title: Anabolic steroid

text: A 1996 randomized controlled trial, which involved 43 men, did not find an increase in the occurrence of angry behavior during 10 weeks of administration of testosterone enanthate at 600 mg/week, but this study screened out subjects that had previously abused steroids or had any psychiatric antecedents. A trial conducted in 2000 using testosterone cypionate at 600 mg/week found that treatment significantly increased manic scores on the YMRS, and aggressive responses on several scales. The drug response was highly variable. However: 84% of subjects exhibited minimal psychiatric effects, 12% became mildly hypomanic, and 4% (2 subjects) became markedly hypomanic. The mechanism of these variable reactions could not be explained by demographic, psychological, laboratory, or physiological measures.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: A 2006 study of two pairs of identical twins, in which one twin used AAS and the other did not, found that in both cases the steroid-using twin exhibited high levels of aggressiveness, hostility, anxiety, and paranoid ideation not found in the "control" twin. A small-scale study of 10 AAS users found that cluster B personality disorders were confounding factors for aggression.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The relationship between AAS use and depression is inconclusive. There have been anecdotal reports of depression and suicide in teenage steroid users, but little systematic evidence. A 1992 review found that AAS may both relieve and cause depression, and that cessation or diminished use of AAS may also result in depression, but called for additional studies due to disparate data. In the case of suicide, 3.9% of a sample of 77 those classified as AAS users reported attempting suicide during withdrawal (Malone, Dimeff, Lombardo, & Sample, 1995).


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Androgens such as testosterone, androstenedione and dihydrotestosterone are required for the development of organs in the male reproductive system, including the seminal vesicles, epididymis, vas deferens, penis and prostate. AAS are testosterone derivatives designed to maximize the anabolic effects of testosterone. AAS are consumed by elite athletes competing in sports like weightlifting, bodybuilding, and track and field. Male recreational athletes take AAS to achieve an "enhanced" physical appearance.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: AAS consumption disrupts the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis (HPG axis) in males. In the HPG axis, gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is secreted from the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus and stimulates the anterior pituitary to secrete the two gonadotropins, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). In adult males, LH stimulates the Leydig cells in the testes to produce testosterone which is required to form new sperm through spermatogenesis. AAS consumption leads to dose-dependent suppression of gonadotropin release through suppression of GnRH from the hypothalamus (long-loop mechanism) or from direct negative feedback on the anterior pituitary to inhibit gonadotropin release (short-loop mechanism), leading to AAS-induced hypogonadism.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The pharmacodynamics of AAS are unlike peptide hormones. Water-soluble peptide hormones cannot penetrate the fatty cell membrane and only indirectly affect the nucleus of target cells through their interaction with the cell's surface receptors. However, as fat-soluble hormones, AAS are membrane-permeable and influence the nucleus of cells by direct action. The pharmacodynamic action of AAS begin when the exogenous hormone penetrates the membrane of the target cell and binds to an androgen receptor (AR) located in the cytoplasm of that cell. From there, the compound hormone-receptor diffuses into the nucleus, where it either alters the expression of genes or activates processes that send signals to other parts of the cell. Different types of AAS bind to the AAR with different affinities, depending on their chemical structure.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The effect of AAS on muscle mass is caused in at least two ways: first, they increase the production of proteins; second, they reduce recovery time by blocking the effects of stress hormone cortisol on muscle tissue, so that catabolism of muscle is greatly reduced. It has been hypothesized that this reduction in muscle breakdown may occur through AAS inhibiting the action of other steroid hormones called glucocorticoids that promote the breakdown of muscles. AAS also affect the number of cells that develop into fat-storage cells, by favouring cellular differentiation into muscle cells instead.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: As their name suggests, AAS have two different, but overlapping, types of effects: "anabolic", meaning that they promote anabolism (cell growth), and "androgenic" (or "virilizing"), meaning that they affect the development and maintenance of masculine characteristics.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Some examples of the anabolic effects of these hormones are increased protein synthesis from amino acids, increased appetite, increased bone remodeling and growth, and stimulation of bone marrow, which increases the production of red blood cells. Through a number of mechanisms AAS stimulate the formation of muscle cells and hence cause an increase in the size of skeletal muscles, leading to increased strength.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The androgenic effects of AAS are numerous. Depending on the length of use, the side effects of the steroid can be irreversible. Processes affected include pubertal growth, sebaceous gland oil production, and sexuality (especially in fetal development). Some examples of virilizing effects are growth of the clitoris in females and the penis in male children (the adult penis size does not change due to steroids ), increased vocal cord size, increased libido, suppression of natural sex hormones, and impaired production of sperm. Effects on women include deepening of the voice, facial hair growth, and possibly a decrease in breast size. Men may develop an enlargement of breast tissue, known as gynecomastia, testicular atrophy, and a reduced sperm count.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The androgenic:anabolic ratio of an AAS is an important factor when determining the clinical application of these compounds. Compounds with a high ratio of androgenic to an anabolic effects are the drug of choice in androgen-replacement therapy (e.g., treating hypogonadism in males), whereas compounds with a reduced androgenic:anabolic ratio are preferred for anemia and osteoporosis, and to reverse protein loss following trauma, surgery, or prolonged immobilization. Determination of androgenic:anabolic ratio is typically performed in animal studies, which has led to the marketing of some compounds claimed to have anabolic activity with weak androgenic effects. This disassociation is less marked in humans, where all AAS have significant androgenic effects.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: A commonly used protocol for determining the androgenic:anabolic ratio, dating back to the 1950s, uses the relative weights of ventral prostate (VP) and levator ani muscle (LA) of male rats. The VP weight is an indicator of the androgenic effect, while the LA weight is an indicator of the anabolic effect. Two or more batches of rats are castrated and given no treatment and respectively some AAS of interest. The "LA/VP ratio" for an AAS is calculated as the ratio of LA/VP weight gains produced by the treatment with that compound using castrated but untreated rats as baseline: (LA–LA)/(VP–VP). The LA/VP weight gain ratio from rat experiments is not unitary for testosterone (typically 0.3–0.4), but it is normalized for presentation purposes, and used as basis of comparison for other AAS, which have their androgenic:anabolic ratios scaled accordingly (as shown in the table above). In the early 2000s, this procedure was standardized and generalized throughout OECD in what is now known as the Hershberger assay.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Body weight in men may increase by 2 to 5 kg as a result of short-term (<10 weeks) AAS use, which may be attributed mainly to an increase of lean mass. Animal studies also found that fat mass was reduced, but most studies in humans failed to elucidate significant fat mass decrements. The effects on lean body mass have been shown to be dose-dependent. Both muscle hypertrophy and the formation of new muscle fibers have been observed. The hydration of lean mass remains unaffected by AAS use, although small increments of blood volume cannot be ruled out.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The upper region of the body (thorax, neck, shoulders, and upper arm) seems to be more susceptible for AAS than other body regions because of predominance of ARs in the upper body. The largest difference in muscle fiber size between AAS users and non-users was observed in type I muscle fibers of the vastus lateralis and the trapezius muscle as a result of long-term AAS self-administration. After drug withdrawal, the effects fade away slowly, but may persist for more than 6–12 weeks after cessation of AAS use.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Strength improvements in the range of 5 to 20% of baseline strength, depending largely on the drugs and dose used as well as the administration period. Overall, the exercise where the most significant improvements were observed is the bench press. For almost two decades, it was assumed that AAS exerted significant effects only in experienced strength athletes. A randomized controlled trial demonstrated, however, that even in novice athletes a 10-week strength training program accompanied by testosterone enanthate at 600 mg/week may improve strength more than training alone does. This dose is sufficient to significantly improve lean muscle mass relative to placebo even in subjects that did not exercise at all. The anabolic effects of testosterone enanthate were highly dose dependent.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Endogenous/natural AAS like testosterone and DHT and synthetic AAS mediate their effects by binding to and activating the AR. On the basis of animal bioassays, the effects of these agents have been divided into two partially dissociable types: anabolic (myotrophic) and androgenic. Dissociation between the ratios of these two types of effects relative to the ratio observed with testosterone is observed in rat bioassays with various AAS. Theories for the dissociation include differences between AAS in terms of their intracellular metabolism, functional selectivity (differential recruitment of coactivators), and non-genomic mechanisms (i.e., signaling through non-AR membrane androgen receptors, or mARs). Support for the latter two theories is limited and more hypothetical, but there is a good deal of support for the intracellular metabolism theory.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The measurement of the dissociation between anabolic and androgenic effects among AAS is based largely on a simple but outdated and unsophisticated model using rat tissue bioassays. It has been referred to as the "myotrophic–androgenic index". In this model, myotrophic or anabolic activity is measured by change in the weight of the rat bulbocavernosus/levator ani muscle, and androgenic activity is measured by change in the weight of the rat ventral prostate (or, alternatively, the rat seminal vesicles), in response to exposure to the AAS. The measurements are then compared to form a ratio.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Testosterone is metabolized in various tissues by 5α-reductase into DHT, which is 3- to 10-fold more potent as an AR agonist, and by aromatase into estradiol, which is an estrogen and lacks significant AR affinity. In addition, DHT is metabolized by 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3α-HSD) and 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3β-HSD) into 3α-androstanediol and 3β-androstanediol, respectively, which are metabolites with little or no AR affinity. 5α-reductase is widely distributed throughout the body, and is concentrated to various extents in skin (particularly the scalp, face, and genital areas), prostate, seminal vesicles, liver, and the brain. In contrast, expression of 5α-reductase in skeletal muscle is undetectable. Aromatase is highly expressed in adipose tissue and the brain, and is also expressed significantly in skeletal muscle. 3α-HSD is highly expressed in skeletal muscle as well.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Natural AAS like testosterone and DHT and synthetic AAS are analogues and are very similar structurally. For this reason, they have the capacity to bind to and be metabolized by the same steroid-metabolizing enzymes. According to the intracellular metabolism explanation, the androgenic-to-anabolic ratio of a given AR agonist is related to its capacity to be transformed by the aforementioned enzymes in conjunction with the AR activity of any resulting products. For instance, whereas the AR activity of testosterone is greatly potentiated by local conversion via 5α-reductase into DHT in tissues where 5α-reductase is expressed, an AAS that is not metabolized by 5α-reductase or is already 5α-reduced, such as DHT itself or a derivative (like mesterolone or drostanolone), would not undergo such potentiation in said tissues. Moreover, nandrolone is metabolized by 5α-reductase, but unlike the case of testosterone and DHT, the 5α-reduced metabolite of nandrolone has much lower affinity for the AR than does nandrolone itself, and this results in reduced AR activation in 5α-reductase-expressing tissues. As so-called "androgenic" tissues such as skin/hair follicles and male reproductive tissues are very high in 5α-reductase expression, while skeletal muscle is virtually devoid of 5α-reductase, this may primarily explain the high myotrophic–androgenic ratio and dissociation seen with nandrolone, as well as with various other AAS.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Aside from 5α-reductase, aromatase may inactivate testosterone signaling in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue, so AAS that lack aromatase affinity, in addition to being free of the potential side effect of gynecomastia, might be expected to have a higher myotrophic–androgenic ratio in comparison. In addition, DHT is inactivated by high activity of 3α-HSD in skeletal muscle (and cardiac tissue), and AAS that lack affinity for 3α-HSD could similarly be expected to have a higher myotrophic–androgenic ratio (although perhaps also increased long-term cardiovascular risks). In accordance, DHT, mestanolone (17α-methyl-DHT), and mesterolone (1α-methyl-DHT) are all described as very poorly anabolic due to inactivation by 3α-HSD in skeletal muscle, whereas other DHT derivatives with other structural features like metenolone, oxandrolone, oxymetholone, drostanolone, and stanozolol are all poor substrates for 3α-HSD and are described as potent anabolics.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The intracellular metabolism theory explains how and why remarkable dissociation between anabolic and androgenic effects might occur despite the fact that these effects are mediated through the same signaling receptor, and why this dissociation is invariably incomplete. In support of the model is the rare condition congenital 5α-reductase type 2 deficiency, in which the 5α-reductase type 2 enzyme is defective, production of DHT is impaired, and DHT levels are low while testosterone levels are normal. Males with this condition are born with ambiguous genitalia and a severely underdeveloped or even absent prostate gland. In addition, at the time of puberty, such males develop normal musculature, voice deepening, and libido, but have reduced facial hair, a female pattern of body hair (i.e., largely restricted to the pubic triangle and underarms), no incidence of male pattern hair loss, and no prostate enlargement or incidence of prostate cancer. They also notably do not develop gynecomastia as a consequence of their condition.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: An animal study found that two different kinds of androgen response elements could differentially respond to testosterone and DHT upon activation of the AR. Whether this is involved in the differences in the ratios of anabolic-to-myotrophic effect of different AAS is unknown however.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Testosterone signals not only through the nuclear AR, but also through mARs, including ZIP9 and GPRC6A. It has been proposed that differential signaling through mARs may be involved in the dissociation of the anabolic and androgenic effects of AAS. Indeed, DHT has less than 1% of the affinity of testosterone for ZIP9, and the synthetic AAS metribolone and mibolerone are ineffective competitors for the receptor similarly. This indicates that AAS do show differential interactions with the AR and mARs. However, women with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), who have a 46,XY ("male") genotype and testes but a defect in the AR such that it is non-functional, are a challenge to this notion. They are completely insensitive to the AR-mediated effects of androgens like testosterone, and show a perfectly female phenotype despite having testosterone levels in the high end of the normal male range. These women have little or no sebum production, incidence of acne, or body hair growth (including in the pubic and axillary areas). Moreover, CAIS women have lean body mass that is normal for females but is of course greatly reduced relative to males. These observations suggest that the AR is mainly or exclusively responsible for masculinization and myotrophy caused by androgens. The mARs have however been found to be involved in some of the health-related effects of testosterone, like modulation of prostate cancer risk and progression.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Changes in endogenous testosterone levels may also contribute to differences in myotrophic–androgenic ratio between testosterone and synthetic AAS. AR agonists are antigonadotropic – that is, they dose-dependently suppress gonadal testosterone production and hence reduce systemic testosterone concentrations. By suppressing endogenous testosterone levels and effectively replacing AR signaling in the body with that of the exogenous AAS, the myotrophic–androgenic ratio of a given AAS may be further, dose-dependently increased, and this hence may be an additional factor contributing to the differences in myotrophic–androgenic ratio among different AAS. In addition, some AAS, such as 19-nortestosterone derivatives like nandrolone, are also potent progestogens, and activation of the progesterone receptor (PR) is antigonadotropic similarly to activation of the AR. The combination of sufficient AR and PR activation can suppress circulating testosterone levels into the castrate range in men (i.e., complete suppression of gonadal testosterone production and circulating testosterone levels decreased by about 95%). As such, combined progestogenic activity may serve to further increase the myotrophic–androgenic ratio for a given AAS.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Some AAS, such as testosterone, DHT, stanozolol, and methyltestosterone, have been found to modulate the GABA receptor similarly to endogenous neurosteroids like allopregnanolone, 3α-androstanediol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, and pregnenolone sulfate. It has been suggested that this may contribute as an alternative or additional mechanism to the neurological and behavioral effects of AAS.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: AAS differ in a variety of ways including in their capacities to be metabolized by steroidogenic enzymes such as 5α-reductase, 3-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases, and aromatase, in whether their potency as AR agonists is potentiated or diminished by 5α-reduction, in their ratios of anabolic/myotrophic to androgenic effect, in their estrogenic, progestogenic, and neurosteroid activities, in their oral activity, and in their capacity to produce hepatotoxicity.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Testosterone can be robustly converted by 5α-reductase into DHT in so-called androgenic tissues such as skin, scalp, prostate, and seminal vesicles, but not in muscle or bone, where 5α-reductase either is not expressed or is only minimally expressed. As DHT is 3- to 10-fold more potent as an agonist of the AR than is testosterone, the AR agonist activity of testosterone is thus markedly and selectively potentiated in such tissues. In contrast to testosterone, DHT and other 4,5α-dihydrogenated AAS are already 5α-reduced, and for this reason, cannot be potentiated in androgenic tissues. 19-Nortestosterone derivatives like nandrolone can be metabolized by 5α-reductase similarly to testosterone, but 5α-reduced metabolites of 19-nortestosterone derivatives (e.g., 5α-dihydronandrolone) tend to have reduced activity as AR agonists, resulting in reduced androgenic activity in tissues that express 5α-reductase. In addition, some 19-nortestosterone derivatives, including trestolone (7α-methyl-19-nortestosterone (MENT)), 11β-methyl-19-nortestosterone (11β-MNT), and dimethandrolone (7α,11β-dimethyl-19-nortestosterone), cannot be 5α-reduced. Conversely, certain 17α-alkylated AAS like methyltestosterone are 5α-reduced and potentiated in androgenic tissues similarly to testosterone. 17α-Alkylated DHT derivatives cannot be potentiated via 5α-reductase however, as they are already 4,5α-reduced.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The capacity to be metabolized by 5α-reductase and the AR activity of the resultant metabolites appears to be one of the major, if not the most important determinant of the androgenic–myotrophic ratio for a given AAS. AAS that are not potentiated by 5α-reductase or that are weakened by 5α-reductase in androgenic tissues have a reduced risk of androgenic side effects such as acne, androgenic alopecia (male-pattern baldness), hirsutism (excessive male-pattern hair growth), benign prostatic hyperplasia (prostate enlargement), and prostate cancer, while incidence and magnitude of other effects such as muscle hypertrophy, bone changes, voice deepening, and changes in sex drive show no difference.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Testosterone can be metabolized by aromatase into estradiol, and many other AAS can be metabolized into their corresponding estrogenic metabolites as well. As an example, the 17α-alkylated AAS methyltestosterone and metandienone are converted by aromatase into methylestradiol. 4,5α-Dihydrogenated derivatives of testosterone such as DHT cannot be aromatized, whereas 19-nortestosterone derivatives like nandrolone can be but to a greatly reduced extent. Some 19-nortestosterone derivatives, such as dimethandrolone and 11β-MNT, cannot be aromatized due to steric hindrance provided by their 11β-methyl group, whereas the closely related AAS trestolone (7α-methyl-19-nortestosterone), in relation to its lack of an 11β-methyl group, can be aromatized. AAS that are 17α-alkylated (and not also 4,5α-reduced or 19-demethylated) are also aromatized but to a lesser extent than is testosterone. However, it is notable that estrogens that are 17α-substituted (e.g., ethinylestradiol and methylestradiol) are of markedly increased estrogenic potency due to improved metabolic stability, and for this reason, 17α-alkylated AAS can actually have high estrogenicity and comparatively greater estrogenic effects than testosterone.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The major effect of estrogenicity is gynecomastia (woman-like breasts). AAS that have a high potential for aromatization like testosterone and particularly methyltestosterone show a high risk of gynecomastia at sufficiently high dosages, while AAS that have a reduced potential for aromatization like nandrolone show a much lower risk (though still potentially significant at high dosages). In contrast, AAS that are 4,5α-reduced, and some other AAS (e.g., 11β-methylated 19-nortestosterone derivatives), have no risk of gynecomastia. In addition to gynecomastia, AAS with high estrogenicity have increased antigonadotropic activity, which results in increased potency in suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis and gonadal testosterone production.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Many 19-nortestosterone derivatives, including nandrolone, trenbolone, ethylestrenol (ethylnandrol), metribolone (R-1881), trestolone, 11β-MNT, dimethandrolone, and others, are potent agonists of the progesterone receptor (AR) and hence are progestogens in addition to AAS. Similarly to the case of estrogenic activity, the progestogenic activity of these drugs serves to augment their antigonadotropic activity. This results in increased potency and effectiveness of these AAS as antispermatogenic agents and male contraceptives (or, put in another way, increased potency and effectiveness in producing azoospermia and reversible male infertility).


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Non-17α-alkylated testosterone derivatives such as testosterone itself, DHT, and nandrolone all have poor oral bioavailability due to extensive first-pass hepatic metabolism and hence are not orally active. A notable exception to this are AAS that are androgen precursors or prohormones, including dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), androstenediol, androstenedione, boldione (androstadienedione), bolandiol (norandrostenediol), bolandione (norandrostenedione), dienedione, mentabolan (MENT dione, trestione), and methoxydienone (methoxygonadiene) (although these are relatively weak AAS). AAS that are not orally active are used almost exclusively in the form of esters administered by intramuscular injection, which act as depots and function as long-acting prodrugs. Examples include testosterone, as testosterone cypionate, testosterone enanthate, and testosterone propionate, and nandrolone, as nandrolone phenylpropionate and nandrolone decanoate, among many others (see here for a full list of testosterone and nandrolone esters). An exception is the very long-chain ester testosterone undecanoate, which is orally active, albeit with only very low oral bioavailability (approximately 3%). In contrast to most other AAS, 17α-alkylated testosterone derivatives show resistance to metabolism due to steric hindrance and are orally active, though they may be esterified and administered via intramuscular injection as well.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: In addition to oral activity, 17α-alkylation also confers a high potential for hepatotoxicity, and all 17α-alkylated AAS have been associated, albeit uncommonly and only after prolonged use (different estimates between 1 and 17%), with hepatotoxicity. In contrast, testosterone esters have only extremely rarely or never been associated with hepatotoxicity, and other non-17α-alkylated AAS only rarely, although long-term use may reportedly still increase the risk of hepatic changes (but at a much lower rate than 17α-alkylated AAS and reportedly not at replacement dosages). In accordance, D-ring glucuronides of testosterone and DHT have been found to be cholestatic.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Aside from prohormones and testosterone undecanoate, almost all orally active AAS are 17α-alkylated. A few AAS that are not 17α-alkylated are orally active. Some examples include the testosterone 17-ethers cloxotestosterone, quinbolone, and silandrone, which are prodrugs (to testosterone, boldenone (Δ-testosterone), and testosterone, respectively), the DHT 17-ethers mepitiostane, mesabolone, and prostanozol (which are also prodrugs), the 1-methylated DHT derivatives mesterolone and metenolone (although these are relatively weak AAS), and the 19-nortestosterone derivatives dimethandrolone and 11β-MNT, which have improved resistance to first-pass hepatic metabolism due to their 11β-methyl groups (in contrast to them, the related AAS trestolone (7α-methyl-19-nortestosterone) is not orally active). As these AAS are not 17α-alkylated, they show minimal potential for hepatotoxicity.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: DHT, via its metabolite 3α-androstanediol (produced by 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3α-HSD)), is a neurosteroid that acts via positive allosteric modulation of the GABA receptor. Testosterone, via conversion into DHT, also produces 3α-androstanediol as a metabolite and hence has similar activity. Some AAS that are or can be 5α-reduced, including testosterone, DHT, stanozolol, and methyltestosterone, among many others, can or may modulate the GABA receptor, and this may contribute as an alternative or additional mechanism to their central nervous system effects in terms of mood, anxiety, aggression, and sex drive.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: AAS are androstane or estrane steroids. They include testosterone (androst-4-en-17β-ol-3-one) and derivatives with various structural modifications such as:


title: Anabolic steroid

text: As well as others such as 1-dehydrogenation (e.g., metandienone, boldenone), 1-substitution (e.g., mesterolone, metenolone), 2-substitution (e.g., drostanolone, oxymetholone, stanozolol), 4-substitution (e.g., clostebol, oxabolone), and various other modifications.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The most commonly employed human physiological specimen for detecting AAS usage is urine, although both blood and hair have been investigated for this purpose. The AAS, whether of endogenous or exogenous origin, are subject to extensive hepatic biotransformation by a variety of enzymatic pathways. The primary urinary metabolites may be detectable for up to 30 days after the last use, depending on the specific agent, dose and route of administration. A number of the drugs have common metabolic pathways, and their excretion profiles may overlap those of the endogenous steroids, making interpretation of testing results a very significant challenge to the analytical chemist. Methods for detection of the substances or their excretion products in urine specimens usually involve gas chromatography–mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The use of gonadal steroids pre-dates their identification and isolation. Extraction of hormones from urines began in China Medical use of testicle extract began in the late 19th century while its effects on strength were still being studied. The isolation of gonadal steroids can be traced back to 1931, when Adolf Butenandt, a chemist in Marburg, purified 15 milligrams of the male hormone androstenone from tens of thousands of litres of urine. This steroid was subsequently synthesized in 1934 by Leopold Ružička, a chemist in Zurich.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: In the 1930s, it was already known that the testes contain a more powerful androgen than androstenone, and three groups of scientists, funded by competing pharmaceutical companies in the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, raced to isolate it. This hormone was first identified by Karoly Gyula David, E. Dingemanse, J. Freud and Ernst Laqueur in a May 1935 paper "On Crystalline Male Hormone from Testicles (Testosterone)." They named the hormone "testosterone", from the stems of "testicle" and "sterol", and the suffix of "ketone". The chemical synthesis of testosterone was achieved in August that year, when Butenandt and G. Hanisch published a paper describing "A Method for Preparing Testosterone from Cholesterol." Only a week later, the third group, Ruzicka and A. Wettstein, announced a patent application in a paper "On the Artificial Preparation of the Testicular Hormone Testosterone (Androsten-3-one-17-ol)." Ruzicka and Butenandt were offered the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work, but the Nazi government forced Butenandt to decline the honor, although he accepted the prize after the end of World War II.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Clinical trials on humans, involving either PO doses of methyltestosterone or injections of testosterone propionate, began as early as 1937. There are often reported rumors that German soldiers were administered AAS during the Second World War, the aim being to increase their aggression and stamina, but these are, as yet, unproven. Adolf Hitler himself, according to his physician, was injected with testosterone derivatives to treat various ailments. AAS were used in experiments conducted by the Nazis on concentration camp inmates, and later by the allies attempting to treat the malnourished victims that survived Nazi camps. President John F. Kennedy was administered steroids both before and during his presidency.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The development of muscle-building properties of testosterone was pursued in the 1940s, in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Bloc countries such as East Germany, where steroid programs were used to enhance the performance of Olympic and other amateur weight lifters. In response to the success of Russian weightlifters, the U.S. Olympic Team physician John Ziegler worked with synthetic chemists to develop an AAS with reduced androgenic effects. Ziegler's work resulted in the production of methandrostenolone, which Ciba Pharmaceuticals marketed as Dianabol. The new steroid was approved for use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1958. It was most commonly administered to burn victims and the elderly. The drug's off-label users were mostly bodybuilders and weight lifters. Although Ziegler prescribed only small doses to athletes, he soon discovered that those having abused Dianabol developed enlarged prostates and atrophied testes. AAS were placed on the list of banned substances of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1976, and a decade later the committee introduced 'out-of-competition' doping tests because many athletes used AAS in their training period rather than during competition.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Three major ideas governed modifications of testosterone into a multitude of AAS: Alkylation at C17α position with methyl or ethyl group created POly active compounds because it slows the degradation of the drug by the liver; esterification of testosterone and nortestosterone at the C17β position allows the substance to be administered parenterally and increases the duration of effectiveness because agents soluble in oily liquids may be present in the body for several months; and alterations of the ring structure were applied for both PO and parenteral agents to seeking to obtain different anabolic-to-androgenic effect ratios.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Androgens were discovered in the 1930s and were characterized as having effects described as "androgenic" (i.e., virilizing) and "anabolic" (e.g., myotrophic, renotrophic). The term "anabolic steroid" can be dated as far back as at least the mid-1940s, when it was used to describe the at-the-time hypothetical concept of a testosterone-derived steroid with anabolic effects but with minimal or no androgenic effects. This concept was formulated based on the observation that steroids had ratios of renotrophic to androgenic potency that differed significantly, which suggested that anabolic and androgenic effects might be dissociable.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: In 1953, a testosterone-derived steroid known as norethandrolone (17α-ethyl-19-nortestosterone) was synthesized at G. D. Searle & Company and was studied as a progestin, but was not marketed. Subsequently, in 1955, it was re-examined for testosterone-like activity in animals and was found to have similar anabolic activity to testosterone, but only one-sixteenth of its androgenic potency. It was the first steroid with a marked and favorable separation of anabolic and androgenic effect to be discovered, and has accordingly been described as the "first anabolic steroid". Norethandrolone was introduced for medical use in 1956, and was quickly followed by numerous similar steroids, for instance nandrolone phenylpropionate in 1959 and stanozolol in 1962. With these developments, "anabolic steroid" became the preferred term to refer to such steroids (over "androgen"), and entered widespread use.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Although "anabolic steroid" was originally intended to specifically describe testosterone-derived steroids with a marked dissociation of anabolic and androgenic effect, it is applied today indiscriminately to all steroids with AR agonism-based anabolic effects regardless of their androgenic potency, including even non-synthetic steroids like testosterone. While many anabolic steroids have diminished androgenic potency in comparison to anabolic potency, there is no anabolic steroid that is exclusively anabolic, and hence all anabolic steroids retain at least some degree of androgenicity. (Likewise, all "androgens" are inherently anabolic.) Indeed, it is probably not possible to fully dissociate anabolic effects from androgenic effects, as both types of effects are mediated by the same signaling receptor, the AR. As such, the distinction between the terms "anabolic steroid" and "androgen" is questionable, and this is the basis for the revised and more recent term "anabolic–androgenic steroid" ("AAS").


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The legal status of AAS varies from country to country: some have stricter controls on their use or prescription than others though in many countries they are not illegal. In the U.S., AAS are currently listed as Schedule III controlled substances under the Controlled Substances Act, which makes simple possession of such substances without a prescription a federal crime punishable by up to one year in prison for the first offense. Unlawful distribution or possession with intent to distribute AAS as a first offense is punished by up to ten years in prison. In Canada, AAS and their derivatives are part of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and are Schedule IV substances, meaning that it is illegal to obtain or sell them without a prescription; however, possession is not punishable, a consequence reserved for schedule I, II, or III substances. Those guilty of buying or selling AAS in Canada can be imprisoned for up to 18 months. Import and export also carry similar penalties.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: In Canada, researchers have concluded that steroid use among student athletes is extremely widespread. A study conducted in 1993 by the Canadian Centre for Drug-Free Sport found that nearly 83,000 Canadians between the ages of 11 and 18 use steroids. AAS are also illegal without prescription in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, and Portugal, and are listed as Class C Controlled Drugs in the United Kingdom. AAS are readily available without a prescription in some countries such as Mexico and Thailand.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The history of the U.S. legislation on AAS goes back to the late 1980s, when the U.S. Congress considered placing AAS under the Controlled Substances Act following the controversy over Ben Johnson's victory at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. AAS were added to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act in the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: The same act also introduced more stringent controls with higher criminal penalties for offenses involving the illegal distribution of AAS and human growth hormone. By the early 1990s, after AAS were scheduled in the U.S., several pharmaceutical companies stopped manufacturing or marketing the products in the U.S., including Ciba, Searle, Syntex, and others. In the Controlled Substances Act, AAS are defined to be any drug or hormonal substance chemically and pharmacologically related to testosterone (other than estrogens, progestins, and corticosteroids) that promote muscle growth. The act was amended by the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004, which added prohormones to the list of controlled substances, with effect from January 20, 2005.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Even though they can still be prescribed by a medical doctor in the U.S, the use of anabolic steroids for injury recovery purposes has been a taboo subject, even amongst the majority of sports medicine doctors and endocrinologists.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: In the United Kingdom, AAS are classified as class C drugs for their illegal abuse potential, which puts them in the same class as benzodiazepines. AAS are in Schedule 4, which is divided in 2 parts; Part 1 contains most of the benzodiazepines and Part 2 contains the AAS.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Part 1 drugs are subject to full import and export controls with possession being an offence without an appropriate prescription. There is no restriction on the possession when it is part of a medicinal product. Part 2 drugs require a Home Office licence for importation and export unless the substance is in the form of a medicinal product and is for self-administration by a person.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: AAS are banned by all major sports bodies including Association of Tennis Professionals, Major League Baseball, Fédération Internationale de Football Association the Olympics, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, World Wrestling Entertainment and the National Football League. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) maintains the list of performance-enhancing substances used by many major sports bodies and includes all anabolic agents, which includes all AAS and precursors as well as all hormones and related substances. Spain has passed an anti-doping law creating a national anti-doping agency. Italy passed a law in 2000 where penalties range up to three years in prison if an athlete has tested positive for banned substances. In 2006, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law ratification of the International Convention Against Doping in Sport which would encourage cooperation with WADA. Many other countries have similar legislation prohibiting AAS in sports including Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Sweden.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: United States federal law enforcement officials have expressed concern about AAS use by police officers. "It's a big problem, and from the number of cases, it's something we shouldn't ignore. It's not that we set out to target cops, but when we're in the middle of an active investigation into steroids, there have been quite a few cases that have led back to police officers," says Lawrence Payne, a spokesman for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin stated that "Anabolic steroid abuse by police officers is a serious problem that merits greater awareness by departments across the country". It is also believed that police officers across the United Kingdom "are using criminals to buy steroids" which he claims to be a top risk factor for police corruption.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Following the murder-suicide of Chris Benoit in 2007, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigated steroid usage in the wrestling industry. The Committee investigated WWE and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (now known as Impact Wrestling), asking for documentation of their companies' drug policies. WWE CEO and chairman, Linda and Vince McMahon respectively, both testified. The documents stated that 75 wrestlers—roughly 40 percent—had tested positive for drug use since 2006, most commonly for steroids.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: AAS are frequently produced in pharmaceutical laboratories, but, in nations where stricter laws are present, they are also produced in small home-made underground laboratories, usually from raw substances imported from abroad. In these countries, the majority of steroids are obtained illegally through black market trade. These steroids are usually manufactured in other countries, and therefore must be smuggled across international borders. As with most significant smuggling operations, organized crime is involved.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: In the late 2000s, the worldwide trade in illicit AAS increased significantly, and authorities announced record captures on three continents. In 2006, Finnish authorities announced a record seizure of 11.8 million AAS tablets. A year later, the DEA seized 11.4 million units of AAS in the largest U.S seizure ever. In the first three months of 2008, Australian customs reported a record 300 seizures of AAS shipments.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: In the U.S., Canada, and Europe, illegal steroids are sometimes purchased just as any other illegal drug, through dealers who are able to obtain the drugs from a number of sources. Illegal AAS are sometimes sold at gyms and competitions, and through the mail, but may also be obtained through pharmacists, veterinarians, and physicians. In addition, a significant number of counterfeit products are sold as AAS, in particular via mail order from websites posing as overseas pharmacies. In the U.S., black-market importation continues from Mexico, Thailand, and other countries where steroids are more easily available, as they are legal.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: AAS, alone and in combination with progestogens, have been studied as potential male hormonal contraceptives. Dual AAS and progestins such as trestolone and dimethandrolone undecanoate have also been studied as male contraceptives, with the latter under active investigation as of 2018.


title: Anabolic steroid

text: Topical androgens have been used and studied in the treatment of cellulite in women. Topical androstanolone on the abdomen has been found to significantly decrease subcutaneous abdominal fat in women, and hence may be useful for improving body silhouette. However, men and hyperandrogenic women have higher amounts of abdominal fat than healthy women, and androgens have been found to increase abdominal fat in postmenopausal women and transgender men as well.


title: Babe (film)

text: Babe (also known as Babe the Sheep-Pig in the working title) is a 1995 comedy-drama film directed by Chris Noonan, produced by George Miller and written by both. It is an adaptation of Dick King-Smith's 1983 novel "The Sheep-Pig", which tells the story of a farm pig who wants to do the work of a sheepdog. The film is narrated by Roscoe Lee Browne and the main animal characters are played by both real animals and animatronic puppets.


title: Babe (film)

text: "Babe" was filmed in Robertson, New South Wales in 1994 and released theatrically on 4 August 1995, going on to become a critical and commercial success, with several Academy Award nominations. A sequel, "", was released on 25 November 1998 and failed to achieve the same success as the first film.


title: Babe (film)

text: After being used in "guess the weight" contest at a county fair, orphaned piglet Babe is brought home to the farm of the contest winner, Arthur Hoggett. There he is taken in by Border Collie Fly, her irascible mate Rex and their puppies and befriends a duck named Ferdinand, who wakes people by crowing like a rooster every morning so he will be considered useful and be spared from being eaten.


title: Babe (film)

text: Dismayed when the Hoggetts buy an alarm clock, Ferdinand persuades Babe to help him destroy it. In doing so they wake Duchess, the Hoggetts' cat, and wreck the house in the ensuing chaos. Rex sternly instructs Babe to stay away from Ferdinand and the house. Seeing Fly saddened when her puppies are put up for sale, Babe lets her adopt him. With the Hoggett's relatives visiting for Christmas, Hoggett decides against choosing Babe for Christmas dinner, remarking a pretext to his wife Esme that Babe may bring a prize for ham at the next county fair. Ferdinand's friend Rosanna is served instead, prompting Ferdinand to escape the farm. Babe investigates the fields, where he witnesses two men stealing Hoggett's sheep and quickly alerts Fly and the farmer, preventing the thieves from taking the whole flock.


title: Babe (film)

text: Impressed after seeing Babe sort hens, separating the brown from the white ones, Hoggett takes him to try and herd the sheep. Encouraged by an elder ewe named Maa, the sheep cooperate, but Rex perceives Babe's actions as an insult to sheepdogs. After Fly stands up for Babe, Rex attacks and injures her and bites Hoggett's hand when he tries to intervene; Rex is subsequently chained to the dog house and sedated, leaving the sheep herding job to Babe. One morning, Babe scares off a trio of feral dogs attacking the sheep, but Maa is mortally injured, and dies as a result. Hoggett, thinking Babe killed Maa, prepares to shoot him but Fly finds out the truth from the sheep and distracts Hoggett for long enough until Esme informs him about the dogs' attacks on neighboring farms.


title: Babe (film)

text: When Esme leaves on a trip, Hoggett signs Babe up for a local sheepherding competition. As it is raining the night before, Hoggett lets him and Fly into the house, where he is scratched by Duchess, who in turn is temporarily confined outside as punishment. When she is let back in later, she gets revenge on Babe by revealing that humans consume pigs. After learning from Fly that this is true, Babe runs away and Rex finds him the next morning in a cemetery. Hoggett brings a horrified and demoralized Babe home, where he refuses to eat. Hoggett feeds him from a baby bottle, sings "If I Had Words" and dances a jig for him, restoring Babe's faith in Hoggett's affection.


title: Babe (film)

text: At the competition, Babe meets the sheep that he will be herding, but they ignore his attempts to speak to them. As Hoggett is criticized by the bemused judges and ridiculed by the public for using a pig instead of a dog, Rex runs back to the farm to ask the sheep what to do. After promising he will treat them better from now on, the sheep disclose to him a secret password. He returns in time to convey the password to Babe, and the sheep now follow his instructions flawlessly. Amid the crowd's acclamation, Babe is unanimously given the highest score. While he sits down next to the farmer, Hoggett praises him with the standard command to sheep dogs that their job is done, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do."


title: Babe (film)

text: The puppies were voiced by Ross Bagley, Gemini Barnett, Rachel Davey, Debi Derryberry, Jazzmine Dillingham, Courtland Mead, and Kevin Woods.


title: Babe (film)

text: "Babe" is an adaptation of Dick King-Smith's 1983 novel "The Sheep-Pig", also known as "Babe: The Gallant Pig" in the US, which tells the story of a pig raised as livestock who wants to do the work of a sheepdog. The main animal characters are played by a combination of real and animatronic pigs and Border Collies. The breed of pig used was a Large White, which grows rapidly. On account of this, 46 piglets of the required size were used during the course of the filming, as well as the animatronic model for special effects.


title: Babe (film)

text: The film is divided into six chapters to preserve the storybook-like feel of the original novel (although none of the film's chapters are the same as the book's). The film's mice characters were subsequently added to read the chapters aloud after a test screening in which producer George Miller noted that younger audiences had trouble reading them, needing help from the adults.


title: Babe (film)

text: After seven years of development, "Babe" was filmed in Robertson, New South Wales, Australia. The talking-animal visual effects were done by Rhythm & Hues Studios and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The film was both a box office and critical success, grossing $254 million worldwide and earning seven Oscar nominations, including a win for Best Visual Effects.


title: Babe (film)

text: According to actor James Cromwell, there was tension on the set between producer George Miller and director Chris Noonan. Noonan later complained, "I don't want to make a lifelong enemy of George Miller but I thought that he tried to take credit for "Babe", tried to exclude me from any credit, and it made me very insecure... It was like your guru has told you that you are no good and that is really disconcerting."


title: Babe (film)

text: Miller shot back, "Chris said something that is defamatory: that I took his name off the credits on internet sites, which is just absolutely untrue. You know, I'm sorry but I really have a lot more to do with my life than worry about that... when it comes to "Babe", the vision was handed to Chris on a plate."


title: Babe (film)

text: Interviewed about the movie in 2020, Cromwell admitted he nearly turned it down, as his character only had about 16 lines. He was persuaded by his friend Charles Keating to take it anyway. Keating told him: "it's a free ticket to Australia, and if the movie tanks, it's not your fault, it's the pig's fault." Cromwell said Noonan wanted him for the part, and won out over Miller, who had wanted to cast an Australian actor. Cromwell's fee was around $50,000. He asked for an increase when he realised the movie was making millions of dollars, but was turned down. Nevertheless, he said "I got a lot out of that film, and it turned my whole life around. I didn't have to audition anymore."


title: Babe (film)

text: In 1998, a sequel directed by Miller, "", was released. In 2006, a video game of the same name based on the film, was published by Mastertronic for the PlayStation 2.


title: Babe (film)

text: The musical score for "Babe" was composed by Nigel Westlake and performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Classical orchestral music by 19th-century French composers is used throughout the film, but is disguised in a variety of ways and often integrated by Westlake into his score. The theme song "If I Had Words" (lyrics by Jonathan Hodge), sung by Hoggett near the film's conclusion, is an adaptation of the "Maestoso" final movement of the "Organ Symphony" by Camille Saint-Saëns, and was originally performed in 1977 by Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley. This tune also recurs throughout the film's score.


title: Babe (film)

text: There are also brief quotations within the score from Edvard Grieg's Lyric Pieces, Op.71 No. 1. Other music featured is by Léo Delibes, Richard Rodgers, Gabriel Fauré, and Georges Bizet.


title: Babe (film)

text: The film was a box office success, grossing $36.7 million at the box office in Australia and over $254 million worldwide. It also received critical acclaim and was ultimately nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for James Cromwell, Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published, Best Art Direction and Best Film Editing, winning Best Visual Effects. At the APRA Music Awards of 1996 it won Best Film Score for Westlake's work. In 2006, the American Film Institute named "Babe" #80 on its list of America's Most Inspiring Movies. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 70 reviews, with a rating average of 8.26/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "The rare family-friendly feature with a heart as big as its special effects budget, "Babe" offers timeless entertainment for viewers of all ages." Metacritic gave the film a score of 83 based on 16 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Babe (film)

text: Because of its subject being a piglet, "Babe" was initially banned from Malaysia in order to avoid upsetting or annoying Muslims (who view pigs as haram). The ruling was overturned almost a year later and the film was released direct-to-video.


title: Babe (film)

text: When "Babe" was released in the US, it is reported that "activists around the country staked out movie theatres with flyers documenting the real-life abuses of pigs". The film had a marked effect on the growth of vegetarianism, particularly among the young. It also promoted a more sympathetic view of the intellectual, emotional and social capacities of animals. James Cromwell became an ethical vegan as a result of starring as Farmer Hoggett, saying, "I decided that to be able to talk about this [movie] with conviction, I needed to become a vegetarian." In 1996 he went on to organize a vegetarian dinner for the Los Angeles homeless at a "Compassionate Christmas" event in order to reverse the barnyard view that "Christmas is carnage".


title: Legislature

text: A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government.


title: Legislature

text: Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as primary legislation. In addition, legislatures may observe and steer governing actions, with authority to amend the budget involved.


title: Legislature

text: The members of a legislature are called legislators. In a democracy, legislators are most commonly popularly elected, although indirect election and appointment by the executive are also used, particularly for bicameral legislatures featuring an upper chamber.


title: Legislature

text: Though the specific roles for each legislature differ by location, they all aim to serve the same purpose of appointing officials to represent their citizens to determine appropriate legislation for the country.


title: Legislature

text: Among the earliest recognised legislatures was the Athenian "Ecclesia." In the Middle Ages, European monarchs would host assemblies of the nobility, which would later develop into predecessors of modern legislatures. These were often named The Estates. The oldest surviving legislature is the Icelandic Althing, founded in 930 CE.


title: Legislature

text: Democratic legislatures have six major functions: representation, deliberation, legislation, authorizing expenditure, making governments, and oversight.


title: Legislature

text: One of the major functions of a legislature is to discuss and debate issues of major importance to society. This activity can take place in two forms. In debating legislatures, such as the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the floor of the legislature frequently sees lively debate. In contrast, in committee-based legislatures like the United States Congress, deliberation takes place in closed committees.


title: Legislature

text: While legislatures have nominally the sole power to create laws, the substantive extent of this power depends on details of the political system. In Westminster-style legislatures the executive (composed of the cabinet) can essentially pass any laws it wants, as it usually has a majority of legislators behind it, kept in check by the party whip, while committee-based legislatures in continental Europe and those in presidential systems of the Americas have more independence in drafting and amending bills.


title: Legislature

text: The origins of the power of the purse which legislatures typically have in passing or denying government budgets goes back to the European assemblies of nobility which the monarchs would have to consult before raising taxes. For this power to be actually effective, the legislature should be able to amend the budget, have an effective committee system, enough time for consideration, as well as access to relevant background information.


title: Legislature

text: There are several ways in which the legislature can hold the government accountable, including questioning, interpellations, and votes of confidence.


title: Legislature

text: In contrast to democratic systems, legislatures under authoritarianism are used to ensure the stability of the power structure by co-opting potential competing interests within the elites, which they achieve (cap) by:


title: Legislature

text: Each chamber of the legislature consists of a number of legislators who use some form of parliamentary procedure to debate political issues and vote on proposed legislation. There must be a certain number of legislators present to carry out these activities; this is called a quorum.


title: Legislature

text: Some of the responsibilities of a legislature, such as giving first consideration to newly proposed legislation, are usually delegated to committees made up of a few of the members of the .


title: Legislature

text: The members of a legislature usually represent different political parties; the members from each party generally meet as a caucus to organize their internal affairs.


title: Legislature

text: Legislatures vary widely in the amount of political power they wield, compared to other political players such as judiciaries, militaries, and executives. In 2009, political scientists M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig constructed a Parliamentary powers index in an attempt to quantify the different degrees of power among national legislatures. The German Bundestag, the Italian Parliament, and the Mongolian State Great Khural tied for most powerful, while Myanmar's House of Representatives and Somalia's Transitional Federal Assembly (since replaced by the Federal Parliament of Somalia) tied for least powerful.


title: Legislature

text: Some political systems follows the principle of legislative supremacy, which holds that the legislature is the supreme branch of government and cannot be bound by other institutions, such as the judicial branch or a written constitution. Such a system renders the legislature more powerful.


title: Legislature

text: In parliamentary and semi-presidential systems of government, the executive is responsible to the legislature, which may remove it with a vote of no confidence. On the other hand, according to the separation of powers doctrine, the legislature in a presidential system is considered an independent and coequal branch of government along with both the judiciary and the executive. Nevertheless, many presidential systems provide for the impeachment of the executive for criminal or unconstitutional behaviour.


title: Legislature

text: Legislatures will sometimes delegate their legislative power to administrative or executive agencies.


title: Legislature

text: Legislatures are made up of individual members, known as legislators, who vote on proposed laws. A legislature usually contains a fixed number of legislators; because legislatures usually meet in a specific room filled with seats for the legislators, this is often described as the number of "seats" it contains. For example, a legislature that has 100 "seats" has 100 members. By extension, an electoral district that elects a single legislator can also be described as a "seat", as, for example, in the phrases "safe seat" and "marginal seat".


title: Legislature

text: After election, the members may be protected by parliamentary immunity or parliamentary privilege, either for all actions the duration of their entire term, or for just those related to their legislative duties.


title: Legislature

text: A legislature may debate and vote upon bills as a single unit, or it may be composed of multiple separate assemblies, called by various names including "legislative chambers", "debate chambers", and "houses", which debate and vote separately and have distinct powers. A legislature which operates as a single unit is unicameral, one divided into two chambers is bicameral, and one divided into three chambers is tricameral.


title: Legislature

text: In bicameral legislatures, one chamber is usually considered the upper house, while the other is considered the lower house. The two types are not rigidly different, but members of upper houses tend to be indirectly elected or appointed rather than directly elected, tend to be allocated by administrative divisions rather than by population, and tend to have longer terms than members of the lower house. In some systems, particularly parliamentary systems, the upper house has less power and tends to have a more advisory role, but in others, particularly federal presidential systems, the upper house has equal or even greater power.


title: Legislature

text: In federations, the upper house typically represents the federation's component states. This is also the case with the supranational legislature of the European Union. The upper house may either contain the delegates of state governmentsas in the European Union and in Germany and, before 1913, in the United Statesor be elected according to a formula that grants equal representation to states with smaller populations, as is the case in Australia and the United States since 1913.


title: Legislature

text: Tricameral legislatures are rare; the Massachusetts Governor's Council still exists, but the most recent national example existed in the waning years of White-minority rule in South Africa. Tetracameral legislatures no longer exist, but they were previously used in Scandinavia. The only legislature with a number of chambers bigger than four was the Federal Assembly of Yugoslavia; initially established as a Pentacameral body in 1963, it was turned into a hexacameral body in 1967.


title: Legislature

text: Legislatures vary widely in their size. Among national legislatures, China's National People's Congress is the largest with 2,980 members, while Vatican City's Pontifical Commission is the smallest with 7. Neither legislature is democratically elected: The Pontifical Commission members are appointed by the Pope and the National People's Congress is indirectly elected within the context of a one-party state.


title: Legislature

text: Legislature size is a trade off between efficiency and representation; the smaller the legislature, the more efficiently it can operate, but the larger the legislature, the better it can represent the political diversity of its constituents. Comparative analysis of national legislatures has found that size of a country's lower house tends to be proportional to the cube root of its population; that is, the size of the lower house tends to increase along with population, but much more slowly.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: Anna Maxwell Martin (born Anna Charlotte Martin; 27 May 1977), sometimes credited as Anna Maxwell-Martin, is a British actress. She won two British Academy Television Awards, for her portrayals of Esther Summerson in the BBC adaptation of "Bleak House" (2005) and N in the Channel 4 adaptation of "Poppy Shakespeare" (2008). She is also known for her roles as DCS Patricia Carmichael in BBC One crime drama "Line of Duty" (2019–present) and Kelly Major in "Code 404" (2020–present). Since 2016, Maxwell Martin has starred in the BBC comedy "Motherland", for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Female Comedy Performance.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: Her theatre work includes the role of Lyra Belacqua in the production of "His Dark Materials" (2003–2004) at the National Theatre.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: Anna Charlotte Martin was born in Beverley on 27 May 1977 to Rosalind (née Lugassy) and Ivan Martin. Her father was managing director of a pharmaceutical company and her mother was a research scientist. Her mother gave up her job to bring up Anna and her elder brother, Adam. She attended Beverley High School, where she appeared in school plays. After she left school, Maxwell Martin studied history at Liverpool University.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: Maxwell Martin joined the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) after completing her studies at Liverpool. She added the name Maxwell (her grandfather's name) to her surname to distinguish her from another member with the same name when she joined Equity.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: Maxwell Martin first came to prominence on the London stage playing the leading role of Lyra in the National Theatre's production of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials". She was then cast in the part of Bessie Higgins in the BBC television adaptation Elizabeth Gaskell's novel "North and South" in 2004, and made a guest appearance in the 2005 series of "Doctor Who". She played Esther Summerson, the central character in the 2005 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens's "Bleak House", for which she won the Best Actress BAFTA Television Award in 2006.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: In January 2006, Maxwell Martin took part in a reading of "The Entertainer" at the Royal Court Theatre, and in February and March she appeared in Laura Wade's "Other Hands", directed by Bijan Sheibani at the Soho Theatre. She is the narrator of the CD version of "The Foreshadowing", a children's book about the First World War by Marcus Sedgwick, which was published in May 2006. In the same year she worked on "I Really Hate My Job", directed by Oliver Parker and, from October 2006 to April 2007, played Sally Bowles in Bill Kenwright and Rufus Norris's West End production of "Cabaret" at the Lyric Theatre.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: She played Cassandra Austen in "Becoming Jane", a 2007 film about the early life of the novelist Jane Austen, starring American actress Anne Hathaway in the title role. At the end of the year she played the gaoler's daughter in Lee Hall's adaptation of "The Wind in the Willows", a multimillion-pound production by Box TV for BBC One, and was the joint narrator (with Anton Lesser) of the CD version of "Tamar", a children's book about the Second World War by Mal Peet, which was published in December 2007.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: In 2008, she starred in the BBC Two drama "White Girl" and with Naomie Harris in Channel 4's adaptation of "Poppy Shakespeare", for which she won her second Best Actress BAFTA Television Award in 2009.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: From July to October of that year, she appeared with Dame Eileen Atkins in "The Female of the Species" at the Vaudeville Theatre in London. She also appeared in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel "Crooked House". In July 2009 she appeared in the BBC Two drama "Freefall", and played Neil Armstrong's wife, Janet, in "Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11", an ITV1 drama documentary to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: In February 2010, she played freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke in "On Expenses", a BBC Four satirical drama, and later played Isabella in Shakespeare's "Measure For Measure" alongside Rory Kinnear at the Almeida Theatre.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: In February 2011, she played Sarah Burton in a three-part BBC adaptation of Winifred Holtby's novel "South Riding". On 12 July 2011, she played Kay Langrish in a BBC Two dramatisation of "The Night Watch". Beginning in September 2012, she starred in the drama mini-series "The Bletchley Circle" (2012–2014). On 4 September 2012, she appeared in Jimmy McGovern's "Accused".


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: In December 2013 she returned to the world of Jane Austen, starring as Elizabeth Darcy in the BBC Christmas season drama "Death Comes to Pemberley", a three-part television adaptation of the P. D. James novel of the same name which continues the events of Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" six years after Darcy and Elizabeth's marriage, with a murder mystery plot involving the same characters.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: In 2015, she played Mary Shelley in ITV drama series "The Frankenstein Chronicles". In December that year she appeared as Ethel Rogers in the BBC three-part serial "And Then There Were None", an adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel of the same name.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: In 2017, she played the lead role in sitcom "Motherland". The show returned for a second series in 2019 and another in May 2021.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: In 2019, she played Beelzebub, leader of the denizens of Hell, in the Amazon Prime TV serial "Good Omens", based on the book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. In the same year she joined the cast of "Line of Duty"' during its fifth series playing DCS Patricia Carmichael, a role she reprised in series six.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: In 2021, she played the co-lead role in "Hollington Drive" an ITV television drama series that began broadcasting on 29 September 2021. Created and written by Sophie Petzal, the series follows two sisters, Theresa (Anna Maxwell Martin) and Helen (Rachael Stirling), and their families as they grapple with the potential crime of their children.


title: Anna Maxwell Martin

text: Maxwell Martin was married to film director Roger Michell after his divorce from Kate Buffery. The couple had two daughters. In April 2020, Maxwell Martin announced that the couple had separated. Michell died in September 2021.


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: Them is an American horror anthology series, created by Little Marvin and executive produced by Lena Waithe. The series stars Deborah Ayorinde, Ashley Thomas, Alison Pill, and Ryan Kwanten and premiered on Amazon Prime Video on April 9, 2021, to mixed reviews. A second season, titled "Them: The Scare", is in development, with Ayorinde returning from the first season.


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: Set in 1953, "Them" follows a black family who, during the Second Great Migration, moves from North Carolina to an all-white neighborhood in Los Angeles. The family's idyllic home slowly transforms into an epicenter of evil forces, next-door and otherworldly, that threaten to haunt, ravage and destroy them.


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: On July 28, 2018, Amazon gave the project a two-season order. The series was created by Little Marvin, who also wrote the script for the first season and was set to executive produce the show alongside Lena Waithe under their overall deals with Amazon Studios. Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, and Michael Connolly of Vertigo Entertainment were also announced as executive producers, with Vertigo co-producing the series under the company's deal with Sony Pictures Television. The first season is subtitled "Them: Covenant", and the series will follow a similar limited semi-anthological structure to "American Horror Story", with each season following a different story with different characters. Alongside the series order announcement, Waithe said:


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: On April 1, 2019, David Matthews joined the series as showrunner under his newly announced overall deal at Sony Pictures Television. On November 19, 2019, it was announced that Larysa Kondracki was attached to executive produce the series as well as direct multiple episodes including the pilot under her overall deal at Amazon Studios.


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: On July 27, 2019, Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas were cast in the lead roles. Shahadi Wright Joseph, Alison Pill, Ryan Kwanten, Melody Hurd, Javier Botet, and Percy Hynes White were added to the main cast on October 3, 2019, alongside Derek Phillips who was cast in a recurring capacity. On December 2, 2019, Brooke Smith, Anika Noni Rose P.J. Byrne, Malcolm Mays, Jeremiah Birkett, and Sophie Guest joined the recurring cast.


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: The series began production on July 8, 2019, with filming taking place between Atlanta and Los Angeles.


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: The series had its world premiere on March 18, 2021, at the SXSW Film Festival as part of the Episodic Premieres section. The series premiered on Amazon Prime Video on April 9, 2021.


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the series has a 59% fresh rating from 49 critic reviews with an average score of 6.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads "Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas' gripping performances help "Them" sustain a sufficient sense of terror, but its blunt and bloody approach undermines any social commentary in favor of more superficial horrors." On Metacritic, the series received a mixed rating of 57/100 based on 20 critic reviews.


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: "The Guardian"s Lucy Mangan gave the show 4/5 stars, writing that "What marks out this portrayal of 50s prejudice (not unworked ground) is that, thanks to magnificent performances from Thomas and Ayorinde, you get a great sense of the cost to victims: the sheer amount of mental energy it takes to navigate a relentlessly hostile world, the consequent exhaustion, the constant abrading of the soul."


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: In a mostly negative review, Lovia Gyarkye of "The Hollywood Reporter" said that ""Them" suffers from an overcrowded narrative and too many themes, making for an uneven, dizzying, at times overly dense viewing experience. From the violent neighbors and the history of Black homeownership to the traumas that plague each member of the Emory family, the show takes on more than it can responsibly unpack."


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: "Variety"s chief TV critic Daniel D'Addario wrote that "In visual style and in the performances of the actors playing the Emorys, it captures a recognizable 1950s of the mind. A striking early sequence sees the family in integrated settings, being assisted by white employees at an appliance store and a soda fountain. The point is made, elegantly, that the Emorys have left behind the explicit bigotry of the American South for a place where the horrors are more insidious", but described the series as "surprisingly unimaginative".


title: Them (2021 TV series)

text: Some critics took issue with scenes of graphic racial violence, particularly a scene in which a Black couple is blinded with hot pokers and burned alive, calling "Them" "black trauma porn".


title: Scaphism

text: Scaphism (from Greek , meaning "boat"), also known as the boats, is an alleged ancient Persian method of execution mentioned by Plutarch in his "Life of Artaxerxes". It ostensibly entailed trapping the victim between two boats, feeding and covering them with milk and honey, and allowing them to fester and be devoured by insects and other vermin over time.


title: Scaphism

text: The first mention of scaphism is Plutarch's description of the execution of the soldier Mithridates, given as punishment by king Artaxerxes II for killing his brother Cyrus the Younger, who had rebelled in an attempt to claim the throne of the Achaemenid Empire:


title: Scaphism

text: The 12th-century Byzantine chronicler Joannes Zonaras later described the punishment, based on Plutarch:


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian () is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the official language of Lithuania and one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.8 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 200,000 speakers elsewhere.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian is closely related to the neighbouring Latvian language. It is written in a Latin script. It is said to be the most conservative of the existing Indo-European languages, retaining features of the Proto-Indo-European language that had disappeared through development from other descendant languages.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is conservative in some aspects of its grammar and phonology, retaining archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit (particularly its early form, Vedic Sanskrit) or Ancient Greek. For this reason, it is an important source for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation (with the earliest texts dating only to c. 1500).


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian was studied by linguists such as Franz Bopp, August Schleicher, Adalbert Bezzenberger, Louis Hjelmslev, Ferdinand de Saussure, Winfred P. Lehmann and Vladimir Toporov and others.


title: Lithuanian language

text: The Proto-Balto-Slavic language branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then sub-branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic. Baltic languages passed through a Proto-Balto-Slavic stage, from which Baltic languages retain numerous exclusive and non-exclusive lexical, morphological, phonological and accentual isoglosses in common with the Slavic languages, which represent their closest living Indo-European relatives. Moreover, with Lithuanian being so archaic in phonology, Slavic words can often be deduced from Lithuanian by regular sound laws; for example, Lith. "vilkas" and Polish wilk ← PBSl. *wilkás (cf. PSl. *vьlkъ) ← PIE *wĺ̥kʷos, all meaning "wolf".


title: Lithuanian language

text: According to some glottochronological speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between AD 400 and 600. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name, the Galindai and Sudinoi (Γαλίνδαι, Σουδινοί) in the 2nd century AD. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after 800; for a long period, they could be considered dialects of a single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century and perhaps as late as the 17th century. Also, the 13th and 14th century occupation of the western part of the Daugava basin (closely coinciding with the territory of modern Latvia) by the German Sword Brethren had a significant influence on the language's independent development.


title: Lithuanian language

text: The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Nicene Creed written in the Southern Aukštaitian dialect. Printed books existed after 1547, but the level of literacy among Lithuanians was low through the 18th century, and books were not commonly available. In 1864, following the January Uprising, Mikhail Muravyov, the Russian Governor General of Lithuania, banned the language in education and publishing and barred use of the Latin alphabet altogether, although books printed in Lithuanian continued to be printed across the border in East Prussia and in the United States. Brought into the country by book smugglers () despite the threat of stiff prison sentences, they helped fuel a growing nationalist sentiment that finally led to the lifting of the ban in 1904.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Jonas Jablonskis (1860–1930) made significant contributions to the formation of the standard Lithuanian language. The conventions of written Lithuanian had been evolving during the 19th century, but Jablonskis, in the introduction to his "Lietuviškos kalbos gramatika", was the first to formulate and expound the essential principles that were so indispensable to its later development. His proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitijan dialect with some features of the eastern Prussian Lithuanians' dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor. These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian language, while the other dialects had experienced different phonetic shifts. Lithuanian has been the official language of Lithuania since 1918. During the Soviet era (see History of Lithuania), it was used in official discourse along with Russian, which, as the official language of the USSR, took precedence over Lithuanian.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages, along with Latvian, and they constitute the eastern branch of Baltic languages family. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian, was extinct by the 18th century; the other Western Baltic languages, Curonian and Sudovian, became extinct earlier. Some theories, such as that of Jānis Endzelīns, considered that the Baltic languages form their own distinct branch of the family of Indo-European languages. There is also an opinion that suggests the union of Baltic and Slavic languages into a distinct sub-family of Balto-Slavic languages amongst the Indo-European family of languages. Such an opinion was first represented by the likes of August Schleicher, and to a certain extent, Antoine Meillet. Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact while Schleicher, Meillet and others argued for a genetic kinship between the two families.


title: Lithuanian language

text: An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski. He proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities (Baltic and Slavic), they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody. The alleged (or certain, as certain as historic linguistics can be) similarities due to contact are seen in such phenomena as the existence of definite adjectives formed by the addition of an inflected pronoun (descended from the same Proto-Indo-European pronoun), which exist in both Baltic and Slavic yet nowhere else in the Indo-European family (languages such as Albanian and the Germanic languages developed definite adjectives independently), and that are not reconstructible for Proto-Balto-Slavic, meaning that they most probably developed through language contact.


title: Lithuanian language

text: The Baltic hydronyms area stretches from the Vistula River in the west to the east of Moscow and from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south of Kyiv. Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov (1961, 1962) studied Baltic hydronyms in the Russian and Ukrainian territory. Hydronyms and archeology analysis show that the Slavs started migrating to the Baltic areas east and north-east directions in the 6–7th centuries, before then, the Baltic and Slavic boundary was south of the Pripyat River. In the 1960s Vladimir Toporov and Vyacheslav Ivanov made the following conclusions about the relationship between the Baltic and Slavic languages: a) the Proto-Slavic language formed from the peripheral-type Baltic dialects; b) the Slavic linguistic type formed later from the structural model of the Baltic languages; c) the Slavic structural model is a result of a transformation of the structural model of the Baltic languages. These scholars’ theses do not contradict the Baltic and Slavic languages closeness and from a historical perspective specify the Baltic-Slavic languages evolution.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian is spoken mainly in Lithuania. It is also spoken by ethnic Lithuanians living in today's Belarus, Latvia, Poland, and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, as well as by sizable emigrant communities in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, and Spain.


title: Lithuanian language

text: 2,955,200 people in Lithuania (including 3,460 Tatars), or about 86% of the 2015 population, are native Lithuanian speakers; most Lithuanian inhabitants of other nationalities also speak Lithuanian to some extent. The total worldwide Lithuanian-speaking population is about 3,200,000.


title: Lithuanian language

text: The Lithuanian language has two dialects: Aukštaitian (Highland Lithuanian), and Samogitian (Lowland Lithuanian). There are significant differences between standard Lithuanian and Samogitian and these are often described as separate languages. The modern Samogitian dialect formed in the 13th–16th centuries under the influence of the Curonian language. Lithuanian dialects are closely connected with ethnographical regions of Lithuania.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Dialects are divided into subdialects. Both dialects have three subdialects. Samogitian is divided into West, North and South; Aukštaitian into West (Suvalkiečiai), South (Dzūkai) and East.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Standard Lithuanian is derived mostly from Western Aukštaitian dialects, including the Eastern dialect of Lithuania Minor. The influence of other dialects is more significant in the vocabulary of standard Lithuanian.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian uses the Latin script supplemented with diacritics. It has 32 letters. In the collation order, "y" follows immediately after "į" (called "i nosinė"), because both "y" and "į" represent the same long vowel :


title: Lithuanian language

text: In addition, the following digraphs are used, but are treated as sequences of two letters for collation purposes. The digraph "ch" represents a single sound, the velar fricative , while "dz" and "dž" are pronounced like straightforward combinations of their component letters (sounds):


title: Lithuanian language

text: The Lithuanian writing system is largely phonemic, i.e., one letter usually corresponds to a single phoneme (sound). There are a few exceptions: for example, the letter "i" represents either the vowel , as in the English "sit", or is silent and merely indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized. The latter is largely the case when "i" occurs after a consonant and is followed by a back or a central vowel, except in some borrowed words (e.g., the first consonant in "lūpa" , "lip", is a velarized dental lateral approximant; on the other hand, the first consonant in "liūtas" , "lion", is a palatalized alveolar lateral approximant; both consonants are followed by the same vowel, the long , and no can be pronounced in "liūtas"). Before the 20th century, due to the Polish influence, the Lithuanian alphabet included the Polish Ł for the first sound and regular L (without a following i) for the second: "łupa", "lutas".


title: Lithuanian language

text: A macron (on "u"), an ogonek (on "a", "e", "i", and "u"), and "y" (in place of "i") are used for grammatical and historical reasons and always denote vowel length in Modern Standard Lithuanian. Acute, grave, and tilde diacritics are used to indicate pitch accents. However, these pitch accents are generally not written, except in dictionaries, grammars, and where needed for clarity, such as to differentiate homonyms and dialectal use.


title: Lithuanian language

text: All Lithuanian consonants except have two variants: the non-palatalized one represented by the IPA symbols in the chart, and the palatalized one (i.e.  – ,  – ,  – , and so on). The consonants , , and their palatalized variants are only found in loanwords.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian has six long vowels and four short ones (not including disputed phonemes marked in brackets). Length has traditionally been considered the distinctive feature, though short vowels are also more centralized and long vowels more peripheral:


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian is traditionally described as having nine diphthongs, "ai"," au"," ei"," eu"," oi"," ou"," ui"," ie", and" uo." However, some approaches (i.e., Schmalstieg 1982) treat them as vowel sequences rather than diphthongs; indeed, the longer component depends on the type of stress, whereas in diphthongs, the longer segment is fixed.


title: Lithuanian language

text: The Lithuanian prosodic system is characterized by free accent and distinctive quantity. Its accentuation is sometimes described as a simple tone system, often called pitch accent. In lexical words, one syllable will be tonically prominent. A heavy syllable—that is, a syllable containing a long vowel, diphthong, or a sonorant coda—may have one of two tones, "falling tone" (or "acute tone") or "rising tone" (or "circumflex tone"). Light syllables (syllables with short vowels and optionally also obstruent codas) do not have the two-way contrast of heavy syllables.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian is a highly inflected language. In Lithuanian, there are two grammatical genders for nouns (masculine and feminine) and three genders for adjectives, pronouns, numerals and participles (masculine, feminine and neuter). Every attribute must agree with the gender and number of the noun. The neuter forms of other parts of speech are used with a subject of an undefined gender (a pronoun, an infinitive etc.).


title: Lithuanian language

text: There are twelve noun and five adjective declensions and one (masculine and feminine) participle declension.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Nouns and other parts of nominal morphology are declined in seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative. In older Lithuanian texts, three additional varieties of the locative case are found: illative, adessive and allative. The most common are the illative, which still is used, mostly in spoken language, and the allative, which survives in the standard language in some idiomatic usages. The adessive is nearly extinct. These additional cases are probably due to the influence of Uralic languages, with which Baltic languages have had a longstanding contact. (Uralic languages possess a great variety of noun cases, a number of which are specialised locative cases.)


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian verbal morphology shows a number of innovations; namely, the loss of synthetic passive (which is hypothesized based on other archaic Indo-European languages, such as Greek and Latin), synthetic perfect (formed by means of reduplication) and aorist; forming subjunctive and imperative with the use of suffixes plus flexions as opposed to solely flections in, e.g., Ancient Greek; loss of the optative mood; merging and disappearing of the -"t"- and -"nt"- markers for the third-person singular and plural, respectively (this, however, occurs in Latvian and Old Prussian as well and may indicate a collective feature of all Baltic languages).


title: Lithuanian language

text: On the other hand, the Lithuanian verbal morphology retains a number of archaic features absent from most modern Indo-European languages (but shared with Latvian). This includes the synthetic form of the future tense with the help of the -"s"- suffix and three principal verbal forms with the present tense stem employing the -"n"- and -"st"- infixes.


title: Lithuanian language

text: There are three verbal conjugations. The verb "būti" is the only auxiliary verb in the language. Together with participles, it is used to form dozens of compound forms.


title: Lithuanian language

text: The indirect mood, used only in written narrative speech, has the same tenses corresponding to the appropriate active participle in nominative case; e.g., the past of the indirect mood would be "nešęs", while the past iterative inchoative of the indirect mood would be "būdavęs benešąs". Since it is a nominal form, this mood cannot be conjugated but must match the subject's number and gender.


title: Lithuanian language

text: The subjunctive (or conditional) and the imperative moods have three tenses. Subjunctive: present ("neščiau"), past ("būčiau nešęs"), inchoative ("būčiau benešąs"); imperative: present ("nešk"), perfect ("būk nešęs") and inchoative ("būk benešąs").


title: Lithuanian language

text: The infinitive has only one form ("nešti"). These forms, except the infinitive and indirect mood, are conjugative, having two singular, two plural persons, and the third person form common both for plural and singular.


title: Lithuanian language

text: In the passive voice, the form number is not as rich as in the active voice. There are two types of passive voice in Lithuanian: present participle (type I) and past participle (type II) (in the examples below types I and II are separated with a slash). They both have the same moods and tenses:


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian has the richest participle system of all Indo-European languages, having participles derived from all simple tenses with distinct active and passive forms, and two gerund forms.


title: Lithuanian language

text: In practical terms, the rich overall inflectional system makes the word order have a different meaning than in more analytic languages such as English. The English phrase "a car is coming" translates as "atvažiuoja automobilis" (the theme first), while "the car is coming" – "automobilis atvažiuoja" (the theme first; word order inversion).


title: Lithuanian language

text: The first prescriptive grammar book of Lithuanian was commissioned by the Duke of Prussia, Frederick William, for use in the Lithuanian-speaking parishes of East Prussia. It was written in Latin and German by Daniel Klein and published in Königsberg in 1653 or 1654. The first scientific "Compendium of Lithuanian language" was published in German in 1856/57 by August Schleicher, a professor at Prague University. In it he describes Prussian-Lithuanian, which later became the "skeleton" (Būga) of modern Lithuanian.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Today there are two definitive books on Lithuanian grammar: one in English, the "Introduction to Modern Lithuanian" (called "Beginner's Lithuanian" in its newer editions) by Leonardas Dambriūnas, Antanas Klimas and William R. Schmalstieg; and another in Russian, Vytautas Ambrazas' "Грамматика литовского языка" ("The Grammar of the Lithuanian Language"). Another recent book on Lithuanian grammar is the second edition of "Review of Modern Lithuanian Grammar" by Edmund Remys, published by Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, Chicago, 2003.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lithuanian retains cognates to many words found in classical languages, such as Sanskrit and Latin. These words are descended from Proto-Indo-European. A few examples are the following:


title: Lithuanian language

text: This even extends to grammar, where for example Latin noun declensions ending in "-um" often correspond to Lithuanian "-ų", with the Latin and Lithuanian fourth declensions being particularly close. Many of the words from this list are similar to other Indo-European languages, including English and Russian. The contribution of Lithuanian was influential in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language.


title: Lithuanian language

text: Lexical and grammatical similarities between Baltic and Slavic languages suggest an affinity between these two language groups. On the other hand, there exist a number of Baltic (particularly Lithuanian) words without counterparts in Slavic languages, but which are similar to words in Sanskrit or Latin. The history of the relationship between Baltic and Slavic languages, and our understanding of the affinity between the two groups, remain in dispute (see: Balto-Slavic languages).


title: Lithuanian language

text: In a 1934 book entitled "Die Germanismen des Litauischen. Teil I: Die deutschen Lehnwörter im Litauischen", K. Alminauskis found 2,770 loanwords, of which about 130 were of uncertain origin. The majority of the loanwords were found to have been derived from the Polish, Belarusian, and German languages, with some evidence that these languages all acquired the words from contacts and trade with Prussia during the era of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Loanwords comprised about 20% of the vocabulary used in the first book printed in the Lithuanian language in 1547, Martynas Mažvydas's "Catechism". But as a result of language preservation and purging policies, Slavic loanwords currently constitute only 1.5% of the Standard Lithuanian lexicon, while German loanwords constitute only 0.5% of it. The majority of loanwords in the 20th century arrived from the Russian language.