text:
Lingua ignota

A lingua ignota (Latin for "unknown language") was described by the 12th-century abbess Hildegard of Bingen, who apparently used it for mystical purposes. It consists of vocabulary with no known grammar; the only known text is individual words embedded in Latin. To write it, Hildegard used an alphabet of 23 letters denominated litterae ignotae (Latin for "unknown letters").

History
St. Hildegard partially described the language in a work titled Ignota lingua per simplicem hominem Hildegardem prolata, which survived in two manuscripts, both dating to ca. 1200, the Wiesbaden Codex and a Berlin MS (Lat. Quart. 4º 674), previously Codex Cheltenhamensis 9303, collected by Sir Thomas Phillipps. The text is a glossary of 1011 words in Lingua ignota, with glosses mostly in Latin, sometimes in Middle High German; the words appear to be a priori coinages, mostly nouns with a few adjectives. Grammatically it appears to be a partial relexification of Latin, that is, a language formed by substituting new vocabulary into an existing grammar.

The purpose of Lingua ignota is unknown, and it is not known who, besides its creator, was familiar with it. In the 19th century some believed that Hildegard intended her language to be an ideal, universal language. However, in the 21st century it is assumed that Lingua ignota was devised as a secret language; like Hildegard's "unheard music", she would have attributed it to divine inspiration. To the extent that the language was constructed by Hildegard, it may be considered one of the earliest known constructed languages.

In a letter to Hildegard, her friend and provost Wolmarus, fearing that Hildegard would soon die, asks ''ubi tunc vox inauditae melodiae? et vox inauditae linguae?'' (Descemet, p. 346; "where, then, the voice of the unheard melody? And the voice of the unheard language?"), suggesting that the existence of Hildegard's language was known, but there were no initiates who would have preserved its knowledge after her death.

Sample text
The only extant text in the language is the following short passage:
 * O orzchis Ecclesia, armis divinis praecincta, et hyacinto ornata, tu es caldemia stigmatum loifolum et urbs scienciarum. O, o tu es etiam crizanta in alto sono, et es chorzta gemma.

These two sentences are written mostly in Latin with five key words in Lingua ignota; as only one of these is unambiguously found in the glossary (loifol, "people"), it is clear that the vocabulary was larger than 1011 words. (Higley 2007 finds probable correspondences for two other words.)

 * "O orzchis Ecclesia, girded with divine arms, and adorned with hyacinth, you are the caldemia of the wounds of the loifols, and the city of sciences. O, o, and you are the crizanta in high sound, and you are the chorzta gem."

Loifol "people" is apparently inflected as a third-declension Latin noun, yielding the genitive plural loifolum "of the peoples".

Newman (1987) conjectures the translation
 * "O measureless Church, / girded with divine arms / and adorned with jacinth, / you are the fragrance of the wounds of nations / and the city of sciences. / O, o, and you are anointed / amid-noble sound, / and you are a sparkling gem."

Glossary
The glossary is in a hierarchical order, first giving terms for God and angels, followed by terms for human beings and terms for family relationships, followed by terms for body-parts, illnesses, religious and worldly ranks, craftsmen, days, months, clothing, household implements, plants, and a few birds and insects. Terms for mammals are lacking (except for the bat, Ualueria, listed among birds, and the gryphon, Argumzio, a half-mammal, also listed among the birds).

The first 30 entries are (after Roth 1880): • Aigonz: deus (God)

• Aieganz: angelus (angel)

• Zuuenz: sanctus (saint)

• Liuionz: salvator (saviour)

• Diueliz: diabolus (devil)

• Ispariz: spiritus (spirit)

• Inimois: homo (human being)

• Jur: vir (man)

• Vanix: femina (woman)

• Peuearrez: patriarcha (patriarch)

• Korzinthio: propheta (prophet)

• Falschin: vates (prophet)

• Sonziz: apostolus (apostle)

• Linschiol: martir (martyr)

• Zanziuer: confessor (confessor)

• Vrizoil: virgo (virgin)

• Jugiza: vidua (widow)

• Pangizo: penitens (penitent)

• Kulzphazur: attavus (great-great-great-grandfather)

• Phazur: avus (grandfather)

• Peueriz: pater (father)

• Maiz: maler (sic, for mater, mother)

• Hilzpeueriz: nutricus (stepfather)

• Hilzmaiz: noverca (stepmother)

• Scirizin: filius (son)

• Hilzscifriz: privignus (stepson)

• Limzkil: infans (infant)

• Zains: puer (boy)

• Zunzial: iuvenis (youth)

• Bischiniz: adolescens (adolescent)

Nominal composition may be observed in peueriz "father" : hilz-peueriz "stepfather", maiz "mother" : hilz-maiz "stepmother", and scirizin "son" : hilz-scifriz "stepson", as well as phazur : kulz-phazur. Suffixal derivation in peueriz "father", peuearrez "patriarch".

Editions

 * Wilhelm Grimm (1848), listing only the 291 glosses with German translations
 * Roth (1880), consisting of the 1011 glosses.
 * Descemet, Analecta of Pitra (1882), listing only the 181 glosses giving the names of plants
 * Portmann and Odermatt (1986)
 * Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion, ed. Sarah Higley (2007) [the entire Riesencodex glossary, with additions from the Berlin MS, translations into English, and extensive commentary]

Literature

 * Traude Bollig / Ingrid Richter, Hildegard von Bingen, Heilwerden mit der Kraft ihrer Symbole, Aurum Verlag, ISBN 3-89901-006-X (an esoteric claim of decipherment of the litterae)
 * Jakob Grimm in: Haupt, Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, VI, 321.
 * Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation and Discussion by Sarah L. Higley. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
 * Laurence Moulinier, "Un lexique trilingue du XIIe siècle : la lingua ignota de Hildegarde de Bingen", dans Lexiques bilingues dans les domaines philosophique et scientifique (Moyen Âge-Renaissance), Actes du colloque international organisé par l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes-Ive Section et l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie de l’Université Catholique de Louvain, Paris, 12-14 juin 1997, éd. J. Hamesse, D. Jacquart, Turnhout, Brepols, 2001, p. 89-111. ISBN 2-503-51176-7
 * Jonathan P. Green, « A new gloss on Hildegard of Bingen's Lingua ignota », Viator, 36, 2005, p. 217-234.
 * Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
 * Marie-Louise Portmann and Alois Odermatt (eds.), Wörterbuch der unbekannten Sprache, Basel: Verlag Basler Hildegard-Gesellschaft (1986). ISBN 3-905143-18-6
 * Jeffrey Schnapp, "Virgin's words: Hildegard of Bingen's Lingua Ignota and the Development of Imaginary Languages Ancient to Modern", Exemplaria, III, 2, 1991, pp. 267–298.
 * Jeffrey Schnapp, "Virgin's words: Hildegard of Bingen's Lingua Ignota and the Development of Imaginary Languages Ancient to Modern", Exemplaria, III, 2, 1991, pp. 267–298.

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

title: Lingua ignota


text:
Talk:Newton's identities

λ or x?
It would help if the variable in the polynomial would be x instead of λ. Perhaps the roots could be named r1, r2 etc and the coefficients c1, c2 etc. --MarSch 15:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I specifically wanted to differentiate the variable $$\lambda$$ from the roots $$x_1, x_2, \dots x_n$$. I guess it's a matter of taste, since your suggested notations seemed ugly to me :-/  At least I did think about the notation.  Did I need to say that I don't want to change it?---CH  (talk) 04:18, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Schur polynomial vandalism
Watch out, formulas like that are vulnerable to vandalism in which someone changes the powers to plausible looking but incorrect values. Indeed, an anonymous editor using the IP address 165.123.166.36 (registered to the University of Pennsylvania) has done just that, although this might possibly have been a well-intentioned edit. ---CH (talk) 17:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Heh, except that in this case 165.123.166.36 was correct :-/ Oh, well, exception which proves the rule about anonymous editors.  I don't know how this expression got so messed up in the first place, but anyway, I think we all agree the current version is correct.---CH  (talk) 01:14, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Coefficients in polynomial expansion
For the polynomial expansion to be coherent with the first form of Newton's identities given in the article, it should be written
 * $$ p(\lambda) = \prod_{\alpha=1}^n \left( \lambda - x_\alpha \right) = \sum_{j=0}^n (-1)^j a_j \lambda^{n-j}$$

where $$a_0 = 1$$. Gpicard 16:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Done. Thanks. Zaslav 06:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Students beware
I extensively rewrote the November 2005 version of this article and had been monitoring it for bad edits until a few months ago, but I am leaving the WP and am now abandoning this article to its fate.

Just wanted to provide notice that I am only responsible (in part) for the last version I edited; see User:Hillman/Archive. I emphatically do not vouch for anything you might see in more recent versions. In particular, I haven't verified the claim in the preceding section. There were good reasons why I chose the somewhat unconventional looking signs that I did in the Novemver 2005 version. Changing signs to "prettify" a formula like this is a good way to change truth into falsehood, although might be correct in what he says above, since I haven't had the heart to check.

Good luck to all students in your search for information, regardless!---CH 02:25, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

barnstar of sorts
Excellent article! I read it all the way through rather carefully today. (I'd give user:Hillman a barnstar on at user talk:Hillman but for the fact that he's gone into seclusion and blanked and protected his user- and talk-pages.) Michael Hardy 00:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Appropriate contents
I deleted the section on "Enumerative combinatorics". It didn't have any content about Newton's identities. It was also vague on what it was about. I suggest that it might belong somewhere else, but only after improvement. Zaslav 21:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The section "Relation with symmetric groups" is poorly written. How can a function of t s be defined without reference to quantities called t? Better explanation is needed. I am trying an improvement, keeping in mind that the contents should be related closely to Newton's identities. Zaslav 21:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Changed my mind: I cannot fix this section, I have no idea what the purpose is.  Only the first few lines seem to have any connection with the symmetric group.  If anyone cares to, they should make sure the definitions are complete and the purpose is explained very carefully, and that the connection to Newton's identities is explained carefully.  I am going to delete most of it for now.  Zaslav 21:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Computer science application
I'm not going to add this to the article myself because of my conflict of interest, but: Newton's identities are used to decode the data in a space-optimal streaming algorithm for maintaining sets of items subject to insertions and deletions of single items. The Bloom filter part is in a different algorithm for a similar problem, and is independent of the Newton identity part. —David Eppstein 15:21, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What do Gröbner bases have to do with Newton's identities?
I am somewhat shocked by the prominent mention of Gröbner bases in this article. Why does there have to be a plug for them here? So they can be used to do computational problems in polynomial rings, granted. But Girard and Newton did not need to do that to find the identities of this article, and neither do we. One does not lecture on Gauss' elimination either on every occurrence of an inverse matrix. Can anybody justify what the mention of Gröbner bases adds to our understanding of these identities? If not, I am going to reduce their mention here to a very strict minimum. Marc van Leeuwen (talk) 08:58, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

 * You are right. This most likely has to do with the way mathematical articles on technical subjects are often written: someone (not an expert in the field) finds out an interesting topic X and starts an article/expands an existing article, including his motivation for being interested in X into the lead, even it is not at all the fundamental feature of X. Occasionally, such explanations are completely off the mark. I am fairly certain that this is what happened here: read the annotation for the Sturmfels' book under References. Just go ahead and correct. Arcfrk (talk) 05:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Page is not suitable for general public
This page presents the subject in a semi-difficult way to understand. Efforts can be made so that non-Math PHD's understand what the heck it is that it's trying to say. Examples of usage will be of the greatest help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.162.181.155 (talk) 08:01, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I learnt these identities fifty years ago in a school text book. Recently I have found them in W.L.Ferrar's "Higher Algebra" (which is a sequel to "Higher Algebra for Schools"), first published in 1943 page 175.

Waring's formula?
In the subsection Expressing power sums in terms of elementary symmetric polynomials the formula expressing $p_{m}$ in terms of the $e_{i}$ is credited to Newton and Girard, but I have seen similar formulas referred to as "Waring's formula" in the mathematics literature. Both PlanetMath and MathWorld seem to do so. I don't know the history. Does anyone know what the story is? I noticed this when I saw a mention of "Waring's formula" in The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, and couldn't find anything about it in Wikipedia. Will Orrick (talk) 14:46, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

 * I don't know how closely 'Waring's formula' is related to 'Newton's (or Girard's) identities', but Waring, in math contexts, usually means Edward Waring, who came considerably after Newton, around the 1790s. So if they are essentially the same formulae, Waring would have no claim to priority, and would probably have known Newton's treatment.2A00:23C8:7906:1301:6810:70BD:8251:9EB1 (talk) 17:37, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment. For Wikipedia to be as widely useful as possible, readers need to be able to locate relevant articles by searching on commonly used names, even if those names are unjust, or historically inaccurate. So I guess my question is whether the term "Waring's formula" commonly refers to any of the formulas in this article and, if so, how that should be handled. Will Orrick (talk) 21:17, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Simplifying the signs
The elementary symmetric polynomials $$e_k$$ appear in the context $$(-1)^k e_k$$. The substitution $$e_k=(-1)^k b_k$$ will simplify many formulas in the article.

$$ \prod_{k=1}^n (x-x_k) = \sum_{k=0}^n b_{n-k} x^k$$

Bo Jacoby (talk) 11:52, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Newton's identities


text:
User talk:Thu

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Merovingian (t) (c) 15:37, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
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I created this site based on Lord of the Rings. I could use some help developing it. Would you like to? Here is the link:

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Please give me some help, I could use it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rembrant13 (talk • contribs) 00:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

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The Lord of the Rings Peer Review
I have make extensive changes to our Lord of the Rings article in an attempt to work it up to Featured Article status. In order to find more suggestions I have listed it under Peer Review. Under the guidelines to nominations I am required to notify others of knowledge in the area to review it. I have decided that the best group for this would be our WikiProject. So I ask you all to look at the article and make any suggestions you can. Hopefully we will be voting this FA soon enough. Sorry Guy 00:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Maia/Vala/Ainu
I am doing a typo run on Middle-earth articles now, and I'm also correcting any instances of links to Maia/Vala/Ainu (and other races). Just so you know ;) -- Jordi· ✆ 13:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

ME-ref
I added entries for the Chronology and Reader's Guide as you requested, but can't find author, publiser, ISBN etc.. Can you add these to the pages? Chronology is Template:ME-ref/CHR and Reader's Guide is Template:ME-ref/RG. -- Jordi· ✆ 09:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikilinking plurals
A neater way of linking plurals is seen here. Hope that helps. Carcharoth 13:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The Two Towers (MUD)
Lotr IS a trilogy. 3 Books. Therefore Trilogy! --Jestix 17:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to volunteer an exerpt from the Foreword of the Lord Of The Rings. This is how the Foreword begins. As in the first page.

"Note on the Text: J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy, when it is in fact a single novel, consisting of six books plus appendices, sometimes published in three volumes."

--Will.r.french 15:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Merging Shire articles
I replied to your comment at WikiProject_Middle-earth/things_to_do. Thanks. Carcharoth 11:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Redirects
Hi Thu. I noticed you moved Almaren, which is good, but when moving sections, there will often be a link pointing to the section, and that will need updating. See my edit here. To find the things pointing at a section, use "what links here" if the name isn't obvious. In this case, it is obvious: Almaren. Thanks. Carcharoth 15:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

English/American spelling
You wrote:

 * Please don't 'correct' edits without checking your facts. -ize is a perfectly acceptable British English spelling variant (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize) and was JRRT's preferred form. Thu (talk) 09:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The Hobbit article has seen endless edits back and forth on this. It's inane. The British and Australian readership will continue to revert it to "ise" regardless of your position on the topic; the article had largely gelled on "ise" until you came along and decided that your "correct" was more "correct" than what was already there. It's hard to care anymore. If you can find some authority on Tolkien's preference in that regard, or can come up with several pages from his writing that demonstrate it, I'll be happy to leave your edits alone. I just read an entire chapter out of The Hobbit without finding a single word ending in ise/ize, so I'm done looking.

Featured article review
Thought you might be interested in helping out with improving The Lord of the Rings, so I'm letting you know about Featured article review/The Lord of the Rings. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 02:24, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

/Forward_error_correction

Pier Gerlofs Donia]]
Please review and pass the following article for GA class. Last king of Frisia (talk) 09:55, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Science Future Vision
If its pure invention, use afd. I'm not qualified to judge whether or not it is, but i do know that it cannot at this point be called unquestionable vandalism. But if the bands mentioned do not exist either, use a prod tag and say so. that would be enough to make it a hoax, and prod is the place for hoaxes. If they do exist, you'll have to argue the existence of the genre at afd. DGG (talk) 17:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Josh Sanders
An article that you have been involved in editing, Josh Sanders, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/Josh Sanders. Thank you. ttonyb1 (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

File copyright problem with File:AccessRunner.jpg
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You are now a Reviewer
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The Hobbit FA push
Hello. As you've been one of the more regular contributors to The Hobbit I thought I'd let you know that I'd like to nominate it as a Featured Article candidate. The article has recently received a peer review and I've addressed the issues that were mentioned by the reviewer. But if you think there's some more work to do, please let me know. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is the mentioning of the very first film adaptation, an animated short film by Gene Deitch of Tom & Jerry fame, that has only recently been recalled by its creator. The sourcing for this entry is a bit poor but from my point of view the rest of the article is ready to go. Regards, De728631 (talk) 15:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
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Invitation to a research survey
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Proposed deletion of Ornendil

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Nomination of Malbeth the Seer for deletion
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"Nár" listed at Redirects for discussion
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title: User talk:Thu


text:
Category talk:Ornithologists

Time to split?
This category is getting very full. Is it time for Category: British ornithologists and Category: American ornithologists, to join the existing Category: German ornithologists, and Category: British naturalists? Andy Mabbett 15:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I've created the former. Andy Mabbett 19:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Subcategory re-arrangement
The sub categories of ornithologists is becoming problematic. It's mainly due to the lack of distinction between academic ornithologists, who practise science using birds as the subject matter and at the opposite extreme twitchers, whose interest is very mundane - adding to a bird list just as train or plane spotters add to the list of elements in their chosen set (sorry about the mathematical allusion).

The existing hierarchy at the next lower level could be left in place, with an explanatory note to those Wikipedians who follow to not add ornithologists directly to Category: Ornithologists. When one follows the sub-category Ornithologists by Nationality, it will then be necessary to devise two or perhaps three or more sub categories which will be applicable to many countries.

Alternatively the new sub-categorisation could be installed immediately below ornithologists. Division by nationality could be appended to each only if the nation in question has (an) ornithologist(s) who fit(s) one or more of the initial sub-categories.

I see the extra level, wherever it is placed, as having three categories. Academic Ornithologists, Field Ornithologists and Birders. Any twitchers who don't bird by themselves are hardly worth the effort of biographing. None have appeared thus far on WP, as far as I can see. John H, Morgan 08:30, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Where we may see issue is with (A) definition and (B) hybridization. I do agree with the general principle, and of course, we're going to have to treat this in the same way as the base category (Birders by nationality, Field ornithologists by nationality, etc).  Moreover, I suggest another category: Bird collectors, regarding folks whose entire ornithological careers revolved around taking specimens for study back in Europe or North America.

 * As for definition = note that "field ornithology" is not appreciably separable from either "academic ornithology" or "bird collecting" until the 1930s with folks like Ludlow Griscom and perhaps Roger Tory Peterson. You also don't really see birding as a major hobby until the 20th century, particularly after the 1950s-1960s (first in the UK then in the US) with the advent of affordable optics.  So I don't think "field ornithologist" or "birder" could truly apply to anyone prior to these times, to call Audubon (or Bog forbid, Lewis and Clark!) a field ornithologist for example would be anachronistic and inaccurate.  Then we worry about separating field and "academic" ornithologists, which is becoming more difficult as field ornithologists are increasingly included in academic papers since many of those are formally trained, too.

 * As for birding as a hobby (and therefore including hobbyists in WP), they would have to be fairly exceptional to be included in WP to begin with. Phoebe Snetsinger and Peter Kaestner clearly qualify for WP articles (the former taking copious field notes on the context of subspecies identification, the latter having actually discovered at least one bird species himself), and most other birders that have been included have either also gained some sort of credibility in the ornithological realm, usually through literature (David Allen Sibley, Kenn Kaufman).  But no, the average "twitcher" (I balk at using the term since I'm American) is not going to get a WP article, unless you count User pages!  I still agree that people who are "layman birders" or something else first, birders second, properly shouldn't be filed as ornithologists.

 * Or we could categorize everyone as "birdwatchers" and watch everyone get really mad! :) (Just kidding.) Cheers! -- Miwa 22:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

As you have highlighted, the problem is a complete spectrum of bird people exists out there. Can we categorise them at all? Perhaps it is better to have just Ornithologists by nationality and try to restrict the addition of marginal names to it, especially in the case of personalities who have birding as a hobby.John H, Morgan 19:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

title: Category talk:Ornithologists


text: User talk:69.235.215.226

title: User talk:69.235.215.226


text:
Talk:Cant (language)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 August 2021 and 10 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Brian Cox95.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Merge?
Should this be merged with Cryptolect, or vice versa? --Jim Henry | Talk 15:38, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

 * done. ntennis 01:12, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

There is much work to do on this subject. See Argot Some of the variants are written up in separate articles, such as izzle Proposing a call for assistance from all concerned.Mydogtrouble (talk) 22:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Etruscan
I'm removing the claim that Etruscan has been hypothesized to be a cryptolect of Latin until someone can provide a reputable, published source for it. --Angr/undefined 22:05, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

 * A simple google search revealed this link. Surely the fact that Etruscan has been considered a cryptolect (rightly or wrongly) is reason enough for its inclusion on this page? ntennis 03:02, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Only if the view is widespread enough to be notable. One person holding a theory (rejected for publication, apparently, as the letter from Edgar Polomé included on that website indicates) does not render it notable enough for inclusion. I did say a reputable, published source for it. --Angr/undefined 22:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

The Etruscan as Cryptolect theory was not submitted to Edgar polomé for publication and his positive responses outweigh his reservations(read the letter again). The author of the theory

Leet
I've removed leet from the list, and I don't want it here until it is shown (with reliable sources) that it is indeed used primarily "to bypass automatic text parsers". EldKatt (Talk) 16:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Why the requirements for leet to have reliable sources or a showing that it is used "to bypass automatic text parsers" when there are no proper citations for other entries in this article to reliable sources? This may be besides the point, in my experience leet was primarily formed on BBS systems long before text parsing was used to censor content.  Later developments in leet did emerge from the need to bypass filters, primarily via AOL chat rooms, but that was after the leet cant was well formed.  At present it's a little hard to call it a Cant as the use of leet is so widespread it hardly classifies as a secret language.  DanRP (talk) 16:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

 * As of 2008-08-31, Leet is up again; I am going to remove it. --Politizer (talk) 23:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the word
Could someone more learned than me explain th origin of the word cant itself. I have a few theories myself-

 * From the Irish caint meaning to talk
 * From chant
 * Or from cant meaning an oblique angle (had to look at my dictionary for that one)

I would say the Irish origin is most likely as shelta supposedly has a similar origin but I'm biased! Afn 12:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Dictionary.com indicates that it is indeed related to (though not derived from) chant. EldKatt (Talk) 16:23, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the Irish origin is unlikely as there is no Irish connection with the earliest use of the word in England. Although chant is possible I would tend to favour "oblique angle" i.e., "bent" as being involved, perhaps as well. Cant seems to come from "canting" meaning dishonest or outside society, for which "bent" was/is also used. GBH 16:00, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * While the common noun cant in the sense of "jargon" is certainly ultimately from Latin cantāre "sing", I wouldn't be in the least surprised if the Irish word caint had something to do with Shelta being called "the Cant". I doubt oblique angles have anything to do with it. Angr (talk • contribs) 16:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It might also be useful to coniser an ethhmological link of the word cant to a nanlicisationof the gaelic word for 'talk' : caint comment moved from page

 * The Concise Oxford Dictionary has it as cantāre as well. Also, the dic states that it was used 'contemptuously' as early as the 12th century to singing in church services. As for the Irish or Gallic connection: I think it unlikely that in the 16 th century  (when it was used  to refer to slang)  that a gentleman in polite company would use a word with a vulgar (common) root  when a word derived from Latin was already in use with a close essence of of little worth, thus reflecting that he was a man of education and capable of discerning judgments. The vocabulary of the low orders would have been unfamiliar to them--Aspro 11:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The current page stated that the Irish origin is invalid without stating a real origin. That should be found in secondary sources. (It is not for a discussion page to throw out Irish origins simply because we have only late citations.) In the meantime I will edit the page to list all potential roots, without bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmldalton (talk • contribs) 21:37, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

 * As a compromise, I have tagged with each of the possible origins listed; we are lacking sources not just for or against the Irish origin, but sources for and against all of the origins suggested in the article. —Politizer( talk • contribs ) 21:59, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Bobzer (talk) 14:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC) I would say it came from "caint", in primary school I remember we just called it "an caint" when we were learning about it, I could still be wrong though.

Cockney rhyming slang
Would you consider Cockney rhyming slang to be a Cant language? If so, I'll add the 'Cant language' category to that article.--Aspro 15:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

No. Cant is normally associated with criminal or "anti-social" (not normalised) behaviour. Cockneys are not distinctly associated with criminality. Also Cockney rhyming slang is not a cryptolect as it is often easily interprested by the overhearer. GBH 17:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

 * With respect: I don't think you have read the article properly. Now that I have, it is easily a cant, and looking it up else where (like Wiktionary: Cockney rhyming slang) it is also classed as a cant there too. So I 'll be adding it soon.--Aspro 13:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Carny
Do we think Carny is a cant? It seems to be a US English fairground speak - which is also used in professional wrestling (!) Secretlondon 01:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

argot or [cryptolect]]?
It seems to that Cant may be both, and that the articles overlap significantly. Should they be combined ?GBH (talk) 09:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I am somewhat mystified by this article. In the Dorsai series by the Canadian outhor Gordon M. Dickson, cant is the distinct speech pattern of this Quaker like culture of "Friendlies". Could be father from any connotation offered in the article. I just don't understand that. Would be cool if somebody could explain the discrepancy. -- 88.114.251.192 (talk) 11:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

 * Well that would be a "characteristic or secret language used only by members of a group" then, wouldn't it?
 * You can't rely on science fiction authors as authorities on linguistic terms though. pablo hablo. 11:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

you may mention that Louchebem is the cant of the french Butchers: in Louchebem, "louchebem" means "boucher" (butcher in french) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.206.162.141 (talk) 22:54, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Eurocentric Examples List
Looking at the present list of examples, it is, (as is so much of academic discourse), noticeably eurocentric, i.e. few examples from outside Europe. This creates what is probably a distorted impression: one might think it is primarily a European phenomenon, which I am sure it isn't. Anyone got any more non-European examples? Northtowner (talk) 18:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

 * My guess it's a question of a) participation on the English Wikipedia and b) research. Even European cants are poorly researched, just imagine what the situation must be like elsewhere. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:13, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Merge to Cryptolect
I would suggest merging the following articles: They all appear to refer to the same thing: secret, coded languages. The even share some of the same examples. Cryptolect (currently a redirect) is the most general and technical term, so I think it would probably be the best choice for the title of the final article, post-merger. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:38, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Cant (language)
 * Argot
 * Anti-language

Why? They might appear to say the same thing but they don't. The origins differ and there's still a difference in definition. Read a dictionary ffs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.109.132.30 (talk) 16:19, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Support both extant merge proposals (that for Argot and Anti-language). The terms are sufficiently similar in meaning that the concepts are best described in one place; the distincy etymologies of nuances of meaning can also be discussed here too. Note that, as described at WP:NOTADICTIONARY, Wikipedia has pages for concepts, not separate pages for each word used to describe that concept. Klbrain (talk) 22:05, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support merge proposals, I think (and certainly Argot/Cant). Currently, there is considerable overlap, and I think a merger would be less confusing for users. 86.186.120.235 (talk) 15:38, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Done for Argot. Klbrain (talk) 05:34, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Done for Anti-language. Klbrain (talk) 21:51, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Cant (language)


text:
User talk:Miguelin

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Merovingian (t) (c) 15:38, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
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title: User talk:Miguelin


text:
Albert Hill

Albert Hill may refer to:

 * Albert E. Hill (1870–1933), American pro-labor politician
 * Bertie Hill (Albert Edwin Hill, 1927–2005), British Olympic equestrian
 * Albert G. Hill (1910–1996), American physicist
 * Albert Ross Hill (1868–1943), Canadian-born American educator
 * Albert Hill (athlete) (1889–1969), British Olympic athlete
 * Albert Hill (VC) (1895–1971), British Victoria Cross recipient
 * Albert Hill (American football) (active 1896–1969), American college football quarterback

title: Albert Hill


text:
Sports rating system

A sports rating system is a system that analyzes the results of sports competitions to provide ratings for each team or player. Common systems include polls of expert voters, crowdsourcing non-expert voters, betting markets, and computer systems. Ratings, or power ratings, are numerical representations of competitive strength, often directly comparable so that the game outcome between any two teams can be predicted. Rankings, or power rankings, can be directly provided (e.g., by asking people to rank teams), or can be derived by sorting each team's ratings and assigning an ordinal rank to each team, so that the highest rated team earns the #1 rank. Rating systems provide an alternative to traditional sports standings which are based on win–loss–tie ratios.

In the United States, the biggest use of sports ratings systems is to rate NCAA college football teams in Division I FBS, choosing teams to play in the College Football Playoff. Sports ratings systems are also used to help determine the field for the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, men's professional golf tournaments, professional tennis tournaments, and NASCAR. They are often mentioned in discussions about the teams that could or should receive invitations to participate in certain contests, despite not earning the most direct entrance path (such as a league championship).

Computer rating systems can tend toward objectivity, without specific player, team, regional, or style bias. Ken Massey writes that an advantage of computer rating systems is that they can "objectively track all" 351 college basketball teams, while human polls "have limited value". Computer ratings are verifiable and repeatable, and are comprehensive, requiring assessment of all selected criteria. By comparison, rating systems relying on human polls include inherent human subjectivity; this may or may not be an attractive property depending on system needs.

History
Sports ratings systems have been around for almost 80 years, when ratings were calculated on paper rather than by computer, as most are today. Some older computer systems still in use today include: Jeff Sagarin's systems, the New York Times system, and the Dunkel Index, which dates back to 1929. Before the advent of the college football playoff, the Bowl Championship Series championship game participants were determined by a combination of expert polls and computer systems.

Theory
Sports ratings systems use a variety of methods for rating teams, but the most prevalent method is called a power rating. The power rating of a team is a calculation of the team's strength relative to other teams in the same league or division. The basic idea is to maximize the amount of transitive relations in a given data set due to game outcomes. For example, if A defeats B and B defeats C, then one can safely say that A>B>C.

There are obvious problems with basing a system solely on wins and losses. For example, if C defeats A, then an intransitive relation is established (A > B > C > A) and a ranking violation will occur if this is the only data available. Scenarios such as this happen fairly regularly in sports—for example, in the 2005 NCAA Division I-A football season, Penn State beat Ohio State, Ohio State beat Michigan, and Michigan beat Penn State. To address these logical breakdowns, rating systems usually consider other criteria such as the game's score and where the match was held (for example, to assess a home field advantage). In most cases though, each team plays a sufficient amount of other games during a given season, which lessens the overall effect of such violations.

From an academic perspective, the use of linear algebra and statistics are popular among many of the systems' authors to determine their ratings. Some academic work is published in forums like the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, others in traditional statistics, mathematics, psychology, and computer science journals.

If sufficient "inter-divisional" league play is not accomplished, teams in an isolated division may be artificially propped up or down in the overall ratings due to a lack of correlation to other teams in the overall league. This phenomenon is evident in systems that analyze historical college football seasons, such as when the top Ivy League teams of the 1970s, like Dartmouth, were calculated by some rating systems to be comparable with accomplished powerhouse teams of that era such as Nebraska, USC, and Ohio State. This conflicts with the subjective opinion that claims that while good in their own right, they were not nearly as good as those top programs. However, this may be considered a "pro" by non-BCS teams in Division I-A college football who point out that ratings systems have proven that their top teams belong in the same strata as the BCS teams. This is evidenced by the 2004 Utah team that went undefeated in the regular season and earned a BCS bowl bid due to the bump in their overall BCS ratings via the computer ratings component. They went on to play and defeat the Big East Conference champion Pittsburgh in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl by a score of 35-7. A related example occurred during the 2006 NCAA men's basketball tournament where George Mason were awarded an at-large tournament bid due to their regular season record and their RPI rating and rode that opportunity all the way to the Final Four.

Goals of some rating systems differ from one another. For example, systems may be crafted to provide a perfect retrodictive analysis of the games played to-date, while others are predictive and give more weight to future trends rather than past results. This results in the potential for misinterpretation of rating system results by people unfamiliar with these goals; for example, a rating system designed to give accurate point spread predictions for gamblers might be ill-suited for use in selecting teams most deserving to play in a championship game or tournament.

Home advantage

When two teams of equal quality play, the team at home tends to win more often. The size of the effect changes based on the era of play, game type, season length, sport, even number of time zones crossed. But across all conditions, "simply playing at home increases the chances of winning." A win away from home is therefore seen more favorably than a win at home, because it was more challenging. Home advantage (which, for sports played on a pitch, is almost always called "home field advantage") is also based on the qualities of the individual stadium and crowd; the advantage in the NFL can be more than a 4-point difference from the stadium with the least advantage to the stadium with the most.

Strength of schedule
Strength of schedule refers to the quality of a team's opponents. A win against an inferior opponent is usually seen less favorably than a win against a superior opponent. Often teams in the same league, who are compared against each other for championship or playoff consideration, have not played the same opponents. Therefore, judging their relative win–loss records is complicated. "We looked beyond the record. The committee placed significant value on Oregon's quality of wins."

The college football playoff committee uses a limited strength-of-schedule algorithm that only considers opponents' records and opponents' opponents' records (much like RPI).

Points versus wins
A key dichotomy among sports rating systems lies in the representation of game outcomes. Some systems store final scores as ternary discrete events: wins, draws, and losses. Other systems record the exact final game score, then judge teams based on margin of victory. Rating teams based on margin of victory is often criticized as creating an incentive for coaches to run up the score, an "unsportsmanlike" outcome.

Still other systems choose a middle ground, reducing the marginal value of additional points as the margin of victory increases. Sagarin chose to clamp the margin of victory to a predetermined amount. Other approaches include the use of a decay function, such as a logarithm or placement on a cumulative distribution function.

In-game information
Beyond points or wins, some system designers choose to include more granular information about the game. Examples include time of possession of the ball, individual statistics, and lead changes. Data about weather, injuries, or "throw-away" games near season's end may affect game outcomes but are difficult to model. "Throw-away games" are games where teams have already earned playoff slots and have secured their playoff seeding before the end of the regular season, and want to rest/protect their starting players by benching them for remaining regular season games. This usually results in unpredictable outcomes and may skew the outcome of rating systems.

Team composition
Teams often shift their composition between and within games, and players routinely get injured. Rating a team is often about rating a specific collection of players. Some systems assume parity among all members of the league, such as each team being built from an equitable pool of players via a draft or free agency system as is done in many major league sports such as the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL. This is certainly not the case in collegiate leagues such as Division I-A football or men's and women's basketball.

Cold start
At the beginning of a season, there have been no games from which to judge teams' relative quality. Solutions to the cold start problem often include some measure of the previous season, perhaps weighted by what percent of the team is returning for the new season. ARGH Power Ratings is an example of a system that uses multiple previous years plus a percentage weight of returning players.

Permutation of standings
Several methods offer some permutation of traditional standings. This search for the "real" win–loss record often involves using other data, such as point differential or identity of opponents, to alter a team's record in a way that is easily understandable. Sportswriter Gregg Easterbrook created a measure of Authentic Games, which only considers games played against opponents deemed to be of sufficiently high quality. The consensus is that all wins are not created equal. "I went through the first few weeks of games and redid everyone’s records, tagging each game as either a legitimate win or loss, an ass-kicking win or loss, or an either/or game. And if anything else happened in that game with gambling repercussions – a comeback win, a blown lead, major dysfunction, whatever — I tagged that, too."

Pythagorean
Pythagorean expectation, or Pythagorean projection, calculates a percentage based on the number of points a team has scored and allowed. Typically the formula involves the number of points scored, raised to some exponent, placed in the numerator. Then the number of points the team allowed, raised to the same exponent, is placed in the denominator and added to the value in the numerator. Football Outsiders has used
 * $$\text{Pythagorean wins} = \frac{\text{Points For}^{2.37}}{\text{Points For}^{2.37} + \text{Points Against}^{2.37}}\times \text{Games Played}.$$

The resulting percentage is often compared to a team's true winning percentage, and a team is said to have "overachieved" or "underachieved" compared to the Pythagorean expectation. For example, Bill Barnwell calculated that before week 9 of the 2014 NFL season, the Arizona Cardinals had a Pythagorean record two wins lower than their real record. Bill Simmons cites Barnwell's work before week 10 of that season and adds that "any numbers nerd is waving a “REGRESSION!!!!!” flag right now." In this example, the Arizona Cardinals' regular season record was 8-1 going into the 10th week of the 2014 season. The Pythagorean win formula implied a winning percentage of 57.5%, based on 208 points scored and 183 points allowed. Multiplied by 9 games played, the Cardinals' Pythagorean expectation was 5.2 wins and 3.8 losses. The team had "overachieved" at that time by 2.8 wins, derived from their actual 8 wins less the expected 5.2 wins, an increase of 0.8 overachieved wins from just a week prior.

Trading "skill points"
Originally designed by Arpad Elo as a method for ranking chess players, several people have adapted the Elo rating system for team sports such as basketball, soccer and American football. For instance, Jeff Sagarin and FiveThirtyEight publish NFL football rankings using Elo methods. Elo ratings initially assign strength values to each team, and teams trade points based on the outcome of each game.

Solving equations
Researchers like Matt Mills use Markov chains to model college football games, with team strength scores as outcomes. Algorithms like Google's PageRank have also been adapted to rank football teams.

List of sports rating systems

 * Advanced NFL Stats, United States of America National Football League
 * ARGH Power Ratings
 * ATP rankings, international tennis
 * Colley Matrix
 * Dickinson System, United States of America college football
 * Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings, United States of America college basketball
 * Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), United States of America NCAA basketball, baseball, softball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and volleyball
 * Smithman Qualitative Index, United States of America soccer - obsolete
 * TrueSkill, a Bayesian ranking system inspired by the Glicko rating system

Bowl Championship Series computer rating systems
In collegiate American football, the following people's systems were used to choose teams to play in the national championship game.
 * Anderson & Hester / Seattle Times
 * Richard Billingsley
 * Wes Colley / Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 * Richard Dunkel
 * Kenneth Massey
 * Herman Matthews / Scripps Howard
 * New York Times
 * David Rothman
 * Jeff Sagarin / USA Today
 * Peter Wolfe

Popular press

 * Wayne Winston is a professor of decision sciences at Indiana University and was a classmate of Jeff Sagarin at MIT. He published several editions of a text on the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software that includes material on ranking sports teams, as well as a book focused directly on this topic. He and Sagarin created rating systems together.
 * Wayne Winston is a professor of decision sciences at Indiana University and was a classmate of Jeff Sagarin at MIT. He published several editions of a text on the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software that includes material on ranking sports teams, as well as a book focused directly on this topic. He and Sagarin created rating systems together.
 * Wayne Winston is a professor of decision sciences at Indiana University and was a classmate of Jeff Sagarin at MIT. He published several editions of a text on the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software that includes material on ranking sports teams, as well as a book focused directly on this topic. He and Sagarin created rating systems together.

Academic work

 * Much of this information is available at
 * available at
 * available at
 * available at

title: Sports rating system


text:
Gonatogyne

Gonatogyne is a genus of plants in the family Phyllanthaceae first described as a genus in 1873. It contains only one known species, Gonatogyne brasiliensis, endemic to southeastern Brazil. It is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants.

title: Gonatogyne


text:
Breath-holding spell

Breath-holding spells (BHS) are the occurrence of episodic apnea in children, possibly associated with loss of consciousness, and changes in postural tone.

Breath-holding spells occur in approximately 5% of the population with equal distribution between males and females. They are most common in children between 6 and 18 months and usually not present after 5 years of age. They are unusual before 6 months of age. A positive family history can be elicited in 25% of cases. They may be confused with a seizure disorder. They are sometimes observed in response to frustration during or following disciplinary conflict.

Diagnosis
The diagnosis of a breath-holding spell is made clinically. A good history including the sequence of events, lack of incontinence and no postictal phase, help to make an accurate diagnosis. Some families are advised to make a video recording of the events to aid diagnosis. An electrocardiogram (ECG) may rule out cardiac arrhythmia as a cause. There is some evidence that children with anemia (especially iron deficiency) may be more prone to breath-holding spells.

Classification
There are four types of breath-holding spells.

 * Simple breath-holding spell
 * This is the most common type and the cause is the holding of breath. The usual precipitating event is frustration or injury. There is no major alteration of circulation or oxygenation and the recovery is spontaneous.

 * Cyanotic breath-holding spells
 * These are usually precipitated by anger or frustration, although they may occur after a painful experience. The child cries and has forced expiration, sometimes leading to cyanosis (blueness in color), loss of muscle tone, and loss of consciousness. The child usually recovers within minutes, but some fall asleep for an hour or so. Physiologically, there is often hypocapnea (low levels of carbon dioxide) and usually hypoxia (low levels of oxygen). There is increased intrathoracic pressure and decreased cardiac output following the Valsalva maneuver. This eventually leads to a significant decrease in circulation to the brain and ultimately, loss of consciousness. There is no postictal phase (as is seen with seizures), no incontinence, and the child is fine in between spells. EEGs are normal in these children. There is no relationship to the subsequent development of seizures or cerebral injury.

 * Pallid breath-holding spells
 * The most common stimulus is a painful event. The child turns pale (as opposed to blue) and loses consciousness with little if any crying. The EEG is also normal, and there is no postictal phase, nor incontinence. The child is usually alert within minutes. There may be a relationship with adulthood syncope.

 * Complicated breath-holding spells
 * These may simply be a more severe form of the two most common types. They generally begin as either a cyanotic or pallid spell that is then associated with seizure-like activity. An EEG taken while the child is not having a spell is still generally normal.

Treatment
The most important approach is to reassure the family, because witnessing a breath-holding spell is a frightening experience for observers. There is no definitive treatment available or needed for breath-holding spells, as the child will eventually outgrow them.

Some trials have demonstrated the efficacy of iron therapy, especially because although BHS can readily occur without anemia, BHS has been found to be aggravated by the presence of anemia. Other studies have supported the use of piracetam; a 1998 study indicating that over two months piracetam reduced BHS incidence by sixty percent, twice as much as a placebo. All of these studies agree with the established medical view that a pharmacological agent is not necessary, although it may be desirable for the comfort of the parent and child.

Two articles on breath-holding spells strongly suggest that parents consider having their child be tested by electrocardiogram for the rare, but real possibility that the BHS episodes are actually a symptom of prolonged QT-syndrome, a serious but treatable form of cardiac arrhythmia.

title: Breath-holding spell


text:
Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park

The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park, formerly the Living Desert Zoological and Botanical State Park, is a zoo and botanical garden displaying plants and animals of the Chihuahuan Desert in their native habitats. It is located off U.S. Route 285 at the north edge of Carlsbad, New Mexico, at an elevation of 3200 ft atop the Ocotillo Hills overlooking the city and the Pecos River. It is open every day except Christmas.

The park has been an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) since 2002.

Exhibits
The zoo features more than forty native animal species, including pronghorn, badger, bison, bobcats, mule deer, elk, kit fox, Gila monster, cougar, prairie dogs, reptiles, fourteen species of snakes, and Mexican wolves. An aviary contains golden eagles, hawks, owls, a roadrunner, songbirds, and turkeys. The gardens feature a greenhouse and hundreds of cacti and succulents from around the world, including acacia, agave, small barrel cactus, cholla, ocotillo, prickly pear, saguaro, sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri), and yucca.

1.3 mi of self-guided trails lead through sand dunes, arroyos, and pinyon pine/juniper forest.


text:
User:Wolfmoon

I live in Torshavn, Faroe Islands, My main interests are music, especially heavy metal and the various subgenres associated with it. I'm also an avid movie watcher. My favorite genres are scifi, fantasy, and horror. Other interests include astronomy, history, and computers.

title: User:Wolfmoon


text:
Heywoodia

Heywoodia is a genus of plants in the Phyllanthaceae first described as a genus in 1907. It contains only one known species, Heywoodia lucens, native to eastern, southeastern, and southern Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, KwaZulu-Natal, Eswatini, Cape Province).

title: Heywoodia


text: User talk:69.235.219.146

title: User talk:69.235.219.146


text:
User talk:Scyoung121

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Merovingian (t) (c) 15:42, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
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Copyright problems with Three Governors affair
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title: User talk:Scyoung121


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User talk:Donaldsonic

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! D. J. Bracey (talk) 15:42, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
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title: User talk:Donaldsonic


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Burchell's zebra

Burchell's zebra (Equus quagga burchellii) is a southern subspecies of the plains zebra. It is named after the British explorer and naturalist William John Burchell. Common names include bontequagga, Damaraland zebra, and Zululand zebra (Gray, 1824). Burchell's zebra is the only subspecies of zebra which may be legally farmed for human consumption.

Physical characteristics
Like most plains zebras, females and males are about the same size, standing 1.1 to 1.4 m at the shoulder. They weigh between 500 and 700 lb. Year-round reproduction observed in this subspecies in Etosha National Park, Namibia, concludes synchronization of a time budget between males and females, possibly explaining the lack of sexual dimorphism.

Burchell's zebras are described as being striped on the head, the neck, and the flanks, and sparsely down the upper segments of the limbs then fading to white. One or two shadow stripes rest between the bold, broad stripes on the haunch. This main distinguishing characteristic sets the Burchell's zebra apart from the other subspecies. Gray (1824) observed a distinct dorsal line, the tail only bristly at the end, and the body distinctly white. The dorsal line is narrow and becomes gradually broader toward the rear, distinctly margined with white on each side.

Behaviour
Like most plains zebras, Burchell's live in small family groups. These can be either harem or bachelor groups, with harem groups consisting of one stallion and one to six mares and their most recent foals, and bachelor groups containing two to eight unattached stallions. The males in bachelor herds are often the younger or older stallions of the population, as they are most likely not experienced enough or strong enough to defend breeding rights to a group of females from challengers. These small groups often congregate in larger herds around water and food sources, but still maintain their identity as family units while in the population gatherings.

Range and adaptation
Formerly, the Burchell's zebra range was centred north of the Vaal/Orange river system, extending northwest via southern Botswana to Etosha and the Kaokoveld, and southeast to Eswatini and KwaZulu-Natal. Now extirpated in the middle portion, it survives at the northwestern and southeastern ends of the distribution.

Burchell's zebra migrates the longest distance of any terrestrial animal in Africa, making a round trip of 500 km. They migrate from the Chobe River in Namibia to Nxai Pan National Park in Botswana. Their migration follows a straight north–south route almost entirely within the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA).

Controversial introductions outside its historical range
From 2001 until 2016 the Kissama Foundation reintroduced wildlife in the Quiçama National Park of Angola. The project was dubbed Operation Noah's Ark. Amongst animals such as blue wildebeest, waterbuck, Cape giraffe, bush elephants, gemsbok, eland, nyala and ostrich were also Burchell's zebras. And from 2017 until 2019 Wildlife Vets Namibia exported wildlife to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's capital city Kinshasa to introduce animals into the Parc de la Vallée de la Nsele. Wildlife Vets Namibia in partnership with Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature also established a Burchell's zebra population on Île de Mateba, which is originally a rainforest island. Both introductions in west Angola and west DRC are controversial since the park service bodies from both countries did not opt to obtain the native Grant's zebra from for example countries such as Zambia, Tanzania or Kenya.

Extinct subpopulation
Like other plains zebras, Burchell's zebras must have populated the African plains in impressive numbers. Associations of thousands have been reported. The wild herds were thought to have disappeared by 1910, and the last known captive individual died in the Berlin Zoo in 1918. As European settlement spread northward from the Cape to colonial southern Rhodesia, this subspecies was thought to have been hunted to extinction.

However, Groves and Bell concluded in their 2004 publication that "the extinct true Burchell's zebra" is a phantom. Careful study of the original zebra populations in Zululand and Eswatini, and of skins harvested on game farms in Zululand and Natal, has revealed that a certain small proportion shows similarity to what now is regarded as typical burchellii. The type localities of the two subspecies Equus quagga burchellii (Burchell's zebra) and Equus quagga antiquorum (Damaraland zebra) are so close to each other that they suggest that the two are in fact one, and therefore the older of the two names should take precedence over the younger. They therefore say that the correct name for the southernmost subspecies must be burchellii, not antiquorum. The subspecies Equus quagga burchellii still exists in KwaZulu-Natal and in Etosha. Equus quagga burchellii can be found in a number of zoos in the United States, including the Cincinnati Zoo, Columbus Zoo, Naples Zoo, Nashville Zoo, Woodland Park Zoo.

title: Burchell's zebra


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User talk:Cescania

Welcome!

Welcome to Wikipedia, Cescania! My name is Ryan, aka Acetic Acid. I noticed that you were new and haven't received any messages yet. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Wikipedia can be a little intimidating at first, since it uses different formatting than other sites that use HTML and CSS. In the long run, though, you'll find that the WikiSyntax is a lot easier and faster than those other ways. Here are a few links to get you started:

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I hope you enjoy contributing to Wikipedia. We can use all the help we can get! Have a nice day. Sincerely,  Acetic Acid  ( talk  ) 15:43, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Cescania


text:
Houghton, Cambridgeshire

Houghton is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Houghton and Wyton, in Cambridgeshire, England, approximately 3 mi east of Huntingdon on the A1123 road, and south of RAF Wyton. It lies on the north bank of the River Great Ouse, by Houghton Mill.

It is within Huntingdonshire, a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. It was named one of the "Best Places to Live in the East" by the Sunday Times in 2016.

History
Houghton is mentioned in the Domesday Book and described as "Hoctune".

Government
Houghton is part of the civil parish of 'Houghton and Wyton', which has a parish council. The parish council is the lowest tier of government in England and is elected by the residents of the parish on the electoral roll. The parish council has nine councillors and meets approximately every two weeks through the year. In 1931 the parish of Houghton had a population of 321. On 1 April 1935 the parish of Houghton was abolished to form "Houghton and Wyton".

Houghton was in the historic and administrative county of Huntingdonshire until 1965. From 1965, the village was part of the new administrative county of Huntingdon and Peterborough. Then in 1974, following the Local Government Act 1972, Houghton became a part of the county of Cambridgeshire.

The second tier of local government is Huntingdonshire District Council which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and has its headquarters in Huntingdon. Huntingdonshire District Council has 52 councillors representing 29 district wards. Houghton is a part of the district ward of 'The Hemingfords' and is represented on the district council by two councillors. District councillors serve for four-year terms following elections to Huntingdonshire District Council.

For Houghton the highest tier of local government is Cambridgeshire County Council. The county council consists of 69 councillors representing 60 electoral divisions. Houghton is part of the electoral division of 'The Hemingfords and Fen Stanton', represented on the county council by one councillor.

At Westminster, Houghton is in the parliamentary constituency of Huntingdon. Houghton is represented in the House of Commons by Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative), who succeeded Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative) in 2024. The previous MP John Major (Conservative) represented the constituency between 1983 and 2001.

Population
In the period 1801 to 1901 the population of the separate parishes of Houghton and Wyton was recorded every ten years by the UK census. During this time the population was in the range of 467 (the lowest was in 1901) and 818 (the highest was in 1871).

From 1901, a census was taken every ten years with the exception of 1941 (due to the Second World War).

All population census figures from report Historic Census figures Cambridgeshire to 2011 by Cambridgeshire Insight.

The separate parishes of Houghton and Wyton were combined into a single parish in 1935. Part of this parish's area was separated as a new parish of Wyton on the Hill in 2010.

In 2011, the parish covered an area of 1623 acre and so the population density of Houghton and Wyton in 2011 was 716.5 persons per square mile (276.6 per square kilometre).

Notable buildings
Houghton Mill is an old watermill owned by the National Trust that is used for demonstrating flour milling. It had previously been operated as a youth hostel.

Houghton's Church of England parish church dates from the Norman era and is dedicated to St Mary. It now serves as the church for the combined parish of Houghton and Wyton. Near the church sits a former United Reformed Church that has been converted into a residential retreat centre.

Other places of interest
At the centre of the village is an area known as the village green, although it is completely paved. The centrepiece of the green is a thatched clock tower. Adjacent to the tower is a monumental bust of former village resident Potto Brown (1797–1871), a miller and nonconformist philanthropist. Also on the green are an old water pump and a traditional red telephone box.

It is possible to walk from Houghton to Hemingford Abbots across the flood meadows, and to St Ives along the Thicket Path. There is a nature reserve (Wildlife Trust) along the Thicket Path known as Houghton Meadows ("Far Close") that shows markings of traditional ridge and furrow farming.

In the village centre there is a war memorial hall. On Houghton Hill there is a cemetery.

There used to be two veterinary poultry research centres, one on Houghton Hill and the other in "The Elms".

There are a number of old houses of interest, particularly in the village green and near the playing field. The playing field is used for football, tennis and cricket. On the field there is a bowling club, cricket pavilion, tennis courts, football pitch and a scout hut.

At the village green is the former home of artist Charles Whymper (1853–1941). He was a relative of Edward Whymper who, in 1865, led the first ascent of the Matterhorn; a model of the Matterhorn is in the garden and just visible from the green.

The disused railway line runs through Houghton near the river.

Feast week
Every summer (normally the first fortnight of July) there is a week of community events, entitled "feast week". This has included a fun run, fayre and other sporting and fancy dress events.

Education
The only school in the village is Houghton Primary School for children aged five to eleven. The school straddles the boundary between Houghton and Wyton. Children from the school normally feed into St Peter's School, Huntingdon, although others go to St Ivo Academy, Hinchingbrooke School, or Abbey College, Ramsey.

Notable residents and people associated with Houghton

 * Christopher Biden (c. 1789 – 1858) was an officer in the East India Company Mercantile Marine
 * Potto Brown (1797–1871), miller and philanthropist
 * George Christopher Burder MC (died 17 April 1945 in Germany) formerly of Wyton Rectory and son of Revd. Claud Vernon Burder and Mary Gabrielle Fielding Burder. He has been described by the museum in Geffen, Netherlands as the 'hero of Geffen'
 * Charles Whymper (1853–1941), artist
 * John Leslie Green who was one of the nine VCs of the First Day of the Somme during the First World War
 * John Galbraith Graham, crossword compiler and former minister at St Mary's Church, Houghton
 * David McCandless, author (attended Houghton primary school)

title: Houghton, Cambridgeshire


text:
Francis Monkman

Anthony Francis Keigwin Monkman (9 June 1949 – 12 May 2023) was an English rock, classical and film score composer, and a founding member of both the progressive rock band Curved Air and the classical/rock fusion band Sky.

Early years
Francis Monkman was the son of Kenneth Monkman, an authority on the writer Laurence Sterne and Vita née Duncombe Mann. He was a pupil at Westminster School, where he studied organ and harpsichord, later studying at the Royal Academy of Music, winning the Raymond Russell prize for virtuosity on the harpsichord and becoming a member of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Wanting to experiment with more spontaneous music forms, Monkman learned how to play guitar and began to associate himself with rock music.

Curved Air
In the late 1960s Monkman co-founded the rock band Sisyphus, which evolved into the pioneering band Curved Air. Monkman played on their first three albums, doubling on keyboards and guitar and exploring his interest in jamming, overtones, natural harmonies and freer aspects of musicality. With group violinist Darryl Way, Monkman also contributed the bulk of the band's composing, although he and Way rarely collaborated. Differences of opinion with Way ultimately led to Monkman's departure from the band following the release of Phantasmagoria (1972). Curved Air singer Sonja Kristina has commented that "(Francis likes) jamming ... real 'out there' cosmic rock jamming. And that is not Darryl at all ... He's a very disciplined perfectionist, he likes things to be as precise and exquisite as possible. Whereas Francis is completely the opposite way; he just wants to play and things just come out of the cosmos". Monkman returned briefly to Curved Air for a 1974 tour intended to pay off the group's outstanding tax bill, which resulted in the release of the 1975 concert album Live, but departed again at the end of the tour.

Session years
After leaving Curved Air, Monkman contributed to the Renaissance album Prologue (1972), worked with Al Stewart and contributing to the album Past, Present and Future (1973) as well as Lynsey de Paul on her Surprise album and toured with the Shadows on their 20 Golden Greats Tour (1977). Also in 1977, he collaborated with Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno on the project 801. In 1978, he played all keyboards on Brian Bennett's solo album Voyage.

Sky and soundtracks
In 1978, Monkman became a member of classical/rock music fusion band Sky alongside guitarists John Williams and Kevin Peek, bass player Herbie Flowers and drummer/percussionist Tristan Fry. His keyboard work with Sky included extensive classical or classically-inspired harpsichord playing (highlighted on the band's electric version of Bach's "Toccata", which reached number 5 in the UK Singles Chart, and secured Sky a Top of the Pops appearance), piano, and a variety of synthesizer approaches including progressive rock complexity and psychedelic drones.

During his time with Sky, Monkman was arguably the band's most prolific composer and arranger. For their debut album, he wrote the non-hit single "Cannonball" and the 20-minute long second-side composition "Where Opposites Meet" (which was intended to combine and display the band's diverse influences). On their second album, he performed a version of Jean-Philippe Rameau's "Gavotte & Variations" as an absolutely straight classical solo harpsichord rendition (further cementing the place of classical music in the band's repertoire) and composed a second side-long twenty-minute long-form composition ("FIFO", for which the title and musical structure was inspired by computer data processing, and on which Monkman also played distorted psychedelic guitar alongside the more formal parts performed by Peek and Williams).

During his time with Sky, Monkman had continued to release solo recordings which mingled original composition with film and television soundtracks and library music. His 1978 album Energism included the electronic "Achievements of Man", from which extracts were used as the theme to the BBC programme Think Again. He also composed the piece "Current Affairs", used by Channel 4 as the introduction to Engineering Announcements, provided by the IBA. He would also become known as a synthesizer demonstrator on programs such as the BBC's Tomorrow's World.

In 1980, Monkman's soundtrack to the British film The Long Good Friday was so successful that he opted to leave Sky. He had also become disenchanted with the band's developing direction: in an interview nineteen years later, he'd recall "there seemed to emerge (from where?) a need for Sky to re-invent itself, come the third album, as a 'true' MOR outfit. The seeds had been effectively sown with Herbie's piece 'Scipio' on the second album. (Without wishing to air personal grievances, I think I could say that I always felt this piece, which I refused point blank ever to play live, was motivated by a 'look, anyone can write a long piece' attitude). So, clearly outvoted in the dash for mediocrity that the third album, for me, represents, I quit." In the same interview, Monkman mentioned having been approached again by Sky in "the late '80s" to compose "another long piece, in the manner of "Opposites" and "Fifo." The first movement of this work (which I determined to call "Another Dish for the Roof") exists in demo form... The other three movements were planned, but scarcely sketched."

Solo
Post-Sky, Monkman intended to concentrate mostly on television and soundtrack work (although at around the same time, he resumed performances of classical harpsichord music).

In 1981, Monkman released an art/progressive rock album called Dweller on the Threshold. This was the first album on which he had sung lead vocals; it also featured Camel's Andy Latimer (guitar) and former Whitesnake drummer Dave Dowle, as well as singers Graham Layden and Julia Rathbone.

Monkman's planned film score career was ultimately unsuccessful. In 1999, he reflected "I feel somewhat short-changed on this one, as I always felt certainly after the success of 'The Long Good Friday', that I was something of a natural film composer. Possibly a little too good, you know? (After all, no director really wants the composer telling his own version of the story, right?) I did one more film for John McKenzie (director of 'LGF') called 'The Innocent', about a boy with epilepsy. It's very low-key, but worth seeing, I guess. After 'LGF,' Zoetrope (Coppola's studio) became interested for a while, but in response to a request for 'examples of my work,' I sent them a copy of 'Dweller on the Threshold' and, unsurprisingly I suppose, heard no more."

In the mid-1980s, Monkman had several reunions with Darryl Way (relating to the latter's Elektra Ensemble work, performing "amplified classical music". This included live shows (including the Glastonbury Festival classical tent) performing pieces such as "(the) Bach Concerto in D minor, Mozart Sonatas, Vivaldi, I did Beethoven's 'Pathetique' in a sort of fortepiano sound, on synth. All good stuff." In 1986, Monkman and Way joined forces with their original Curved Air inspiration Terry Riley, to perform the latter's "In C" at Sadlers Wells Theatre, although plans for a follow-up mini-tour of Italy fell through.

In 1990 Monkman returned to Curved Air for a one-off reunion concert at London's Town & Country alongside Sonja Kristina, Darryl Way and Florian Pilkington-Miksa (a recording of the concert was released a decade later on the Alive, 1990 album). Three-fifths of Curved Air's original lineup - Monkman, Pilkington-Miksa, and bass guitarist Rob Martin - would go on to jam together in a set of 1991 session at the instigation of guitarist Mike Gore, the results eventually surfacing on Monkman's Jam album in 2002. In 2008, Monkman briefly rejoined Curved Air for yet another relaunch, but his time with the band was once again short-lived due to creative differences with Darryl Way, and he left the band during the early rehearsal sessions.

After a 20-year break, Monkman started to release further solo albums again at the start of the 21st century, beginning with 2001's 21st Century Blues.

Monkman died from cancer on 12 May 2023, at the age of 73.

Instruments
Monkman played guitar as well as keyboards in Curved Air, switching between them when playing live. According to the sleeve notes for the second Sky album, Sky 2, he also played additional guitar parts on his composition "FIFO", alongside John Williams and Kevin Peek.

 * Keyboards
 * 1977–1978: (tour with The Shadows)

 * Piano

Discography

 * Contemporary Impact (With Malcolm Ironton) (1978) (KPM Music, Denmark Street 21, London)
 * Energism (1978) (Bruton Music Limited, London)
 * Tempus Fugit (1978) (Bruton Music Limited, London)
 * Pictures In The Mind (With Malcolm Ironton) (1978) (KPM Music, Denmark Street 21, London)
 * Classical Concussion (1979) (KPM Music, Denmark Street 21, London)
 * Predictions (Part 1) (1979) (KPM Music, Denmark Street 21, London)
 * Predictions (Part 2) (1979) (KPM Music, Denmark Street 21, London)
 * Classical Odyssey(1980) (KPM Music, Denmark Street 21, London)
 * Dynamism (1980) (Bruton Music Limited, London)
 * The Long Good Friday Soundtrack (1981) (Nimbus Custom) Recorded at CTS Studios 12, 18 and 20 December 1979.
 * Dweller on the Threshold (1981) (Maya Records)
 * 21st Century Blues (2001)
 * Jam (2003)
 * A Harpsichord Sampler (2003)

title: Francis Monkman


text:
New Holland Publishers

New Holland Publishers is an Australian and New Zealand-based international publisher of non-fiction books, founded in 1955. It is a privately held company, with offices in Australia and New Zealand through two separate company entities

History
The publishing firm was established as "Holland Press" was on 20 June 1955 in Southwark, London, England, and renamed to New Holland Publishers in 1988. It currently operates offices in Wahroonga, New South Wales, Australia. The company went through a significant round of redundancies from 2008–2011. In 2013 the company sold US publishing rights to over 200 titles to Bloomsbury; and in 2014 over 1,400 titles to Fox Chapel Publishing of East Petersburg, Pennsylvania. In 2018 The UK branch of New Holland Publishers closed its offices and the original 1955 business NEW HOLLAND PUBLISHERS (UK) LIMITED was dissolved on the 21st August 2018 In 2022 New Holland publishers; New Zealand branch was purchased by Upstart Press Limited

title: New Holland Publishers