title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: Eligible to represent Macedonia and Albania due to his Albanian heritage, Alioski decided to represent the country of his birth, Macedonia. After representing Macedonia at various youth levels, he made his debut for the senior side in 2013.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: He scored his first international goal against Albania on 5 September 2016 in a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification match. He mainly played for his national side in a left wing-back position, before being converted to a more attacking midfield position.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: On 6 September 2018, Alioski scored in a 2–0 win over Gibraltar in the UEFA Nations League. He scored in his country's next game on 9 September in a 2–0 UEFA Nations League win against Armenia.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: In May 2021, Alioski was selected in the final 26-man squad to represent North Macedonia at the postponed UEFA Euro 2020, marking the country's first appearance at a major tournament. During North Macedonia's opening fixture of the tournament against Austria, immediatedly after striker Marko Arnautović (who is half-Serbian) scored, Arnautović angrily shouted towards Alioski and teammate Egzon Bejtulai–both of Albanian descent–what were believed to be anti-Albanian slurs. Football Federation of Macedonia released a statement calling for action by UEFA.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: Alioski is Muslim. He can speak Albanian, English, French, German, Italian, Macedonian and Spanish. He has citizenships of North Macedonia and Switzerland.


title: Time and a Word

text: Time and a Word is the second studio album by English rock band Yes, released on 24 July 1970 by Atlantic Records. It was put together several months after the release of the band's 1969 eponymous debut, during which they continued to tour heavily and recorded "Time and a Word" during gaps between shows. Yes continued to follow their early musical direction of performing original material and cover versions of songs by pop, jazz, and folk artists. A small orchestra of brass and string session musicians was used on most of the album's songs.


title: Time and a Word

text: Guitarist Peter Banks did not support the idea of adding an orchestra to the album, resulting in increased tensions between him and the rest of the group. During their UK tour in April 1970, and before the album's release, Banks was fired by the band and replaced by Steve Howe. The UK album cover was considered inappropriate for the American market, so a photograph of the band was used; due to the lineup change, this put Howe on the cover of an album on which he did not perform.


title: Time and a Word

text: "Time and a Word" received mixed reviews from critics, but became the band's first release to enter the UK Albums Chart, peaking at number 45; however, it did not chart in the United States. In 2003, the album was remastered with several previously unreleased tracks.


title: Time and a Word

text: After the release of their debut album "Yes" in July 1969 for Atlantic Records, Yes resumed extensive touring across the UK. The line-up of the group at this time included lead vocalist Jon Anderson, guitarist Peter Banks, bassist Chris Squire, drummer Bill Bruford, and organist Tony Kaye. Towards the end of 1969, they booked time at Advision Studios in London during gaps between shows to record "Time and a Word". In a November 1969 interview during a tour of Switzerland, Bruford talked about the album, saying Anderson was "pouring out new numbers for us to play ... Usually he writes a tune and we listen to the tape and take it from there". At Advision, Yes were joined by producer Tony Colton, a friend of Anderson's who was also the singer of the rock band Heads Hands & Feet. Phil Carson, the European managing director of Atlantic and a fan of the band, brought in audio engineer Eddy Offord to assist Colton in the album's production because of his skills and hard work. Offord would become a key figure in the band's history in the 1970s as their producer and live sound mixer.


title: Time and a Word

text: The group continued to follow their early musical direction of performing original material and rearranged cover versions of songs by pop, jazz, and folk artists. They followed the same format as "Yes": an album of eight tracks with two covers. A discussion amongst Squire, Anderson, and Colton during the writing process led to the decision of incorporating orchestral arrangements into some of their new songs. Anderson wished to use an orchestra as their new ideas needed additional sounds. He observed that Banks and Kaye had not worked together to create a strong sound that their new arrangements required. To attempt to solve this, the group discussed using a Mellotron and tested one out, but the idea fell through. Instead, a brass section of session players and a string section formed of students from the Royal College of Music were hired to perform arrangements written and conducted by Tony Cox.


title: Time and a Word

text: "Time and a Word" was met with "Yes-style controversy", as described by band biographer and reporter Chris Welch. Banks became the most outspoken member over his issues surrounding the album which began the strain on his relationship with the rest of the group. He did not support the idea of an orchestra and thought it merely followed what rock bands Deep Purple and the Nice had already done. He argued it merely played parts originally written for the guitar or organ, leaving his active participation to the album a minimum or his guitar buried into the album's mix. Banks also disagreed with the decision to have Colton produce the album and claimed that Colton lacked the experience and personally disliked Banks and his playing. Colton's ability was also questioned by Squire, who recalled one incident during the mixing of "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed", by which time Banks' replacement Steve Howe had joined and attended; Colton mixed the song using "a crappy pair of cans that did not reproduce bass", rather than using the studio's monitoring equipment. Colton asked for more bass, but Squire and Howe noticed that the bass levels on the monitors were already high. In 1995, Offord said that he too thought Colton had not been the right person to produce the band at that time.


title: Time and a Word

text: The album's six original tracks are credited to Anderson with either Squire or David Foster, Anderson's former bandmate in The Warriors. Banks said he made contributions to the writing of the album, but his name was not included in the credits. It did not bother him at first, but it caused some discontent years later when he missed out on royalties. "Time and a Word" marked a development in Anderson's lyric content, who began to move from simple love themes to topics of greater scale, described by band biographer Dan Hedges as "life, oneness and the future".


title: Time and a Word

text: "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed", the album's first cover song and opening track, was written by American artist Richie Havens. It opens with an orchestral theme taken from the soundtrack to the 1958 Western film "The Big Country" by Jerome Moross.


title: Time and a Word

text: Anderson wrote "The Prophet" which tells the story of a man, followed by many, who tells the others to find and believe in themselves and not follow "like sheep". The song borrows a theme from "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" from "The Planets" suite by English composer Gustav Holst and shows Anderson incorporating other themes from classical music, to which he listened regularly.


title: Time and a Word

text: "Sweet Dreams" was particularly well-received by future Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin, who requested that the band perform the song in concert during the "90125" tour in 1984.


title: Time and a Word

text: The song "Time and a Word" saw the band searching for an anthem-type song. Anderson, who was still musically naive, presented its basic theme to the group on a guitar, using only two or three chords, leaving the other band members trying to discern what he was playing. The song was recorded with Foster on acoustic guitar. Again, Banks didn't agree and claimed it was not meant to be part of the final mix, having been intended only as a guide track. On the final version, Banks played his parts over Foster's.


title: Time and a Word

text: Yes also recorded "Dear Father" at Advision Studios, but decided not to include the track on the album. It was released as the B-side of the "Sweet Dreams" single, but only received an album release when it was included on the 1975 compilation "Yesterdays".


title: Time and a Word

text: The sleeve for the album's original UK pressing was designed and photographed by Laurence Sackman and co-ordinated by Graphreaks. The front cover features a black-and-white Dada-esque chequered design and a nude woman, while the back cover included photographs of each member in front of a wind machine, distorting their faces. The front cover art was deemed inappropriate by the American record distributors, so Atlantic Records arranged for photographer Barrie Wentzell, at his Wardour Street studio in London, to take a new photo of the band for use on the US printing. By the time the photograph was taken, Steve Howe had replaced Peter Banks as Yes' guitarist, so Howe appears on the American version of the album cover. However, the back of the US record sleeve is identical to the UK version, so it includes a picture of Banks. Howe has said that the original album cover was rejected because it was sexist, but that he was angry at Atlantic Records for continually printing and selling an album with his photo on the cover even though he did not play on the record. The cover of the compilation album "Yesterdays" painted by Roger Dean, which was released in America, was an homage to the cover of this album. It featured a nude woman in the same pose, with her head not being visible, and with a black butterfly on her hip, just as on "Time and a Word".


title: Time and a Word

text: Yes premiered most of "Time and a Word" during their two solo concerts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, on 21 and 22 March 1970. For the second half, they played songs from the album with a twenty-piece orchestra led by Tony Cox. Anderson later considered the shows a failure, due to a lack of rehearsal time and a poor sound system. To record the orchestra, microphones were left dangling above the players using coat hangers. Banks thought the experiment was a "daft idea". Nevertheless, Chris Welch wrote a positive review in "Melody Maker" noting that despite the amplification problems, the "musical break-through" reaction from the audience suggested to him that the group had "arrived". The shows were the last in which Yes performed with an orchestra, until the 2001 Symphonic Tour to support their nineteenth studio album "Magnification", which also featured orchestral arrangements.


title: Time and a Word

text: Tensions within the band increased, and just after the album's recording was completed in early 1970, Banks was asked to leave. Steve Howe would join the line-up, as a replacement, that June.


title: Time and a Word

text: Following the UK release of "Time and a Word" in July 1970, the album became the group's first to enter the UK Albums Chart, with a peak at number 45. Its US release followed in November 1970. Two singles were released: "Time and a Word" in March 1970 and "Sweet Dreams" in June 1970. The album sold no more copies than did the debut album "Yes", which led management at Atlantic to consider dropping the band from the label. Carson managed to convince them to withdraw the notice, by which time the band had recruited Howe and secured Brian Lane as their new manager.


title: Time and a Word

text: The album received a mixed reception. It received an enthusiastic review by Roy Carr in "New Musical Express" in August 1970, which hailed it as one of the best releases of the year. To the reviewer, its material was "mentally exhilirating", and "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed" set the standard and mood of the remaining seven tracks. Cox's arrangements were praised, which blended well with the group's ability "to perform intricate and highly complex ensemble passages with meticulous dexterity and precision". The review credited the band's instrumental strength from Squire's "identifiable" bass playing, which created a "formidable" rhythm section when paired with Bruford's "expertise" drumming.


title: Haruka Abe

text: Born in Nerima, Tokyo, Abe grew up in Tokyo, London and New York. She trained at Rose Bruford College in South East London.


title: Haruka Abe

text: She appeared in BBC's "Ideal" as Miko, and as Marti in Sleepydog's science-fiction TV series "Slingers" directed by Steve Barron. She also appeared in the video for Clean Bandit's song "Rather Be" which has gained over 698 million views on YouTube as of November 2022.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: Charles X Gustav, also Carl Gustav (; 8 November 1622 – 13 February 1660), was King of Sweden from 1654 until his death. He was the son of John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg and Catherine of Sweden. After his father's death he also succeeded him as Pfalzgraf. He was married to Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, who bore his son and successor, Charles XI. Charles X Gustav was the second Wittelsbach king of Sweden after the childless king Christopher of Bavaria (1441–1448) and he was the first king of the Swedish "Caroline era", which had its peak during the end of the reign of his son, Charles XI. He led Sweden during the Second Northern War, enlarging the Swedish Empire. By his predecessor Christina, he was considered "de facto" Duke of Eyland (Öland), before ascending to the Swedish throne.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: His numbering as "Charles X" derives from a 16th-century invention. The Swedish king Charles IX (1604–1611) chose his numeral after studying a fictitious history of Sweden. This king was the fourth actual King Charles, but has never been called "Charles IV".


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: In his early childhood, raised in the Swedish court alongside his cousin Queen Christina, he received an excellent civil education. Later Charles X learned the art of war under Lennart Torstenson, being present at the second Battle of Breitenfeld (1642) and at Jankowitz (1645). From 1646 to 1648 he frequented the Swedish court, supposedly as a prospective husband of his cousin the queen regnant, Christina of Sweden (1626–89, reigned 1632–54), but her insurmountable objection to wedlock put an end to these anticipations, and to compensate her cousin for a broken half-promise she declared him her successor in 1649, despite the opposition of the Privy Council headed by Axel Oxenstierna. In 1648 he gained the appointment of commander of the Swedish forces in Germany. The conclusion of the treaties of Westphalia in October 1648 prevented him from winning the military laurels he is said to have desired, but as the Swedish plenipotentiary at the executive congress of Nuremberg, he had an opportunity to learn diplomacy, a science he is described as having quickly mastered. As the recognized heir to the throne, his position on his return to Sweden was dangerous because of the growing discontent with the queen. He therefore withdrew to the isle of Öland until the abdication of Christina on 5 June 1654 called him to the throne.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: Charles Gustav was crowned on 7 June 1654, the day after his cousin Christina abdicated. The beginning of Charles X's reign concentrated on the healing of domestic discords and on the rallying of all the forces of the nation round his standard for a new policy of conquest. On the recommendation of his predecessor, he contracted a political marriage on 24 October 1654 with Hedwig Eleonora, the daughter of Frederick III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. He was hoping to secure a future ally against Denmark. The Riksdag which assembled at Stockholm in March 1655, duly considered the two great pressing national questions: war, and the restitution of the alienated crown lands. Over three days a secret committee presided over by the King decided the war question: Charles X easily persuaded the delegates that a war against Poland appeared necessary and might prove very advantageous; but the consideration of the question of the subsidies due to the crown for military purposes was postponed to the following Riksdag. In 1659 he proclaimed severe punishment for anyone hunting in the royal game reserve in Ottenby, Öland, Sweden, where he had built a long dry-stone wall separating the southern tip of the island.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: On 10 July 1655, Charles X left Sweden to engage in a war against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, in what became the Second (or Little) Northern War (1655–1660). By the time war was declared he had at his disposal 50,000 men and 50 warships. Hostilities had already begun with the occupation of Dünaburg in Polish Livonia by the Swedes on 1 July 1655. Then on 21 July 1655 Swedish army under Arvid Wittenberg crossed into Poland and proceeded towards the encampment of the Greater Poland Levy of the Nobility (pospolite ruszenie) encamped among the banks of the Noteć river, with some regular infantry for support. On 25 July the Polish noble levy army capitulated, and the voivodeships of Poznań and Kalisz placed themselves under the protection of the Swedish King. Thereupon the Swedes entered Warsaw without opposition and occupied the whole of Greater Poland. The Polish king, John II Casimir of Poland (1648–68) of the House of Vasa, eventually fled to Silesia after his armies had suffered defeats. A great number of Polish nobles and their personal armies joined the Swedes, including the majority of the famous Winged Hussars. Many Poles saw Charles X Gustav as a strong monarch who could be a more effective leader than John II Casimir.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: Meanwhile, Charles X Gustav pressed on towards Kraków, which the Swedes captured after a two months' siege. The fall of Kraków followed a capitulation of the Polish Royal armies, but before the end of the year a reaction began in Poland herself. On 18 November 1655 the Swedes invested the fortress-monastery of Częstochowa, but the Poles defended it and after a seventy days’ siege the Swedish besiegers had to retire with great loss. This success elicited popular enthusiasm in Poland and gave rise to a nationalistic and religious rhetoric concerning the war and Charles X. He was depicted as tactless and his mercenaries barbaric. His refusal to legalize his position by summoning the Polish diet and his negotiations for the partition of the very state he affected to befriend, awoke a nationalistic spirit in the country.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: In the beginning of 1656 King John II Casimir returned from exile and the reorganised Polish army, increased in numbers. By this time Charles had discovered that he could more readily defeat the Poles than conquer Poland. What is described as his chief object, the conquest of Prussia, remained unaccomplished, and a new Swedish adversary arose in the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William I, alarmed by the ambition of the Swedish king. Charles forced the elector, albeit at the point of the sword, to become his ally and vassal (Treaty of Königsberg, 17 January 1656); but the Polish national rising now imperatively demanded his presence in the south. For weeks he engaged in the pursuit of Polish divisions engaged in guerrilla tactics in the snow-covered plains of Poland, penetrating as far south as Jarosław in Ruthenian Voivodeship (województwo ruskie), by which time he had lost two-thirds of his 15,000 men army with no apparent result. In the meantime, the Russians signed a cease-fire with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Treaty of Vilno of 1656 ) and then pursued a campaign in Livonia and laid siege to Riga, the second largest city in the Swedish Realm.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: Charles's retreat from Jarosław to Warsaw almost ended with disaster, for he returned with the fragments of his host, for his army was trapped by the Polish-Lithuanian armies—amidst three converging armies, in a marshy forest region intersected in every direction by well-guarded rivers—is considered one of his most brilliant achievements. But on 21 June 1656 the Poles retook Warsaw, and four days later Charles was obliged to purchase the assistance of Frederick William I, by the treaty of Marienburg (23 June 1656). On 28–30 July the combined Swedes and Brandenburgers, 18,000 strong, after a three days’ battle, defeated John Casimir's army of 40,000 at Warsaw, however the Polish-Lithuanian forces promptly withdrew with no large losses and apparent strong will to fight another day, while Swedish host reoccupied the Polish capital again, causing much destruction to the city and its inhabitants. However, this feat of arms did not have the desired result for Charles, and when Frederick William compelled the Swedish king to open negotiations with the Poles, they refused the terms offered, the war resumed, and Charles concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with the elector of Brandenburg (Treaty of Labiau, 20 November 1656) which stipulated that Frederick William and his heirs should henceforth possess the full sovereignty of East Prussia.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: Labiau involved an essential modification of Charles's Baltic policy; but the alliance with the elector of Brandenburg had now become indispensable for him on almost any terms. The difficulties of Charles X in Poland are believed to have caused him to receive the tidings of the Danish-Norwegian declaration of war on 1 June 1657 with extreme satisfaction. He had learnt from Torstensson that Denmark was most vulnerable if attacked from the south, and he attacked Denmark with a velocity which paralysed resistance. At the end of June 1657, at the head of 8,000 seasoned veterans, he broke up from "Bromberg" (Bydgoszcz) south of Pomerania and reached the borders of Holstein on 18 July. The Danish army dispersed and the Swedes recovered the duchy of Bremen. In the early autumn Charles's troops swarmed over Jutland and firmly established themselves in the duchies. But the fortress of Fredriksodde (Fredericia) held Charles's smaller army at bay from mid-August to mid-October, while the fleet of Denmark - Norway, after two days’ battle, compelled the Swedish fleet to abandon its projected attack on the Danish islands. The position of the Swedish king had now become critical. In July Denmark-Norway and Poland-Lithuania concluded an offensive and defensive alliance. Still more ominously for the Swedes, the elector of Brandenburg, perceiving Sweden's difficulties, joined the league against Sweden and compelled Charles to accept the proffered mediation of Oliver Cromwell, Coenraad van Beuningen and Cardinal Mazarin. The negotiations foundered, however, upon the refusal of Sweden to refer the points in dispute to a general peace-congress, and Charles received encouragement from the capture of Fredriksodde, 23–24 October, whereupon he began to make preparations for conveying his troops over to Funen in transport vessels. But soon another and cheaper expedient presented itself. In the middle of December 1657 began the great frost, which would prove so fatal to Denmark-Norway. In a few weeks the cold had grown so intense that the freezing of an arm of the sea with so rapid a current as the Small Belt became a conceivable possibility; and henceforth meteorological observations formed an essential part of the strategy of the Swedes.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: On 28 January 1658, Charles X arrived at Haderslev in South Jutland. His meteorologists estimated that in a couple of days the ice of the Little Belt would become firm enough to bear even the passage of a mail-clad host. The cold during the night of 29 January became most severe; and early in the morning of the 30th the Swedish king gave the order to start, the horsemen dismounting on the weaker spots of ice and cautiously leading their horses as far apart as possible, until they swung into their saddles again, closed their ranks and made a dash for the shore. Swedish arms quickly overpowered the Danish troops lining the opposite coast and won the whole of Funen with the loss of only two companies of cavalry, which disappeared under the ice while fighting with the Danish left wing. Pursuing his march, Charles X, with his eyes fixed on Copenhagen, resolved to cross the frozen Great Belt also. However, he accepted the advice of his chief engineer officer Erik Dahlberg, who acted as pioneer throughout and chose the more circuitous route from Svendborg, by the islands of Langeland, Lolland and Falster, in preference to the direct route from Nyborg to Korsør, which would have had to cross a broad, almost uninterrupted expanse of ice. A council of war, which met at two o’clock in the morning to consider the practicability of Dahlberg's proposal, dismissed it as hazardous. Even the king wavered; but when Dahlberg persisted in his opinion, Charles overruled the objections of the commanders. On the night of 5 February the transit began, the cavalry leading the way through the snow-covered ice, which quickly thawed beneath the horses’ hoofs so that the infantry which followed after had to wade through half an ell (nearly 2 feet) of sludge, facing the risk that the ice would break beneath their feet. At three o'clock in the afternoon, with Dahlberg leading the way, the army reached Grimsted in Lolland without losing a man; on 8 February, Charles reached Falster. On 11 February he stood safely on the soil of Zealand. A Swedish medal struck to commemorate the transit of the Baltic Sea bear the inscription: "Natura hoc debuit uni". Sweden had achieved a rare war exploit, in Sweden considered to be matched only by the crusade of the Livonian Order led by William of Modena to conquer Saaremaa (Osel) in January 1227 and afterwards when two Russian armies crossed the frozen Gulf of Bothnia from Finland to mainland Sweden in March 1809 during the Finnish War. It is believed that the effect of this achievement on the Danish government found expression in the Treaty of Taastrup on 18 February, and in the Treaty of Roskilde (26 February 1658), whereby Denmark–Norway sacrificed a great part of her territory to save the rest. However, Charles X continued the war efforts against Denmark–Norway after a council held at Gottorp on 7 July, even though he was in defiance of international equity. Without warning, Denmark–Norway was attacked a second time.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: On 17 July he again landed on Zealand and besieged Copenhagen with its king Frederick III of Denmark and Norway, but the city managed to hold out long enough for the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam to relieve the city, defeating the Swedish fleet in the Battle of the Sound on 29 October 1658, and Copenhagen repelled a major assault afterwards. Jutland had been reconquered by Denmark–Norway's allies, Poland and Brandenburg, and in 1659 Danish and forces liberated the Island of Funen in the Battle of Nyborg. As Baltic trade was vital to the Dutch economy they made clear to Charles they would not allow Sweden to control the Sound.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: Charles X consented to reopen negotiations with Denmark, at the same time proposing to exercise pressure upon his rival by a simultaneous winter campaign in Norway. Such an enterprise necessitated fresh subsidies from his already impoverished people, and obliged him in December 1659 to cross over to Sweden to meet the estates, whom he had summoned to Gothenburg. The lower estates protested the imposition of fresh burdens, but were persuaded by Charles.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: Soon after the estates opened on 4 January 1660, Charles X Gustav fell ill with symptoms of a cold. Ignoring his illness, he repeatedly went to inspect the Swedish forces near Gothenburg, and soon broke down with chills, headaches and dyspnoea. On 15 January, court physician Johann Köster arrived, and in medical error mistook Charles X Gustav's pneumonia for scorbut and dyspepsia. Köster started a "cure" including the application of multiple enemata, laxatives, bloodletting and sneezing powder. While after three weeks the fever eventually was down and the coughing was better, the pneumonia had persisted and evolved into a sepsis by 8 February.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: On 12 February, Charles X Gustav signed his testament: His son, Charles XI of Sweden, was still a minor, and Charles X Gustav appointed a minor regency consisting of six relatives and close friends. Charles X Gustav died the next day at the age of 37.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: Charles X Gustav had only one legitimate child by Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp: his successor Charles XI (1655–1697, reigned 1660–1697).


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: Before his marriage, Märta Allertz gave birth to his well-known son Gustaf Carlson (1647–1708), who became Count of Börringe and Lindholmen Castle in Scania.


title: Charles X Gustav of Sweden

text: There are credible theories suggesting that Charles Gustav, before marrying Hedwig Eleonora (but not after), also sired several more children of whom some names are known: by Baroness Ludmila Jankovska von Lažan (1615-1655) a son Charles (Carolus Wenzeslaus) Jankovský z Vlašimi (1644-1684), who became Baron of Château Rešice in Moravia; by Walbor Staffansdotter son Nils Karlsson (who strongly resembled his father); by Sidonia Johansdotter son Samuel Karlsson and by an unknown woman daughter Anna Karlsdotter.


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: Creepers are fictional creatures from the sandbox video game "Minecraft". They are hostile mobs (short for mobile non-player characters) that can be encountered within the game world at any given time or location where such mobs spawn in the dark. Instead of traditionally attacking the player directly, they creep up on the player and explode when they get close, destroying blocks in the surrounding area and potentially damaging the player if they are inside the blast radius. Their green camouflage and generally silent behavior aid in stealth attacks. Creepers were first added to "Minecraft" in a pre-alpha update to the game released on August 31, 2009. In an April Fools' Day update on April 1, 2014, Creepers and other mobs were voiced by Dan Lloyd.


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: The creeper has become one of the most widely recognized icons of "Minecraft". They have been referenced and parodied in popular culture, and they are featured prominently in "Minecraft" merchandise and advertising.


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: Creepers were created as a result of a coding error in the pre-alpha stages of Minecraft's development. "Minecraft" creator Markus "Notch" Persson developed the Creeper around the odd appearance of the pig model. Persson mixed the dimensions up, with the length and height being swapped. This, combined with the AI of looking at the player, led to the Creeper becoming a hostile mob. On September 1, 2009, the monster was named "Creeper" and was added to one of the pre-alpha versions of the game called "0.24_SURVIVAL_TEST_03". In 2011, the Minecraft logo was edited to integrate the creeper face into the letter "A". For April Fools' Day 2014, "Minecraft" was briefly updated to have Creepers and all other mobs and music sound the same as Villagers, voiced by Dan Lloyd.


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: The original color of the creeper was dark green. In 2021, an investigation revealed that Persson simply took the texture of leaves, one of the building blocks of Minecraft, and painted on it a characteristic face. With the new updates, the hostile mob received a new texture, sound, and unique behavior. Initially, creepers attacked players directly like zombies and exploded only when they were killed, but Notch decided that this was not enough and made the explosion a basic mob attack.


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: In "Minecraft", the player exists in a large world made up of cubes. The world contains a number of enemies, of which creepers are commonly encountered. A creeper is practically silent until it comes near the player, at which point it emits a quiet hiss and detonates after a short delay. The explosion kills the creeper, can kill or injure the player, and also destroys surrounding blocks.


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: The charged creeper is a more powerful variant of the regular creeper. Over time, the developers decided that creepers were not unpredictable enough, and increased the destructive power of their explosions by having creepers become charged by a nearby lightning strike. Mobs killed by charged creepers, including other creepers, drop their heads, which can then be worn in the head's armor slot as a disguise against mobs of that type.


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: The creeper originally appeared in "Minecraft" as a common hostile mob that silently approaches players and hisses, then explodes. It appeared later in "Minecraft" spin-off games such as "", "Minecraft Dungeons", and "Minecraft Earth".


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: Outside of "Minecraft", it also appeared in "Terraria", "Torchlight II", "Borderlands 2", "", and in Nintendo's crossover fighting game "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", where the creeper has been featured as a Mii Brawler costume.


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: The creeper is considered one of "Minecraft"'s most iconic enemies. The pixelated face of the creeper has been integrated into the "A" of the Minecraft logo, as well as being used in numerous Halloween costumes and cosplays. "Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition" listed Creeper as tenth in their list of "top 50 video game villains". The creeper has been featured in multiple Lego Minecraft sets and has been the main focus of one. In 2021, "PC Gamer" ranked Creeper as 9th of "the 50 most iconic characters in PC gaming," stating that "The Creeper is the star of "Minecraft", which is ironic considering that the Creeper's effectiveness hinges upon not being seen."


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: The creeper image has been used on a wide variety of Minecraft merchandise, including clothing, bedding and lamps. In July 2020, a joint partnership between Mojang Studios and Kellogg's led to the announcement of Minecraft Creeper Crunch, an official Minecraft branded cereal prominently featuring a creeper on the packaging. It was set to be available for release in stores in the United States in August 2020. Every packet additionally includes a unique code which can be redeemed for a Minecraft cosmetic clothing item.


title: Creeper (Minecraft)

text: Creepers have been the subject of numerous pop culture references and parodies. In the season 25 episode "Luca$" of the animated sitcom "The Simpsons", Moe Syszlak appears as a creeper and explodes at the end of the theme song's "couch gag". On August 19, 2011, Jordan Maron (aka CaptainSparklez) released the song "Revenge", a parody of "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love", depicting a "Minecraft" player seeking revenge against creepers. The song regained popularity as an internet meme around July 2019.


title: Narakasura

text: Naraka, also known as Narakasura (), is an asura king in Hindu mythology. In Assamese tradition, he is regarded as the legendary progenitor of all three dynasties of Pragjyotisha-Kamarupa, and the founding ruler of the legendary Bhauma dynasty of Pragjyotisha. Though the myths about Naraka are first mentioned in the Mahabharata, later texts embellish them. According to later post-Vedic texts such as the Brahma Purana and Vishnu Purana, he was the son of Bhudevi, fathered either by the Varaha incarnation of Vishnu or Hiranyaksha. He is claimed as one who established Pragjyotisha. He was killed by Krishna and Satyabhama. His son Bhagadatta—of Mahabharata fame—succeeded him.


title: Narakasura

text: The 10th/11th-century Kalika Purana embellishes the myths further and he is claimed to have come from Mithila and said to have established the kingdom of Pragjyotisha after overthrowing the last of the Kirata kings, Ghatakasura, of the Danava dynasty. It was foretold that he would be destroyed by a later incarnation of Vishnu. His mother, the earth, sought the boon from Vishnu that her son should have a long life, and that he should be all-powerful. Vishnu granted these boons.


title: Narakasura

text: The legends of Naraka is important in the history of Assam, particularly Kamarupa; since Narakasura is cited as the progenitor of all three dynasties that ruled Kamarupa in historical times. A hill, to the south of Guwahati is named after him. He is also associated with the Hindu belief of the shakti goddess and place of worship Kamakhya.


title: Narakasura

text: Naraka and his kingdom, Pragjyotisha, find mention in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, in the sections which were written not before the first century, where he is not depicted as the son of Bhudevi (earth) and Varaha incarnation of Vishnu. His son, Bhagadatta, is said to have fought for the Kauravas in the Mahabharata battle. Though the boar Prajapati finds mention as early as the Satapatha Brahmana and the Taittriya Aranyaka from the mid-first millennium BCE, the avatars were associated with Vishnu later, and became popular in the Gupta period (320-550 CE) and that the contact with Bhumi engendered a son is first mentioned in the Book II of the "Harivamsa" which is assigned to the fifth century. This theme, that of the son Naraka, is further expanded in the later Vishnu Purana (5th-9th century). In the 7th-century Nidhanpur copperplate inscription, Naraka is claimed as the originator of the Varman dynasty and that he lived three thousand years earlier. The Bhagavata Purana (8th-10th century), which was composed even later, expands the story even further. The Naraka myth gets the most extensive elaboration in the Upapurana called Kalika Purana (10th century), which was composed in Kamarupa itself. Here, the legend of Janaka of Videha, the father of Sita, is embellished and added to the legend of Naraka.


title: Narakasura

text: The previous birth of Naraka is described in the Bhagavata Purana. It is stated that there once lived a king with 16,000 daughters. Vishnu visited the palace of this king in the guise of a hermit, and all of these damsels surrounded the man. Their father, the king, grew angry with them, and issued a curse upon them all. When his daughters wept and begged their father to be relieved from the curse, he relented and allowed them the prospect of being the wives of the deity in their next birth. It was this king who would become Narakasura in his next birth, and the 16,000 daughters would be the princesses he abducted.


title: Narakasura

text: The birth of Naraka is narrated in various texts. According to earlier versions of the legend, he was born after the horns of Hiranyaksha touched Bhumi. In Kalika Purana and other texts, Varaha is mentioned as Naraka's father. The pious Naraka became evil due to his association with an asura named Banasura, and hence the suffix 'asura' (demon) was added to his name.


title: Narakasura

text: In Assamese tradition, Naraka, motivated by his desire, wanted to marry the goddess Kamakhya. When he proposed, the goddess playfully placed a condition before him that if he would be able to build a staircase from the bottom of the Nilachal Hill to the temple within one night before the cock crows to indicate dawn, then she would surely marry him. Naraka took it as a challenge and tried all with his might to do this huge task. He was almost about to accomplish the job before it was dawn. When Kamakhya received this news, panic-stricken, she strangled a cock and made it crow untimely to give the impression of dawn to Naraka. Duped by the trick, Naraka thought that it was a futile job and left it halfway through. Later, he chased the cock and killed it.


title: Narakasura

text: Drunk with power, as he considered himself to be unrivaled in prowess, he brought all the kingdoms on earth under his control. Next, he turned his eyes towards Svargaloka. Even the mighty Indra could not withstand the assault of this son of Vishnu, and had to flee the heavens. Narakasura had become the overlord of both the heavens and earth. Addicted to power, he stole the earrings of Aditi, the heavenly mother goddess, and usurped some of her territories, while also kidnapping 16000 women. All the devas, led by Indra, went to Vishnu to ask him to deliver them from Narakasura. Vishnu promised them that he would attend to this matter, when he would be incarnated as Krishna.


title: Narakasura

text: As promised to the earth goddess, Naraka was allowed to enjoy a long reign. At last, Vishnu was born as Krishna. Aditi, who was a relative of Krishna's wife Satyabhama (believed to be an avatar of Bhudevi - Narakasura's mother), approached Satyabhama for help. When Satyabhama heard of the Narakasura's ill-treatment of women and his behaviour with Aditi, she was enraged. Satyabhama approached Krishna for permission to wage a war against Narakasura. As promised to the devas and Aditi, Krishna attacked the great fortress of Narakasura, riding his mount Garuda with wife Satyabhama.


title: Narakasura

text: The battle was furiously fought. Narakasura possessed 11 Akshauhinis that he unleashed on Krishna. However, the deity slew them all with little effort. Krishna also killed Mura, Narakasura's general. Thus, Krishna is called 'Murāri' (the killer of Mura).


title: Narakasura

text: Naraka struck Garuda with his Shakti spear but the Garuda did not budge. Thereupon, taking up his bow Naraka discharged a shower of arrows on Kṛiṣhṇa, but Keśava cut them all with his shafts. Noticing that Naraka had properly set an "ardha-candra" arrow (with semi-circular head) and was about to discharge by pulling the bowstring, Kṛṣṇa cut down his bow.


title: Narakasura

text: Then the son of the mother Earth picked up his heavy mace of hard iron, but Krishna cut it with an arrow called "Kṣurapra" (an arrow with shoe-shaped sharp head). After this. Naraka, the vanquisher of hostile forces hurled his sharp-edged axe at Viṣhṇu (Kṛṣṇa) but he cut it down with his sword. His attempt having been thus frustrated, Naraka, the son of the Earth goddess, took up his spear to strike at Krishna , but before he could hurl it, Hari, with his discus Sudarshana of razor-like sharp edge, severed the head of Naraka who was riding on elephant.


title: Narakasura

text: is believed in some traditions that before Narakasura's death, he requested a boon from Satyabhama (incarnation of Bhudevi), that everyone should celebrate his death with colourful lights. Thus, this day is celebrated as 'Naraka Chaturdashi' - the beginning day of Deepavali. Krishna's and Satyabhama's victory on Narakasura is venerated as the occasion of freedom for all his prisoners, and in honour of Aditi.


title: Police state

text: A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive, and the deployment of internal security and police forces play a heightened role in governance. A police state is a characteristic of authoritarian, totalitarian or illiberal regimes (contrary to a liberal democratic regime). Such governments are typically one-party states, but police-state-level control may emerge in multi-party systems as well.


title: Police state

text: Originally, a police state was a state regulated by a civil administration, but since the beginning of the 20th century it has "taken on an emotional and derogatory meaning" by describing an undesirable state of living characterized by the overbearing presence of civil authorities. The inhabitants of a police state may experience restrictions on their mobility, or on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force that operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state. Robert von Mohl, who first introduced the rule of law to German jurisprudence, contrasted the "Rechtsstaat" ("legal" or "constitutional" state) with the anti-aristocratic "Polizeistaat" ("police state").


title: Police state

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary" traces the phrase "police state" back to 1851, when it was used in reference to the use of a national police force to maintain order in the Austrian Empire. The German term "Polizeistaat" came into English usage in the 1930s with reference to totalitarian governments that had begun to emerge in Europe.


title: Police state

text: Because there are different political perspectives as to what an appropriate balance is between individual freedom and national security, there are no objective standards defining a police state. This concept can be viewed as a balance or scale. Along this spectrum, any law that has the effect of removing liberty is seen as moving towards a police state while any law that limits government oversight of the populace is seen as moving towards a free state.


title: Police state

text: An electronic police state is one in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens.


title: Police state

text: Early forms of police states can be found in ancient China. During the rule King Li of Zhou in 9th century BC, there was strict censorship, extensive state surveillance, and frequent executions of those who were perceived to be speaking against the regime. During this reign of terror, ordinary people did not dare to speak to each other on the street, and only made eye contacts with friends as a greeting, hence known as '道路以目'. Subsequently, during the short-lived Qin Dynasty, the police state became far more wide-reaching than its predecessors. In addition to strict censorship and the burning of all political and philosophical books, the state implemented strict control over its population by using collective executions and by disarming the population. Residents were grouped into units of 10 households, with weapons were strictly prohibited, and only one kitchen knife was allowed for 10 households. Spying and snitching was in common place, and failure to report any anti-regime activities was treated the same as if the person participated in it. If one person commited any crime against the regime, all 10 households would be executed.


title: Police state

text: Some have characterised the rule of King Henry VIII during the Tudor period as a police state. The Oprichnina established by Tsar Ivan IV within the Russian Tsardom in 1565 functioned as a predecessor to the modern police state, featuring persecutions and autocratic rule.


title: Police state

text: Nazi Germany emerged from an originally democratic government, yet gradually exerted more and more repressive controls over its people in the lead-up to World War II. In addition to the SS and the Gestapo, the Nazi police state used the judiciary to assert control over the population from the 1930s until the end of the war in 1945.


title: Police state

text: During the period of apartheid, South Africa maintained police-state attributes such as banning people and organizations, arresting political prisoners, maintaining segregated living communities and restricting movement and access.


title: Police state

text: Augusto Pinochet's Chile operated as a police state, exhibiting "repression of public liberties, the elimination of political exchange, limiting freedom of speech, abolishing the right to strike, freezing wages".


title: Police state

text: The Republic of Cuba under President (and later right-wing dictator) Fulgencio Batista was an authoritarian police state until his overthrow during the Cuban Revolution in 1959 with the rise to power of Fidel Castro and foundation of a Marxist-Leninist republic.


title: Police state

text: The region of modern-day North Korea is claimed to have elements of a police state, from the "Juche"-style Silla kingdom, to the imposition of a fascist police state by the Japanese, to the totalitarian police state imposed and maintained by the Kim family. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has ranked North Korea last or second last in their test of press freedom since the Press Freedom Index's introduction, stating that the ruling Kim family control all of the media.


title: Police state

text: In response to government proposals to enact new security measures to curb protests, the government of the Justice and Development Party has been accused of turning Turkey into a police state.


title: Police state

text: Since the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état, the military government of Egypt is said to have taken several steps to crack down on freedom of religion and expression with the intention of decreasing religious extremism, leading to accusations that it has effectively become a "Revolutionary Police State".


title: Police state

text: The dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos from the 1970s to early 1980s in the Philippines has many characteristics of a police state.


title: Police state

text: USSR was described as the largest police state in history, modern-day Russia and Belarus are often described as police states.


title: Police state

text: Hong Kong is perceived to have implemented the tools of a police state after passing the National Security legislation in 2020, following repeated attempts by People's Republic of China to erode the rule of law in the former British colony.


title: Police state

text: Fictional police states have featured in media ranging from novels to films to video games. George Orwell's novel "1984" was described by "The Encyclopedia of Police Science" as "the definitive fictional treatment of a police state, which has also influenced contemporary usage of the term".


title: Police state

text: Orwell's novel describes Britain under the totalitarian Oceanian regime that continuously invokes (and helps to cause) a perpetual war. This perpetual war is used as a pretext for subjecting the people to mass surveillance and invasive police searches. The novel has been described as "the definitive fictional treatment of a police state, which has also influenced contemporary usage of the term".


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The revival of the Hebrew language took place in Europe and Palestine toward the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, through which the language's usage changed from the sacred language of Judaism to a spoken and written language used for daily life in Israel. The process began as Jews from diverse regions started arriving and establishing themselves alongside the pre-existing Jewish community in the region of Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century, when veteran Jews in Palestine (largely Arabic-speaking by that time) and the linguistically diverse newly arrived Jews all switched to use Hebrew as a lingua franca, the historical linguistic common denominator of all the Jewish groups. At the same time, a parallel development in Europe changed Hebrew from primarily a sacred liturgical language into a literary language, which played a key role in the development of nationalist educational programs. Modern Hebrew was one of three official languages of Mandatory Palestine, and after the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, one of two official languages of Israel, along with Modern Arabic. In July 2018, a made Hebrew the sole official language of the state of Israel, giving Arabic a "special status".


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: More than purely a linguistic process, the revival of Hebrew was utilized by Jewish modernization and political movements, led many people to change their names and became a tenet of the ideology associated with settlement and renaming of the land, Zionism and Israeli policy.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The process of Hebrew's return to regular usage is unique; there are no other examples of a natural language without any native speakers subsequently acquiring several million native speakers, and no other examples of a sacred language becoming a national language with millions of "first language" speakers.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The language's revival eventually brought linguistic additions with it. While the initial leaders of the process insisted they were only continuing "from the place where Hebrew's vitality was ended", what was created represented a broader basis of language acceptance; it includes characteristics derived from all periods of Hebrew language, as well as from the non-Hebrew languages used by the long-established European, North African, and Middle Eastern Jewish communities, with Yiddish being predominant.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Historical records testify to the existence of Hebrew from the 10th century BCE to the late Second Temple period (lasting to c. 70 CE), after which the language developed into Mishnaic Hebrew. From about the 6th century BCE until the Middle Ages, many Jews spoke Aramaic, a related Semitic language. From the 2nd century CE until the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language "" 1880, Hebrew served as a literary and official language and as the Judaic language of prayer. After the spoken usage of Mishnaic Hebrew ended in the 2nd century CE, Hebrew had not been spoken as a mother tongue.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Even so, during the Middle Ages, Jews used the language in a wide variety of disciplines. This usage kept alive a substantial portion of the traits characteristic of Hebrew. First and foremost, Classical Hebrew was preserved in full through well-recognized sources, chiefly the Tanakh (especially those portions used liturgically like the Torah, Haftarot, Megilot, and the Book of Psalms) and the Mishnah. Apart from these, Hebrew was known through hymns, prayers, midrashim, and the like.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: During the Middle Ages, Hebrew continued in use as a written language in Rabbinical literature, including in judgments of Halakha, Responsa, Biblical and Talmudic commentaries, and books of meditation. In most cases, certainly in the base of Hebrew's revival, 18th- and 19th-century Europe, the use of Hebrew was not at all natural, but heavy in flowery language and quotations, non-grammatical forms, and mixing-in of other languages, especially Aramaic. Hebrew also functioned as a language of secular high culture, and as a lingua franca between Jews from disparate countries. Jewish scientists and historians such as Abraham Zacuto and David Gans wrote in Hebrew, as did travelers such as Benjamin of Tudela and Chaim Yosef David Azulai.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Hebrew experienced a particular flourishing in medieval Spain, where, under the influence of contemporary Islamic culture, scholars such as Shmuel HaNagid, Judah HaLevi and Abraham Ibn Ezra extensively engaged in secular Hebrew poetry, discussing topics such as love, nature and wine. The works of these Sephardic poets greatly influenced future attempts at Hebrew poetry, including the modern revival. Outside of Spain, the Jews of Yemen were especially known until contemporary times for their tradition of poetry, exemplified by revered 17th century rabbi and poet Shalom Shabazi. Other secular poets of the post-Spain era include Immanuel the Roman and Israel ben Moses Najara.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Otherwise, creative work in Hebrew was mostly limited to liturgical poems known as piyyut, designed to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. This form originated in late antique Eretz Yisrael with poets such as Jose ben Jose, Eleazar ben Kalir and Yanai and spread worldwide over subsequent centuries. The work of these early poets, often quite obscure, has been preserved mostly in the Italian, Romaniote (old Greek) and Ashkenazi rites, however the general concept of religious poems to be sung during prayer is now common in all rites.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Hebrew was used not only in written form but also as an articulated language, in synagogues and in batei midrash. Thus, Hebrew phonology and the pronunciation of vowels and consonants were preserved. Despite this, regional influences of other languages caused many changes, leading to the development of different forms of pronunciation:


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Within each of these groups, there also existed different subsets of pronunciation. For example, differences existed between the Hebrew used by Polish Jewry and that of Lithuanian Jewry and of German Jewry.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: In the fifty years preceding the start of the revival process, a version of spoken Hebrew already existed in the markets of Jerusalem. The Sephardic Jews who spoke Ladino or Arabic and the Ashkenazi Jews who spoke Yiddish needed a common language for commercial purposes. The most obvious choice was Hebrew. Although Hebrew was spoken in this case, it was not a native mother tongue, but more of a pidgin.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The linguistic situation against which background the revival process occurred was one of diglossia, when two languages—one of prestige and class and another of the masses—exist within one culture. In Europe, this phenomenon has waned, starting with English in the 16th century, but there were still differences between spoken street language and written language. Among the Jews of Europe, the situation resembled that of the general population, but with:


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: In the Arab Middle East, Ladino and Colloquial Arabic were the spoken languages most prevalent in Jewish communities (with Ladino more prevalent in the Mediterranean and Arabic, Aramaic, Kurdish, and Persian more widely spoken by Jews in the East), while Classical Arabic was used for secular writing, and Hebrew used for religious purposes (though some Jewish scholars from the Arab world, such as Maimonedes (1135–1204), wrote primarily in Arabic or in Judeo-Arabic languages).


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The revival of the Hebrew language in practice advanced in two parallel strains: The revival of written-literary Hebrew and the revival of spoken Hebrew. In the first few decades, the two processes were not connected to one another and even occurred in different places: Literary Hebrew was renewed in Europe's cities, whereas spoken Hebrew developed mainly in Palestine. The two movements began to merge only in the beginning of the 1900s, and an important point in this process was the immigration of Haim Nahman Bialik to Palestine in 1924. But after the transfer of literary Hebrew to Palestine, a substantial difference between spoken and written Hebrew remained, and this difference persists today. The characteristics of spoken Hebrew only began to seep into literature in the 1940s, and only in the 1990s did spoken Hebrew start widely appearing in novels.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: A preceding process to the revival of literary Hebrew took place during the Haskalah, the Jewish movement paralleling the secular Enlightenment. Members of this movement, called "maskilim" (משכילים), who sought to distance themselves from Rabbinic Judaism, decided that Hebrew, specifically Biblical Hebrew, was deserving of fine literature. They considered Mishnaic Hebrew and other varieties of Hebrew to be defective and unfit for writing. Particularly influential on the movement was early 18th century Italian rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. Writing poetry and drama in a pure, Biblical style of Hebrew, he was greatly admired by the maskillim who deemed him the founder of modern Hebrew literature.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The Haskalah-era literature written in Hebrew based itself upon two central principles: Purism and flowery language. Purism was a principle that dictated that all words used should be of biblical origin (even if the meaning was not biblical). The principle of flowery language was based on bringing full verses and expressions as they were from the Tanakh, and the more flowery a verse was, the more quality it was said to possess. Another linguistic trait thought to increase a text's prestige was the use of hapax legomena, words appearing only once in the text.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: But while it was easy to write stories taking place in the biblical period and dealing with biblical topics, Haskalah-era writers began to find it more and more difficult to write about contemporary topics. This was due mostly to the lack of a broad and modern vocabulary, meaning translating books about science and mathematics or European literature was difficult. Although an earlier, little known attempt at scientific writing was made when Israel Wolf Sperling translated Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in 1877 and 1878, this barrier was breached with more lasting effect in the 1880s by a writer named Mendele Mocher Sfarim.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Another difficulty faced by Haskalah Hebrew writers was that the audience was exclusively male with profound study background, which meant that women and the less educated men were pushed against reading Hebrew by reading Yiddish literature, which led a number of writers to write in Yiddish to find audiences.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Ya'akov Abramovitch (1846–1917), is often known by the name of his main character, "Mendele Mocher Sfarim" (מוכר ספרים), meaning "bookseller." He began writing in Hebrew as a Haskalah writer and wrote according to all the conventions of Haskalah-era literature. At a certain point, he decided to write in Yiddish and caused a linguistic revolution, which was expressed in the widespread usage of Yiddish in Hebrew literature. After a long break he returned in 1886 to writing in Hebrew, but decided to ignore the rules of biblical Hebrew, and proponents of that style, like Abraham Mapu, and added into the vocabulary a host of words from the Rabbinic Age and the Middle Ages. His new fluid and varied style of Hebrew writing reflected the Yiddish spoken around him, while still retaining all the historical strata of Hebrew.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Mendele's language was considered a synthetic one, as it consisted of different echelons of Hebrew development and was not a direct continuation of a particular echelon. However, today, his language is often considered a continuation of Rabbinic Hebrew, especially grammatically. He was considered as the representative figure who provided great literatures to whichever language he was associated with.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Devorah Baron (also spelled Dvora Baron and Deborah Baron) (1887–1956), was a Hebrew writer who fascinated her readers with her unique use of the language in Eastern Europe, which was dominated by Yiddish speakers. Her early writings mostly involve the feminine Yiddish traditions, and she worked on more feminist topics in her later writings. The topics were mostly divided into two sorts: (1) the marginalization of female in the religious and family life; (2) the tension between men and women, and between generation to generation.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: See also Robert Alter, and his book "The Invention of Hebrew Prose", who has done significant work on modern Hebrew literature and the context that enabled the language to revive itself via creative writing. The book has a large section on Abramovitch. Yael S. Feldman also gives a short overview of Mendele and his milieu in her book "Modernism and Cultural Transfer". She notes the influence of Yiddish on his Hebrew, and traces this language interaction to Gabriel Preil, the last Haskalah poet of America. Eventually, writers like Yosef Haim Brenner would break from Mendele's style, and utilize more experimental techniques.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: In his book "Great Hebrew Educators" (גדולי חינון בעמנו, Rubin Mass Publishers, Jerusalem, 1964), Zevi Scharfstein described the work of Maharal of Prague, Naphtali Hirz Wessely (Weisel), R. Hayyim of Volozhin, R. Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, R. Israel Salanter, R. Israel Meir Ha-Kohen (the Hafes Hayyim), Aaron Kahnstam, Shalom Jonah Tscharno, Simha Hayyim Vilkomitz, Yishaq Epstein, David Yellin, Samson Benderly, Nisson Touroff, Sarah Schenirer, Yehiel Halperin, H. A. Friedland, and Janusz Korczak as significant contributors to the movement.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Mendele's style was excitedly adopted by contemporary writers and spread quickly. It was also expanded into additional fields: Ahad Ha'am wrote an article in 1889 using the style entitled "This is not the Way," and Haim Nahman Bialik expanded it into poetry with his poem "To the Bird" of the same year. Additionally, great efforts were taken to write scientific books in Hebrew, for which the vocabulary of scientific and technical terms was greatly increased. At the same time, Europe saw the rise of Hebrew language newspapers and magazines, while even sessions and discussions of Zionist groups were conducted and transcribed in Hebrew. In addition, poets and writers such as David Frischmann and Shaul Tchernichovsky began avidly translating European works into Hebrew, from the Finnish epic the Kalevala to works by Molière, Goethe, Shakespeare, Homer, Byron, Lermontov, and Aeschylus. At the same time, writers like Micah Yosef Berdichevsky and Uri Nissan Gnessin began to write complex works of short fiction and novels in Hebrew, using the language to express psychological realism and interiority for the first time. As Hebrew poets and writers began arriving in Palestine armed with the new literary language, they exerted a certain amount of influence on the development of spoken Hebrew as well.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Jewish communities with different colloquial languages had used Hebrew to communicate with each other across Europe and the Near East since the Middle Ages. The use of Hebrew enabled Jews to flourish in international trade throughout Europe and Asia during the Middle Ages. In Jewish communities that existed throughout Europe, Arab lands, Persia, and India, Jewish merchants knew enough Hebrew to communicate, and thus had a much easier time trading with each other than non-Jews had trading internationally due to the language barrier. As Jews in Palestine spoke a variety of languages such as Arabic, Ladino, Yiddish, and French, inter-communal affairs that required verbal communication were handled in a modified form of Medieval Hebrew. Hebrew was used by Jews from different linguistic backgrounds in marketplaces in Jerusalem since at least the early 19th century.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858–1922) (), is often regarded as the "reviver of the Hebrew language" ("מחיה השפה העברית"): he was the first to raise the concept of reviving Hebrew, to publish articles in newspapers on the topic, and he initiated the project known as the . However, what finally brought about the revitalization of Hebrew were developments in the settlements of the First Aliyah and the Second Aliyah. The first Hebrew schools were established in these settlements, Hebrew increasingly became a spoken language of daily affairs, and finally became a systematic and national language. Yet Ben-Yehuda's fame and notoriety stems from his initiation and symbolic leadership of the Hebrew revival.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Ben-Yehuda's main innovation in the revival of the Hebrew language lies in his having invented many new words to denote objects unknown in Jewish antiquity, or that had long been forgotten in their original Hebrew usage and context. He invented words such as "ḥatzil" () for an eggplant (aubergine) [adapted from Arabic "ḥayṣal" (حَيْصَل)] and "ḥashmal" () [adapted from Akkadian "elmešu"] for electricity. As no Hebrew equivalent could be found for the names of certain produce native to the New World, he devised new Hebrew words for maize and tomato, calling them "tiras" () and "ʿagvaniyyah" (), respectively. The former word derives from the name of a son of Japheth (Ṯīrās) listed in Genesis 10 who was sometimes identified with the Turkish people, who have been traditionally considered as the main source of distribution of maize in Europe. The latter word was calqued from the German "Liebesapfel" (literally “love apple”), from the triconsonantal Hebrew root ע־ג־ב meaning lust. The new name, suggested by , was rejected by Ben-Yehudah, who thought it too vulgar, suggesting instead that it be called "badūrah". At length, the name "ʿagvaniyyah" supplanted the other name. Sometimes, old Hebrew words took on different meanings altogether. For example, the Hebrew word "kǝvīš" (), which now denotes a "street" or a "road," is actually an Aramaic adjective meaning "trodden down; blazed", rather than a common noun. It was originally used to describe "a "blazed" trail." In what most rabbis view as an error, Ben-Yehuda is accredited with introducing the new Hebrew word "ribah" () for "confiture; marmalade", believing it to be derived from the lexical root "reḇaḇ", and related to the Arabic word "murabba" (jam; fruit conserves; marmalade). He also invented the word "tapuz" () for the citrus fruit orange, which is a combination of "tapuaḥ" (apple) + "zahav" (golden), or "golden apple."


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The word "tirosh" (), mentioned 38 times in the Hebrew Bible, is now widely used in Modern Hebrew to signify "grape-juice," although in its original usage, it is merely a synonym for vintage wine.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The revival of spoken Hebrew can be separated into three stages, which are concurrent with (1) the First Aliyah, (2) the Second Aliyah, and (3) the British Mandate period. In the first period, the activity centered on Hebrew schools in the Settlements and in the Pure Language Society; in the second period, Hebrew was used in assembly meetings and public activities; and in the third period, it became the language used by the Yishuv, the Jewish population during the Mandate Period, for general purposes. At this stage, Hebrew possessed both spoken and written forms, and its importance was reflected in the official status of Hebrew during the British Mandate. All of the stages were characterized by the establishment of many organizations that took an active and ideological part in Hebrew activities. This resulted in the establishment of Hebrew high schools (גימנסיות), the Hebrew University, the Jewish Legion, the Histadrut labor organization, and in Tel Aviv—the first Hebrew city.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Throughout all periods, Hebrew signified for both its proponents and detractors the antithesis of Yiddish. Against the exilic Yiddish language stood revived Hebrew, the language of Zionism, of grassroots pioneers, and above all, of the transformation of the Jews into a Hebrew nation with its own land. Yiddish was degradingly referred to as a jargon, and its speakers encountered harsh opposition, which finally led to a Language War between Yiddish and Hebrew.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Nonetheless, some linguists, such as Ghil'ad Zuckermann believe that "Yiddish is a primary contributor to Israeli Hebrew because it was the mother tongue of the vast majority of language revivalists and first pioneers in Eretz Yisrael at the crucial period of the beginning of Israeli Hebrew". According to Zuckermann, although the revivalists wished to speak Hebrew with Semitic grammar and pronunciation, they could not avoid the Ashkenazi mindset arising from their European background. He argues that their attempt to deny their European roots, negate diasporism and avoid hybridity (as reflected in Yiddish) failed. "Had the language revivalists been Arabic-speaking Jews (e.g. from Morocco), Israeli Hebrew would have been a totally different language—both genetically and typologically, much more Semitic. The impact of the founder population on Israeli Hebrew is incomparable with that of later immigrants."


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: With the rise of Jewish nationalism in 19th-century Europe, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was captivated by the innovative ideas of Zionism. At that time, it was believed that one of the criteria needed to define a nation worthy of national rights was its use of a common language spoken by both the society and the individual. On 13 October 1881, while in Paris, Ben-Yehuda began speaking Hebrew with friends in what is believed to be the first modern conversation using the language. Later that year, he made aliyah and came to live in Jerusalem.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: In Jerusalem, Ben-Yehuda tried to garner support for the idea of speaking Hebrew. He determined that his family would only speak Hebrew, and raised his children to be native Hebrew speakers. His first child, a son named Itamar Ben-Avi, who was born in Jerusalem on 31 July 1882, became the first native speaker of Modern Hebrew. Ben-Yehuda attempted to convince other families to do so as well, founded associations for speaking Hebrew, began publishing the Hebrew newspaper "HaZvi", and for a short while taught at Hebrew schools, for the first time making use of the method of "Hebrew in Hebrew." In 1889, there were plays in Hebrew and schools teaching children to speak Hebrew. Ben-Yehuda's efforts to persuade Jewish families to use only Hebrew in daily life at home met very limited success. According to Ben-Yehuda, ten years after his immigration to Palestine, there were only four families in Jerusalem that used Hebrew exclusively. According to the "Hashkafa" newspaper, there were ten such families in 1900.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: On the other hand, during the Ottoman era, widespread activity began in the "moshavot", or agricultural settlements, of the First Aliyah, which was concentrated in the Hebrew schools. A Hebrew boarding school was established by Aryeh Leib Frumkin in 1884, where religious studies were conducted in Hebrew and students spoke Hebrew with their teachers and among themselves. In 1886, the Haviv elementary school was established in the Jewish settlement of Rishon LeZion, where the classes were taught exclusively in Hebrew. It was the first Hebrew school of modern times. From the 1880s onward, schools in the agricultural settlements gradually began teaching general subjects in Hebrew. In 1889, Israel Belkind opened a school in Jaffa that taught Hebrew and used it as the primary language of instruction. It survived for three years. The Literature Council, which was based on the Clear Language Society was founded in 1890 to experiment in the municipal and rural schools. It showed the possibility to make Hebrew the only language in the settlement. At this point, progress was slow, and it encountered many difficulties: parents were opposed to their children learning in an impractical language, useless in higher education; the four-year schools for farmers' children were not of a high caliber; and a great lack of linguistic means for teaching Hebrew plus the lack of words to describe day-to-day activities, not to mention the absence of Hebrew schoolbooks. Added to these, there was no agreement on which accent to use, as some teachers taught Ashkenazi Hebrew while others taught Sephardi Hebrew.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: In 1889, Ben-Yehuda, together with rabbis Yaakov Meir and Chaim Hirschensohn and educator Chaim Kalmi, founded the Clear Language Society, with the goal of teaching Hebrew. The company taught Hebrew and encouraged Hebrew education in schools, heders, and yeshivas. Initially, it hired Hebrew-speaking women to teach Jewish women and girls spoken and written Hebrew. In 1890, the company established the Hebrew Language Committee, which coined new Hebrew words for everyday use and for a wide variety of modern uses and encouraged the use of grammatically correct Hebrew. Although the organization collapsed in 1891, the Hebrew Language Committee continued to function. It published books, dictionaries, bulletins, and periodicals, inventing thousands of new words. The Hebrew Language Committee continued to function until 1953, when it was succeeded by the Academy of the Hebrew Language.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: A Hebrew boys' school opened in Jaffa in 1893, followed by a Hebrew girls' school. Although some subjects were taught in French, Hebrew was the primary language of instruction. Over the next decade, the girls' school became a major center of Hebrew education and activism. In 1898, the first Hebrew kindergarten opened in Rishon LeZion. It was followed by a second one in Jerusalem in 1903.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: In 1903, the Union of Hebrew Teachers was founded, and sixty educators participated in its inaugural assembly. Though not extremely impressive from a quantitative viewpoint, the Hebrew school program did create a nucleus of a few hundred fluent Hebrew speakers and proved that Hebrew could be used in the day-to-day context.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: As the Second Aliyah began, Hebrew usage began to break out of the family and school framework into the public venue. Motivated by an ideology of rejecting the Diaspora and its Yiddish culture, the members of the Second Aliyah established relatively closed-off social cells of young people with a common world view. In these social cells—mostly in the moshavot—Hebrew was used in all public assemblages. Though not spoken in all homes and private settings yet, Hebrew had secured its place as the exclusive language of assemblies, conferences, and discussions. Educated Second Aliyah members already were familiar with the literary Hebrew that had developed in Europe, and they identified with the notion that Hebrew could serve as an impetus for the national existence for the Jewish people in Israel. This group was joined by the aforementioned graduates of Hebrew schools, who had already begun to raise native-born speakers of Hebrew in their families. During this period, the World Zionist Congress also adopted Hebrew as its official language.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Hebrew education continued to expand, as more and more Hebrew educational institutions came about. The number of Hebrew kindergartens continued to grow. In 1905, Yehuda Leib and Fania Matman-Cohen, a couple of educators, began teaching the first high school classes in Hebrew in their apartment in Jaffa. Hebrew teachers recreated the Hebrew Language Committee, which began to determine uniform linguistic rules, as opposed to the disjointed ones that had arisen previously. The Council declared as its mission "to prepare the Hebrew language for use as a spoken language in all affairs of life," formulated rules of pronunciation and grammar, and offered new words for use in schools and by the general public. The widespread production of Hebrew schoolbooks also began, and Mother Goose-style rhymes were written for children. During the first decade of 20th century, Epstein's and Wilkomitz's Hebrew education, which restricted the children from speaking Yiddish not only in school but also at home and on the street, made progress toward wider use of Hebrew. The first native speakers of Hebrew, who had mainly learned it in the Hebrew schools of the First Aliyah period and came to speak it as their primary language, reached adulthood during this time. Aside from rare exceptions who had been born prior such as Itamar Ben-Avi, the first generation of children who acquired Modern Hebrew as native speakers at home from their parents rather than mainly learning it at school were born during this decade, to parents who had attended the Hebrew schools of the First Aliyah period. In addition, many of the Jewish immigrants during this period had reasonable Hebrew reading proficiency acquired from their education prior to arriving in the country. Most still learned it as a second language. Due to the growth of the number of native speakers and proficiency among second-language speakers, the Hebrew press was able to grow. During this period, it greatly increased in popularity and circulation. In 1912, it was observed that there was hardly a young Jew in the country who could not read a Hebrew newspaper.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: In 1909, the first Hebrew city, Tel Aviv, was established. In its streets and in cafes, Hebrew was already widely spoken. The entire administration of the city was carried out in Hebrew, and new "olim" or those not yet speaking Hebrew were forced to speak in Hebrew. Street signs and public announcements were written in Hebrew. A new building for the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, a continuation of the first Hebrew high school established by the Matman-Cohens, was built in the city that same year.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The pinnacle of Hebrew's development during this period came in 1913, in the so-called "War of the Languages:" The Company for Aiding German Jews, then planning the establishment of a school for engineers (first known as the Technikum and for which construction had begun in 1912), insisted that German should be its language of instruction, arguing among other things that German possessed an extensive scientific and technical vocabulary while a parallel vocabulary drawn from Hebrew would need to be created from scratch, often using calques or translations of terms anyway. Substantial unanimity of opinion in the Yishuv ran against this proposal, which was defeated, leading to the founding of Israel's foremost institute of technology, the Technion, with a curriculum taught in Hebrew. This incident is seen as a watershed marking the transformation of Hebrew into the official language of the Yishuv.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Also in 1913, the Language Committee voted to establish the official pronunciation of Hebrew - a pronunciation loosely based on the Hebrew pronunciation of Sephardic communities because it sounded more "authentic" to their ears than the Ashkenazic pronunciation of European Jewish communities.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: As a greater number of children passed through Hebrew language schools, the number of people who spoke Hebrew as their first language grew. As the number of people whose primary language was Hebrew increased, so did the demand for Hebrew reading materials and entertainment such as books, newspapers, and plays. During World War I, about 34,000 Jews in Palestine recorded Hebrew as their native language.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: After World War I, when Palestine came under British rule, first under the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration and then under the Mandate for Palestine, Hebrew continued to develop as the main language of the Yishuv, or Jewish population of Palestine. It was legislated under the Mandate that English, Hebrew, and Arabic would be the official spoken languages of Palestine. In 1919, a centralized Jewish school system in which the language of instruction was Hebrew was established. As the Yishuv grew, the immigrants arriving from the diaspora did not speak Hebrew as a mother tongue, and learned it as a second language either prior to their immigration or in Palestine, while their children picked up Hebrew as their native language. At this time, the use of Hebrew as the "lingua franca" of the Yishuv was already a" fait accompli", and the revival process was no longer a process of creation, but a process of expansion. In Tel Aviv, the Legion of the Defenders of the Language was established, which worked to enforce Hebrew use. Jews who were overheard speaking other languages on the street were admonished: "Jew, speak Hebrew" (Yehudi, daber ivrit/יהודי, דבר עברית), or, more alliteratively, "Hebrew [man], speak Hebrew" (Ivri, daber ivrit/עברי, דבר עברית) was a campaign initiated by Ben-Yehuda's son, Itamar Ben-Avi.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: The Academy of Hebrew Language focused on the structure and the spelling of Hebrew and prompted the issues about the further expansion of the use of Hebrew in Mandatory Palestine. The Academy worked with the Language College to publish the Ben-Sira in a scientific form.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: By the time Israel gained independence in 1948, 80.9% of Jews who had been born in Palestine spoke Hebrew as their only language in daily life, and another 14.2% of Palestine-born Jews used it as a first among two or more languages. The small minority of Jews who had been born in Palestine but did not use Hebrew as a first language had mainly grown up before the development of the Hebrew school system.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: Following Israeli independence, large waves of Jewish refugees came from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and other parts of the world. The Israeli population increased significantly, doubling within a short period of time. These immigrants spoke a variety of languages and had to be taught Hebrew. While immigrant children were expected to learn Hebrew through school, much effort was put into ensuring adults would learn the language. The institution of the ulpan, or intensive Hebrew-language school, was established to teach immigrants basic Hebrew language skills, and an ulpan course became a major feature of the experience of immigrating to Israel. Young adult immigrants picked up much of their Hebrew through mandatory military service in the Israel Defense Forces, which aimed to teach soldiers Hebrew so they could function in the military and post-military civilian life. During the 1950s, Hebrew was taught in most military bases by recruited teachers and female soldiers. A 1952 order demanded that soldiers be taught Hebrew until they could converse freely on everyday matters, write a letter to their commander, understand a basic lecture, and read a vowelized newspaper. Soldiers also absorbed Hebrew through their regular service. Soldiers who were about to finish their service without a grasp of Hebrew deemed sufficient were sent to a special Hebrew school founded by the army for the last three months of their service. Immigrants from Arab countries tended to pick up Hebrew faster than European immigrants, due to Arabic being a Semitic language like Hebrew.


title: Revival of the Hebrew language

text: In daily life, immigrants largely limited their use of Hebrew to when they needed to, most often in their working lives, and to a somewhat lesser extent to satisfy cultural needs. They tended to use their native languages more when socializing and interacting with family. In 1954, about 60% of the population reported the use of more than one language. The children of these immigrants tended to pick up Hebrew as their first language, while their parents' native languages were either used as second languages or lost to them altogether. The Israeli Arab minority also began learning Hebrew, as Hebrew lessons were introduced into Arab schools. In 1948, the study of Hebrew was made compulsory in Arab schools from the third grade to high school, though the general language of instruction remained Arabic. This created a situation in which the Arab minority would continue to use Arabic as its native language but also become proficient in Hebrew.


title: Lancelet

text: The lancelets ( or ), also known as amphioxi (singular: amphioxus ), consist of some 30 to 35 species of "fish-like" benthic filter feeding chordates in the order Amphioxiformes. They are the modern representatives of the subphylum Cephalochordata. Lancelets closely resemble 530-million-year-old "Pikaia", fossils of which are known from the Burgess Shale. Zoologists are interested in them because they provide evolutionary insight into the origins of vertebrates. Lancelets contain many organs and organ systems that are closely related to those of modern fish, but in more primitive form. Therefore, they provide a number of examples of possible evolutionary exaptation. For example, the gill-slits of lancelets are used for feeding only, and not for respiration. The circulatory system carries food throughout their body, but does not have red blood cells or hemoglobin for transporting oxygen. Lancelet genomes hold clues about the early evolution of vertebrates: by comparing genes from lancelets with the same genes in vertebrates, changes in gene expression, function and number as vertebrates evolved can be discovered. The genome of a few species in the genus "Branchiostoma" have been sequenced: "B. floridae," "B. belcheri", and "B. lanceolatum".


title: Lancelet

text: In Asia, lancelets are harvested commercially as food for humans and domesticated animals. In Japan, amphioxus ("B. belcheri") has been listed in the registry of “Endangered Animals of Japanese Marine and Fresh Water Organisms”.


title: Lancelet

text: Amphioxi are distributed in shallow subtidal sand flats in temperate (as far north as Norway), subtropical and tropical seas around the world. The only exception is "Asymmetron inferum", a species known from the vicinity of whale falls at a depth of about . Although they are able to swim, adult amphioxi are mostly benthic. They live in sandy bottoms whose granulometry depends on the species and the site, and they are usually found half-buried in sand. When disturbed, they quickly leave their burrow, swim a short distance, and then rapidly burrow again, posterior end first, into the sand. Adults ("B. floridae") can tolerate salinities as low as 6‰ and temperatures from .


title: Lancelet

text: Their habitat preference reflects their feeding method: they only expose the front end to the water and filter-feed on plankton by means of a branchial ciliary current that passes water through a mucous sheet. "Branchiostoma floridae" is capable of trapping particles from microbial to small phytoplankton size, while "B. lanceolatum" preferentially traps bigger particles (>4 µm).


title: Lancelet

text: Lancelets are gonochoric animals, i.e. having two sexes, and they reproduce via external fertilization. They only reproduce during their spawning season, which varies slightly between species — usually corresponding to spring and summer months. All lancelets species spawn shortly after sunset, either synchronously (e.g. "Branchiostoma floridae", about once every two weeks during spawning season) or asynchronously ("Branchiostoma lanceolatum", gradual spawning through the season).


title: Lancelet

text: Nicholas and Linda Holland were the first researchers to describe a method of obtaining amphioxus embryos by induction of spawning in captivity and in vitro fertilization. Spawning can be artificially induced in the lab by electric or thermal shock.


title: Lancelet

text: The first representative organism of the group to be described was "Branchiostoma lanceolatum". It was described by Peter Simon Pallas in 1774 as molluscan slugs in the genus "Limax". It was not until 1834 that Gabriel Costa brought the phylogenetic position of the group closer to the agnathan vertebrates (hagfish and lampreys), including it in the new genus "Branchiostoma" (from the Greek, branchio = "gills", stoma = "mouth"). In 1836, Yarrel renamed the genus as "Amphioxus" (from the Greek: "pointed on both sides"), now considered an obsolete synonym of the genus "Branchiostoma". Today, the term "amphioxus" is still used as a common name for the Amphioxiformes, along with "lancelet," especially in the English language. The order Amphioxiformes was apparently named in 1886 in the "Jahresbericht und Abhandlungen des Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins in Magdeburg".


title: Lancelet

text: Observations of amphioxus anatomy began in the middle of the 19th century. First, the adult then the embryonic anatomy were described.


title: Lancelet

text: Alexander Kowalevsky first described the key anatomical features of the adult amphioxus (hollow dorsal nerve tube, endostyle, segmented body, postanal tail). De Quatrefages first completely described the nervous system of amphioxus. Other important contributions to amphioxus adult anatomy were given by Heinrich Rathke and John Goodsir.


title: Lancelet

text: Kowalevsky also released the first complete description of amphioxus embryos, while Schultze and Leuckart were the first to describe the larvae. Other important contributions to amphioxus embryonic anatomy were given by Hatschek, Conklin and later by Tung (experimental embryology).


title: Lancelet

text: Depending on the exact species involved, the maximum length of lancelets is typically . "Branchiostoma belcheri" and "B. lanceolatum" are among the largest. Except for the size, the species are very similar in general appearance, differing mainly in the number of myotomes and the pigmentation of their larvae. They have a translucent, somewhat fish-like body, but without any paired fins or other limbs. A relatively poorly developed tail fin is present, so they are not especially good swimmers. While they do possess some cartilage material stiffening the gill slits, mouth, and tail, they have no true skeleton.


title: Lancelet

text: In common with vertebrates, lancelets have a hollow nerve cord running along the back, pharyngeal slits and a tail that runs past the anus. Also like vertebrates, the muscles are arranged in blocks called myomeres.


title: Lancelet

text: Unlike vertebrates, the dorsal nerve cord is not protected by bone but by a simpler notochord made up of a cylinder of cells that are closely packed to form a toughened rod. The lancelet notochord, unlike the vertebrate spine, extends into the head. This gives the subphylum its name (, "kephalē" means 'head'). The fine structure of the notochord and the cellular basis of its adult growth are best known for the Bahamas lancelet, "Asymmetron lucayanum"


title: Lancelet

text: The nerve cord is only slightly larger in the head region than in the rest of the body, so that lancelets do not appear to possess a true brain. However, developmental gene expression and transmission electron microscopy indicate the presence of a diencephalic forebrain, a possible midbrain, and a hindbrain. Recent studies involving a comparison with vertebrates indicate that the vertebrate thalamus, pretectum, and midbrain areas jointly correspond to a single, combined region in the amphioxus, which has been termed "di-mesencephalic primordium" (DiMes).


title: Lancelet

text: Lancelets have four known kinds of light-sensing structures: Joseph cells, Hesse organs, an unpaired anterior eye and lamellar body, all of which utilize opsins as light receptors. All of these organs and structures are located in the neural tube, with the frontal eye at the front, followed by the lamellar body, the Joseph cells, and the Hesse organs.


title: Lancelet

text: Joseph cells are bare photoreceptors surrounded by a band of microvilli. These cells bear the opsin melanopsin. The Hesse organs (also known as dorsal ocelli) consist of a photoreceptor cell surrounded by a band of microvilli and bearing melanopsin, but half enveloped by a cup-shaped pigment cell. The peak sensitivity of both cells is ~470 nm (blue).


title: Lancelet

text: Both the Joseph cells and Hesse organs are in the neural tube, the Joseph cells forming a dorsal column, the Hesse organs in the ventral part along the length of the tube. The Joseph cells extend from the caudal end of the anterior vesicle (or cerebral vesicle) to the boundary between myomeres 3 and 4, where the Hesse organs begin and continue nearly to the tail.


title: Lancelet

text: The frontal eye consists of a pigment cup, a group of putative photoreceptor cells (termed "Row 1"), three rows of neurons ("Rows 2–4"), and glial cells. The frontal eye, which expresses the PAX6 gene, has been proposed as the homolog of vertebrate paired eyes, the pigment cup as the homolog of the RPE (retinal pigment epithelium), the putative photoreceptors as homologs of vertebrate rods and cones, and Row 2 neurons as homologs of the retinal ganglion cells.


title: Lancelet

text: The putative photoreceptor cells, Row 1, are arranged in two diagonal rows, one on either side of the pigment cup, symmetrically positioned with respect to the ventral midline. The cells are flask-shaped, with long, slender ciliary processes (one cilium per cell). The main bodies of the cells lie outside of the pigment cup, while the cilia extend into the pigment cup before turning and exiting. The cells bear the opsin "c-opsin 1", except for a few which carry "c-opsin 3".


title: Lancelet

text: The Row 2 cells are serotonergic neurons in direct contact with Row 1 cells. Row 3 and 4 cells are also neurons. Cells of all four rows have axons that project into the left and right ventrolateral nerves. For Row 2 neurons, axon projections have been traced to the tegmental neuropil. The tegmental neuropil has been compared with locomotor control regions of the vertebrate hypothalamus, where paracrine release modulates locomotor patterns such as feeding and swimming.


title: Lancelet

text: Lancelets naturally express green fluorescent proteins (GFP) inside their oral tentacles and near the eye spot. Depending on the species, it can also be expressed in the tail and gonads, though this is only reported in the Asymmetron genus. Multiple fluorescent protein genes have been recorded in lancelet species throughout the world. "Branchiostoma floridae" alone has 16 GFP-encoding genes. However, the GFP produced by lancelets is more similar to GFP produced by copepods than jellyfish ("Aequorea victoria").


title: Lancelet

text: It is suspected GFP plays multiple roles with lancelets such as attracting plankton towards their mouth. Considering the lancelets are filter feeders, the natural current would draw nearby plankton into the digestive tract. GFP is also expressed in larvae, signifying it may be used for photoprotection by converting higher energy blue light to less harmful green light.


title: Lancelet

text: The fluorescent proteins from lancelets have been adapted for use in molecular biology and microscopy. The yellow fluorescent protein from "Branchiostoma lanceolatum" exhibits unusually high quantum yield (~0.95). It has been engineered into a monomeric green fluorescent protein known as mNeonGreen, which is the brightest known monomeric green or yellow fluorescent protein.