title: Andes

text: The Andes range has many active volcanoes distributed in four volcanic zones separated by areas of inactivity. The Andean volcanism is a result of subduction of the Nazca Plate and Antarctic Plate underneath the South American Plate. The belt is subdivided into four main volcanic zones that are separated from each other by volcanic gaps. The volcanoes of the belt are diverse in terms of activity style, products and morphology. While some differences can be explained by which volcanic zone a volcano belongs to, there are significant differences inside volcanic zones and even between neighbouring volcanoes. Despite being a type location for calc-alkalic and subduction volcanism, the Andean Volcanic Belt has a large range of volcano-tectonic settings, such as rift systems and extensional zones, transpressional faults, subduction of mid-ocean ridges and seamount chains apart from a large range of crustal thicknesses and magma ascent paths, and different amount of crustal assimilations.


title: Andes

text: The Andes Mountains host large ore and salt deposits and some of their eastern fold and thrust belt acts as traps for commercially exploitable amounts of hydrocarbons. In the forelands of the Atacama Desert some of the largest porphyry copper mineralizations occur making Chile and Peru the first- and second-largest exporters of copper in the world. Porphyry copper in the western slopes of the Andes has been generated by hydrothermal fluids (mostly water) during the cooling of plutons or volcanic systems. The porphyry mineralization further benefited from the dry climate that let them largely out of the disturbing actions of meteoric water. The dry climate in the central western Andes has also led to the creation of extensive saltpeter deposits which were extensively mined until the invention of synthetic nitrates. Yet another result of the dry climate are the salars of Atacama and Uyuni, the first one being the largest source of lithium today and the second the world's largest reserve of the element. Early Mesozoic and Neogene plutonism in Bolivia's Cordillera Central created the Bolivian tin belt as well as the famous, now depleted, deposits of Cerro Rico de Potosí.


title: Andes

text: The Andes Mountains, initially inhabited by hunter-gatherers, experienced the development of agriculture and rise of politically centralised civilizations, which culminated in the establishment of the century-long Inca Empire. This all changed in the 16th century, when the Spanish conquistadors colonized the mountains in the advance of the mining economy.


title: Andes

text: In tide of anti-imperialist nationalism, the Andes became the scene of a series of independence wars in the 19th century when rebel forces swept through the region to overthrow Spanish colonial rule. Since then, many former Spanish territories have become five independent Andean states.


title: Andes

text: The climate in the Andes varies greatly depending on latitude, altitude, and proximity to the sea. Temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity decrease in higher elevations. The southern section is rainy and cool, the central section is dry. The northern Andes are typically rainy and warm, with an average temperature of in Colombia. The climate is known to change drastically in rather short distances. Rainforests exist just kilometres away from the snow-covered peak Cotopaxi. The mountains have a large effect on the temperatures of nearby areas. The snow line depends on the location. It is at between in the tropical Ecuadorian, Colombian, Venezuelan, and northern Peruvian Andes, rising to in the drier mountains of southern Peru south to northern Chile south to about 30°S before descending to on Aconcagua at 32°S, at 40°S, at 50°S, and only in Tierra del Fuego at 55°S; from 50°S, several of the larger glaciers descend to sea level.


title: Andes

text: The Andes of Chile and Argentina can be divided into two climatic and glaciological zones: the Dry Andes and the Wet Andes. Since the Dry Andes extend from the latitudes of Atacama Desert to the area of Maule River, precipitation is more sporadic and there are strong temperature oscillations. The line of equilibrium may shift drastically over short periods of time, leaving a whole glacier in the ablation area or in the accumulation area.


title: Andes

text: In the high Andes of Central Chile and Mendoza Province, rock glaciers are larger and more common than glaciers; this is due to the high exposure to solar radiation. In these regions glaciers occur typically at higher altitudes than rock glaciers. The lowest active rock glacier occur at 900 m a.s.l. in Aconcagua.


title: Andes

text: Though precipitation increases with the height, there are semiarid conditions in the nearly highest mountains of the Andes. This dry steppe climate is considered to be typical of the subtropical position at 32–34° S. The valley bottoms have no woods, just dwarf scrub. The largest glaciers, for example the Plomo glacier and the Horcones glaciers, do not even reach in length and have an only insignificant ice thickness. At glacial times, however, c. 20,000 years ago, the glaciers were over ten times longer. On the east side of this section of the Mendozina Andes, they flowed down to and on the west side to about above sea level. The massifs of Cerro Aconcagua (), Cerro Tupungato () and Nevado Juncal () are tens of kilometres away from each other and were connected by a joint ice stream network. The Andes' dendritic glacier arms, i.e. components of valley glaciers, were up to long, over thick and overspanned a vertical distance of . The climatic glacier snowline (ELA) was lowered from to at glacial times.


title: Andes

text: The Andean region cuts across several natural and floristic regions, due to its extension, from Caribbean Venezuela to cold, windy and wet Cape Horn passing through the hyperarid Atacama Desert. Rainforests and tropical dry forests used to encircle much of the northern Andes but are now greatly diminished, especially in the Chocó and inter-Andean valleys of Colombia. Opposite of the humid Andean slopes are the relatively dry Andean slopes in most of western Peru, Chile and Argentina. Along with several Interandean Valles, they are typically dominated by deciduous woodland, shrub and xeric vegetation, reaching the extreme in the slopes near the virtually lifeless Atacama Desert.


title: Andes

text: About 30,000 species of vascular plants live in the Andes, with roughly half being endemic to the region, surpassing the diversity of any other hotspot. The small tree "Cinchona pubescens", a source of quinine which is used to treat malaria, is found widely in the Andes as far south as Bolivia. Other important crops that originated from the Andes are tobacco and potatoes. The high-altitude "Polylepis" forests and woodlands are found in the Andean areas of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. These trees, by locals referred to as Queñua, Yagual and other names, can be found at altitudes of above sea level. It remains unclear if the patchy distribution of these forests and woodlands is natural, or the result of clearing which began during the Incan period. Regardless, in modern times the clearance has accelerated, and the trees are now considered to be highly endangered, with some believing that as little as 10% of the original woodland remains.


title: Andes

text: The Andes are rich in fauna: With almost 1,000 species, of which roughly 2/3 are endemic to the region, the Andes are the most important region in the world for amphibians.


title: Andes

text: The diversity of animals in the Andes is high, with almost 600 species of mammals (13% endemic), more than 1,700 species of birds (about 1/3 endemic), more than 600 species of reptile (about 45% endemic), and almost 400 species of fish (about 1/3 endemic).


title: Andes

text: The vicuña and guanaco can be found living in the Altiplano, while the closely related domesticated llama and alpaca are widely kept by locals as pack animals and for their meat and wool. The crepuscular (active during dawn and dusk) chinchillas, two threatened members of the rodent order, inhabit the Andes' alpine regions. The Andean condor, the largest bird of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, occurs throughout much of the Andes but generally in very low densities. Other animals found in the relatively open habitats of the high Andes include the huemul, cougar, foxes in the genus "Pseudalopex", and, for birds, certain species of tinamous (notably members of the genus "Nothoprocta"), Andean goose, giant coot, flamingos (mainly associated with hypersaline lakes), lesser rhea, Andean flicker, diademed sandpiper-plover, miners, sierra-finches and diuca-finches.


title: Andes

text: Lake Titicaca hosts several endemics, among them the highly endangered Titicaca flightless grebe and Titicaca water frog. A few species of hummingbirds, notably some hillstars, can be seen at altitudes above , but far higher diversities can be found at lower altitudes, especially in the humid Andean forests ("cloud forests") growing on slopes in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and far northwestern Argentina. These forest-types, which includes the Yungas and parts of the Chocó, are very rich in flora and fauna, although few large mammals exist, exceptions being the threatened mountain tapir, spectacled bear and yellow-tailed woolly monkey.


title: Andes

text: Birds of humid Andean forests include mountain-toucans, quetzals and the Andean cock-of-the-rock, while mixed species flocks dominated by tanagers and furnariids commonly are seen – in contrast to several vocal but typically cryptic species of wrens, tapaculos and antpittas.


title: Andes

text: A number of species such as the royal cinclodes and white-browed tit-spinetail are associated with "Polylepis", and consequently also threatened.


title: Andes

text: The Andes Mountains form a north–south axis of cultural influences. A long series of cultural development culminated in the expansion of the Inca civilization and Inca Empire in the central Andes during the 15th century. The Incas formed this civilization through imperialistic militarism as well as careful and meticulous governmental management. The government sponsored the construction of aqueducts and roads in addition to preexisting installations. Some of these constructions are still in existence today.


title: Andes

text: Devastated by European diseases and by civil war, the Incas were defeated in 1532 by an alliance composed of tens of thousands of allies from nations they had subjugated (e.g. Huancas, Chachapoyas, Cañaris) and a small army of 180 Spaniards led by Francisco Pizarro. One of the few Inca sites the Spanish never found in their conquest was Machu Picchu, which lay hidden on a peak on the eastern edge of the Andes where they descend to the Amazon. The main surviving languages of the Andean peoples are those of the Quechua and Aymara language families. Woodbine Parish and Joseph Barclay Pentland surveyed a large part of the Bolivian Andes from 1826 to 1827.


title: Andes

text: In modern times, the largest cities in the Andes are Bogotá, with a population of about eight million, Santiago, Medellín, Cali, and Quito. Lima is a coastal city adjacent to the Andes and is the largest city of all Andean countries. It is the seat of the Andean Community of Nations.


title: Andes

text: La Paz, Bolivia's seat of government, is the highest capital city in the world, at an elevation of approximately . Parts of the La Paz conurbation, including the city of El Alto, extend up to .


title: Andes

text: Other cities in or near the Andes include Bariloche, Catamarca, Jujuy, Mendoza, Salta, San Juan, and Tucumán in Argentina; Calama and Rancagua in Chile; Cochabamba, Oruro, Potosí, Sucre, Sacaba, Tarija, and Yacuiba in Bolivia; Arequipa, Cajamarca, Cusco, Huancayo, Huánuco, Huaraz, Juliaca, and Puno in Peru; Ambato, Cuenca, Ibarra, Latacunga, Loja, Riobamba and Tulcán in Ecuador; Armenia, Cúcuta, Bucaramanga, Duitama, Ibagué, Ipiales, Manizales, Palmira, Pasto, Pereira, Popayán, Sogamoso, Tunja, and Villavicencio in Colombia; and Barquisimeto, La Grita, Mérida, San Cristóbal, Tovar, Trujillo, and Valera in Venezuela. The cities of Caracas, Valencia, and Maracay are in the Venezuelan Coastal Range, which is a debatable extension of the Andes at the northern extremity of South America.


title: Andes

text: Cities and large towns are connected with asphalt-paved roads, while smaller towns are often connected by dirt roads, which may require a four-wheel-drive vehicle.


title: Andes

text: The rough terrain has historically put the costs of building highways and railroads that cross the Andes out of reach of most neighboring countries, even with modern civil engineering practices. For example, the main crossover of the Andes between Argentina and Chile is still accomplished through the Paso Internacional Los Libertadores. Only recently the ends of some highways that came rather close to one another from the east and the west have been connected. Much of the transportation of passengers is done via aircraft.


title: Andes

text: However, there is one railroad that connects Chile with Peru via the Andes, and there are others that make the same connection via southern Bolivia. See railroad maps of that region.


title: Andes

text: There are multiple highways in Bolivia that cross the Andes. Some of these were built during a period of war between Bolivia and Paraguay, in order to transport Bolivian troops and their supplies to the war front in the lowlands of southeastern Bolivia and western Paraguay.


title: Andes

text: For decades, Chile claimed ownership of land on the eastern side of the Andes. However, these claims were given up in about 1870 during the War of the Pacific between Chile and the allied Bolivia and Peru, in a diplomatic deal to keep Peru out of the war. The Chilean Army and Chilean Navy defeated the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru, and Chile took over Bolivia's only province on the Pacific Coast, some land from Peru that was returned to Peru decades later. Bolivia has been a completely landlocked country ever since. It mostly uses seaports in eastern Argentina and Uruguay for international trade because its diplomatic relations with Chile have been suspended since 1978.


title: Andes

text: Because of the tortuous terrain in places, villages and towns in the mountains—to which travel via motorized vehicles is of little use—are still located in the high Andes of Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. Locally, the relatives of the camel, the llama, and the alpaca continue to carry out important uses as pack animals, but this use has generally diminished in modern times. Donkeys, mules, and horses are also useful.


title: Andes

text: The ancient peoples of the Andes such as the Incas have practiced irrigation techniques for over 6,000 years. Because of the mountain slopes, terracing has been a common practice. Terracing, however, was only extensively employed after Incan imperial expansions to fuel their expanding realm. The potato holds a very important role as an internally consumed staple crop. Maize was also an important crop for these people, and was used for the production of chicha, important to Andean native people. Currently, tobacco, cotton and coffee are the main export crops. Coca, despite eradication programmes in some countries, remains an important crop for legal local use in a mildly stimulating herbal tea, and, both controversially and illegally, for the production of cocaine.


title: Andes

text: In unirrigated land, pasture is the most common type of land use. In the rainy season (summer), part of the rangeland is used for cropping (mainly potatoes, barley, broad beans and wheat).


title: Andes

text: Irrigation is helpful in advancing the sowing data of the summer crops which guarantees an early yield in the period of food shortage. Also, by early sowing, maize can be cultivated higher up in the mountains (up to ). In addition, it makes cropping in the dry season (winter) possible and allows the cultivation of frost-resistant vegetable crops like onion and carrot.


title: Andes

text: The Andes rose to fame for their mineral wealth during the Spanish conquest of South America. Although Andean Amerindian peoples crafted ceremonial jewelry of gold and other metals, the mineralizations of the Andes were first mined on a large scale after the Spanish arrival. Potosí in present-day Bolivia and Cerro de Pasco in Peru were among the principal mines of the Spanish Empire in the New World. Río de la Plata and Argentina derive their names from the silver of Potosí.


title: Andes

text: Currently, mining in the Andes of Chile and Peru places these countries as the first and second major producers of copper in the world. Peru also contains the 4th largest goldmine in the world: the Yanacocha. The Bolivian Andes produce principally tin although historically silver mining had a huge impact on the economy of 17th century Europe.


title: Andes

text: There is a long history of mining in the Andes, from the Spanish silver mines in Potosí in the 16th century to the vast current porphyry copper deposits of Chuquicamata and Escondida in Chile and Toquepala in Peru. Other metals including iron, gold, and tin in addition to non-metallic resources are important.


title: Andes

text: This list contains some of the major peaks in the Andes mountain range. The highest peak is Aconcagua of Argentina (see below).


title: Old Norse

text: Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age, the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 7th to the 15th centuries.


title: Old Norse

text: The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid-to-late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century.


title: Old Norse

text: Old Norse was divided into three dialects: "Old West Norse" or "Old West Nordic" (often referred to as "Old Norse"), "Old East Norse" or "Old East Nordic", and "Old Gutnish". Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. Most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present-day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches.


title: Old Norse

text: The 12th-century Icelandic "Gray Goose Laws" state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, and Danes spoke the same language, ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said ""). Another term was ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility while Icelandic remains the closest to Old Norse.


title: Old Norse

text: Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian, and together they formed Old West Norse, which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland, the Faroes, Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, northwest England, and in Normandy. Old East Norse was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus', eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East.


title: Old Norse

text: In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus', it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest.


title: Old Norse

text: The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland; the descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has been heavily influenced by East Norse, particularly during the Denmark–Norway union.


title: Old Norse

text: Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years. In contrast, the pronunciations of both Icelandic and Faroese have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of the Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots, which contain many Old Norse loanwords. It also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French.


title: Old Norse

text: Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in the other North Germanic languages.


title: Old Norse

text: Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic (Scottish and/or Irish). Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having a similar development influenced by Middle Low German.


title: Old Norse

text: Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian. Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words "Rus" and "Russia", according to one theory, may be named after the Rus' people, a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are and , respectively.


title: Old Norse

text: A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish, many associated with fishing and sailing. A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic, with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing.


title: Old Norse

text: The vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks the long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination.


title: Old Norse

text: Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places. These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If the nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. These nasalizations also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter. This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around the 11th century in most of Old East Norse. However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects. The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes.


title: Old Norse

text: Sometime around the 13th century, (spelled ) merged with or in most dialects except Old Danish, and Icelandic where () merged with . This can be determined by their distinction within the 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda. The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of (spelled ) with (spelled ) and (spelled ) with (spelled ).


title: Old Norse

text: Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: , , (spelled , , respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with and , whereas in West Norse and its descendants the diphthongs remained.


title: Old Norse

text: Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, being rare word-initially and and pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. ), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. > between vowels). The phoneme was pronounced as after an or another and as before and . Some accounts have it a voiced velar fricative in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised ). The Old East Norse was an apical consonant, with its precise position is unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant. It descended from Proto-Germanic and eventually developed into , as had already occurred in Old West Norse.


title: Old Norse

text: The consonant digraphs , , and occurred word-initially. It is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as or perhaps ) or as single voiceless sonorants , and respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups , , and were reduced to plain , , , which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times.


title: Old Norse

text: The pronunciation of is unclear, but it may have been (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), or the similar phoneme . Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive , which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication.


title: Old Norse

text: Primary stress in Old Norse falls on the word stem, so that would be pronounced . In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. , ).


title: Old Norse

text: Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark, runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark, which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later.


title: Old Norse

text: As for the Latin alphabet, there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds , , and . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use "þ" exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes. Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below.


title: Old Norse

text: Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or "ablauted," in the nucleus of a word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of "sing" becomes "sang" in the past tense and "sung" in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs.


title: Old Norse

text: Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding a vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness. In the case of "i-umlaut" and "ʀ-umlaut", this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of "u-umlaut", this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created the umlaut allophones.


title: Old Norse

text: Some , , , , , , , and all were obtained by i-umlaut from , , , , , , , and respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from , , , , and .


title: Old Norse

text: Some , , , , and all , were obtained by u-umlaut from , , , , and , respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on .


title: Old Norse

text: OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN ' with OWN ' (later '), ' ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks").


title: Old Norse

text: U-umlaut is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse.


title: Old Norse

text: This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word , and respectively, in contrast to the Swedish plural and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns, such as Old West Norse ("mörk" in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish .


title: Old Norse

text: Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused a front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable. While West Norse only broke , East Norse also broke . The change was blocked by a , , or preceding the potentially-broken vowel.


title: Old Norse

text: When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has a long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single "l", "n", or "s", the "r" (or the elder "r"- or "z"-variant "ʀ") in an ending is assimilated. When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped.


title: Old Norse

text: The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). () becomes instead of ().


title: Old Norse

text: The verb ('to blow'), has third person present tense ' ('[he] blows') rather than (). Similarly, the verb ('to shine') had present tense third person ' (rather than , ); while ('to cool down') had present tense third person (rather than , ).


title: Old Norse

text: The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as ('friend'), which has the synonym , yet retains the unabsorbed version, and ('giant'), where assimilation takes place even though the root vowel, , is short.


title: Old Norse

text: The clusters cannot yield respectively, instead . The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been , . These forms are impossible because the cluster cannot be realized as , nor as , nor as . The same shortening as in also occurs in ' = ('salmon') (as opposed to , ), ' ('bottom') (as opposed to , ), and (as opposed to , ).


title: Old Norse

text: Furthermore, wherever the cluster is expected to exist, such as in the male names , (supposedly , ), the result is apparently always rather than or . This is observable in the Runic corpus.


title: Old Norse

text: In Old Norse, adjacent to , , their u-umlauts, and was not possible, nor adjacent to , , their i-umlauts, and . At the beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or . Compare ON , , with English "word, wolf, year". In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, + remains , and in Icelandic progressed to > > . The and of Proto-Germanic became and respectively in Old Norse, a change known as Holtzmann's law.


title: Old Norse

text: An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen, as in , (older "aptr"); North of Bergen, appeared in , ; and East Norwegian used , , .


title: Old Norse

text: Old Norse was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures.


title: Old Norse

text: Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to a noun must mirror the gender of that noun, so that one says, "" but, "". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed , "man" is masculine, , "woman", is feminine, and , "house", is neuter, so also are and , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to a female raven or a male crow.


title: Old Norse

text: All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals.


title: Old Norse

text: The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as and . Some words, such as , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within a given sentence.


title: Old Norse

text: Nouns, adjectives and pronouns were declined in four grammatical casesnominative, accusative, genitive and dativein singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., , the well of Urðr; , the gibing of Loki).


title: Old Norse

text: There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms:


title: Old Norse

text: The numerous "weak" noun paradigms had a much higher degree of syncretism between the different cases; i.e. they had fewer forms than the "strong" nouns.


title: Old Norse

text: A definite article was realised as a suffix that retained an independent declension; e.g., ("a troll") – ("the troll"), ("a hall") – ("the hall"), ("an arm") – ("the arm"). This definite article, however, was a separate word and did not become attached to the noun before later stages of the Old Norse period.


title: Old Norse

text: The earliest inscriptions in Old Norse are runic, from the 8th century. Runes continued to be commonly used until the 15th century and have been recorded to be in use in some form as late as the 19th century in some parts of Sweden. With the conversion to Christianity in the 11th century came the Latin alphabet. The oldest preserved texts in Old Norse in the Latin alphabet date from the middle of the 12th century. Subsequently, Old Norse became the vehicle of a large and varied body of vernacular literature. Most of the surviving literature was written in Iceland. Best known are the Norse sagas, the Icelanders' sagas and the mythological literature, but there also survives a large body of religious literature, translations into Old Norse of courtly romances, classical mythology, and the Old Testament, as well as instructional material, grammatical treatises and a large body of letters and official documents.


title: Old Norse

text: Most of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area. As a result, the dialects were very similar and considered to be the same language, a language that they sometimes called the Danish tongue (), sometimes Norse language (), as evidenced in the following two quotes from by Snorri Sturluson:


title: Old Norse

text: However, some changes were geographically limited and so created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse.


title: Old Norse

text: As Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse, in the 8th century, the effects of the umlauts seem to have been very much the same over the whole Old Norse area. But in later dialects of the language a split occurred mainly between west and east as the use of umlauts began to vary. The typical umlauts (for example from ) were better preserved in the West due to later generalizations in the east where many instances of umlaut were removed (many archaic Eastern texts as well as eastern runic inscriptions however portray the same extent of umlauts as in later Western Old Norse).


title: Old Norse

text: All the while, the changes resulting in breaking (for example from ) were more influential in the East probably once again due to generalizations within the inflectional system. This difference was one of the greatest reasons behind the dialectalization that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries, shaping an Old West Norse dialect in Norway and the Atlantic settlements and an Old East Norse dialect in Denmark and Sweden.


title: Old Norse

text: Old West Norse and Old Gutnish did not take part in the monophthongization which changed () into , () and into , nor did certain peripheral dialects of Swedish, as seen in modern Ostrobothnian dialects. Another difference was that Old West Norse lost certain combinations of consonants. The combinations , , and were assimilated into , and in Old West Norse, but this phenomenon was limited in Old East Norse.


title: Old Norse

text: Here is a comparison between the two dialects as well as Old Gutnish. It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones in Sweden (U 990) from the eleventh century (translation: 'Veðr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursi, their father. God help his spirit'):


title: Old Norse

text: The OEN original text above is transliterated according to traditional scholarly methods, wherein u-umlaut is not regarded in runic Old East Norse. Modern studies have shown that the positions where it applies are the same as for runic Old West Norse. An alternative and probably more accurate transliteration would therefore render the text in OEN as such:


title: Old Norse

text: Some past participles and other words underwent i-umlaut in Old West Norse but not in Old East Norse dialects. Examples of that are Icelandic and , which in Swedish are slagit/slagen and tagit/tagen. This can also be seen in the Icelandic and Norwegian words sterkur and sterk ("strong"), which in Swedish is stark as in Old Swedish. These differences can also be seen in comparison between Norwegian and Swedish.


title: Old Norse

text: Old West Norse is by far the best attested variety of Old Norse. The term Old Norse is often used to refer to Old West Norse specifically, in which case the subject of this article receives another name, such as "Old Scandinavian". Another designation is Old West Nordic.


title: Old Norse

text: The combinations , , and mostly merged to , and in Old West Norse around the 7th century, marking the first distinction between the Eastern and Western dialects. The following table illustrates this:


title: Old Norse

text: An early difference between Old West Norse and the other dialects was that Old West Norse had the forms , "dwelling", , "cow" (accusative) and , "faith", whereas Old East Norse , and . Old West Norse was also characterized by the preservation of "u"-umlaut, which meant that, for example, Proto-Norse , "tooth", became and not as in post-runic Old East Norse; OWN and runic OEN , while post-runic OEN "goose".


title: Old Norse

text: The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed c. 900 by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (although the poems are not preserved in contemporary sources, but only in much later manuscripts). The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150–1200 and concern legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Western Norway were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions. In the body of text that has survived into the modern day from until c. 1300, Old West Norse had little dialect variation, and Old Icelandic does not diverge much more than the Old Norwegian dialects do from each other.


title: Old Norse

text: Old Norwegian differentiated early from Old Icelandic by the loss of the consonant "h" in initial position before "l", "n" and "r"; thus whereas Old Icelandic manuscripts might use the form , "fist", Old Norwegian manuscripts might use .


title: Old Norse

text: From the late 13th century, Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian started to diverge more. After c. 1350, the Black Death and following social upheavals seem to have accelerated language changes in Norway. From the late 14th century, the language used in Norway is generally referred to as Middle Norwegian.


title: Old Norse

text: Old West Norse underwent a lengthening of initial vowels at some point, especially in Norwegian, so that OWN became , ONW > , OIC > .


title: Old Norse

text: In Iceland, initial before was lost: compare Icelandic "rangur" with Danish , OEN . The change is shared with Old Gutnish.


title: Old Norse

text: A specifically Icelandic sound, the long, "u"-umlauted A, spelled and pronounced , developed around the early 11th century. It was short-lived, being marked in the Grammatical Treatises and remaining until the end of the 12th century. It then merged back into ; as a result, long A is not affected by "u"-umlaut in Modern Icelandic.


title: Old Norse

text: Around the 13th century, (, which had probably already lowered to ) merged to (). Thus, pre-13th-century (with ) 'green' became spelled as in modern Icelandic (with ). The 12th-century Gray Goose Laws manuscripts distinguish the vowels, and so the Codex Regius copy does as well. However, the 13th-century Codex Regius copy of the Poetic Edda probably relied on newer and/or poorer quality sources. Demonstrating either difficulty with or total lack of natural distinction, the manuscripts show separation of the two phonemes in some places, but they frequently confuse the letters chosen to distinguish them in others.


title: Old Norse

text: Around the 11th century, Old Norwegian , , and became , and . It is debatable whether the sequences represented a consonant cluster () or devoicing ().


title: Old Norse

text: Orthographic evidence suggests that in a confined dialect of Old Norwegian, may have been unrounded before and that "u"-umlaut was reversed unless the "u" had been eliminated: , > , .


title: Old Norse

text: This dialect of Old West Norse was spoken by Icelandic colonies in Greenland. When the colonies died out around the 15th century, the dialect went with it. The phoneme and some instances of merged to and so Old Icelandic became .


title: Old Norse

text: The following text is from , an Alexander romance. The manuscript, AM 519 a 4to, is dated c. 1280. The facsimile demonstrates the sigla used by scribes to write Old Norse. Many of them were borrowed from Latin. Without familiarity with these abbreviations, the facsimile will be unreadable to many. In addition, reading the manuscript itself requires familiarity with the letterforms of the native script. The abbreviations are expanded in a version with normalized spelling like that of the standard normalization system. Compared to the spelling of the same text in Modern Icelandic, pronunciation has changed greatly, but spelling has changed little since Icelandic orthography was intentionally modelled after Old Norse in the 19th century.


title: Old Norse

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki> a printed in uncial. Uncials not encoded separately in Unicode as of this section's writing.


title: Old Norse

text: Old East Norse or Old East Nordic between 800 and 1100 is called "Runic Swedish" in Sweden and "Runic Danish" in Denmark, but for geographical rather than linguistic reasons. Any differences between the two were minute at best during the more ancient stages of this dialect group. Changes had a tendency to occur earlier in the Danish region. Even today many Old Danish changes have still not taken place in modern Swedish. Swedish is therefore the more conservative of the two in both the ancient and the modern languages, sometimes by a profound margin. The language is called "runic" because the body of text appears in runes.


title: Old Norse

text: Runic Old East Norse is characteristically conservative in form, especially Swedish (which is still true for modern Swedish compared to Danish). In essence it matches or surpasses the conservatism of post-runic Old West Norse, which in turn is generally more conservative than post-runic Old East Norse. While typically "Eastern" in structure, many later post-runic changes and trademarks of OEN had yet to happen.


title: Old Norse

text: The phoneme "ʀ", which evolved during the Proto-Norse period from "z", was still clearly separated from "r" in most positions, even when being geminated, while in OWN it had already merged with "r".


title: Old Norse

text: The Proto-Germanic phoneme was preserved in initial sounds in Old East Norse (w-), unlike in West Norse where it developed into . It survived in rural Swedish dialects in the provinces of Westro- and North Bothnia, Skåne, Blekinge, Småland, Halland, Västergötland and south of Bohuslän into the 18th, 19th and 20th century. It is still preserved in the Dalecarlian dialects in the province of Dalarna, Sweden, and in Jutlandic dialects in Denmark. The -phoneme did also occur after consonants (kw-, tw-, sw- etc.) in Old East Norse and did so into modern times in said Swedish dialects and in a number of others. Generally, the initial w-sound developed into [v] in dialects earlier than after consonants where it survived much longer.


title: Old Norse

text: In summation, the -sound survived in the East Nordic tongues almost a millennium longer than in the West Norse counterparts, and does still subsist at the present.


title: Old Norse

text: Monophthongization of > and > started in mid-10th-century Denmark. Compare runic OEN: , , , , ; with Post-runic OEN: , , , , ; OWN: "feigr", "geirr", "haugr", , ; from PN , , , + 'maidendom; virginity', '(wild) animal'.


title: Old Norse

text: Feminine o-stems often preserve the plural ending , while in OWN they more often merge with the feminine i-stems: (runic OEN) , , , versus OWN , and (modern Swedish , , ("suns, havens, scales"); Danish has mainly lost the distinction between the two stems, with both endings now being rendered as or alternatively for the o-stems).


title: Old Norse

text: Vice versa, masculine i-stems with the root ending in either or tended to shift the plural ending to that of the ja-stems while OEN kept the original: , and versus OWN "drengir", ("elks") and "bekkir" (modern Danish "drenge", "elge", "bænke", modern Swedish "drängar", , ).


title: Old Norse

text: The plural ending of ja-stems were mostly preserved while those of OWN often acquired that of the i-stems: , , versus OWN ("beds"), "bekkir", "vefir" (modern Swedish , , ).


title: Old Norse

text: Until the early 12th century, Old East Norse was very much a uniform dialect. It was in Denmark that the first innovations appeared that would differentiate Old Danish from Old Swedish () as these innovations spread north unevenly (unlike the earlier changes that spread more evenly over the East Norse area), creating a series of isoglosses going from Zealand to Svealand.


title: Old Norse

text: In Old Danish, merged with during the 9th century. From the 11th to 14th centuries, the unstressed vowels -"a", -"o" and -"e" (standard normalization -"a", -"u" and -"i") started to merge into -"ə", represented with the letter . This vowel came to be epenthetic, particularly before "-ʀ" endings. At the same time, the voiceless stop consonants "p", "t" and "k" became voiced plosives and even fricative consonants. Resulting from these innovations, Danish has (cake), (tongues) and (guests) whereas (Standard) Swedish has retained older forms, , and (OEN , , ).


title: Old Norse

text: Moreover, the Danish pitch accent shared with Norwegian and Swedish changed into "stød" around this time.


title: Old Norse

text: At the end of the 10th and early 11th century initial "h-" before "l", "n" and "r" was still preserved in the middle and northern parts of Sweden, and is sporadically still preserved in some northern dialects as "g-", e.g. (lukewarm), from . The Dalecarlian dialects developed independently from Old Swedish and as such can be considered separate languages from Swedish.


title: Old Norse

text: This is an extract from , the Westrogothic law. It is the oldest text written as a manuscript found in Sweden and from the 13th century. It is contemporaneous with most of the Icelandic literature. The text marks the beginning of Old Swedish as a distinct dialect.


title: Old Norse

text: Due to Gotland's early isolation from the mainland, many features of Old Norse did not spread from or to the island, and Old Gutnish developed as an entirely separate branch from Old East and West Norse. For example, the diphthong in , and was not subject to anticipatory assimilation to as in e.g. Old Icelandic , and . Gutnish also shows dropping of in initial , which it shares with the Old West Norse dialects (except Old East Norwegian), but which is otherwise abnormal. Breaking was also particularly active in Old Gutnish, leading to e.g. versus mainland .


title: Old Norse

text: The is the longest text surviving from Old Gutnish. It was written in the 13th century and dealt with the early history of the Gotlanders. This part relates to the agreement that the Gotlanders had with the Swedish king sometime before the 9th century:


title: Old Norse

text: Old English and Old Norse were related languages. It is therefore not surprising that many words in Old Norse look familiar to English speakers; e.g., (arm), (foot), (land), (full), (to hang), (to stand). This is because both English and Old Norse stem from a Proto-Germanic mother language. In addition, numerous common, everyday Old Norse words were adopted into the Old English language during the Viking Age. A few examples of Old Norse loanwords in modern English are (English/Viking Age Old East Norse), in some cases even displacing their Old English cognates:


title: Old Norse

text: In a simple sentence like "They are both weak," the extent of the Old Norse loanwords becomes quite clear (Old East Norse with archaic pronunciation: while Old English ). The words "they" and "weak" are both borrowed from Old Norse, and the word "both" might also be a borrowing, though this is disputed (cf. German ). While the number of loanwords adopted from the Norse was not as numerous as that of Norman French or Latin, their depth and everyday nature make them a substantial and very important part of everyday English speech as they are part of the very core of the modern English vocabulary.


title: Old Norse

text: Tracing the origins of words like "bull" and "Thursday" is more difficult. "Bull" may derive from either Old English or Old Norse , while "Thursday" may be a borrowing or simply derive from the Old English , which could have been influenced by the Old Norse cognate. The word "are" is from Old English /, which stems back to Proto-Germanic as well as the Old Norse cognates.


title: The Outlaws (2021 TV series)

text: The Outlaws is a crime thriller comedy television series created by Elgin James and Stephen Merchant, and directed by Merchant and John Butler. It is shown on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and Amazon Prime Video in some international territories. Filming of series 1 was halted in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2021 it was confirmed that a second series had been ordered, with series 1 production resuming in February 2021. It was later confirmed that both series had been filmed back to back.


title: The Outlaws (2021 TV series)

text: The story follows seven strangers from different walks of life who are forced together to complete a Community Payback sentence, set in Bristol. However, their luck changes – not necessarily for the better – when they discover a bag full of money, unaware that its true owners are very dangerous.


title: The Outlaws (2021 TV series)

text: After some delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, filming on location in Bristol began in February 2021, as well as at The Bottle Yard Studios in Whitchurch. The series is a co-production between BBC One and Amazon Studios. The series was commissioned by BBC Comedy and BBC One, produced by Big Talk with Stephen Merchant's Four Eyes. The series is created by Stephen Merchant and Elgin James. Executive producers are Stephen Merchant for Four Eyes; and Luke Alkin, Kenton Allen, and Matthew Justice for Big Talk. Kate Daughton is the Commissioning Editor for the BBC.


title: The Outlaws (2021 TV series)

text: Directors are Stephen Merchant and John Butler. Producer is Nickie Sault. Originally announced with the working title "The Offenders", the series was renamed during production, with the current title confirmed in September 2021.


title: The Outlaws (2021 TV series)

text: The series premiered on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK on 25 October 2021; it was later released on Amazon Prime Video in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Nordic countries.


title: John Travolta filmography

text: The following is the filmography of American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, singer, dancer, musician and pilot John Travolta. Travolta first became well known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series "Welcome Back, Kotter" (1975–1979) and starring in the box office successes "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease". His acting career declined throughout the 1980s, but enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s with his role in "Pulp Fiction", and he has since starred in films such as "Face/Off", "Swordfish", "Wild Hogs", and "Hairspray".


title: Zebra

text: Zebras (, ) (subgenus Hippotigris) are African equines with distinctive black-and-white striped coats. There are three living species: the Grévy's zebra ("Equus grevyi"), plains zebra ("E. quagga"), and the mountain zebra ("E. zebra"). Zebras share the genus "Equus" with horses and asses, the three groups being the only living members of the family Equidae. Zebra stripes come in different patterns, unique to each individual. Several theories have been proposed for the function of these stripes, with most evidence supporting them as a deterrent for biting flies. Zebras inhabit eastern and southern Africa and can be found in a variety of habitats such as savannahs, grasslands, woodlands, shrublands, and mountainous areas.


title: Zebra

text: Zebras are primarily grazers and can subsist on lower-quality vegetation. They are preyed on mainly by lions, and typically flee when threatened but also bite and kick. Zebra species differ in social behaviour, with plains and mountain zebra living in stable harems consisting of an adult male or stallion, several adult females or mares, and their young or foals; while Grévy's zebra live alone or in loosely associated herds. In harem-holding species, adult females mate only with their harem stallion, while male Grévy's zebras establish territories which attract females and the species is promiscuous. Zebras communicate with various vocalisations, body postures and facial expressions. Social grooming strengthens social bonds in plains and mountain zebras.


title: Zebra

text: Zebras' dazzling stripes make them among the most recognisable mammals. They have been featured in art and stories in Africa and beyond. Historically, they have been highly sought after by exotic animal collectors, but unlike horses and donkeys, zebras have never been truly domesticated. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the Grévy's zebra as endangered, the mountain zebra as vulnerable and the plains zebra as near-threatened. The quagga, a type of plains zebra, was driven to extinction in the 19th century. Nevertheless, zebras can be found in numerous protected areas.


title: Zebra

text: The English name "zebra" derives from Italian, Spanish or Portuguese. Its origins may lie in the Latin "equiferus", meaning "wild horse". "Equiferus" appears to have entered into Portuguese as "ezebro" or "zebro", which was originally used for a legendary equine in the wilds of the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. In 1591, Italian explorer Filippo Pigafetta recorded "zebra" being used to refer to the African animals by Portuguese visitors to the continent. In ancient times, the African zebra was called "hippotigris" ("horse tiger") by the Greeks and Romans.


title: Zebra

text: The word "zebra" was traditionally pronounced with a long initial vowel, but over the course of the 20th century the pronunciation with the short initial vowel became the norm in the UK and the Commonwealth. The pronunciation with a long initial vowel remains standard in US English.


title: Zebra

text: Zebras are classified in the genus "Equus" (known as equines) along with horses and asses. These three groups are the only living members of the family Equidae. The plains zebra and mountain zebra were traditionally placed in the subgenus "Hippotigris" (C. H. Smith, 1841) in contrast to the Grévy's zebra which was considered the sole species of subgenus "Dolichohippus" (Heller, 1912). Groves and Bell (2004) placed all three species in the subgenus "Hippotigris". A 2013 phylogenetic study found that the plains zebra is more closely related to Grévy's zebras than mountain zebras. The extinct quagga was originally classified as a distinct species. Later genetic studies have placed it as the same species as the plains zebra, either a subspecies or just the southernmost population. Molecular evidence supports zebras as a monophyletic lineage.


title: Zebra

text: "Equus" originated in North America and direct paleogenomic sequencing of a 700,000-year-old middle Pleistocene horse metapodial bone from Canada implies a date of 4.07 million years ago (mya) for the most recent common ancestor of the equines within the range of 4.0 to 4.5 mya. Horses split from asses and zebras around this time and equines colonised Eurasia and Africa around 2.1–3.4 mya. Zebras and asses diverged from each other close to 2 mya. The mountain zebra diverged from the other species around 1.6 mya and the plains and Grévy's zebra split 1.4 mya.


title: Zebra

text: The cladogram of "Equus" below is based on Vilstrup and colleagues (2013) and Jónsson and colleagues (2014):


title: Zebra

text: In addition to the three living species, some fossil zebras and relatives have also been identified. "Equus koobiforensis" is an early equine basal to zebras found in the Shungura Formation, Ethiopia and the Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and dated to around 2.3 mya. "E. oldowayensis" is identified from remains in Olduvai Gorge dating to 1.8 mya. Fossil skulls of "E. mauritanicus" from Algeria which date to around 1 mya appears to show affinities with the plains zebra. "E. capensis", known as the Cape zebra, appeared around 2 mya and lived throughout southern and eastern Africa.


title: Zebra

text: Non-African equines that may have been basal to zebras include "E. sansaniensis" of Eurasia (circa 2.5 mya) and "E. namadicus" (circa 2.5 mya) and "E. sivalensis" (circa 2.0 mya) of the Indian subcontinent. A 2017 mitochondrial DNA study placed the Eurasian "E. ovodovi" and the subgenus "Sussemionus" lineage as closer to zebras than to asses.


title: Zebra

text: Fertile hybrids have been reported in the wild between plains and Grévy's zebra. Hybridisation has also been recorded between the plains and mountain zebra, though it is possible that these are infertile due to the difference in chromosome numbers between the two species. Captive zebras have been bred with horses and donkeys; these are known as zebroids. A zorse is a cross between a zebra and a horse; a zonkey between a zebra and a donkey and a zoni between a zebra and a pony. Zebroids are often born sterile with dwarfism.


title: Zebra

text: As with all wild equines, zebra have barrel-chested bodies with tufted tails, elongated faces and long necks with long, erect manes. Their thin legs are each supported by a spade-shaped toe covered in a hard hoof. Their dentition is adapted for grazing; they have large incisors that clip grass blades and rough molars and premolars well suited for grinding. Males have spade-shaped canines, which can be used as weapons in fighting. The eyes of zebras are at the sides and far up the head, which allows them to look over the tall grass while feeding. Their moderately long, erect ears are movable and can locate the source of a sound.


title: Zebra

text: Unlike horses, zebras and asses have chestnut callosities present only on their front legs. In contrast to other living equines, zebra have longer front legs than back legs. Diagnostic traits of the zebra skull include: its relatively small size with a straight profile, more projected eye sockets, narrower rostrum, reduced postorbital bar, separation of the metaconid and metastylid of the tooth by a V-shaped canal and rounded enamel wall.


title: Zebra

text: Zebras are easily recognised by their bold black-and-white striping patterns. The coat appears to be white with black stripes, as indicated by the belly and legs when unstriped, but the skin underneath is black. Young or foals are born with brown and white coats, and the brown darkens with age. A dorsal line acts as the backbone for vertical stripes along the sides, from the head to the rump. On the snout they curve toward the nostrils, while the stripes above the front legs split into two branches. On the rump, they develop into species-specific patterns. The stripes on the legs, ears and tail are separate and horizontal.


title: Zebra

text: Striping patterns are unique to an individual and heritable. During embryonic development, the stripes appear at eight months, but the patterns may be determined at three to five weeks. For each species there is a point in embryonic development where the stripes are perpendicular to the dorsal line and spaced apart. However, this happens at three weeks of development for the plains zebra, four weeks for the mountain zebra, and five for Grévy's zebra. The difference in timing is thought to be responsible for the differences in the striping patterns of the different species.


title: Zebra

text: Various abnormalities of the patterns have been documented in plains zebras. In melanistic zebras, dark stripes are highly concentrated on the torso but the legs are whiter. "Spotted" individuals display disruptions in black striping patterns between the shoulders and hips. There have even been morphs with white spots on dark backgrounds. Striping abnormalities have been linked to inbreeding. Albino zebras have been recorded in the forests of Mount Kenya, with the dark stripes being blonde. The quagga had brown and white stripes on the head and neck, brown upper parts and a white belly, tail and legs.


title: Zebra

text: The function of stripes in zebras has been discussed among biologists since at least the 19th century. Popular hypotheses include the following:


title: Zebra

text: Zebras may travel or migrate to wetter areas during the dry season. Plains zebras have been recorded travelling between Namibia and Botswana, the longest land migration of mammals in Africa. When migrating, they appear to rely on some memory of the locations where foraging conditions were best and may predict conditions months after their arrival. Plains zebras are more water-dependent and live in moister environments than other species. They usually can be found from a water source. Grévy's zebras can survive almost a week without water but will drink it every day when given the chance, and their bodies maintain water better than cattle. Mountain zebras can be found at elevations of up to . Zebras sleep for seven hours a day, standing up during the day and lying down during the night. They regularly use various objects as rubbing posts and will roll on the ground.


title: Zebra

text: A zebra's diet is mostly grasses and sedges, but they will opportunistically consume bark, leaves, buds, fruits, and roots. Compared to ruminants, zebras have a simpler and less efficient digestive system. Nevertheless, they can subsist on lower-quality vegetation. Zebras may spend 60–80% of their time feeding, depending on the availability of vegetation. The plains zebra is a pioneer grazer, mowing down the upper, less nutritious grass canopy and preparing the way for more specialised grazers, which depend on shorter and more nutritious grasses below.


title: Zebra

text: Zebras are preyed on mainly by lions. Leopards, cheetahs, spotted hyenas, brown hyenas and wild dogs pose less of a threat to adults. Nile crocodiles also prey on zebras when they near water. Biting and kicking are a zebra's defense tactics. When threatened by lions, zebras flee, and when caught they are rarely effective in fighting off the big cats. In one study, the maximum speed of a zebra was found to be while a lion was measured at . Zebras do not escape lions by speed alone but by sideways turning, especially when the cat is close behind. With smaller predators like hyenas and dogs, zebras may act more aggressively, especially in defense of their young.


title: Zebra

text: Zebra species have two basic social structures. Plains and mountain zebras live in stable, closed family groups or harems consisting of one stallion, several mares, and their offspring. These groups have their own home ranges, which overlap, and they tend to be nomadic. Stallions form and expand their harems by recruiting young mares from their natal (birth) harems. The stability of the group remains even when the family stallion is displaced. Plains zebras groups gather into large herds and may create temporarily stable subgroups within a herd, allowing individuals to interact with those outside their group. Females in harems can spend more time feeding, and gain protection both for them and their young. The females have a linear dominance hierarchy with the high-ranking females being the ones that have lived in the group longest. While traveling, the most dominant females and their offspring lead the group, followed by the next most dominant. The family stallion trails behind. Young of both sexes leave their natal groups as they mature; females are usually herded by outside males to become part of their harems.


title: Zebra

text: In the more arid-living Grévy's zebras, adults have more fluid associations and adult males establish large territories, marked by dung piles, and mate with the females that enter them. Grazing and drinking areas tend to be separated in these environments and the most dominant males establish territories near watering holes, which attract females with dependent foals and those who simply want a drink, while less dominant males control territories away from water with greater amounts of vegetation only attract mares without foals. Mares may travel through several territories but remain in one when they have young. Staying in a territory offers a female protection from harassment by outside males, as well as access to resources.


title: Zebra

text: In all species, excess males gather in bachelor groups. These are typically young males that are not yet ready to establish a harem or territory. With the plains zebra, the oldest males are the most dominant and group membership is stable. Bachelor groups tend to be at the boundaries of herds and during group movements, the bachelors trail behind or occupy the sides. Mountain zebra bachelor groups may also include young females that have left their natal group early, as well as old, former harem males. A territorial Grévy's zebra stallion may allow non-territorial bachelors in their territory, however when a mare in oestrous is present the territorial stallion keeps other stallions at bay. Bachelors prepare for their future harem roles with play fights and greeting/challenge rituals, which make up most of their activities.


title: Zebra

text: Fights between males usually occur over mates and involve biting and kicking. In plains zebra, stallions fight each other over recently matured mares to bring into their group and her family stallion will fight off other males trying to abduct her. As long as a harem stallion is healthy, he is not usually challenged. Only unhealthy stallions have their harems taken over, and even then, the new stallion slowly takes over, peacefully displacing the old one. Agonistic behaviour between male Grévy's zebras occurs at the border of their territories.


title: Zebra

text: Zebras produce a number of vocalisations and noises. The plains zebra has a distinctive, barking contact call heard as "a-"ha", a-"ha", a-"ha"" or "kwa-ha, kaw-ha, ha, ha". The mountain zebra may produce a similar sound while the call of the Grévy's zebra has been described as "something like a hippo's grunt combined with a donkey's wheeze". Loud snorting and rough "gasping" in zebras signals alarm. Squealing is usually made when in pain, but can also be heard in friendly interactions. Zebras also communicate with visual displays, and the flexibility of their lips allows them to make complex facial expressions. Visual displays also consist of head, ear, and tail postures. A zebra may signal an intention to kick by dropping back its ears and whipping its tail. Flattened ears, bared teeth and a waving head may be used as threatening gestures by stallions.


title: Zebra

text: Individuals may greet each other by rubbing and sniffing and then mutually rub their cheeks, and move along their bodies towards each other's genitals to sniff. They then may caress their shoulders against each other and lay their heads on one another. This greeting usually occurs between harem or territorial males or among bachelor males playing. Plains and mountain zebras strengthen their social bonds with grooming. Members of a harem nibble and rake along the neck, shoulder, and back with their teeth and lips. Grooming usually occurs between mothers and foals and between stallions and mares. Grooming establishes social rank and eases aggressive behaviour. Although Grévy's zebras generally do not perform social grooming.


title: Zebra

text: Among plains and mountain zebras, the adult females mate only with their harem stallion, while in Grévy's zebras, mating is more promiscuous and the males have larger testes for sperm competition. Female zebras have five to ten day long oestrous cycles; physical signs include a swollen, everted (inside out) labia and copious flows of urine and mucus. Among reaching peak oestrous, mares spread-out their legs, lift their tails and open their mouths when in the presence of a male. Males assess the female's reproductive state with a curled lip and bared teeth (flehmen response) and the female will solicit mating by backing in. Gestation is typically around a year. A few days to a month later, mares can return to oestrus. In harem-holding species, oestrus in a female becomes less noticeable to outside males as she gets older, hence competition for older females is virtually nonexistent.


title: Zebra

text: Usually, a single foal is born, which is capable of running within an hour of birth. A newborn zebra will follow anything that moves, so new mothers prevent other mares from approaching their foals as they become more familiar with the mother's striping pattern, smell and voice. At a few weeks old, foals begin to graze, but may continue to nurse for eight to thirteen months. Living in an arid environment, Grévy's zebras have longer nursing intervals and young only begin to drink water three months after birth.


title: Zebra

text: In plains and mountain zebras, foals are cared for mostly by their mothers, but if threatened by pack-hunting hyenas and dogs, the entire group works together to protect all the young. The group forms a protective front with the foals in the centre, and the stallion will rush at predators that come too close. In Grévy's zebras, young stay in "kindergartens" when their mothers leave for water. These groups are tended to by the territorial male. A stallion may look after a foal in his territory to ensure that the mother stays, though it may not be his. By contrast, plains zebra stallions are generally intolerant of foals that are not theirs and may practice infanticide and feticide via violence to the pregnant mare.


title: Zebra

text: With their distinctive black-and-white stripes, zebras are among the most recognisable mammals. They have been associated with beauty and grace, with naturalist Thomas Pennant describing them in 1781 as "the most elegant of quadrupeds". Zebras have been popular in photography, with some wildlife photographers describing them as the most photogenic animal. They have become staples in children's stories and wildlife-themed art, such as depictions of Noah's Ark. In children's alphabet books, the animals are often used to represent the letter 'Z'. Zebra stripes are also popularly used for body paintings, dress, furniture and architecture.


title: Zebra

text: Zebras have been featured in African art and culture for millennia. They are depicted in rock art in Southern Africa dating from 28,000 to 20,000 years ago, though less often than antelope species like eland. How the zebra got its stripes has been the subject of folk tales, some of which involve it being scorched by fire. The Maasai proverb "a man without culture is like a zebra without stripes" has become popular in Africa. The San people connected zebra stripes with water, rain and lighting, and water spirits were conceived of having zebra stripes.


title: Zebra

text: For the Shona people, the zebra is a totem animal and is glorified in a poem as an "iridescent and glittering creature". Its stripes have symbolised the union of male and female and at the ruined city of Great Zimbabwe, zebra stripes decorate what is believed to be a "domba", a school meant to prepare girls for adulthood. In the Shona language, the name "madhuve" means "woman/women of the zebra totem" and is a name for girls in Zimbabwe. The plains zebra is the national animal of Botswana and zebras have been depicted on stamps during colonial and post-colonial Africa. For people of the African diaspora, the zebra represented the politics of race and identity, being both black and white.


title: Zebra

text: In cultures outside of its range, the zebra has been thought of as a more exotic alternative to the horse; the comic book character Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, is depicted riding a zebra and explorer Osa Johnson was photographed riding one. The film "Racing Stripes" features a captive zebra ostracised from the horses and ends up being ridden by a rebellious girl. Zebras have been featured as characters in animated films like "Khumba", "The Lion King" and the "Madagascar" films and television series such as "Zou".


title: Zebra

text: Zebras have been popular subjects for abstract, modernist and surrealist artists. Such art includes Christopher Wood's "Zebra and Parachute", Lucian Freud's "The Painter's Room" and "Quince on a Blue Table" and the various paintings of Mary Fedden and Sidney Nolan. Victor Vasarely depicted zebras as black and white lines and connected in a jigsaw puzzle fashion. Carel Weight's "Escape of the Zebra from the Zoo during an Air Raid" was based on a real life incident of a zebra escaping during the bombing of London Zoo and consists of four comic book-like panels. Zebras have lent themselves to products and advertisements, notably for 'Zebra Grate Polish' cleaning supplies by British manufacturer Reckitt and Sons and Japanese pen manufacturer Zebra Co., Ltd.


title: Zebra

text: Zebras have been kept in captivity since at least the Roman Empire. In later times, captive zebras have been shipped around the world, often for diplomatic reasons. In 1261, Sultan Baibars of Egypt established an embassy with Alfonso X of Castile and sent a zebra and other exotic animals as gifts. In 1417, a zebra was gifted to the Chinese people by Somalia and displayed before the Yongle Emperor. The fourth Mughal emperor Jahangir received a zebra from Ethiopia in 1620 and Ustad Mansur made a painting of it. In the 1670s, Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes I exported two zebras to the Dutch governor of Jakarta. These animals would eventually be given by the Dutch to the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan.


title: Zebra

text: When Queen Charlotte received a zebra as a wedding gift in 1762, the animal became a source of fascination for the people of Britain. Many flocked to see it at its paddock at Buckingham Palace. It soon became the subject of humour and satire, being referred to as "The Queen's Ass", and was the subject of an oil painting by George Stubbs in 1763. The zebra also gained a reputation for being ill-tempered and kicked at visitors. In 1882, Ethiopia sent a zebra to French president Jules Grévy, and the species it belonged to was named in his honour.


title: Zebra

text: Attempts to domesticate zebras were largely unsuccessful. It is possible that having evolved under pressure from the many large predators of Africa, including early humans, they became more aggressive, thus making domestication more difficult. However, zebras have been trained throughout history. In Rome, zebras are recorded to have pulled chariots during amphitheatre games starting in the reign of Caracalla (198 to 217 AD). In the late 19th century, the zoologist Walter Rothschild trained some zebras to draw a carriage in England, which he drove to Buckingham Palace to demonstrate that it can be done. However, he did not ride on them knowing that they were too small and aggressive. In the early 20th century, German colonial officers in East Africa tried to use zebras for both driving and riding, with limited success.


title: Zebra

text: As of 2016–2019, the IUCN Red List of mammals lists the Grévy's zebra as endangered, the mountain zebra as vulnerable and the plains zebra as near-threatened. Grévy's zebra populations are estimated at less than 2,000 mature individuals, but they are stable. Mountain zebras number near 35,000 individuals and their population appears to be increasing. Plains zebra are estimated to number 150,000–250,000 with a decreasing population trend. Human intervention has fragmented zebra ranges and populations. Zebras are threatened by hunting for their hide and meat, and habitat destruction. They also compete with livestock and have their travelling routes obstruct by fences. Civil wars in some countries have also caused declines in zebra populations. By the early 20th century, zebra skins were being used to make rugs and chairs. In the 21st century, zebras may be taken by trophy hunters as zebra skin rugs sell for $1,000 to $2,000. Trophy hunting was rare among African peoples though the San were known to hunt zebra for meat.


title: Zebra

text: The quagga population was hunted by early Dutch settlers and later by Afrikaners to provide meat or for their skins. The skins were traded or used locally. The quagga was probably vulnerable to extinction due to its restricted range, and because they were easy to find in large groups. The last known wild quagga died in 1878. The last captive quagga, a female in Amsterdam's Natura Artis Magistra zoo, lived there from 9 May 1867 until it died on 12 August 1883. The Cape mountain zebra, a subspecies of mountain zebra, nearly went extinct due to hunting and habitat destruction, with less than 50 individuals left by the 1950s. Protections from South African National Parks allowed the population to rise to 2,600 by the 2010s.


title: Zebra

text: Zebras can be found in numerous protected areas. Important areas for the Grévy's zebra include Yabelo Wildlife Sanctuary and Chelbi Sanctuary in Ethiopia and Buffalo Springs, Samburu and Shaba National Reserves in Kenya. The plains zebra inhabitats the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, Tsavo and Masai Mara in Kenya, Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, Etosha National Park in Namibia, and Kruger National Park in South Africa. Mountain zebras are protected in Mountain Zebra National Park, Karoo National Park and Goegap Nature Reserve in South Africa as well as Etosha and Namib-Naukluft Park in Namibia.


title: 45th Canadian federal election

text: The 45th Canadian federal election will take place on or before 20 October 2025 to elect members of the House of Commons to the 45th Canadian Parliament. The date of the vote is determined by the fixed-date provisions of the "Canada Elections Act", which requires federal elections to be held on the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year after the polling day of the previous election. In addition to the statutory fixed election date provisions, Canada has a constitutional requirement specified in both section 50 of the "Constitution Act, 1867" and section 4 of the "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms" that elections for the House of Commons must be held no more than five years after the preceding election.


title: 45th Canadian federal election

text: Since the incumbent government is a minority government, the election may occur before the scheduled date if the governor general of Canada dissolves Parliament on the recommendation of the prime minister of Canada for a snap election, for example after the House of Commons passes a motion of no confidence in the government.


title: 45th Canadian federal election

text: The 2021 Canadian federal election, held on 20 September that year, resulted in the incumbent Liberal Party of Canada, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, retaining government and their minority status parliament, whilst also picking up five more seats than they had at dissolution. On 27 September 2021, Annamie Paul announced that she was resigning as the Green Party of Canada leader; on 10 November 2021, she stated she had formally resigned and left the Green Party.


title: 45th Canadian federal election

text: The Constitution Act, 1867, requires that federal electoral districts undergo a redistribution of seats following each decennial Canadian census. The 2022 redistribution began in October 2021, and is expected to be completed in September 2023. On 15 October 2021, the Chief Electoral Officer announced that allocation would result in an increase to 342 seats. On March 24, 2022, the government tabled legislation to prevent Quebec (or any other province) from losing any seats relative to the number of seats it was apportioned in 2012 Canadian federal electoral redistribution. Bill C-14 amended Rule 2 of subsection 51(1) of the "Constitution Act, 1867", commonly known as the "Grandfather Clause". The Bill passed the House of Commons on June 15, 2022, passed the Senate on June 21, 2022, and received royal assent on June 23, 2022. The Chief Electoral Officer announced the new allocation of seats on July 8, 2022, which would result in an increase to 343 seats.


title: 45th Canadian federal election

text: The table below lists parties represented in the House of Commons after the 2021 federal election and their current standings. Kevin Vuong was elected as a Liberal on the ballot, despite being disavowed during the campaign, and sits as an independent.


title: Battleship (film)

text: Battleship is a 2012 American military science fiction action film based on the board game of the same name. The film was directed by Peter Berg from a script by brothers Jon and Erich Hoeber and stars Alexander Skarsgård, Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Tadanobu Asano, Hamish Linklater and Liam Neeson. Filming took place in Hawaii and on . In the film, the crews of a small group of warships are forced to battle against a naval fleet of extraterrestrial origin in order to thwart their destructive goals.


title: Battleship (film)

text: "Battleship" premiered in Tokyo on April 3, 2012 and was released by Universal Pictures in the United States on May 18, 2012. The film was a box-office bomb, grossing $303 million worldwide against a production budget of $209–220 million, losing both Universal and Hasbro $150 million. It was nominated for six awards at the 33rd Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, winning one for Worst Supporting Actress for Rihanna.


title: Battleship (film)

text: In 2005, potentially habitable "Planet G" is discovered, and a communications array to reach any extraterrestrial life is built in Oahu. There, Alex Hopper is arrested while attempting to impress Sam Shane, daughter of Admiral Terrance Shane. Alex’s brother, Commander Stone Hopper, forces Alex to join the U.S. Navy. Seven years later, Alex is a lieutenant aboard the and in a relationship with Sam, a physical therapist working with wounded veterans. While Stone is a model officer commanding the , the rebellious Alex is facing a disciplinary discharge.


title: Battleship (film)

text: During the 2012 RIMPAC exercise, five alien spacecraft arrive. Their communications ship hits a satellite and crashes through the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, while the others plunge into the waters off Hawaii. "Sampson", "John Paul Jones", and Japanese destroyer JDS discover a floating structure that generates a force shield isolating the Hawaiian Islands and the three destroyers, from the rest of the world, and jamming all radar and communications inside. Three alien warships surface and open fire; "Myōkō" is destroyed, "Sampson" is lost with all hands including Stone, and "John Paul Jones"’ command crew are killed, with Alex reluctantly assuming command. "John Paul Jones" disengages to recover "Myōkō"’s survivors including Captain Yugi Nagata, while alien drones destroy Oahu’s military installations and roads, ignoring all targets that do not pose a threat.


title: Battleship (film)

text: Hiking near the communications array, Sam and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and double amputee Mick Canales discover the aliens' presence. They encounter scientist Cal Zapata, realizing the aliens have taken over the array to re-establish communications with their home planet. "John Paul Jones"’ crew captures an alien which telepathically links with Alex, revealing their history of destroying worlds. Other aliens retrieve their comrade while another sabotages the ship. Its armored suit proves impervious to small-arms fire but is obliterated by the destroyer’s 5-inch gun, and the captured alien's helmet reveals their eyes are sensitive to sunlight. Ashore, Sam, Nick, and Zapata recover his spectrum analyzer, using it to radio "John Paul Jones" that the aliens will contact their planet when the facility’s satellite is in position in four hours.


title: Battleship (film)

text: As night falls, Captain Nagata suggests using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tsunami warning buoys around Hawaii to track the warships without radar, allowing "John Paul Jones" to destroy two of them. The third proves too elusive, so they lure it into facing east as the sun rises. Alex and Nagata shoot out its bridge windows, blinding its crew with sunlight as "John Paul Jones" destroys the ship. The destroyer attempts to target the communications array, but is sunk by drones; Alex, Nagata, and several other sailors barely escape.


title: Battleship (film)

text: The survivors commandeer the decommissioned World War II battleship with the aid of retired veterans. The floating structure is revealed to be a giant mothership, but "Missouri" disables the force field while Admiral Shane summons fighter jets from the aircraft carrier . The battleship’s turret carrying the ship’s last shell is disabled, forcing the sailors to carry it to another weapon system. Sam, Mick and Cal stall the aliens at the array, where Mick kills an alien soldier. Alex uses the final shell to destroy the array, rendering the "Missouri" defenseless, but the mothership’s drones are destroyed by Royal Australian Air Force Boeing F/A-18 fighter jets which carpet bomb the mothership, eliminating the alien threat.


title: Battleship (film)

text: Alex is promoted to lieutenant commander and presented with a Silver Star and his brother's posthumous Navy Cross. Admiral Shane promises Alex will soon have a ship of his own, while he is also invited to become a Navy SEAL. Alex asks him for Sam’s hand in marriage, and the admiral initially refuses, but invites Alex to lunch.


title: Battleship (film)

text: "Battleship" was greenlit with a production budget of $150 million but went through a troubled pre-production. Universal at one point considered canceling the film, which would have resulted in a $30 million loss. However, new chairman Adam Fogelson decided the studio would lose less money if they increased the budget of the film instead of outright cancelling it. Filming was set to take place in Australia's Gold Coast in 2010, but changed location due to a lack of Australian government tax incentives and a high estimated budget of $220 million.


title: Battleship (film)

text: Filming took place in the United States on the Hawaiian islands of Maui and Oahu, as well as on the mainland where they had to film a few apartment scenes in Sherman Oaks, California, and they had also filmed a driving scene along with a shootout in Playa del Rey, California. Some scenes were also filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.


title: Battleship (film)

text: Further filming was done on . Also featured in the film were the real-life guided missile destroyers USS "Benfold" (DDG-65), USS "John Paul Jones" (DDG-53), and USS "Sampson" (DDG-102) all of which are active members of the US Navy Pacific Fleet. A of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force also appeared in the film.


title: Battleship (film)

text: Jeremy Renner was originally considered for the role of Hopper. In April 2010, it was reported that Taylor Kitsch had been cast as Alex Hopper, Alexander Skarsgård played his brother Stone Hopper, Brooklyn Decker stars as Sam, Hopper's fiancee and Liam Neeson as Admiral Shane, Sam's father and Hopper's superior officer. Barbadian R&B singer Rihanna makes her acting debut in the film, as a sailor. In an interview with "GQ", Berg explained how he came up with the idea to cast her. He realized she could act after her appearance on "Saturday Night Live". She accepted the role because she wanted "to do something badass" and also because it wasn't a role too big for her to play. Tadanobu Asano also has a role in the film as the commander of a Japanese "Kongō"-class destroyer. Double amputee U.S. Army Colonel Gregory Gadson, who had never acted before, plays LTC Mick Canales. He was cast after Berg saw a picture of him in "National Geographic".


title: Battleship (film)

text: The film marks the reunion between former co-stars Kitsch and Jesse Plemons, who previously worked together on Berg's television series "Friday Night Lights". Berg said he loves working with friends and explained he knew how comfortable Kitsch was with Plemons, "I know that he’s really good for Taylor and he makes Taylor better. So, I wrote that whole part for Jesse." He added, "I never thought of it as a "Friday Night Lights" reunion. I thought of it as protection, bringing a trusted family member in."


title: Battleship (film)

text: U.S. Navy sailors were used as extras in various parts of this film. Sailors from assorted commands in Navy Region Hawaii assisted with line handling to take in and out of port for a day of shooting in mid 2010. A few months later, the production team put out a casting call for sailors stationed at various sea commands at Naval Station Mayport, Florida to serve as extras. Sailors were also taken from various ships stationed at Naval Station Mayport, Jacksonville, Florida, namely , and were some of the ships that provided sailors.


title: Battleship (film)

text: Due to his success with the "Transformers" franchise, composer Steve Jablonsky was chosen to score the official soundtrack. The soundtrack features original compositions from Jablonsky and features rock guitarist Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine. Director Peter Berg stated:


title: Battleship (film)

text: The film was originally planned to be released in 2011, but was rescheduled to May 18, 2012, in the United States. The film's world premiere took place in Tokyo on April 3, 2012. The event was attended by director Peter Berg, actors Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Alexander Skarsgård and Rihanna. Later on they initiated a Press Tour visiting Madrid, London and Cartagena de Indias to promote the film.


title: Battleship (film)

text: "Battleship" grossed $65.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $237.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $303 million, against a production budget of $209 million. In May 2012, "The Hollywood Reporter" estimated that Universal would lose $150 million on the film.


title: Battleship (film)

text: The film opened in several territories on Wednesday, April 11, 2012, five weeks before its North America release, grossing $7.4 million. Through April 13, the film had earned a three-day total of $25 million. By the end of its opening weekend, it earned $55.2 million from 26 markets, ranking second behind the 3D re-release of "Titanic". In its second weekend, it topped the box office outside North America, with $60 million. In South Korea, it achieved the highest-grossing opening day for a non-sequel and the third-highest overall ($2.8 million). In comparison to other Hasbro films, "Battleship" opening in the United Kingdom (£3.76 million) was behind the first "Transformers" (£8.72 million), but did better than "" (£1.71 million).


title: Battleship (film)

text: In the United States, "Battleship" grossed $8.8 million on its opening day, with $420,000 from midnight showings. It went on to debut to $25.5 million, finishing in second place behind "Marvel's The Avengers".


title: Battleship (film)

text: Rotten Tomatoes reports that 34% of 225 critics gave the film a positive review and an average rating of 4.7/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "It may offer energetic escapism for less demanding filmgoers, but "Battleship" is too loud, poorly written, and formulaic to justify its expense – and a lot less fun than its source material." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 41 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Battleship (film)

text: Megan Lehmann of "The Hollywood Reporter" thought that the "impressive visual effects and director Peter Berg's epic set pieces fight against an armada of cinematic clichés and some truly awful dialogue." "Empire" magazine's Nick de Semlyen felt there was a lack of character development and memorable action shots, and sums up his review of the movie in one word: "Miss."


title: Battleship (film)

text: Many reviews criticized the "based on a board game" concept driving the film, although some, such as Jason Di Rosso from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National, claimed the ridiculousness of the setup is "either sheer joy or pure hell – depending on how seriously you take it", while de Semlyen "had to admire [the film's creators] jumping through hoops to engineer a sequence that replicates the board game." Several compared the film to Michael Bay's "Transformers" film series in terms of quality and cinematic style, with Giles Hardie of "The Sydney Morning Herald" claiming that the movie "finds the same balance between action-packed imagination and not taking the premise seriously that made Michael Bay's original "Transformers" such a joyride." Andrew Harrison of "Q" magazine called the film "crushingly stupid". Film critic Kenneth Turan, in a review written for the "Los Angeles Times", also expressed disappointment, criticizing the film's "humanoid aliens", stating that they are "as ungainly as the movie itself, clunking around in awkward, protective suits." He called the content "all very earnest", but added "it's not a whole lot of fun". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the film one out of four stars, and he commented "Battleship is all noise and crashing metal, sinking to the shallows of Michael Bay's Armageddon and then digging to the brain-extinction level of the Transformers trilogy."


title: Battleship (film)

text: Other critics were less harsh for "Battleship": Writing for "Time", Steven James Snyder was somewhat positive because he had low expectations of the film. He wrote, "The creative team behind this ocean-bound thriller decided to fill the narrative black hole with a few ingredients all but absent from today’s summer tent poles – namely mystery, nostalgia and a healthy dose of humility" and described it as "an unlikely mix of "Independence Day", "Pearl Harbor", "Jurassic Park" and "The Hunt for Red October"". Giving it a B+ grade, Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" said, "For every line of howler dialogue that should have been sunk, there's a nice little scene in which humans have to make a difficult decision. For every stretch of generic sci-fi-via-CGI moviemaking, there's a welcome bit of wit." "The Washington Post" gave the film a three-star rating out of four commenting it is "an invigorating blast of cinematic adrenaline". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, praising the climax as "an honest-to-God third act, instead of just settling for nonstop fireballs and explosions, as Bay likes to do. I don't want to spoil it for you. Let's say the Greatest Generation still has the right stuff and leave it at that."