hall was 28.6 meters long and 22.5 meters wide, with 184 boxes, including those of proscenium, arranged in six orders, plus a royal box capable of accommodating ten people, for a total of 1,379 seats. Including standing room, the theatre could hold over 3,000 people. The fastidious composer and violinist Louis Spohr reviewed the size and acoustic properties of this opera house very thoroughly on 15 February 1817 and concluded that:

"there is no better place for ballet and pantomime. Military movements of infantry and cavalry, battles, and storms at sea can be represented here without falling into the ludicrous. But for opera, itself, the house is too large. Although the singers, Signora Isabella Colbran, [Prima Donna of the Teatro San Carlo opera company and Rossini's future wife], and the Signori Nozzari, Benedetti, etc., have very strong voices, only their highest and most stentorian tones could be heard. Any kind of tender utterance was lost."

Much admired for its architecture, its gold decorations, and the sumptuous blue upholstery (blue and gold being the official colours of the Bourbons), the San Carlo was now the biggest opera house in the world. In relation to the power of the existing Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Beauvert notes that the design of the house, with its 184 boxes lacking any curtains was so that "no one could avoid the scrutiny by the sovereign" who had his private access from the Royal Palace.

In 1809 Domenico Barbaia was appointed manager of the royal opera houses in Naples and remained in charge until 1841. He soon established a reputation for innovative and dazzling productions, which attracted both the public and leading singers to the opera house.

February 1816 to January 1817: Destruction by fire and rebuilding
On 13 February 1816 a fire broke out during a dress-rehearsal for a ballet performance and quickly spread to destroy a part of building.

On the orders of King Ferdinand IV, another Bourbon monarch and son of Charles VII, who used the services of Antonio Niccolini, Barbaia was able to rebuild the opera house within ten months. It was rebuilt as a traditional horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,444 seats, and a proscenium, 33.5m wide and 30m high. The stage was 34.5m deep. Niccolini embellished in the inner of the bas-relief depicting "Time and the Hour".

The central frescoed ceiling painting of Apollo presenting to Minerva the greatest poets of the world was painted by Antonio, Giuseppe e Giovanni Cammarano.

On 12 January 1817, the rebuilt theatre was inaugurated with Johann Simon Mayr's Il sogno di Partenope. Stendhal attended the second night of the inauguration and wrote: "There is nothing in all Europe, I won't say comparable to this theatre, but which gives the slightest idea of what it is like..., it dazzles the eyes, it enraptures the soul...".

In 1844 the opera house was re-decorated under Niccolini, his son Fausto, and Francesco Maria dei Giudice. The main result was the change in appearance of the interior to the now-traditional red and gold.

Late 19th century, post World War II, and 21st century renovations
Apart from the creation of the orchestra pit, suggested by Verdi in 1872, the installation of electricity in 1890, the subsequent abolition of the central chandelier, and the construction of the new foyer and a new wing for dressing rooms, the theatre underwent no substantial changes until repair of the bombing damage in 1943.

During World War II the opera house was damaged by bombs. Following the liberation of Naples in October 1943, Peter Francis of the Royal Artillery organized repairs to the damaged foyer and, three weeks later, reopened the building with a musical revue. With the building in a fit state for performances, more musicians and singers made themselves available and the first opera performance was held on 26 December 1943, a matinee presentation of Puccini's La bohème. Francis stayed on for another two years, producing 30 operas. On 9 July 1946 the American baritone Lawrence Tibbett sang the title role in Rigoletto before an audience that included senior military figures of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, and troops of the Allied Forces.

By the start of the twenty-first century, the opera house was showing its age with outmoded stage machinery, inadequate visitor facilities, and lack of air conditioning. In response, the Campania regional government funded a €67 million renovation over six months in 2008 and six months in 2009 which included restoration of the décor and the creation of a new rehearsal hall. As noted in Gramophone magazine, the opera house reopened on 27 January 2010 with Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, the 254th anniversary of the composer's birth: "The renovation work was completed last year under the direction of architect Elisabetta Fabbri and is intended to return Teatro San Carlo to its condition following Antonio Niccolini's rebuilding after the fire of 1816. The project....involved 300 workers day and night."

The great age of Neapolitan opera
At the time, Neapolitan School of opera enjoyed great success all over Europe, not only in the field of opera buffa but also in that of opera seria. The Neapolitan school of opera composers included Feo, Porpora, Traetta, Piccinni, Vinci, Anfossi, Durante, Jommelli, Cimarosa, Paisiello, Zingarelli, and Gazzaniga. Naples became the capital of European music and even foreign composers considered the performance of their compositions at the San Carlo theatre as the goal of their career. These composers included Hasse (who later settled in Naples) Haydn, Johann Christian Bach and Gluck.

Similarly the most prominent singers performed and consolidated their fame at the San Carlo. These included Lucrezia Anguiari, called "La Cocchetta", the renowned castrati Giovanni Manzuoli, Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano), Farinelli (Carlo Broschi), Gizziello (Gioacchino Conti) and Gian Battista Velluti, the last castrato. Caffarelli, Farinelli, and Gizziello were products of the local conservatories of Naples.

Composers in residence
From 1815 to 1822, Gioachino Rossini was house composer and artistic director of the royal opera houses, including the San Carlo. During this period he wrote ten operas which were Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra (1815), La gazzetta, Otello, ossia il Moro di Venezia (1816), Armida (1817), Mosè in Egitto, Ricciardo e Zoraide (1818), Ermione, Bianca e Falliero, Eduardo e Cristina, La donna del lago (1819), Maometto II (1820), and Zelmira (1822).

Regular singers of the period included Manuel Garcia and his daughter Maria Malibran, Clorinda Corradi, Giuditta Pasta, Isabella Colbran, Giovanni Battista Rubini, Domenico Donzelli and the two great French rivals Adolphe Nourrit and Gilbert Duprez—the inventor of the C from the chest.

After the composition of Zelmira, Rossini left Naples with Colbran who had previously been the lover of Domenico Barbaia. The couple were married shortly thereafter.

To replace Rossini, Barbaja first signed up Giovanni Pacini and then another rising star of Italian opera, Gaetano Donizetti. As artistic director of the royal opera houses, Donizetti remained in Naples from 1822 until 1838, composing sixteen operas for the theatre, among which Maria Stuarda (1834), Roberto Devereux (1837), Poliuto (1838) and the famous Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), written for soprano Tacchinardi-Persiani and for tenor Duprez.

Vincenzo Bellini, Sicilian by birth, also staged his first work, Bianca e Fernando, at the San Carlo. Giuseppe Verdi was also associated with the theatre. In 1841, his Oberto Conte di San Bonifacio was performed there and in 1845 he wrote his first opera for the theatre, Alzira; a second, Luisa Miller, followed in 1849. His third should have been Gustavo III, but the censor made such significant changes that it was never performed in that version nor under that title (until a re-created version was given in 2004). It was later performed in Rome with significant revisions to the plot and its location, while the title became Un ballo in maschera.

Among the conductors and composers appointed by the Teatro San Carlo was the famous and eccentric French harpist and composer Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, who was accompanied by his lover, the English prima donna Anna Bishop, with whom he was touring the world. He conducted several operas (1844–1845) in the San Carlo with Anna Bishop as prima donna. She sang there 327 times in 24 operas.

Decline and revival by late 19th century
The unification of Italy in 1861 led to Naples losing its status as the musical center of Italy and the home of the country's leading opera house to La Scala as power and wealth moved northwards. By 1874 the fall in income from performances led to the closing of the opera house for a year. Its fortunes were able to recover due to the continued support in the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century by Giacomo Puccini and other composers of verismo operas, such as Pietro Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, and Cilea, who staged their works here.

In the late nineteenth century, the house created its own in-house orchestra under Giuseppe Martucci, which helped attract a number of respected conductors including Arturo Toscanini, Pietro Mascagni and composer Richard Strauss, whose influence expanded the opera house's repertoire.

One performer who did not appear in Naples from 1901 onward was Naples-born Enrico Caruso, who after being booed by a section of the audience during a performance of L'elisir d'amore, vowed never to return.

Conductors
Principal conductors Principal guest conductor Honorary conductor
 * Elio Boncompagni (1979–1982)
 * Salvatore Accardo (1993–1995)
 * Gabriele Ferro (1999–2004)
 * Gary Bertini (2004–2005)
 * Jeffrey Tate (2005–2010)
 * Nicola Luisotti (2012–2014)
 * Juraj Valčuha (2016–2022)
 * Dan Ettinger (2023–present)
 * Maurizio Benini (2010–2011)
 * Zubin Mehta (2016–present)

title: Teatro di San Carlo


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Southern Province, Sri Lanka

The Southern Province (දකුණු පළාත Dakuṇu Paḷāta, தென் மாகாணம் Theṉ Mākāṇam) of Sri Lanka is one of the nine provinces of Sri Lanka, the first level administrative division of the country. The provinces have existed since the 19th century but did not have any legal status until 1987 when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka established provincial councils. It is the 7th largest province by area and is home to 2.5 million people, the 3rd most populated province. The province is bordered by Sabaragamuwa Province and Uva Province to the North, Eastern Province to the Northeast, Western Province to the Northwest and the Indian Ocean to the South, West and East. The Province's capital is Galle.

The Southern Province is a geographic area consisting of the districts of Galle, Matara and Hambantota. Subsistence farming and fishing is the main source of income for the vast majority of the people of this region. Government School education is primarily handled by the Southern Provincial Education Department.

Administrative divisions
Southern Province is divided into 3 districts and 47 divisional secretariats.

Divisional Secretariats
The districts of the Sri Lanka are divided into administrative sub-units known as divisional secretariats. These were originally based on the feudal counties, the korales and ratas. They were formerly known as 'D.R.O. Divisions' after the 'Divisional Revenue Officer'. Later the D.R.O.s became 'Assistant Government Agents' and the divisions were known as 'A.G.A. Divisions'. Currently, the divisions are administered by a 'Divisional Secretary', and are known as a 'D.S. Divisions'.

There are 47 divisional secretariats in the Southern Province, with 19 in Galle District, 12 in Hambantota District and 16 in Matara District.

Landmarks
Important landmarks of the Southern Province include the wildlife sanctuaries of the Yala and Udawalawe National Parks. Ussangoda in Ambalantota is a panoramic view of the beach and the sea, and the holy city of Kataragama, and the ancient cities of Tissamaharama, Kirinda and Galle. (Although Galle is an ancient city, almost nothing survives from before the Portuguese invasion.) During the Portuguese period there were two famous Sinhalese poets called Andare who was from Dickwella and Gajaman Nona who was from Denipitiya in Matara District, composing poems on common man.

The Southern Province was seriously affected by the tsunami in 2004. The province is going through a rebuilding process.

title: Southern Province, Sri Lanka


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Portuguese phonology

The phonology of Portuguese varies among dialects, in extreme cases leading to some difficulties in mutual intelligibility. This article on phonology focuses on the pronunciations that are generally regarded as standard. Since Portuguese is a pluricentric language, and differences between European Portuguese (EP), Brazilian Portuguese (BP), and Angolan Portuguese (AP) can be considerable, varieties are distinguished whenever necessary.

Consonants
The consonant inventory of Portuguese is fairly conservative. The medieval Galician-Portuguese system of seven sibilants (,, , and apicoalveolar ) is still distinguished in spelling (intervocalic c/ç z, x g/j, ch, ss -s- respectively), but is reduced to the four fricatives by the merger of  into  and apicoalveolar  into either  or  (depending on dialect and syllable position), except in parts of northern Portugal (most notably in the Trás-os-Montes region). These changes are known as deaffrication. Other than this, there have been no other significant changes to the consonant phonemes since Old Portuguese. However, several consonant phonemes have special allophones at syllable boundaries (often varying quite significantly between European and Brazilian Portuguese), and a few also undergo allophonic changes at word boundaries.

Phonetic notes
 * Semivowels contrast with unstressed high vowels in verbal conjugation, as in (eu) rio 'I laugh' and (ele) riu  'he (has) laughed.' Phonologists debate whether their nature is vocalic or consonantal. In intervocalic position semivowels are ambisyllabic, they are associated to both the previous syllable and the following syllable onset.
 * In Brazil and Angola, the consonant hereafter denoted as is realized as a nasal palatal approximant, which nasalizes the vowel that precedes it: ninho ( in Brazil,  in Angola) 'nest'.
 * is often the pronunciation of a sequence of followed by  in a rising diphthong in Brazil, forming a minimal pair between sonha  and Sônia ; menina, "girl".
 * is often the pronunciation of a sequence of followed by  in a rising diphthong in Brazil; e.g. limão, "lemon" ; sandália, "sandal".
 * The consonant hereafter denoted as has a variety of realizations depending on dialect. In Europe, it is typically a voiced uvular fricative . There is also a realization as a voiceless uvular fricative, and the original pronunciation as an alveolar trill  also remains very common in various dialects. A common realization of the word-initial  in the Lisbon accent is a voiced uvular fricative trill . In Brazil,  can be velar, uvular, or glottal and may be voiceless unless between voiced sounds; it is usually pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative , a voiceless glottal fricative  or voiceless uvular fricative . See also Guttural R in Portuguese. All those variants are transcribed with ⟨ʁ⟩ in this article.
 * and are normally, as in English.  However, a number of dialects in northern Portugal pronounce  and  as apico-alveolar sibilants  which are exactly the same as the ones found in Catalan and Northern European Spanish. Those apico-alveolars sound like duller versions of  and , but they are kept apart from  (written ch/x and j/g) which are laminal postalveolar. A small number of northeastern Portugal dialects still retain the medieval distinction between apical and laminal sibilants (written s/ss and c/ç/z, respectively), a distinction also found in Mirandese and analogous to the distinción of European Spanish.
 * As phonemes, and  occur only in loanwords (e.g. tchau and dee jay), with a tendency for speakers to substitute into fricatives in Portugal. However, in most Brazilian dialects d and t are pronounced as  and  before  and.
 * In northern and central Portugal, the voiced stops, , are usually lenited to fricatives , , and  respectively, except at the beginning of words, or after nasal vowels; a similar process occurs in Spanish.
 * In large parts of northern Portugal, e.g. Trás-os-Montes, and also in East Timor and the islands of Flores, and  are merged, both pronounced, as in Spanish.

Consonant elision
There is a variation in the pronunciation of the first consonant of certain clusters, most commonly C or P in cç, ct, pç and pt. These consonants may be variably elided or conserved. For some words, this variation may exist inside a country, sometimes in all of them; for others, the variation is dialectal, with the consonant being always pronounced in one country and always elided in the other. This variation affects 0.5% of the language's vocabulary, or 575 words out of 110,000. In most cases, Brazilians variably conserve the consonant while speakers elsewhere have invariably ceased to pronounce it (for example, detector in Brazil versus detetor in Portugal). The inverse situation is rarer, occurring in words such as fa(c)to and conta(c)to (consonants never pronounced in Brazil, pronounced elsewhere). Until 2009, this reality could not be apprehended from the spelling: while Brazilians did not write consonants that were no longer pronounced, the spelling of the other countries retained them in many words as silent letters, usually when there was still a vestige of their presence in the pronunciation of the preceding vowel. This could give the false impression that European Portuguese was phonologically more conservative in this aspect, when in fact it was Brazilian Portuguese that retained more consonants in pronunciation.

Consonant phonotactics
Syllables have the maximal structure of (C)(C)V(C). The only possible codas in European Portuguese are, and  and in Brazilian Portuguese  and  (or, in a minority of dialects,  or any combination of the former with the latter).

 * The consonants and  almost always occur in the middle of a word and between vowels and rarely occur before.

 * Although nasal consonants do not normally occur at the end of syllables, syllable-final may be present in rare learned words, such as abdómen ( 'abdomen'). In Brazilian varieties, these words have a nasal diphthong (, spelled as abdômen). Word-initial  occurs in very few loanwords.
 * While the sibilant consonants contrast word-initially and intervocalically, they appear in complementary distribution in the syllable coda.  For many dialects (i.e., those of Portugal and of Rio de Janeiro and the northeast of Brazil and certain other areas in Brazil), the sibilant is a postalveolar in coda position (e.g., pasto  'pasture'; futurismo  'futurism'; paz  'peace').  In many other dialects of Brazil (e.g., some of the Southeast, Northeast, and North), the postalveolar variant occurs in some or all cases when directly preceding a consonant, including across word boundaries, but not word-finally (e.g.,, , ). In a number of Brazilian dialects, this "palatalization" is absent entirely (e.g., , , ). Voicing contrast is also neutralized, with  or  occurring before voiced consonants and  or  appearing before voiceless consonants and before a pause (e.g., pasta  or , 'paste'; Islão (or Islã)  or , 'Islam').  In the vast majority of dialects, however, word-final "s" and "z" are pronounced /z/ before vowels (e.g. os ovos , "the eggs", temos hoje , "we have today", faz isso , "do that").  In European dialects, the postalveolar fricatives are only weakly fricated in the syllable coda.
 * The consonant is velarized  in all positions in European Portuguese, even before front vowels. In Portugal, the unvelarized lateral appears only in non-standard dialects. In most Brazilian dialects,  is vocalized to  at the end of syllables, but in the dialects of the extreme south, mainly along the frontiers with other countries (especially Uruguay), it has the full pronunciation or the velarized pronunciation. In some caipira registers, there is a rhotacism of coda  to retroflex . In casual BP, unstressed il can be realized as, as in fácil  ('easy').
 * For speakers who realize as an alveolar trill, the sequence  (as in e.g., os rins) can coalesce into a voiced alveolar fricative trill.
 * Regarding Brazilian Portuguese, analyzes the phonetic clusters at the start of words like qual and guardar as separate phonemes,  and, rather than as  or  followed by  in phonemic sequence. This is because when  or  is combined with a different approximant or when  is combined with a different initial consonant, the relevant approximant can always be alternatively realized as a full vowel in Brazilian Portuguese: quiabo , guiar , suar . However, this alternation can never apply to the phonetic clusters  and : qual and guardar in Brazilian Portuguese are always  and , never * or *.
 * The semivowels and  do not occur before  and  respectively, and only contrast in some diphthongs like in pai  versus pau . Otherwise they are the non-syllabic allophones of  and  in unstressed syllables.
 * Unlike its neighbor and relative Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese lacks a tendency to elide any stop, including those that may become a continuant by lenition ( >, > ,  > ), but it has a number of allophones to it.

Rhotics
The two rhotic phonemes and  contrast only between oral vowels, similar to Spanish. Elsewhere, their occurrence is predictable by context, with dialectal variations in realization. The rhotic is "hard" (i.e., ) in the following circumstances: It is "soft" (i.e., ) when it occurs in syllable onset clusters (e.g., atributo), and written as a single 'r' between vowels (e.g., dirigir 'to drive')
 * Word-initially (e.g., rosa 'rose');
 * Syllable-initially preceded by or  (e.g., guelra 'gill', Israel);
 * Following a nasal vowel (e.g., honrar 'to honor');
 * In most Brazilian and some African dialects, syllable-finally (i.e., preceded but not followed by a vowel);
 * When written with the digraph "rr" (e.g., carro 'car').

The realization of the "hard" rhotic varies significantly across dialects.

This restricted variation has prompted several authors to postulate a single rhotic phoneme. and see the soft as the unmarked realization and that instances of intervocalic  result from gemination and a subsequent deletion rule (i.e., carro  >  > ). Similarly, argue that the hard is the unmarked realization.

Brazilian rhotics
In addition to the phonemic variation between and  between vowels, up to four allophones of the "merged" phoneme /R/ are found in other positions:
 * 1) A "soft" allophone in syllable-onset clusters, as described above;
 * 2) A default "hard" allophone in most other circumstances;
 * 3) In some dialects, a special allophone syllable-finally (i.e., preceded but not followed by a vowel);
 * 4) Commonly in all dialects, deletion of the rhotic word-finally.

The default hard allophone is some sort of voiceless fricative in most dialects, e.g.,, although other variants are also found. For example, an alveolar trill is found in certain conservative dialects down São Paulo, of Italian-speaking, Spanish-speaking, Arabic-speaking, or Slavic-speaking influence. A uvular trill is found in areas of German-speaking, French-speaking, and Portuguese-descended influence throughout coastal Brazil down Espírito Santo, most prominently Rio de Janeiro.

The syllable-final allophone shows the greatest variation:
 * Many dialects (mainly in Brasília, Minas Gerais and Brazilian North and Northeast) use the same voiceless fricative as in the default allophone. This may become voiced before a voiced consonant, esp. in its weaker variants (e.g., dormir  'to sleep').
 * The soft occurs for many speakers in Southern Brazil and São Paulo city.
 * An English-like approximant or vowel (R-colored vowel) occurs elsewhere in São Paulo as well as Mato Grosso do Sul, southern Goiás, central and southern Mato Grosso and bordering regions of Minas Gerais, as well as in the urban areas in the Sinos river valley. This pronunciation is stereotypically associated with the rural "caipira" dialect.

Throughout Brazil, deletion of the word-final rhotic is common, regardless of the "normal" pronunciation of the syllable-final allophone. This pronunciation is particularly common in lower registers, although found in most registers in some areas, e.g., Northeast Brazil, and in the more formal and standard sociolect. It occurs especially in verbs, which always end in R in their infinitive form; in words other than verbs, the deletion is rarer and seems not to occur in monosyllabic non-verb words, such as mar. Evidence of this allophone is often encountered in writing that attempts to approximate the speech of communities with this pronunciation, e.g., the rhymes in the popular poetry (cordel literature) of the Northeast and phonetic spellings (e.g., amá, sofrê in place of amar, sofrer) in Jorge Amado's novels (set in the Northeast) and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri's play Eles não usam black tie (about favela dwellers in Rio de Janeiro).

The soft realization is often maintained across word boundaries in close syntactic contexts (e.g., mar azul 'blue sea').

Vowels
Portuguese has one of the richest vowel phonologies of all Romance languages, having both oral and nasal vowels, diphthongs, and triphthongs. A phonemic distinction is made between close-mid vowels and the open-mid vowels, as in Italian, Catalan and French, though there is a certain amount of vowel alternation. European Portuguese has also two central vowels, one of which tends to be elided like the e caduc of French.

The central closed vowel only occurs in European Portuguese when e is unstressed, e.g. presidente, as well as in Angola; where unlike Portugal, it only occurs in final syllables, e.g. presidente. However, does not exist in Brazil, e.g. presidente.

In Angola, and  merge to, and  appears only in final syllables rama. The nasal becomes open.

Vowel classification
In some cases, Portuguese uses vowel height to contrast stressed syllables with unstressed syllables:
 * In Portugal, unstressed tend to be raised to, whereas  remain unchanged. In final syllables, only  appear.
 * In the Southern, Central-West and Southeast regions of Brazil, unstressed are raised to, whereas in Northern and Northeast regions, they remain open. However, stressed  remain unchanged throughout the whole territory. In final syllables, only  appear.
 * In Angola, unstressed remain unchanged. In final syllables, only  appear.

See below for details. The dialects of Portugal are characterized by reducing vowels to a greater extent than others. Falling diphthongs are composed of a vowel followed by one of the high vowels or ; although rising diphthongs occur in the language as well, they can be interpreted as hiatuses.

European Portuguese possesses quite a wide range of vowel allophones:
 * All vowels are lowered and retracted before :.
 * All vowels are raised and advanced before alveolar, palato-alveolar and palatal consonants: . Those are the vowels shown on the chart. The diphthong is an exception to that as it is often pronounced  in Lisbon, with a back onset.

Furthermore, Cruz-Ferreira gives voiceless allophones of, , in the unstressed word-final position.

The exact realization of the varies somewhat amongst dialects. In Brazil, the vowel can be as high as in any environment. It is typically closer in stressed syllables before intervocalic nasals than word-finally, reaching as open a position as  in the latter case, and open-mid  before nasals, where  can be nasalized. In European Portuguese, the general situation is similar, except that in some regions the two vowels form minimal pairs in some European dialects. In central European Portuguese this contrast occurs in a limited morphological context, namely in verb conjugation between the first person plural present and past perfect indicative forms of verbs such as pensamos ('we think') and pensámos ('we thought'; spelled $⟨pensamos⟩$ in Brazil). Spahr proposes that it is a kind of crasis rather than phonemic distinction of and. It means that in falamos 'we speak' there is the expected prenasal -raising:, while in falámos 'we spoke' there are phonologically two in crasis:  (however, in Brazil both merge, falamos . In Angola, on the other hand, both merge as well, but spelling keeps differentiated: falamos/falámos ). Close-mid vowels and open-mid vowels ( and ) contrast only when they are stressed. In unstressed syllables, they occur in complementary distribution. In Brazilian Portuguese, they are raised to close after a stressed syllable, or in some accents and in general casual speech, also before it.

According to Mateus and d'Andrade (2000:19), in European Portuguese, the stressed only occurs in the following three contexts:
 * Before a palatal consonant (such as telha )
 * Before the palatal front glide (such as lei )
 * Before a nasal consonant (such as cama )

English loanwords containing stressed or  are usually associated with pre-nasal $⟨a⟩$ as in rush,  or are influenced by orthography as in clube (club),  or both, as in surf/surfe.

European Portuguese "e caduc"
European Portuguese possesses a near-close near-back unrounded vowel, transcribed in this article. It occurs in unstressed syllables such as in pegar ('to grip').

 * Traditionally, all instances of are pronounced; e.g. verdade, perigo , estado.
 * In modern European Portuguese, the initial is fronted to ; e.g. energia  →.
 * In traditional EP, was never retracted to . In modern EP, it happens when it is surrounded by, so that ministro , príncipe  and artilhar  are usually pronounced ,  and.
 * When "e" is surrounded by another vowel, it becomes ; e.g. real.
 * However, when the e caduc is preceded by a semi-vowel, it may be given the unreduced pronunciation of the letter $⟨e⟩$, that is or : poesia, quietude.
 * Regardless of the underlying phoneme, a phonetic can be elided, affecting syllabification and sometimes even producing a syllabic consonant; e.g. verdade  →, perigo  → , estado  → , energia  → , ministro  → , príncipe  → , artilhar  → , caminhar  → , pistola  →  (here, ⟨r̩⟩ stands for a syllabic alveolar trill with one contact, the syllabic counterpart of ). This can result in complex syllable onsets that are typical of Slavic languages.
 * Whenever is elided, obstruents in the resulting consonant cluster often agree in voicing, so that the most reduced form of desistiu  '(he) gave up' surfaces as ., a phonological sonorant, behaves like an obstruent in this case and can also be devoiced in voiceless clusters, as in reconhecer  'to recognize' (phonemically ).

There are very few minimal pairs for this sound, including pregar ('to nail') vs. pregar  ('to preach'; the latter stemming from earlier preegar < Latin praedicāre) as well as jure  ('I swear', subjunctive) vs. júri  ('jury').

Oral diphthongs
Diphthongs are not considered independent phonemes in Portuguese, but knowing them can help with spelling and pronunciation.

There are also some words with two vowels occurring next to each other like in iate and sábio may be pronounced both as rising diphthongs or hiatus. In these and other cases, other diphthongs, diphthong-hiatus or hiatus-diphthong combinations might exist depending on speaker, such as or even  for suo ('I sweat'), and in BP  or even  for fatie ('slice it').

and are non-syllabic counterparts of the vowels  and, respectively. At least in European Portuguese, the diphthongs tend to have more central second elements  (as stated above, the starting point of  is typically back) – note that  is also more weakly rounded than the  monophthong.

Nasal vowels
Portuguese also has a series of nasalized vowels. analyzes European Portuguese with five monophthongs and five diphthongs, all phonemic:. Nasal diphthongs occur mostly at the end of words (or followed by a final sibilant), and in a few compounds.

As in French, the nasal consonants represented by the letters ⟨m n⟩ are deleted in coda position, and in that case the preceding vowel becomes phonemically nasal, e.g. in genro ('son-in-law'). But a nasal consonant subsists when it is followed by a plosive, e.g. in cantar ('to sing'). Vowel nasalization has also been observed non-phonemically as result of coarticulation, before heterosyllabic nasal consonants, e.g. in soma ('sum'). Hence, there is a difference between phonemic nasal vowels and those that are allophonically nasalized. Additionally, a nasal monophthong written ⟨ã⟩ exists independently of these processes, e.g. in romã  ('pomegranate'). Brazilian Portuguese is seen as being more nasal than European Portuguese due to the presence of these nasalized vowels. Some linguists consider them to be a result of external influences, including the common language spoken at Brazil's coast at time of discovery, Tupi.

The and  distinction does not happen in nasal vowels; ⟨em om⟩ are pronounced as close-mid. In BP, the vowel (which the letter ⟨a⟩ otherwise represents) is sometimes phonemically raised to  when it is nasal, and also in stressed syllables before heterosyllabic nasal consonants (even if the speaker does not nasalize vowels in this position): compare for instance dama sã  (PT) or  (BR) ('healthy lady') and dá maçã  (PT) or  (BR) ('it gives apples'). may also be raised slightly in word-final unstressed syllables.

Nasalization and height increase noticeably with time during the production of a single nasal vowel in BP in those cases that are written with nasal consonants ⟨m n⟩, so that may be realized as  or. This creates a significant difference between the realizations of ⟨am⟩ and ⟨ã⟩ for some speakers: compare for instance ranço real (PT) or  (BR) ('royal rancidness') and rã surreal  (PT) or  (BR) ('surreal frog'). (Here means a velar nasal approximant.) At the end of a word ⟨em⟩ is always pronounced  with a clear nasal palatal approximant (see below). Whenever a nasal vowel is pronounced with a nasal coda (approximant or occlusive) the (phonetic) nasalization of the vowel itself is optional.

The following examples exhaustively demonstrate the general situation for BP.
 * romã ('pomegranate') : : final vowel is (phonemically) "nasal" and nasal approximants may not be pronounced.
 * genro ('son-in-law') : or  or  : nasal consonant deleted; preceding vowel is (phonemically) "nasal" and nasal approximants may be pronounced.
 * cem ('a hundred') : : nasal approximant must be pronounced.
 * cantar ('to sing') : : nasal consonant remains because of the following plosive; preceding vowel is raised and nasalized non-phonemically. (This is traditionally considered a "nasal" vowel by textbooks.)
 * cano ('pipe') : or  : first vowel is necessarily raised, and may be nasalized non-phonemically.
 * tomo ('I take') : or  : first vowel may be nasalized non-phonemically.

It follows from these observations that the vowels of BP can be described simply in the following way. With this description, the examples from before are simply. But there is no commonly accepted transcription for Brazilian Portuguese phonology.
 * BP has eight monophthongs——whose phonetic realizations may be affected by a nasal archiphoneme . The vowel  is typically nasalized (in every position), but this is not phonemic.
 * All eight vowels are differentiated in stressed and unstressed positions. But in word-final unstressed position and not followed by, they reduce to three vowels——in most dialects. In this position, has a free variation  and this fatally impairs  distinction. (For instance: the word ímã ('magnet') is effectively pronounced as either ima or ímam, depending on speaker.)
 * Like the ん of Japanese, the archiphoneme is a nasal archiphoneme of syllabic codas and its actual place of articulation is determined by the following sound:
 * otherwise it becomes a nasal approximant (as in Japanese kan'i  [かんい], etc.). After the vowels  this approximant may also be pronounced as ; and after  as  (free variations).
 * The system of eight monophthongs reduces to five——before and also in stressed syllables before heterosyllabic nasal consonants. The grapheme ⟨a⟩ stands for  in these cases.
 * is not allowed at word-final position because ⟨em⟩ stands for in this case. (Here  means the same phoneme that ⟨nh⟩ represents; and  may be nasalized non-phonemically.) This is the only case of  in coda-position.
 * otherwise it becomes a nasal approximant (as in Japanese kan'i  [かんい], etc.). After the vowels  this approximant may also be pronounced as ; and after  as  (free variations).
 * The system of eight monophthongs reduces to five——before and also in stressed syllables before heterosyllabic nasal consonants. The grapheme ⟨a⟩ stands for  in these cases.
 * is not allowed at word-final position because ⟨em⟩ stands for in this case. (Here  means the same phoneme that ⟨nh⟩ represents; and  may be nasalized non-phonemically.) This is the only case of  in coda-position.

Vowel nasalization in some dialects of Brazilian Portuguese is very different from that of French, for example. In French, the nasalization extends uniformly through the entire vowel, whereas in the Southern-Southeastern dialects of Brazilian Portuguese, the nasalization begins almost imperceptibly and then becomes stronger toward the end of the vowel. In this respect it is more similar to the nasalization of Hindi-Urdu (see Anusvara). In some cases, the nasal archiphoneme even entails the insertion of a nasal consonant such as (compare ), as in the following examples:

 * banco
 * tempo
 * pinta
 * sombra
 * mundo
 * fã
 * bem
 * vim
 * bom
 * um
 * mãe
 * pão
 * põe
 * muito

Nasal diphthongs
Most times nasal diphthongs occur at the end of the word. They are:

 * -ãe . It occurs in mãe(s) ('mother[s]') and in the plural of some words ending in -ão, e.g., cães ('dogs'), pães ('breads'); and exceptionally non-finally in cãibra ('cramp'). In Central European Portuguese, it occurs also in all words ending in -em, like tem ('he/she/it has'), bem ('well', 'good', as a noun), mentem (they lie), etc.
 * -em . It occurs, both stressed and unstressed, in Brazilian Portuguese and in European Portuguese (both northern and southern) in word-final syllables ending in -em or -ém, like bem, sem, and além, as well as in verbs ending in -em (the 3rd person plural present indicative of verbs whose infinitives end in -er or -ir). In Greater Lisbon, has merged with ; and it occurs duplicated in têm  or  (3rd person plural present indicative of ter, originally tẽem), which in Brazilian is homophonous with tem (the 3rd person singular).
 * -õe . It occurs:
 * in the present indicative of pôr and its derivatives; in the 2nd person singular (pões, opões, compões, pressupões), in the 3rd person singular (põe , opõe etc.), and non-finally in the 3rd person plural (põem , opõem etc.).
 * in the plural of many words ending in-ão, e.g., limões ('lemons'), anões ('dwarfs'), espiões ('spies'), iões ('ions'), catiões ('cations'), aniões ('anions'), eletrões ('electrons'), neutrões ('neutrons'), protões ('protons'), fotões ('photons'), positrões ('positrons') and the plurals of all words with the suffix -ção (compare English -tion, like in communication), like comunicações ('communications'), provocações ('provocations').
 * -uim or -uin Example: pinguim ('penguin').
 * ui occurs only in the words muito  and the uncommon mui . The nasalisation here may be interpreted as allophonic, bleeding over from the previous m (compare mãe with the same bleeding of nasality).
 * -ão or -am. . Examples: pão ('bread'), cão ('dog'), estão ('they are'), vão ('they go'), limão ('lemon'), órgão ('organ'), Estêvão ('Steven'). When in the -am form (unstressed) they are always the 3rd person of the plural of a verb, like estavam ('they were'), contam ('they account'), escreveram ('they wrote'), partiram ('they left').
 * -om . It occurs in word-final syllables ending in -om like bom and som. However, it may be also monophthongized to.

and are nasalized, non-syllabic counterparts of the vowels  and, respectively. In European Portuguese, they are normally not fully close, being closer to. As with the oral, the nasal is not only more central but also more weakly rounded than the  monophthong. This is not transcribed in this article.

Vowel alternation
The stressed relatively open vowels contrast with the stressed relatively close vowels  in several kinds of grammatically meaningful alternation:

 * Between the base form of a noun or adjective and its inflected forms: ovo ('egg'), ovos  ('eggs'); novo, nova , novos , novas  ('new': masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, feminine plural);
 * Between some nouns or adjectives and related verb forms: adj. seco ('dry'), v. seco  ('I dry'); n. gosto  ('taste'), v. gosto  ('I like'); n. governo  ('government') v. governo  ('I govern');
 * Between different forms of some verbs: pôde ('he could'), pode  ('he can');
 * Between some pairs of related words: avô ('grandfather'), avó  ('grandmother');
 * In regular verbs, the stressed vowel is normally low, but high before the nasal consonants , ,  (the high vowels are also nasalized, in BP);
 * Some stem-changing verbs alternate stressed high vowels with stressed low vowels in the present tense, according to a regular pattern: cedo, cedes, cede, cedem ; movo, moves, move, movem (present indicative); ceda, cedas, ceda, cedam ; mova, movas, mova, movam  (present subjunctive). (There is another class of stem-changing verbs which alternate  with  according to the same scheme);
 * In central Portugal, the 1st. person plural of verbs of the 1st. conjugation (with infinitives in -ar) has the stressed vowel in the present indicative, but  in the preterite, cf. pensamos ('we think') with pensámos ('we thought'). In BP, the stressed vowel is  in both, so they are written without accent mark.

There are also pairs of unrelated words that differ in the height of these vowels, such as besta ('beast') and besta  ('crossbow'); mexo  ('I move') and mecho  ('I highlight [hair]'); molho  ('sauce') and molho  ('bunch'); corte  ('cut') and corte  ('court'); meta  ('I put' subjunctive) and meta  ('goal'); and (especially in Portugal) para  ('for') and para  ('he stops'); forma  ('mold') and forma  ('shape').

There are several minimal pairs in which a clitic containing the vowel contrasts with a monosyllabic stressed word containing : da vs. dá, mas vs. más, a vs. à, etc. In BP, however, these words may be pronounced with  in some environments.

Unstressed vowels
Some isolated vowels (meaning those that are neither nasal nor part of a diphthong) tend to change quality in a fairly predictable way when they become unstressed. In the examples below, the stressed syllable of each word is in boldface. The term "final" should be interpreted here as at the end of a word or before word-final -s.

With a few exceptions mentioned in the previous sections, the vowels and  occur in complementary distribution when stressed, the latter before nasal consonants followed by a vowel, and the former elsewhere.

In Brazilian Portuguese, the general pattern in the southern and western accents is that the stressed vowels, , neutralize to , , , respectively, in unstressed syllables, as is common in Romance languages. In final unstressed syllables, however, they are raised to, ,. In casual BP (as well as in the fluminense dialect), unstressed and  may be raised to,  on any unstressed syllable, as long as it has no coda. However, in the dialects of Northeastern Brazilian (as spoken in the states of Bahia and Pernambuco), non-final unstressed vowels are often open-mid, , , independent of vowel harmony with surrounding lower vowels.

European Portuguese has taken this process one step further, raising, , to , ,  in almost all unstressed syllables. The vowels and  are also more centralized than their Brazilian counterparts. The three unstressed vowels are reduced and often voiceless or elided in fast speech.

However, Angolan Portuguese has been more conservative, raising, , to , ,  in unstressed syllables; and to , ,  in final unstressed syllables. Which makes it almost similar to Brazilian Portuguese (except by final, which is inherited from European Portuguese).

There are some exceptions to the rules above. For example, occurs instead of unstressed  or, word-initially or before another vowel in hiatus (teatro, reúne, peão). is often deleted entirely word-initially in the combination becoming. Also,, or  appear in some unstressed syllables in EP, being marked in the lexicon, like espetáculo (spectacle) ; these occur from deletion of the final consonant in a closed syllable and from crasis. And there is some dialectal variation in the unstressed sounds: the northern and eastern accents of BP have low vowels in unstressed syllables,, instead of the high vowels. However, the Brazilian media tends to prefer the southern pronunciation. In any event, the general paradigm is a useful guide for pronunciation and spelling.

Nasal vowels, vowels that belong to falling diphthongs, and the high vowels and  are not affected by this process, nor is the vowel  when written as the digraph $⟨ou⟩$ (pronounced  in conservative EP).

Epenthesis
In BP, an epenthetic vowel is sometimes inserted between consonants, to break up consonant clusters that are not native to Portuguese, in learned words and in borrowings. This also happens at the ends of words after consonants that cannot occur word-finally (e.g.,, , ). For example, psicologia ('psychology') may be pronounced ; adverso ('adverse') may be pronounced ; McDonald's may be pronounced. In northern Portugal, an epenthetic may be used instead,, , but in southern Portugal there is often no epenthesis, ,. Epenthesis at the end of a word does not normally occur in Portugal.

The native Portuguese consonant clusters, where there is not epenthesis, are sequences of a non-sibilant oral consonant followed by the liquids or, and the complex consonants. Some examples: flagrante, complexo , fixo (but not ficção ), latex , quatro , guaxinim ,

Further notes on the oral vowels

 * Some words with in EP have  in BP. This happens when those vowels are stressed before the nasal consonants, , followed by another vowel, in which case both types may occur in European Portuguese, but Brazilian Portuguese for the most part allows only mid or close-mid vowels. This can affect spelling: cf. EP tónico, BP tônico "tonic".
 * In most BP, stressed vowels have nasal allophones,, , , , , etc. (see below) before one of the nasal consonants , , , followed by another vowel. In São Paulo, Southern Brazil, and EP, nasalization is nearly absent in this environment, other than in compounds such as connosco, comummente (spelled conosco, comumente in BP).
 * Most BP speakers also diphthongize stressed vowels in oxytones to, , , , , , etc. (sometimes ), before a sibilant coda (written s or z). For instance, Jesus ('Jesus'), faz  ('he does'), dez  ('ten'). This has led to the use of meia (from meia dúzia 'half a dozen") instead of seis  ('six') when making enumerations, to avoid any confusion with três  ('three') on the telephone.
 * In Greater Lisbon, is pronounced  when it comes before a palatal consonant, ,  or a palato-alveolar , , followed by another vowel; as well as  is pronounced.

Sandhi
When two words belonging to the same phrase are pronounced together, or two morphemes are joined in a word, the last sound in the first may be affected by the first sound of the next (sandhi), either coalescing with it, or becoming shorter (a semivowel), or being deleted. This affects especially the sibilant consonants, , , , and the unstressed final vowels , ,.

Consonant sandhi
As was mentioned above, the dialects of Portuguese can be divided into two groups, according to whether syllable-final sibilants are pronounced as postalveolar consonants, or as alveolar ,. At the end of words, the default pronunciation for a sibilant is voiceless,, but in connected speech the sibilant is treated as though it were within a word (assimilation):

 * If the next word begins with a voiceless consonant, the final sibilant remains voiceless ; bons tempos or  ('good times').
 * If the next word begins with a voiced consonant, the final sibilant becomes voiced as well ; bons dias or  ('good days').
 * If the next word begins with a vowel, the final sibilant is treated as intervocalic, and pronounced ; bons amigos or  ('good friends').

When two identical sibilants appear in sequence within a word, they reduce to a single consonant. For example, nascer, desço, excesso, exsudar are pronounced with by speakers who use alveolar sibilants at the end of syllables, and disjuntor is pronounced with  by speakers who use postalveolars. But if the two sibilants are different they may be pronounced separately, depending on the dialect. Thus, the former speakers will pronounce the last example with, whereas the latter speakers will pronounce the first examples with if they are from Brazil or  if from Portugal (although in relaxed pronunciation one of the siblants may be dropped). This applies also to words that are pronounced together in connected speech:
 * sibilant +, e.g., as sopas: either (most of Brazil);  (Portugal, standard)
 * sibilant +, e.g., as zonas: either (mostly in Brazil);  (Portugal, standard)
 * sibilant +, e.g., as chaves: always ;
 * sibilant +, e.g., os genes: always.

Vowel sandhi
Normally, only the three vowels, (in BP) or  (in EP), and  occur in unstressed final position. If the next word begins with a similar vowel, they merge with it in connected speech, producing a single vowel, possibly long (crasis). Here, "similar" means that nasalization can be disregarded, and that the two central vowels can be identified with each other. Thus,

 * → (henceforth transcribed ); toda a noite  or  ('all night'), nessa altura  or  ('at that point').
 * → ) (henceforth transcribed ); a antiga ('the ancient one') and à antiga ('in the ancient way'), both pronounced or . The open nasalized  appears only in this environment.
 * → (henceforth transcribed ); de idade  or  ('aged').
 * → ; fila de espera ('waiting line') (EP only).
 * → (henceforth transcribed ); todo o dia  or  ('all day').

If the next word begins with a dissimilar vowel, then and  become approximants in Brazilian Portuguese (synaeresis):

 * + V → ; durante o curso ('during the course'), mais que um  ('more than one').
 * + V → ; todo este tempo ('all this time') do objeto  ('of the object').

In careful speech and in with certain function words, or in some phrase stress conditions (see Mateus and d'Andrade, for details), European Portuguese has a similar process:

 * + V → ; se a vires ('if you see her'), mais que um  ('more than one').
 * + V → ; todo este tempo ('all this time'), do objeto  ('of the object').

But in other prosodic conditions, and in relaxed pronunciation, EP simply drops final unstressed and  (elision), though this is subject to significant dialectal variation:
 * durante o curso ('during the course'), este inquilino  ('this tenant').
 * todo este tempo ('all this time'), disto há muito  ('there's a lot of this').

Aside from historical set contractions formed by prepositions plus determiners or pronouns, like à/dà, ao/do, nesse, dele, etc., on one hand and combined clitic pronouns such as mo/ma/mos/mas (it/him/her/them to/for me), and so on, on the other, Portuguese spelling does not reflect vowel sandhi. In poetry, however, an apostrophe may be used to show elision such as in d'água.

Stress
Primary stress may fall on any of the three final syllables of a word, but most commonly on the last two, as antepenultimate stress is relatively less frequent in the language. There is a partial correlation between the position of the stress and the final vowel; for example, the final syllable is usually stressed when it contains a nasal phoneme, a diphthong, or a close vowel—this is especially relevant given the influence of Indigenous languages in Brazil, as indigenous words often have final stress: urubu 'vulture', açaí 'açai', both of which originate from Tupi and have final stress. The orthography of Portuguese takes advantage of this correlation to minimize the number of diacritics, but orthographic rules vary in different regions (e.g., Brazil and Portugal), and should not be used as a reliable guide to stress, despite the existing correlations found in the grapheme-phoneme conversion of Portuguese data.

As in English, stress in verbs and non-verbs is computed differently. For verbs, stress is deterministic, as different morphemes determine the location of stress in a given word based on tense, mood, person and number. For this reason, the few examples one can find of minimal pairs of lexical stress involve either different verb forms for a given stem, such as ruíram /ʁuˈiɾɐ̃w̃/ 'they collapsed' vs. ruirão /ʁuiˈɾɐ̃w̃/ 'they will collapse', or a noun-verb pair, such as dúvida /ˈduvidɐ/ 'doubt' vs. duvida /duˈvidɐ/ 's/he doubts'. For example, regardless of which verb one considers, stress is always final for the first person singular in the future simple tense (indicative): (eu) falarei 'I will speak'. For nouns and adjectives (i.e., non-verbs), stress is mostly affected by phonological factors such as syllable weight, although morphology also plays a role, as different suffixes may affect the location of stress in a given word. In simple terms, the algorithm for stress in non-verbs is similar to that of English and Latin (modulo the extrametricality of the final syllable, which is absent in Portuguese): stress is final if the final syllable is heavy and penultimate otherwise. A heavy syllable contains a diphthong or a coda consonant. All other patterns are considered to be irregular in most approaches in the literature, even though subregularities have been determined and discussed in recent studies. Finally, syllable weight has also been shown to affect the position of secondary stress in the language, whose location can vary in words with an odd number of pre-tonic syllables. In such words, there's some experimental evidence showing that the presence of a given syllable containing a coda leads to a preference for secondary stress in said syllable.

Prosody
Tone is not lexically significant in Portuguese, but phrase- and sentence-level tones are important. As in most Romance languages, interrogation on yes–no questions is expressed mainly by sharply raising the tone at the end of the sentence. An exception to this is the word oi that is subject to meaning changes: an exclamation tone means 'hi/hello', and in an interrogative tone it means 'I didn't understand'.

As for prosodic domains, the presence of metrical feet in Portuguese has been called into question in a recent study, which argues that no strong evidence exists in the language that supports this particular domain (at least Brazilian Portuguese)—despite the presence of stress and secondary stress, both of which are typically (albeit not always) associated with feet.

title: Portuguese phonology


text:
Harrisburg Senators

The Harrisburg Senators are a Minor League Baseball team who play in the Eastern League, and are the Double-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals. The team is based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and play their home games at FNB Field on City Island, which opened in 1987 and has a seating capacity of 6,187.

The "Senators" nickname refers to the host city being the state's capital and thus home of the Pennsylvania legislature. The team colors are red, navy blue, gold, and white, the same of the parent club, the Washington Nationals.

Harrisburg has won nine Eastern League titles and is the first team in league history to win four titles in a row: 1987, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999. The 1993 Senators were recognized as one of the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time.

Previous Harrisburg baseball history
The city of Harrisburg has a long history of professional baseball. The Harrisburg Base Ball Association existed as long ago as 1884 (according to a stock certificate issued on March 1, 1884). According to another source, in 1901, the first baseball club in Harrisburg was created. In 1912, Harrisburg won the first of three Tri-State Association championships in a row. In 1915, an affiliated International League team moved from Newark, New Jersey, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The club lasted one year before moving to the New York State League and disbanding. This left the city without professional baseball for seven years.

In 1924, an incarnation of the Senators joined the newly formed New York–Penn League which was eventually renamed the Eastern League. Initially, the Senators and most of the other New York–Penn League teams were not affiliated with a Major League Baseball team. In 1927, the Senators started a five-year campaign with three Eastern league championships, winning titles in 1927, 1928, and 1931. The Senators' reign ended in 1936, when flood waters from the surrounding Susquehanna River ruined their home ballpark, Island Field.

Another team representing Harrisburg affiliated with the Pittsburgh Pirates formed four years later, though in the smaller Interstate League. Like the Senators before it, the team gained success quickly, winning the league title one year later. The success, however, was short-lived, as the team moved to nearby York in 1943. Another team affiliated with the Cleveland Indians was created, but was not as successful. The Interstate League disbanded this Harrisburg team in 1952, and any form of professional baseball was not played in the city for the next 35 years.

New England roots
The modern Harrisburg Senators originated in the New England states. First established in 1976 as an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, the Berkshire Brewers played one season in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. After that season, they moved to Holyoke, Massachusetts, where they took the nickname the Millers.

In 1981, the franchise changed affiliations, moving from the Brewers to the California Angels. After the 1982 season, the team relocated to Nashua, New Hampshire, as the Nashua Angels. After the 1983 season, the team's affiliation changed again, this time to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The team changed its name then to the Nashua Pirates.

At the same time, during the mid-1980s, Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed initiated a revitalization plan that included a ballpark for a new Minor League Baseball team in the city. The Nashua Pirates relocated to Harrisburg and was rechristened the Senators on December 9, 1986.

The Senators
Like the original Senators, success was quick, winning the Eastern League championship in its first season. In 1991, affiliation shifted from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Montreal Expos, an affiliation continuing through that team's move to Washington, D.C., where they continued as the Washington Nationals. The first several years of affiliation with Montreal brought consecutive championships from 1996 to 1998. In 1999, the Senators played the Norwich Navigators for a shot at their record-setting fourth consecutive Eastern League championship. In the bottom of the ninth inning of game 5, the Senators trailed by 3 runs, but with 2 outs, the bases loaded, and a full count Milton Bradley hit a walk-off grand slam to right center field to win the fourth-straight championship for the Senators, an Eastern League first. In 2003, Sueng Song pitched the first no-hitter in modern Senators history.

In conjunction with Major League Baseball's restructuring of Minor League Baseball in 2021, the Senators were organized into the Double-A Northeast. In 2022, the Double-A Northeast became known as the Eastern League, the name historically used by the regional circuit prior to the 2021 reorganization.

Uniforms and logo
The official colors of the Harrisburg Senators are red, navy blue, metallic gold, and white. The home and away uniforms resemble those of the Washington Nationals, with a red cap for home games and navy blue for away. Both caps include the "H" and streaking baseball logo, with the "H" in the same script as the Nationals' pretzel-shaped "W." The white home jerseys include red and navy blue trim around the collar and sleeves with the "Senators" wordmark in red with metallic gold bevels and navy blue outline. The grey away jersey has navy blue and red trim around the collar and sleeves, with the "Harrisburg" wordmark in navy blue with metallic gold bevels and red outline. Both wordmarks are identical to the Nationals brand.

In 2007, the Senators added a unique logo to their brand, incorporating the prevalent and much reviled mayfly into the "H." Because of FNB Field's location on City Island in the Susquehanna River, thousands of mayflies are attracted to the ballpark's bright lights, obscuring their view.

Ownership
The city of Harrisburg paid $6.7 million in 1995 to acquire the team from the previous owners of the franchise, who were planning to move the team to a new taxpayer-financed ballpark in Springfield, Massachusetts. Instead of appeasing the desires of the ownership group with a new stadium, Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed led the city of Harrisburg to purchase the team instead. The previous owners had bought the team only six months earlier for just $4.1 million. Citing the ballpark as the major link in his downtown revitalization project, when asked how he could afford the hefty price tag, Mayor Reed responded by asking, "How could we not?" For a time, the Senators remained one of the only sports franchises in the United States to be completely owned by the community in which it was based. In 2006, the city put the team up for sale to combat a major budget deficit. Mayor Reed stipulated that the new owner must keep the team in Harrisburg for at least 29 years. The team was eventually bought by Senators Partners, LLC of Northbrook, Illinois, headed by Jerry Reinsdorf's son Michael, for an Eastern League record $13.25 million. Mark Butler, CEO of Ollie's Bargain Outlet, became the team's majority owner in March 2015, replacing Michael Reinsdorf who was principal owner and managing partner; the purchase price was not disclosed.

Triple-A franchise bid
In mid-2005, Peter Angelos, the owner of the Baltimore Orioles, gained the permission of the Double-A Eastern League and the Triple-A International League to move Baltimore's Triple-A affiliate from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Harrisburg. One of the hangups with the agreement was that a buyer for the Double-A Senators franchise had to be found. The Ottawa franchise moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, as the Triple-A team for the Philadelphia Phillies, renamed as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. The Baltimore Orioles also signed a player development deal with the Norfolk Tides of the International League. The Tides became be the Triple-A affiliate of the Orioles.

Stadium renovation
FNB Field received a $32 million renovation ($19.1 million in state funding) in two stages. Originally the renovation was to begin in 2005; however, delays in state funding for the project were postponed until 2008, meaning the improvements were not implemented for Senators fans until the 2009 season, and the second stage was completed before the 2010 season.

Life Size Bobblehead Hall of Fame
In 2016, the Harrisburg Senators started a tradition by recognizing great players from their history in a unique way, The One & Only World-Famous, Life Size Bobblehead Hall of Fame. These enshrined Senators' legends will each receive their own life-size bobblehead. The life-size bobbleheads will be on permanent display at FNB Field with each bobblehead holding a commemorative plaque. The Senators plan to enshrine players yearly.

Broadcast
Every Harrisburg Senators ballgame is aired on 1460 the Ticket (AM 1460 WTKT – Clear Channel). Terry Byrom has been the voice of the Senators since 2005. The games are also streamed on the team's website. Some games are also aired on the local TV station, Comcast Network, and occasionally has games aired on MASN. The first radio play-by-play broadcaster for the Senators was Dan Kamal, who did the broadcasts from 1987 until the mid-1990s. Kamal at the time was also the radio voice of the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League. He later was a TV analyst and studio host for the Atlanta Thrashers and then the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National Hockey League.

Season records
''This is a partial list of the last five seasons completed by the Senators. For the full season-by-season history, see List of Harrisburg Senators seasons''

– in GB is behind, + in GB is ahead Bold years are Eastern League Championship years
 * 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic

title: Harrisburg Senators


text:
Automatic Colt Pistol

Automatic Colt Pistol (ACP) denotes various John Moses Browning cartridge designs primarily used in Colt and Fabrique Nationale de Herstal semi-automatic pistols. All of these cartridges are straight-sided and appear similar. The .32 ACP, .38 ACP, and .25 ACP are semi-rimmed and headspace on the rim, while the rimless .45 ACP and .380 ACP headspace on the mouth of the case.

ACP cartridges

 * .32 ACP (7.65×17mmSR) – 1899
 * .38 ACP (9×23mmSR) – 1900
 * .25 ACP (6.35×16mmSR) – 1905
 * .45 ACP (11.43×23mm) – 1905
 * .380 ACP (9x17mm) – 1908

History
Colt has manufactured several self-loading pistols. The first was the Colt M1900 made from 1900 to 1902 exclusively for the .38 ACP. The Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer was manufactured for the same .38 ACP cartridge from 1902 to 1928. The M1905 military pistol was manufactured for the .45 ACP cartridge from 1905 to 1912. The M1905 was replaced by the military M1911 pistol which remained in production until 1970. The Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless pistol was manufactured for the .32 ACP from 1903 to 1941 and as the Model 1908 for the .380 ACP from 1908 to 1941. The Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket pistol was manufactured for the .25 ACP from 1908 to 1941.

title: Automatic Colt Pistol


text:
Jermyn

Jermyn or Germyn may refer to:

People

 * Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans (c. 1604 – 1684)
 * Thomas Jermyn, 2nd Baron Jermyn (died 1703), English Member of Parliament, nephew of Henry Jermyn
 * Henry Jermyn, 1st Baron Dover (c. 1636 – 1708)
 * Hugh Jermyn (1820-1903), Anglican bishop
 * Carsen Germyn (born 1982), Canadian ice hockey player
 * Germyn Lynch (fl.1441-1483), merchant and entrepreneur from Galway, Ireland
 * German Gardiner, sometimes spelt Jermyn Gardiner, executed 1544 for alleged involvement in a plot against Thomas Cranmer; beatified
 * Arthur Jermyn, title character of H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family"

Places

 * Jermyn Street, London
 * Jermyn, Pennsylvania, a borough
 * Jermyn, Texas, an unincorporated community

title: Jermyn


text:
New Britain Rock Cats

The New Britain Rock Cats were a minor league baseball team that competed in the Eastern League. They were the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox for 12 years, the Minnesota Twins for 20 years and the Colorado Rockies for one. They played their home games at New Britain Stadium in New Britain, Connecticut. The team moved to Dunkin' Donuts Park in nearby Hartford before the 2016 season, becoming the Hartford Yard Goats.

History
The franchise's timeline can be traced back to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where they were a Boston Red Sox Double-A affiliate from 1965 to 1969. The franchise then moved to Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1970, and spent three years in the Ocean State. When the Pawtucket Red Sox became a Triple-A team in 1973, the Red Sox moved their Double-A franchise to Bristol, Connecticut. Known as the Bristol Red Sox, the team played at Muzzy Field for ten seasons from 1973 to 1982. Starting with the 1983 season, owner Joe Buzas moved the team some ten miles east to New Britain. Then known as the New Britain Red Sox, the team played its home games at Beehive Field, which is still standing next to the current stadium.

As Beehive Field became outdated and new facilities began to pop up in other cities around the league, Buzas was faced with the choice of staying in New Britain and building a new stadium, versus moving the franchise again. The Red Sox front office, led by Dan Duquette supported the idea of moving to Springfield, Massachusetts, because it was closer to their fan base and closer to the Western Massachusetts home of Duquette. Ultimately, however, in August 1994, Buzas decided to keep the franchise in New Britain. The Red Sox promptly pulled their affiliation and instead chose to affiliate with the Trenton Thunder in the capital city of New Jersey, which was actually farther away from the fan base. For the 1995 season, Buzas, who owned the Salt Lake Buzz (Minnesota triple A), signed a new development agreement with the Minnesota Twins, an affiliation that lasted until the end of the 2014 season. During the 1995 season (their only season in Beehive Field), the team was known as the Hardware City Rock Cats, a reference to New Britain's nickname "The Hardware City". The current ballpark, New Britain Stadium, opened in 1996. The team name changed to "New Britain" Rock Cats in 1997. Stanley Works continues to be a significant sponsor of the team and ballpark.

During 2003 and 2004, the team was involved in several lawsuits over its night game fireworks displays. A group of residents living near the stadium claimed the noise was disruptive, and the ash and debris damaged their cars and homes. In May 2005, after attending a game, Judge Marshall Berger allowed the shows to continue but ruled they be limited to once monthly and use quieter fireworks.

On July 12, 2008, the Rock Cats established a franchise record for single game attendance. The crowd of 8,115 marked the first time the 8,000 mark was surpassed for a game at New Britain Stadium. This record was broken on June 27, 2009, with a crowd of 8,212. On July 10, 2013, the Rock Cats hosted the Eastern League All-Star Game at New Britain Stadium. The event drew 8,633 fans, shattering the previous single game attendance record. The Rock Cats reached the 8,000 mark once again on May 31, 2014 with a crowd of 8,079. The record was ultimately broken on August 28, 2015, when 8,672 fans watched the team's last Friday home game.

On June 4, 2014, it was announced that the Rock Cats would move to Hartford, Connecticut, in 2016, signing a 25-year lease for a new stadium that would be built. On March 18, 2015, the team announced it would be known as the Hartford Yard Goats beginning in 2016. On June 17, 2014, it was announced that the Hartford Yard Goats new stadium for the 2016 season would be named Dunkin' Donuts Park. The Rock Cats played their last game at New Britain Stadium on August 30, 2015.

On September 16, 2014, the Minnesota Twins severed their affiliation ties with the Rock Cats, and the Rock Cats signed a two-year player development deal with the Colorado Rockies the next day.

Popular culture
The New Britain Rock Cats were featured in an episode of ESPN's Mayne Street short comedy series.

An article about the Rock Cats can be seen below an article about the South Carolina Buzz (the fictional AAA affiliate of the Twins) during a bus scene in Major League: Back to the Minors.

Notable alumni

 * Torii Hunter (1996–98)
 * Corey Koskie (1997)
 * David Ortiz (1997 and 2001)
 * Doug Mientkiewicz (1997–98)
 * A. J. Pierzynski (1998 and 2000)
 * Michael Cuddyer (2000–01)
 * Juan Rincón (2000–01)
 * Justin Morneau (2001–03 and 2015)
 * Joe Mauer (2003)
 * Pat Neshek (2003–05)
 * Francisco Liriano (2004–05)
 * Denard Span (2005–06)
 * Danny Valencia (2008)
 * Yangervis Solarte (2010–2011)
 * Miguel Sano (2013)
 * Danny Santana (2013)
 * Jorge Polanco (2014)
 * Trevor Story (2015)

Season records

 * 12001 League Championship was canceled due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Mascots
Game Mascots: Sponsored Inning Mascots:
 * Rocky the Rock Cat (main mascot)
 * Rookie the Rock Cat (Rocky's nephew)
 * Sandy the Lion
 * Blooper the Walrus
 * Toner the Advance Copy's Copy Cat
 * The Dunkin' Donuts Trio – Coffee, Iced Coffee, and Donut

title: New Britain Rock Cats


text:
Professional Chess Association

The Professional Chess Association (PCA), which existed between 1993 and 1996, was a rival organisation to FIDE, the international chess organization. The PCA was created in 1993 by Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short for the marketing and organization of their chess world championship.

Formation
In 1993, Nigel Short won the Candidates Tournament and so qualified as challenger to Garry Kasparov for the World Chess Championship.

By FIDE regulation, the bids for where the World Championship final is played should have been decided by three parties – FIDE, the World Champion (Kasparov) and the Challenger (Short). According to Kasparov and Short, FIDE president Florencio Campomanes broke these rules by simply announcing the venue of the winning bid as being Manchester. FIDE derived a substantial part of its income from the prize fund of the World Championship.

In response to this, Kasparov and Short formed the PCA, appointing Bob Rice as Commissioner. They played their world championship match under its auspices in September and October 1993. The match took place in the Savoy Theatre in London, under the sponsorship of The Times. Kasparov won clearly 12.5–7.5 and became PCA World Chess Champion.

FIDE stripped Kasparov of the FIDE World Championship title, and instead held a rival match between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman, the two final players Short had defeated to win the Candidates Tournament. Karpov won that match, to become FIDE World Chess Champion. For the first time in chess history there were two world champions, the FIDE world champion Karpov and the PCA world champion Kasparov.

1995 cycle
From 1993 to 1995, the PCA held an Interzonal tournament and Candidates matches, in the style of the FIDE world championship qualifiers. FIDE also had its own cycle of qualifiers, with many of the same players playing in both. The PCA candidates cycle was won by the Indian GM Viswanathan Anand.

Kasparov defended his PCA World Championship title against Anand in the World Trade Center in a match starting September 11, 1995. Kasparov won the best-of-20 game match 10.5 – 7.5.

Demise and aftermath
The PCA announced in January 1996 that it had lost its main sponsor, Intel. It was reported at the time that Kasparov said this was partly due to his choice to play a match against IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue later that year. Kasparov, however, hotly disputes this and has proposed a different history, with Intel dropping sponsorship in November 1995, some weeks prior to the initial planning of the Deep Blue match.

The PCA folded soon afterwards, leaving Kasparov unable to organise a proper qualifying cycle for his title. He finally played (and lost) a match to a hand-picked challenger, Vladimir Kramnik, in 2000 (Classical World Chess Championship 2000). This match was played under the auspices of Brain Games.

When Kramnik defended his title at the Classical World Chess Championship 2004, he gave the title the name "Classical", to emphasise the continuity that his title had with the tradition of defeating the previous titleholder. Since this is the same title as the Kasparov's PCA World title, the PCA World title is sometimes retrospectively called the "Classical" title.

The PCA split from FIDE was finally healed with the FIDE World Chess Championship 2006, a re-unification match between Kramnik and 2005 FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov, which was won by Kramnik.

title: Professional Chess Association


text:
Talk:Association of Chess Professionals

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title: Talk:Association of Chess Professionals


text:
Mayhem

Mayhem most commonly refers to:

 * Mayhem (crime), a type of crime

Mayhem may also refer to:

People

 * Monica Mayhem (born 1978), Australian pornographic actress
 * Jason "Mayhem" Miller, American mixed martial arts fighter
 * Mayhem Miller (drag queen), American drag queen

Fiction

 * Mayhem (advertising character), portrayed in an Allstate Insurance campaign by Dean Winters
 * Mayhem (comics), a Marvel Comics character
 * Mayhem! (comics), an Image Comics miniseries

Games

 * Mayhem (video game), a 2011 3D demolition derby video game
 * Ani-Mayhem, an anime-based collectible card game
 * WCW Mayhem (video game), a 1999 game based on the event
 * Worms 4: Mayhem, a 2005 3D artillery video game

Music

 * Mayhem Festival, an American hard rock/metal festival
 * Mayhem (band), a Norwegian black metal band
 * Mayhem (rapper), an English grime MC
 * Mayhem (Toyah album)
 * Mayhem (Imelda May album)
 * "Mayhem" (Imelda May song), the title track
 * "Mayhem" (Halestorm song), 2015
 * "Mayhem" (Steve Aoki and Quintino song), 2018

Film and television

 * TV Mayhem, a 1991 television show
 * "Mayhem" (Criminal Minds), an episode of Criminal Minds
 * "Mayhem" (Law & Order), an episode of Law & Order
 * Mayhem (film), an American action-horror film directed by Joe Lynch

Sports

 * Michigan Mayhem, an American minor league basketball team
 * Minneapolis Mayhem, an American rugby union team
 * Tampa Mayhem, an American rugby league team
 * West Michigan Mayhem, a women's professional American football team
 * Florida Mayhem, an American esports team in the Overwatch League

Professional wrestling

 * WCW Mayhem, a World Championship Wrestling event
 * Mayhem (1999)
 * Mayhem (2000)

title: Mayhem


text:
Emil Telmányi

Emil Telmányi (22 June 1892 – 13 June 1988) was a Hungarian violinist.

Telmányi was born in Arad, Partium, Transylvania, then in the Kingdom of Hungary.

Telmányi began playing the violin at the age of six and made his public debut at thirteen. His evident talent earned him entry into the soloist classes at the Budapest Academy of Music under the tutelage of the renowned Jenö Hubay. Additionally, he studied composition with Hans Koessler and received conducting instruction. In 1906, he won the Reményi Prize and graduated in 1911 from the academy with both artistic and teaching diplomas, also completing his high school exams the same year. His artistic career began in 1911 with a debut in Berlin, where he performed Sie Edward Elgar's newly composed Violin Concerto for the first time in Germany. It was attended by the pianist Ignaz Friedman, who befriended him and arranged some of his early concerts in Copenhagen, where he later settled. He became an exponent of the composer Carl Nielsen, having recorded some of his violin sonatas and his violin concerto.

Based in Berlin, Telmányi began extensive international tours in 1912 with pianist Ignaz Friedman, becoming a highly respected soloist. That same year, he was warmly received in Copenhagen, where he became acquainted with Carl Nielsen and his compositions. Except for a brief period of conscription during World War I, Telmányi continued his concert tours, returning frequently to Copenhagen. In 1918, he married Carl Nielsen's youngest daughter, painter Anne Marie, and settled in Budapest. After the war, they moved permanently to Copenhagen, from where Telmányi continued his travels, performing across Europe and the USA, and returning annually to Hungary. On these journeys, he became a distinguished ambassador for Danish music, particularly Nielsen's works, and continued his artistic career until the age of 75, notably performing in the Telmányi Quintet with his second wife, violinist and pianist Annette, and their three daughters. Since 1919, Telmányi also worked as a conductor, in Copenhagen (with The Young Musicians' Society Orchestra, his chamber orchestra, and the Royal Danish Theatre, where he adapted Carl Nielsen’s Aladdin music for Elna Jørgen Jensen's (Elna Ørnberg) ballet Asra in 1932), and during the 1920s in Budapest, Gothenburg, and other locations. Even as of 1982, he conducted the Centerskolen Orchestra in Holte. Despite his extensive travels, he remained a significant figure in Danish musical life. Telmányi's passionate artistic temperament, combined with a noble sense of musical grandeur, has provided a strong impetus to Danish music, further enhanced by his pedagogical work privately and from 1940 to 1969 as a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus. His lifelong interest in Johann Sebastian Bach’s violin works and their performance challenges led to the creation of a special "Bach bow" (developed with Arne Hjorth in 1949 and Knud Vestergaard in 1953), which allows for enhanced polyphonic emphasis, particularly in Bach's solo violin partitas and sonatas. Telmányi recorded numerous records, including works by Carl Nielsen, F. Mendelssohn, and J. Sibelius, and particularly notable are his recordings of chamber music by Nielsen and Brahms, as well as Bach's solo works using Vestergaard’s "Vega Bach bow." In 1978, he published his memoirs, From a Musician’s Picture Book, offering valuable insights into musical figures such as Carl Nielsen, Zoltán Kodály, Béla Bartók, Ferruccio Busoni, Arnold Schönberg, among others, and in 1982, he released a guide to studying and interpreting Carl Nielsen’s violin works and string quintet.

One of his most famous recordings is a 1954 recording of Bach's Sonatas and partitas for solo violin played using a violin with what was referred to as the "Vega" Bach Bow (recorded in November 1953 and March 1954, DANA CORD, DACO 147), which could be adjusted so the player could play three or even all four strings of the violin at once. He died, aged 95, in Holte, Denmark.

title: Emil Telmányi