The Glory of Melaka: In the early days, if you were not a pirate or a mosquito, Melaka was not much of a place to live. The land was infertile, just a swampy plain, the river small and sluggish. But it had a sheltered harbor, protected from the monsoons by neighboring Sumatra. Later, the strategic location and deep-water channel close to the coast brought in the bigger vessels of the trade-wind traffic crossing the Indian Ocean. The first to realize the larger commercial potential, as so often throughout the country's subsequent history, were the Chinese. In 1409, under a new directive from Emperor Chu Ti to pursue trade in the South Seas and the Indian Ocean, a Chinese fleet of 50 ships headed by Admiral Cheng Ho called in at Melaka. They made Parameswara an offer he could not refuse: port facilities and an annual financial tribute in exchange for Chinese protection against the marauding Thais. In 1411, Parameswara took the money to Beijing himself, and the emperor gratefully made him a vassal king. Twenty years later, the Chinese withdrew again from the South Seas trade. The new ruler of Melaka, Sri Maharajah, switched his allegiance to the Muslim trading fraternity by marrying into the Muslim faith, wedding the daughter of a sultan in Sumatra. Islam won its place in Malaya not by conquestas had been the case in North Africa and Europebut by trade, dynastic alliances, and peaceful preaching. Bengali peddlers had already brought the faith to the east coast. In Melaka and throughout the peninsula, Islam thrived as a strong, male-dominated religion of individuality, offering dynamic leadership and preaching brotherhood and self-relianceall qualities ideally suited to the coastal trade. At the same time, Sufi mystics synthesized Islamic teaching with local Malay traditions of animistic magic and charisma, though Islam did not become the state religion until Muzaffar Shah became sultan of Melaka (14461459). But the key figure in the sultanate was Tun Perak, bendahara (prime minister) and military commander. He expanded Melaka's power along the west coast and down to Singapore and the neighboring Bintan islands. He also had orang laut pirates patrolling the seas to extort tribute from passing ships. After Ailied district chiefs had repelled assaults from Thai-controlled armies from Pahang, Tun Perak personally led a famous victory over a Thai fleet off Batu Pahat in 1456.

Who was responsible for a swap in all in allegiance and by what means?

The mighty fane, with its three massive towers, rises majestically over the red roofs of the town. Its most striking feature is the great Norman screen, running up without buttresses or projections to the parapet and hiding the bases of the square, richly decorated towers of the west front. The plain centre of the screen is the work of Remigius, the first bishop. The rest of it is relieved with rich arcading of Late Norman and Early English periods. The wooden spires which crowned the towers were removed in 1807. In 1192 Hugh of Avalon determined to rebuild the Norman building of Remigius, which an earthquake had shaken. To him we owe the choir and eastern transept. His successors completed the western transept and began the west end of the nave. So much money had to be spent in rebuilding the central tower, which fell in 1239, that the canons could not rebuild the nave entirely, but had to incorporate the Norman end by Remigius. Unfortunately the axis of the west front does not correspond to that of the nave, which is too wide for its height. The low vaulting is a serious defect in the choir built by St. Hugh, but of the superb beauty of the Angel Choir, which encloses his shrine, there can be no doubt. In its richness of sculpture it is one of the masterpieces of Gothic architecture in England. The interior of the cathedral is remarkable for the harmony of its style, which is Lancet-Gothic, and the dim lighting of the nave only adds to its impressiveness.

Is the entire Norman screen the work of Remigius, or did he only begin it?

Albanian was proved to be an Indo-European language in 1854 by the German philologist Franz Bopp. The Albanian language comprises its own branch of the Indo-European language family. Some scholars believe that Albanian derives from Illyrian while others claim that it derives from Daco-Thracian. (Illyrian and Daco-Thracian, however, might have been closely related languages; see Thraco-Illyrian.) Establishing longer relations, Albanian is often compared to Balto-Slavic on the one hand and Germanic on the other, both of which share a number of isoglosses with Albanian. Moreover, Albanian has undergone a vowel shift in which stressed, long o has fallen to a, much like in the former and opposite the latter. Likewise, Albanian has taken the old relative jos and innovatively used it exclusively to qualify adjectives, much in the way Balto-Slavic has used this word to provide the definite ending of adjectives. The cultural renaissance was first of all expressed through the development of the Albanian language in the area of church texts and publications, mainly of the Catholic region in the North, but also of the Orthodox in the South. The Protestant reforms invigorated hopes for the development of the local language and literary tradition when cleric Gjon Buzuku brought into the Albanian language the Catholic liturgy, trying to do for the Albanian language what Luther did for German.
In which non-Albanian language-family has stressed, long o fallen to a?