title: Memory

text: Researchers distinguish between recognition and recall memory. Recognition memory tasks require individuals to indicate whether they have encountered a stimulus (such as a picture or a word) before. Recall memory tasks require participants to retrieve previously learned information. For example, individuals might be asked to produce a series of actions they have seen before or to say a list of words they have heard before.


title: Memory

text: Topographical memory involves the ability to orient oneself in space, to recognize and follow an itinerary, or to recognize familiar places. Getting lost when traveling alone is an example of the failure of topographic memory.


title: Memory

text: Flashbulb memories are clear episodic memories of unique and highly emotional events. People remembering where they were or what they were doing when they first heard the news of President Kennedy's assassination, the Sydney Siege or of 9/11 are examples of flashbulb memories.


title: Memory

text: Anderson (1976) divides long-term memory into "declarative (explicit)" and "procedural (implicit)" memories.


title: Memory

text: Declarative memory requires conscious recall, in that some conscious process must call back the information. It is sometimes called "explicit memory", since it consists of information that is explicitly stored and retrieved. Declarative memory can be further sub-divided into semantic memory, concerning principles and facts taken independent of context; and episodic memory, concerning information specific to a particular context, such as a time and place. Semantic memory allows the encoding of abstract knowledge about the world, such as "Paris is the capital of France". Episodic memory, on the other hand, is used for more personal memories, such as the sensations, emotions, and personal associations of a particular place or time. Episodic memories often reflect the "firsts" in life such as a first kiss, first day of school or first time winning a championship. These are key events in one's life that can be remembered clearly.


title: Memory

text: Research suggests that declarative memory is supported by several functions of the medial temporal lobe system which includes the hippocampus. Autobiographical memory – memory for particular events within one's own life – is generally viewed as either equivalent to, or a subset of, episodic memory. Visual memory is part of memory preserving some characteristics of our senses pertaining to visual experience. One is able to place in memory information that resembles objects, places, animals or people in sort of a mental image. Visual memory can result in priming and it is assumed some kind of perceptual representational system underlies this phenomenon.


title: Memory

text: In contrast, procedural memory (or "implicit memory") is not based on the conscious recall of information, but on implicit learning. It can best be summarized as remembering how to do something. Procedural memory is primarily used in learning motor skills and can be considered a subset of implicit memory. It is revealed when one does better in a given task due only to repetition – no new explicit memories have been formed, but one is unconsciously accessing aspects of those previous experiences. Procedural memory involved in motor learning depends on the cerebellum and basal ganglia.


title: Memory

text: A characteristic of procedural memory is that the things remembered are automatically translated into actions, and thus sometimes difficult to describe. Some examples of procedural memory include the ability to ride a bike or tie shoelaces.


title: Memory

text: Another major way to distinguish different memory functions is whether the content to be remembered is in the past, retrospective memory, or in the future, prospective memory. John Meacham introduced this distinction in a paper presented at the 1975 American Psychological Association annual meeting and subsequently included by Ulric Neisser in his 1982 edited volume, "Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts". Thus, retrospective memory as a category includes semantic, episodic and autobiographical memory. In contrast, prospective memory is memory for future intentions, or "remembering to remember" (Winograd, 1988). Prospective memory can be further broken down into event- and time-based prospective remembering. Time-based prospective memories are triggered by a time-cue, such as going to the doctor (action) at 4pm (cue). Event-based prospective memories are intentions triggered by cues, such as remembering to post a letter (action) after seeing a mailbox (cue). Cues do not need to be related to the action (as the mailbox/letter example), and lists, sticky-notes, knotted handkerchiefs, or string around the finger all exemplify cues that people use as strategies to enhance prospective memory.


title: Memory

text: Infants do not have the language ability to report on their memories and so verbal reports cannot be used to assess very young children's memory. Throughout the years, however, researchers have adapted and developed a number of measures for assessing both infants' recognition memory and their recall memory. Habituation and operant conditioning techniques have been used to assess infants' recognition memory and the deferred and elicited imitation techniques have been used to assess infants' recall memory.


title: Memory

text: Brain areas involved in the neuroanatomy of memory such as the hippocampus, the amygdala, the striatum, or the mammillary bodies are thought to be involved in specific types of memory. For example, the hippocampus is believed to be involved in spatial learning and declarative learning, while the amygdala is thought to be involved in emotional memory.


title: Memory

text: Damage to certain areas in patients and animal models and subsequent memory deficits is a primary source of information. However, rather than implicating a specific area, it could be that damage to adjacent areas, or to a pathway "traveling" through the area is actually responsible for the observed deficit. Further, it is not sufficient to describe memory, and its counterpart, learning, as solely dependent on specific brain regions. Learning and memory are usually attributed to changes in neuronal synapses, thought to be mediated by long-term potentiation and long-term depression.


title: Memory

text: In general, the more emotionally charged an event or experience is, the better it is remembered; this phenomenon is known as the memory enhancement effect. Patients with amygdala damage, however, do not show a memory enhancement effect.


title: Memory

text: Hebb distinguished between short-term and long-term memory. He postulated that any memory that stayed in short-term storage for a long enough time would be consolidated into a long-term memory. Later research showed this to be false. Research has shown that direct injections of cortisol or epinephrine help the storage of recent experiences. This is also true for stimulation of the amygdala. This proves that excitement enhances memory by the stimulation of hormones that affect the amygdala. Excessive or prolonged stress (with prolonged cortisol) may hurt memory storage. Patients with amygdalar damage are no more likely to remember emotionally charged words than nonemotionally charged ones. The hippocampus is important for explicit memory. The hippocampus is also important for memory consolidation. The hippocampus receives input from different parts of the cortex and sends its output out to different parts of the brain also. The input comes from secondary and tertiary sensory areas that have processed the information a lot already. Hippocampal damage may also cause memory loss and problems with memory storage. This memory loss includes retrograde amnesia which is the loss of memory for events that occurred shortly before the time of brain damage.


title: Memory

text: Cognitive neuroscientists consider memory as the retention, reactivation, and reconstruction of the experience-independent internal representation. The term of internal representation implies that such a definition of memory contains two components: the expression of memory at the behavioral or conscious level, and the underpinning physical neural changes (Dudai 2007). The latter component is also called engram or memory traces (Semon 1904). Some neuroscientists and psychologists mistakenly equate the concept of engram and memory, broadly conceiving all persisting after-effects of experiences as memory; others argue against this notion that memory does not exist until it is revealed in behavior or thought (Moscovitch 2007).


title: Memory

text: One question that is crucial in cognitive neuroscience is how information and mental experiences are coded and represented in the brain. Scientists have gained much knowledge about the neuronal codes from the studies of plasticity, but most of such research has been focused on simple learning in simple neuronal circuits; it is considerably less clear about the neuronal changes involved in more complex examples of memory, particularly declarative memory that requires the storage of facts and events (Byrne 2007). Convergence-divergence zones might be the neural networks where memories are stored and retrieved. Considering that there are several kinds of memory, depending on types of represented knowledge, underlying mechanisms, processes functions and modes of acquisition, it is likely that different brain areas support different memory systems and that they are in mutual relationships in neuronal networks: "components of memory representation are distributed widely across different parts of the brain as mediated by multiple neocortical circuits".


title: Memory

text: Study of the genetics of human memory is in its infancy though many genes have been investigated for their association to memory in humans and non-human animals. A notable initial success was the association of APOE with memory dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease. The search for genes associated with normally varying memory continues. One of the first candidates for normal variation in memory is the protein "KIBRA," which appears to be associated with the rate at which material is forgotten over a delay period. There has been some evidence that memories are stored in the nucleus of neurons.


title: Memory

text: Several genes, proteins and enzymes have been extensively researched for their association with memory. Long-term memory, unlike short-term memory, is dependent upon the synthesis of new proteins. This occurs within the cellular body, and concerns the particular transmitters, receptors, and new synapse pathways that reinforce the communicative strength between neurons. The production of new proteins devoted to synapse reinforcement is triggered after the release of certain signaling substances (such as calcium within hippocampal neurons) in the cell. In the case of hippocampal cells, this release is dependent upon the expulsion of magnesium (a binding molecule) that is expelled after significant and repetitive synaptic signaling. The temporary expulsion of magnesium frees NMDA receptors to release calcium in the cell, a signal that leads to gene transcription and the construction of reinforcing proteins. For more information, see long-term potentiation (LTP).


title: Memory

text: One of the newly synthesized proteins in LTP is also critical for maintaining long-term memory. This protein is an autonomously active form of the enzyme protein kinase C (PKC), known as PKMζ. PKMζ maintains the activity-dependent enhancement of synaptic strength and inhibiting PKMζ erases established long-term memories, without affecting short-term memory or, once the inhibitor is eliminated, the ability to encode and store new long-term memories is restored. Also, BDNF is important for the persistence of long-term memories.


title: Memory

text: The long-term stabilization of synaptic changes is also determined by a parallel increase of pre- and postsynaptic structures such as axonal bouton, dendritic spine and postsynaptic density.


title: Memory

text: On the molecular level, an increase of the postsynaptic scaffolding proteins PSD-95 and HOMER1c has been shown to correlate with the stabilization of synaptic enlargement. The cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) is a transcription factor which is believed to be important in consolidating short-term to long-term memories, and which is believed to be downregulated in Alzheimer's disease.


title: Memory

text: Rats exposed to an intense learning event may retain a life-long memory of the event, even after a single training session. The long-term memory of such an event appears to be initially stored in the hippocampus, but this storage is transient. Much of the long-term storage of the memory seems to take place in the anterior cingulate cortex. When such an exposure was experimentally applied, more than 5,000 differently methylated DNA regions appeared in the hippocampus neuronal genome of the rats at one and at 24 hours after training. These alterations in methylation pattern occurred at many genes that were down-regulated, often due to the formation of new 5-methylcytosine sites in CpG rich regions of the genome. Furthermore, many other genes were upregulated, likely often due to hypomethylation. Hypomethylation often results from the removal of methyl groups from previously existing 5-methylcytosines in DNA. Demethylation is carried out by several proteins acting in concert, including the TET enzymes as well as enzymes of the DNA base excision repair pathway (see Epigenetics in learning and memory). The pattern of induced and repressed genes in brain neurons subsequent to an intense learning event likely provides the molecular basis for a long-term memory of the event.


title: Memory

text: Studies of the molecular basis for memory formation indicate that epigenetic mechanisms operating in brain neurons play a central role in determining this capability. Key epigenetic mechanisms involved in memory include the methylation and demethylation of neuronal DNA, as well as modifications of histone proteins including methylations, acetylations and deacetylations.


title: Memory

text: Stimulation of brain activity in memory formation is often accompanied by the generation of damage in neuronal DNA that is followed by repair associated with persistent epigenetic alterations. In particular the DNA repair processes of non-homologous end joining and base excision repair are employed in memory formation.


title: Memory

text: During a new learning experience, a set of genes is rapidly expressed in the brain. This induced gene expression is considered to be essential for processing the information being learned. Such genes are referred to as immediate early genes (IEGs). DNA Topoisomerase II Beta (TOP2B) activity is essential for the expression of IEGs in a type of learning experience in mice termed associative fear memory. Such a learning experience appears to rapidly trigger TOP2B to induce double-strand breaks in the promoter DNA of IEG genes that function in neuroplasticity. Repair of these induced breaks is associated with DNA demethylation of IEG gene promoters allowing immediate expression of these IEG genes.


title: Memory

text: The double-strand breaks that are induced during a learning experience are not immediately repaired. About 600 regulatory sequences in promoters and about 800 regulatory sequences in enhancers appear to depend on double strand breaks initiated by topoisomerase 2-beta (TOP2B) for activation. The induction of particular double-strand breaks are specific with respect to their inducing signal. When neurons are activated "in vitro", just 22 of TOP2B-induced double-strand breaks occur in their genomes.


title: Memory

text: Such TOP2B-induced double-strand breaks are accompanied by at least four enzymes of the non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) DNA repair pathway (DNA-PKcs, KU70, KU80, and DNA LIGASE IV) (see Figure). These enzymes repair the double-strand breaks within about 15 minutes to two hours. The double-strand breaks in the promoter are thus associated with TOP2B and at least these four repair enzymes. These proteins are present simultaneously on a single promoter nucleosome (there are about 147 nucleotides in the DNA sequence wrapped around a single nucleosome) located near the transcription start site of their target gene.


title: Memory

text: The double-strand break introduced by TOP2B apparently frees the part of the promoter at an RNA polymerase-bound transcription start site to physically move to its associated enhancer (see regulatory sequence). This allows the enhancer, with its bound transcription factors and mediator proteins, to directly interact with the RNA polymerase paused at the transcription start site to start transcription.


title: Memory

text: Contextual fear conditioning in the mouse causes the mouse to have a long-term memory and fear of the location in which it occurred. Contextual fear conditioning causes hundreds of DSBs in mouse brain medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus neurons (see Figure: Brain regions involved in memory formation). These DSBs predominately activate genes involved in synaptic processes, that are important for learning and memory.


title: Memory

text: Up until the mid-1980s it was assumed that infants could not encode, retain, and retrieve information. A growing body of research now indicates that infants as young as 6-months can recall information after a 24-hour delay. Furthermore, research has revealed that as infants grow older they can store information for longer periods of time; 6-month-olds can recall information after a 24-hour period, 9-month-olds after up to five weeks, and 20-month-olds after as long as twelve months. In addition, studies have shown that with age, infants can store information faster. Whereas 14-month-olds can recall a three-step sequence after being exposed to it once, 6-month-olds need approximately six exposures in order to be able to remember it.


title: Memory

text: Although 6-month-olds can recall information over the short-term, they have difficulty recalling the temporal order of information. It is only by 9 months of age that infants can recall the actions of a two-step sequence in the correct temporal order – that is, recalling step 1 and then step 2. In other words, when asked to imitate a two-step action sequence (such as putting a toy car in the base and pushing in the plunger to make the toy roll to the other end), 9-month-olds tend to imitate the actions of the sequence in the correct order (step 1 and then step 2). Younger infants (6-month-olds) can only recall one step of a two-step sequence. Researchers have suggested that these age differences are probably due to the fact that the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus and the frontal components of the neural network are not fully developed at the age of 6-months.


title: Memory

text: In fact, the term 'infantile amnesia' refers to the phenomenon of accelerated forgetting during infancy. Importantly, infantile amnesia is not unique to humans, and preclinical research (using rodent models) provides insight into the precise neurobiology of this phenomenon. A review of the literature from behavioral neuroscientist Dr Jee Hyun Kim suggests that accelerated forgetting during early life is at least partly due to rapid growth of the brain during this period.


title: Memory

text: One of the key concerns of older adults is the experience of memory loss, especially as it is one of the hallmark symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. However, memory loss is qualitatively different in normal aging from the kind of memory loss associated with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's (Budson & Price, 2005). Research has revealed that individuals' performance on memory tasks that rely on frontal regions declines with age. Older adults tend to exhibit deficits on tasks that involve knowing the temporal order in which they learned information; source memory tasks that require them to remember the specific circumstances or context in which they learned information; and prospective memory tasks that involve remembering to perform an act at a future time. Older adults can manage their problems with prospective memory by using appointment books, for example.


title: Memory

text: Gene transcription profiles were determined for the human frontal cortex of individuals from age 26 to 106 years. Numerous genes were identified with reduced expression after age 40, and especially after age 70. Genes that play central roles in memory and learning were among those showing the most significant reduction with age. There was also a marked increase in DNA damage, likely oxidative damage, in the promoters of those genes with reduced expression. It was suggested that DNA damage may reduce the expression of selectively vulnerable genes involved in memory and learning.


title: Memory

text: Much of the current knowledge of memory has come from studying "memory disorders", particularly loss of memory, known as amnesia. Amnesia can result from extensive damage to: (a) the regions of the medial temporal lobe, such as the hippocampus, dentate gyrus, subiculum, amygdala, the parahippocampal, entorhinal, and perirhinal cortices or the (b) midline diencephalic region, specifically the dorsomedial nucleus of the thalamus and the mammillary bodies of the hypothalamus. There are many sorts of amnesia, and by studying their different forms, it has become possible to observe apparent defects in individual sub-systems of the brain's memory systems, and thus hypothesize their function in the normally working brain. Other neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease can also affect memory and cognition.


title: Memory

text: Hyperthymesia, or hyperthymesic syndrome, is a disorder that affects an individual's autobiographical memory, essentially meaning that they cannot forget small details that otherwise would not be stored. Korsakoff's syndrome, also known as Korsakoff's psychosis, amnesic-confabulatory syndrome, is an organic brain disease that adversely affects memory by widespread loss or shrinkage of neurons within the prefrontal cortex.


title: Memory

text: While not a disorder, a common "temporary" failure of word retrieval from memory is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Those with Anomic aphasia (also called Nominal aphasia or Anomia), however, do experience the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon on an ongoing basis due to damage to the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain.


title: Memory

text: Memory dysfunction can also occur after viral infections. Many patients recovering from COVID-19 experience memory lapses. Other viruses can also elicit memory dysfunction, including SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, Ebola virus and even influenza virus.


title: Memory

text: Interference can hamper memorization and retrieval. There is retroactive interference, when learning new information makes it harder to recall old information and proactive interference, where prior learning disrupts recall of new information. Although interference can lead to forgetting, it is important to keep in mind that there are situations when old information can facilitate learning of new information. Knowing Latin, for instance, can help an individual learn a related language such as French – this phenomenon is known as positive transfer.


title: Memory

text: Stress has a significant effect on memory formation and learning. In response to stressful situations, the brain releases hormones and neurotransmitters (ex. glucocorticoids and catecholamines) which affect memory encoding processes in the hippocampus. Behavioural research on animals shows that chronic stress produces adrenal hormones which impact the hippocampal structure in the brains of rats. An experimental study by German cognitive psychologists L. Schwabe and O. Wolf demonstrates how learning under stress also decreases memory recall in humans. In this study, 48 healthy female and male university students participated in either a stress test or a control group. Those randomly assigned to the stress test group had a hand immersed in ice cold water (the reputable SECPT or 'Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Test') for up to three minutes, while being monitored and videotaped. Both the stress and control groups were then presented with 32 words to memorize. Twenty-four hours later, both groups were tested to see how many words they could remember (free recall) as well as how many they could recognize from a larger list of words (recognition performance). The results showed a clear impairment of memory performance in the stress test group, who recalled 30% fewer words than the control group. The researchers suggest that stress experienced during learning distracts people by diverting their attention during the memory encoding process.


title: Memory

text: However, memory performance can be enhanced when material is linked to the learning context, even when learning occurs under stress. A separate study by cognitive psychologists Schwabe and Wolf shows that when retention testing is done in a context similar to or congruent with the original learning task (i.e., in the same room), memory impairment and the detrimental effects of stress on learning can be attenuated. Seventy-two healthy female and male university students, randomly assigned to the SECPT stress test or to a control group, were asked to remember the locations of 15 pairs of picture cards – a computerized version of the card game "Concentration" or "Memory". The room in which the experiment took place was infused with the scent of vanilla, as odour is a strong cue for memory. Retention testing took place the following day, either in the same room with the vanilla scent again present, or in a different room without the fragrance. The memory performance of subjects who experienced stress during the object-location task decreased significantly when they were tested in an unfamiliar room without the vanilla scent (an incongruent context); however, the memory performance of stressed subjects showed no impairment when they were tested in the original room with the vanilla scent (a congruent context). All participants in the experiment, both stressed and unstressed, performed faster when the learning and retrieval contexts were similar.


title: Memory

text: This research on the effects of stress on memory may have practical implications for education, for eyewitness testimony and for psychotherapy: students may perform better when tested in their regular classroom rather than an exam room, eyewitnesses may recall details better at the scene of an event than in a courtroom, and persons with post-traumatic stress may improve when helped to situate their memories of a traumatic event in an appropriate context.


title: Memory

text: Stressful life experiences may be a cause of memory loss as a person ages. Glucocorticoids that are released during stress cause damage to neurons that are located in the hippocampal region of the brain. Therefore, the more stressful situations that someone encounters, the more susceptible they are to memory loss later on. The CA1 neurons found in the hippocampus are destroyed due to glucocorticoids decreasing the release of glucose and the reuptake of glutamate. This high level of extracellular glutamate allows calcium to enter NMDA receptors which in return kills neurons. Stressful life experiences can also cause repression of memories where a person moves an unbearable memory to the unconscious mind. This directly relates to traumatic events in one's past such as kidnappings, being prisoners of war or sexual abuse as a child.


title: Memory

text: The more long term the exposure to stress is, the more impact it may have. However, short term exposure to stress also causes impairment in memory by interfering with the function of the hippocampus. Research shows that subjects placed in a stressful situation for a short amount of time still have blood glucocorticoid levels that have increased drastically when measured after the exposure is completed. When subjects are asked to complete a learning task after short term exposure they often have difficulties. Prenatal stress also hinders the ability to learn and memorize by disrupting the development of the hippocampus and can lead to unestablished long term potentiation in the offspring of severely stressed parents. Although the stress is applied prenatally, the offspring show increased levels of glucocorticoids when they are subjected to stress later on in life. One explanation for why children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to display poorer memory performance than their higher-income peers is the effects of stress accumulated over the course of the lifetime. The effects of low income on the developing hippocampus is also thought be mediated by chronic stress responses which may explain why children from lower and higher-income backgrounds differ in terms of memory performance.


title: Memory

text: Making memories occurs through a three-step process, which can be enhanced by sleep. The three steps are as follows:


title: Memory

text: Sleep affects memory consolidation. During sleep, the neural connections in the brain are strengthened. This enhances the brain's abilities to stabilize and retain memories. There have been several studies which show that sleep improves the retention of memory, as memories are enhanced through active consolidation. System consolidation takes place during slow-wave sleep (SWS). This process implicates that memories are reactivated during sleep, but that the process doesn't enhance every memory. It also implicates that qualitative changes are made to the memories when they are transferred to long-term store during sleep. During sleep, the hippocampus replays the events of the day for the neocortex. The neocortex then reviews and processes memories, which moves them into long-term memory. When one does not get enough sleep it makes it more difficult to learn as these neural connections are not as strong, resulting in a lower retention rate of memories. Sleep deprivation makes it harder to focus, resulting in inefficient learning. Furthermore, some studies have shown that sleep deprivation can lead to false memories as the memories are not properly transferred to long-term memory.


title: Memory

text: One of the primary functions of sleep is thought to be the improvement of the consolidation of information, as several studies have demonstrated that memory depends on getting sufficient sleep between training and test. Additionally, data obtained from neuroimaging studies have shown activation patterns in the sleeping brain that mirror those recorded during the learning of tasks from the previous day, suggesting that new memories may be solidified through such rehearsal.


title: Memory

text: Although people often think that memory operates like recording equipment, this is not the case. The molecular mechanisms underlying the induction and maintenance of memory are very dynamic and comprise distinct phases covering a time window from seconds to even a lifetime. In fact, research has revealed that our memories are constructed: "current hypotheses suggest that constructive processes allow individuals to simulate and imagine future episodes, happenings, and scenarios. Since the future is not an exact repetition of the past, simulation of future episodes requires a complex system that can draw on the past in a manner that flexibly extracts and recombines elements of previous experiences – a constructive rather than a reproductive system." People can construct their memories when they encode them and/or when they recall them. To illustrate, consider a classic study conducted by Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer (1974) in which people were instructed to watch a film of a traffic accident and then asked about what they saw. The researchers found that the people who were asked, "How fast were the cars going when they "smashed" into each other?" gave higher estimates than those who were asked, "How fast were the cars going when they "hit" each other?" Furthermore, when asked a week later whether they had seen broken glass in the film, those who had been asked the question with "smashed" were twice more likely to report that they had seen broken glass than those who had been asked the question with "hit" (there was no broken glass depicted in the film). Thus, the wording of the questions distorted viewers' memories of the event. Importantly, the wording of the question led people to construct different memories of the event – those who were asked the question with "smashed" recalled a more serious car accident than they had actually seen. The findings of this experiment were replicated around the world, and researchers consistently demonstrated that when people were provided with misleading information they tended to misremember, a phenomenon known as the misinformation effect.


title: Memory

text: Research has revealed that asking individuals to repeatedly imagine actions that they have never performed or events that they have never experienced could result in false memories. For instance, Goff and Roediger (1998) asked participants to imagine that they performed an act (e.g., break a toothpick) and then later asked them whether they had done such a thing. Findings revealed that those participants who repeatedly imagined performing such an act were more likely to think that they had actually performed that act during the first session of the experiment. Similarly, Garry and her colleagues (1996) asked college students to report how certain they were that they experienced a number of events as children (e.g., broke a window with their hand) and then two weeks later asked them to imagine four of those events. The researchers found that one-fourth of the students asked to imagine the four events reported that they had actually experienced such events as children. That is, when asked to imagine the events they were more confident that they experienced the events.


title: Memory

text: Research reported in 2013 revealed that it is possible to artificially stimulate prior memories and artificially implant false memories in mice. Using optogenetics, a team of RIKEN-MIT scientists caused the mice to incorrectly associate a benign environment with a prior unpleasant experience from different surroundings. Some scientists believe that the study may have implications in studying false memory formation in humans, and in treating PTSD and schizophrenia.


title: Memory

text: Memory reconsolidation is when previously consolidated memories are recalled or retrieved from long-term memory to your active consciousness. During this process, memories can be further strengthened and added to but there is also risk of manipulation involved. We like to think of our memories as something stable and constant when they are stored in long-term memory but this isn't the case. There are a large number of studies that found that consolidation of memories is not a singular event but are put through the process again, known as reconsolidation. This is when a memory is recalled or retrieved and placed back into your working memory. The memory is now open to manipulation from outside sources and the misinformation effect which could be due to misattributing the source of the inconsistent information, with or without an intact original memory trace (Lindsay and Johnson, 1989). One thing that can be sure is that memory is malleable.


title: Memory

text: This new research into the concept of reconsolidation has opened the door to methods to help those with unpleasant memories or those that struggle with memories. An example of this is if you had a truly frightening experience and recall that memory in a less arousing environment, the memory will be weaken the next time it is retrieved. "Some studies suggest that over-trained or strongly reinforced memories do not undergo reconsolidation if reactivated the first few days after training, but do become sensitive to reconsolidation interference with time." This, however does not mean that all memory is susceptible to reconsolidation. There is evidence to suggest that memory that has undergone strong training and whether or not is it intentional is less likely to undergo reconsolidation. There was further testing done with rats and mazes that showed that reactivated memories were more susceptible to manipulation, in both good and bad ways, than newly formed memories. It is still not known whether or not these are new memories formed and it's an inability to retrieve the proper one for the situation or if it's a reconsolidated memory. Because the study of reconsolidation is still a newer concept, there is still debate on whether it should be considered scientifically sound.


title: Memory

text: A UCLA research study published in the June 2008 issue of the "American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry" found that people can improve cognitive function and brain efficiency through simple lifestyle changes such as incorporating memory exercises, healthy eating, physical fitness and stress reduction into their daily lives. This study examined 17 subjects, (average age 53) with normal memory performance.


title: Memory

text: Eight subjects were asked to follow a "brain healthy" diet, relaxation, physical, and mental exercise (brain teasers and verbal memory training techniques). After 14 days, they showed greater word fluency (not memory) compared to their baseline performance. No long-term follow-up was conducted; it is therefore unclear if this intervention has lasting effects on memory.


title: Memory

text: There are a loosely associated group of mnemonic principles and techniques that can be used to vastly improve memory known as the art of memory.


title: Memory

text: The International Longevity Center released in 2001 a report which includes in pages 14–16 recommendations for keeping the mind in good functionality until advanced age. Some of the recommendations are:


title: Memory

text: Memorization is a method of learning that allows an individual to recall information verbatim. Rote learning is the method most often used. Methods of memorizing things have been the subject of much discussion over the years with some writers, such as Cosmos Rossellius using visual alphabets. The spacing effect shows that an individual is more likely to remember a list of items when rehearsal is spaced over an extended period of time. In contrast to this is cramming: an intensive memorization in a short period of time. the spacing effect is exploited to improve memory in spaced repetition flashcard training. Also relevant is the Zeigarnik effect which states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. The so-called Method of loci uses spatial memory to memorize non-spatial information.


title: Memory

text: Plants lack a specialized organ devoted to memory retention, so plant memory has been a controversial topic in recent years. New advances in the field have identified the presence of neurotransmitters in plants, adding to the hypothesis that plants are capable of remembering. Action potentials, a physiological response characteristic of neurons, have been shown to have an influence on plants as well, including in wound responses and photosynthesis. In addition to these homologous features of memory systems in both plants and animals, plants have also been observed to encode, store and retrieve basic short-term memories.


title: Memory

text: One of the most well-studied plants to show rudimentary memory is the Venus flytrap. Native to the subtropical wetlands of the eastern United States, Venus Fly Traps have evolved the ability to obtain meat for sustenance, likely due to the lack of nitrogen in the soil. This is done by two trap-forming leaf tips that snap shut once triggered by a potential prey. On each lobe, three triggers hairs await stimulation. In order to maximize the benefit to cost ratio, the plant enables a rudimentary form of memory in which two trigger hairs must be stimulated within 30 seconds in order to result in trap closure. This system ensures that the trap only closes when potential prey is within grasp.


title: Memory

text: The time lapse between trigger hair stimulations suggests that the plant can remember an initial stimulus long enough for a second stimulus to initiate trap closure. This memory isn't encoded in a brain, as plants lack this specialized organ. Rather, information is stored in the form of cytoplasmic calcium levels. The first trigger causes a subthreshold cytoplasmic calcium influx. This initial trigger isn't enough to activate trap closure, so a subsequent stimulus allows for a secondary influx of calcium. The latter calcium rise superimposes on the initial one, creating an action potential that passes threshold, resulting in trap closure. Researchers, to prove that an electrical threshold must be met to stimulate trap closure, excited a single trigger hair with a constant mechanical stimulus using Ag/AgCl electrodes. The trap closed after only a few seconds. This experiment gave evidence to demonstrate that the electrical threshold, not necessarily the number of trigger hair stimulations, was the contributing factor in Venus Fly Trap memory. It has been shown that trap closure can be blocked using uncouplers and inhibitors of voltage-gated channels. After trap closure, these electrical signals stimulate glandular production of jasmonic acid and hydrolases, allowing for digestion of the prey.


title: Memory

text: The field of plant neurobiology has gained a large amount of interest over the past decade, leading to an influx of research regarding plant memory. Although the Venus flytrap is one of the more highly studied, many other plants exhibit the capacity to remember, including the "Mimosa pudica" through an experiment conducted by Monica Gagliano and colleagues in 2013. To study the "Mimosa pudica," Gagliano designed an apparatus with which potted mimosa plants could be repeatedly dropped the same distance and at the same speed. It was observed that the plants defensive response of curling up its leaves decreased over the 60 times the experiment was repeated per plant. To confirm that this was a mechanism of memory rather than exhaustion, some of the plants were shaken post experiment and displayed normal defensive responses of leaf curling. This experiment also demonstrated long-term memory in the plants, as it was repeated a month later and the plants were observed to remain unfazed by the dropping.


title: Quadrilateral

text: In geometry a quadrilateral is a four-sided polygon, having four edges (sides) and four corners (vertices). The word is derived from the Latin words "quadri", a variant of four, and "latus", meaning "side". It is also called a tetragon, derived from greek "tetra" meaning "four" and "gon" meaning "corner" or "angle", in analogy to other polygons (e.g. pentagon). Since "gon" means "angle", it is analogously called a quadrangle, or 4-angle. A quadrilateral with vertices formula_1, formula_2, formula_3 and formula_4 is sometimes denoted as formula_5.


title: Quadrilateral

text: Quadrilaterals are either simple (not self-intersecting), or complex (self-intersecting, or crossed). Simple quadrilaterals are either convex or concave.


title: Quadrilateral

text: The interior angles of a simple (and planar) quadrilateral "ABCD" add up to 360 degrees of arc, that is


title: Quadrilateral

text: All non-self-crossing quadrilaterals tile the plane, by repeated rotation around the midpoints of their edges.


title: Quadrilateral

text: In a convex quadrilateral all interior angles are less than 180°, and the two diagonals both lie inside the quadrilateral.


title: Quadrilateral

text: In a concave quadrilateral, one interior angle is bigger than 180°, and one of the two diagonals lies outside the quadrilateral.


title: Quadrilateral

text: A self-intersecting quadrilateral is called variously a cross-quadrilateral, crossed quadrilateral, butterfly quadrilateral or bow-tie quadrilateral. In a crossed quadrilateral, the four "interior" angles on either side of the crossing (two acute and two reflex, all on the left or all on the right as the figure is traced out) add up to 720°.


title: Quadrilateral

text: The two bimedians of a convex quadrilateral are the line segments that connect the midpoints of opposite sides. They intersect at the "vertex centroid" of the quadrilateral (see below).


title: Quadrilateral

text: The four maltitudes of a convex quadrilateral are the perpendiculars to a side—through the midpoint of the opposite side.


title: Quadrilateral

text: where the lengths of the diagonals are and and the angle between them is . In the case of an orthodiagonal quadrilateral (e.g. rhombus, square, and kite), this formula reduces to formula_8 since is .


title: Quadrilateral

text: where the sides in sequence are , , , , where is the semiperimeter, and and are two (in fact, any two) opposite angles. This reduces to Brahmagupta's formula for the area of a cyclic quadrilateral—when .


title: Quadrilateral

text: Another area formula in terms of the sides and angles, with angle being between sides and , and being between sides and , is


title: Quadrilateral

text: In a parallelogram, where both pairs of opposite sides and angles are equal, this formula reduces to formula_13


title: Quadrilateral

text: Alternatively, we can write the area in terms of the sides and the intersection angle of the diagonals, as long is not :


title: Quadrilateral

text: where is the distance between the midpoints of the diagonals, and is the angle between the bimedians.


title: Quadrilateral

text: which can also be used for the area of a concave quadrilateral (having the concave part opposite to angle ), by just changing the first sign to .


title: Quadrilateral

text: The following two formulas express the area in terms of the sides , , and , the semiperimeter , and the diagonals , :


title: Quadrilateral

text: In fact, any three of the four values , , , and suffice for determination of the area, since in any quadrilateral the four values are related by formula_22 The corresponding expressions are:


title: Quadrilateral

text: The area of a quadrilateral can be calculated using vectors. Let vectors and form the diagonals from to and from to . The area of the quadrilateral is then


title: Quadrilateral

text: which is half the magnitude of the cross product of vectors and . In two-dimensional Euclidean space, expressing vector as a free vector in Cartesian space equal to and as , this can be rewritten as:


title: Quadrilateral

text: In the following table it is listed if the diagonals in some of the most basic quadrilaterals bisect each other, if their diagonals are perpendicular, and if their diagonals have equal length. The list applies to the most general cases, and excludes named subsets.


title: Quadrilateral

text: "Note 1: The most general trapezoids and isosceles trapezoids do not have perpendicular diagonals, but there are infinite numbers of (non-similar) trapezoids and isosceles trapezoids that do have perpendicular diagonals and are not any other named quadrilateral."


title: Quadrilateral

text: "Note 2: In a kite, one diagonal bisects the other. The most general kite has unequal diagonals, but there is an infinite number of (non-similar) kites in which the diagonals are equal in length (and the kites are not any other named quadrilateral)."


title: Quadrilateral

text: The lengths of the diagonals in a convex quadrilateral "ABCD" can be calculated using the law of cosines on each triangle formed by one diagonal and two sides of the quadrilateral. Thus


title: Quadrilateral

text: In any convex quadrilateral "ABCD", the sum of the squares of the four sides is equal to the sum of the squares of the two diagonals plus four times the square of the line segment connecting the midpoints of the diagonals. Thus


title: Quadrilateral

text: where "x" is the distance between the midpoints of the diagonals. This is sometimes known as Euler's quadrilateral theorem and is a generalization of the parallelogram law.


title: Quadrilateral

text: The German mathematician Carl Anton Bretschneider derived in 1842 the following generalization of Ptolemy's theorem, regarding the product of the diagonals in a convex quadrilateral


title: Quadrilateral

text: This relation can be considered to be a law of cosines for a quadrilateral. In a cyclic quadrilateral, where "A" + "C" = 180°, it reduces to "pq = ac + bd". Since cos ("A" + "C") ≥ −1, it also gives a proof of Ptolemy's inequality.


title: Quadrilateral

text: If "X" and "Y" are the feet of the normals from "B" and "D" to the diagonal "AC" = "p" in a convex quadrilateral "ABCD" with sides "a" = "AB", "b" = "BC", "c" = "CD", "d" = "DA", then


title: Quadrilateral

text: In a convex quadrilateral "ABCD" with sides "a" = "AB", "b" = "BC", "c" = "CD", "d" = "DA", and where the diagonals intersect at "E",


title: Quadrilateral

text: The shape and size of a convex quadrilateral are fully determined by the lengths of its sides in sequence and of one diagonal between two specified vertices. The two diagonals "p, q" and the four side lengths "a, b, c, d" of a quadrilateral are related by the Cayley-Menger determinant, as follows:


title: Quadrilateral

text: The internal angle bisectors of a convex quadrilateral either form a cyclic quadrilateral (that is, the four intersection points of adjacent angle bisectors are concyclic) or they are concurrent. In the latter case the quadrilateral is a tangential quadrilateral.


title: Quadrilateral

text: In quadrilateral "ABCD", if the angle bisectors of "A" and "C" meet on diagonal "BD", then the angle bisectors of "B" and "D" meet on diagonal "AC".


title: Quadrilateral

text: The bimedians of a quadrilateral are the line segments connecting the midpoints of the opposite sides. The intersection of the bimedians is the centroid of the vertices of the quadrilateral.


title: Quadrilateral

text: The midpoints of the sides of any quadrilateral (convex, concave or crossed) are the vertices of a parallelogram called the Varignon parallelogram. It has the following properties:


title: Quadrilateral

text: The two bimedians in a quadrilateral and the line segment joining the midpoints of the diagonals in that quadrilateral are concurrent and are all bisected by their point of intersection.


title: Quadrilateral

text: In a convex quadrilateral with sides "a", "b", "c" and "d", the length of the bimedian that connects the midpoints of the sides "a" and "c" is


title: Quadrilateral

text: where "p" and "q" are the length of the diagonals. The length of the bimedian that connects the midpoints of the sides "b" and "d" is


title: Quadrilateral

text: The lengths of the bimedians can also be expressed in terms of two opposite sides and the distance "x" between the midpoints of the diagonals. This is possible when using Euler's quadrilateral theorem in the above formulas. Whence


title: Quadrilateral

text: In a convex quadrilateral, there is the following dual connection between the bimedians and the diagonals:


title: Quadrilateral

text: Let formula_44, formula_45, formula_46, formula_47 be the sides of a convex quadrilateral, formula_48 is the semiperimeter,


title: Quadrilateral

text: If a convex quadrilateral has the consecutive sides "a", "b", "c", "d" and the diagonals "p", "q", then its area "K" satisfies


title: Quadrilateral

text: with equality if and only if the quadrilateral is cyclic or degenerate such that one side is equal to the sum of the other three (it has collapsed into a line segment, so the area is zero).


title: Quadrilateral

text: Let "a", "b", "c", "d" be the lengths of the sides of a convex quadrilateral "ABCD" with the area "K" and diagonals "AC = p", "BD = q". Then


title: Quadrilateral

text: Let "a", "b", "c", "d" be the lengths of the sides of a convex quadrilateral "ABCD" with the area "K", then the following inequality holds:


title: Quadrilateral

text: Euler also generalized Ptolemy's theorem, which is an equality in a cyclic quadrilateral, into an inequality for a convex quadrilateral. It states that


title: Quadrilateral

text: where there is equality if and only if the quadrilateral is cyclic. This is often called Ptolemy's inequality.


title: Quadrilateral

text: In any convex quadrilateral the bimedians "m, n" and the diagonals "p, q" are related by the inequality


title: Quadrilateral

text: with equality holding if and only if the diagonals are equal. This follows directly from the quadrilateral identity formula_66


title: Quadrilateral

text: Among all quadrilaterals with a given perimeter, the one with the largest area is the square. This is called the "isoperimetric theorem for quadrilaterals". It is a direct consequence of the area inequality


title: Quadrilateral

text: where "K" is the area of a convex quadrilateral with perimeter "L". Equality holds if and only if the quadrilateral is a square. The dual theorem states that of all quadrilaterals with a given area, the square has the shortest perimeter.


title: Quadrilateral

text: Of all convex quadrilaterals with given diagonals, the orthodiagonal quadrilateral has the largest area. This is a direct consequence of the fact that the area of a convex quadrilateral satisfies


title: Quadrilateral

text: From this inequality it follows that the point inside a quadrilateral that minimizes the sum of distances to the vertices is the intersection of the diagonals. Hence that point is the Fermat point of a convex quadrilateral.


title: Quadrilateral

text: The centre of a quadrilateral can be defined in several different ways. The "vertex centroid" comes from considering the quadrilateral as being empty but having equal masses at its vertices. The "side centroid" comes from considering the sides to have constant mass per unit length. The usual centre, called just centroid (centre of area) comes from considering the surface of the quadrilateral as having constant density. These three points are in general not all the same point.


title: Quadrilateral

text: The "vertex centroid" is the intersection of the two bimedians. As with any polygon, the "x" and "y" coordinates of the vertex centroid are the arithmetic means of the "x" and "y" coordinates of the vertices.


title: Quadrilateral

text: The "area centroid" of quadrilateral "ABCD" can be constructed in the following way. Let "G", "G", "G", "G" be the centroids of triangles "BCD", "ACD", "ABD", "ABC" respectively. Then the "area centroid" is the intersection of the lines "GG" and "GG".


title: Quadrilateral

text: In a general convex quadrilateral "ABCD", there are no natural analogies to the circumcenter and orthocenter of a triangle. But two such points can be constructed in the following way. Let "O", "O", "O", "O" be the circumcenters of triangles "BCD", "ACD", "ABD", "ABC" respectively; and denote by "H", "H", "H", "H" the orthocenters in the same triangles. Then the intersection of the lines "OO" and "OO" is called the quasicircumcenter, and the intersection of the lines "HH" and "HH" is called the "quasiorthocenter" of the convex quadrilateral. These points can be used to define an Euler line of a quadrilateral. In a convex quadrilateral, the quasiorthocenter "H", the "area centroid" "G", and the quasicircumcenter "O" are collinear in this order, and "HG" = 2"GO".


title: Quadrilateral

text: There can also be defined a "quasinine-point center" "E" as the intersection of the lines "EE" and "EE", where "E", "E", "E", "E" are the nine-point centers of triangles "BCD", "ACD", "ABD", "ABC" respectively. Then "E" is the midpoint of "OH".


title: Quadrilateral

text: Another remarkable line in a convex non-parallelogram quadrilateral is the Newton line, which connects the midpoints of the diagonals, the segment connecting these points being bisected by the vertex centroid. One more interesting line (in some sense dual to the Newton's one) is the line connecting the point of intersection of diagonals with the vertex centroid. The line is remarkable by the fact that it contains the (area) centroid. The vertex centroid divides the segment connecting the intersection of diagonals and the (area) centroid in the ratio 3:1.


title: Quadrilateral

text: For any quadrilateral "ABCD" with points "P" and "Q" the intersections of "AD" and "BC" and "AB" and "CD", respectively, the circles "(PAB), (PCD), (QAD)," and "(QBC)" pass through a common point "M", called a Miquel point.


title: Quadrilateral

text: For a convex quadrilateral "ABCD" in which "E" is the point of intersection of the diagonals and "F" is the point of intersection of the extensions of sides "BC" and "AD", let ω be a circle through "E" and "F" which meets "CB" internally at "M" and "DA" internally at "N". Let "CA" meet ω again at "L" and let "DB" meet ω again at "K". Then there holds: the straight lines "NK" and "ML" intersect at point "P" that is located on the side "AB"; the straight lines "NL" and "KM" intersect at point "Q" that is located on the side "CD".


title: Quadrilateral

text: A hierarchical taxonomy of quadrilaterals is illustrated by the figure to the right. Lower classes are special cases of higher classes they are connected to. Note that "trapezoid" here is referring to the North American definition (the British equivalent is a trapezium). Inclusive definitions are used throughout.


title: Quadrilateral

text: A non-planar quadrilateral is called a skew quadrilateral. Formulas to compute its dihedral angles from the edge lengths and the angle between two adjacent edges were derived for work on the properties of molecules such as cyclobutane that contain a "puckered" ring of four atoms. Historically the term gauche quadrilateral was also used to mean a skew quadrilateral. A skew quadrilateral together with its diagonals form a (possibly non-regular) tetrahedron, and conversely every skew quadrilateral comes from a tetrahedron where a pair of opposite edges is removed.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The Mercedes-Benz W205 is the fourth generation of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class which was produced by Daimler AG between 2014 and 2021. The W205 C-Class was preceded by the W204 C-Class and superseded by the W206 C-Class. The fourth-generation C-Class was available in sedan (W205), station wagon/estate (S205), coupe (C205), cabriolet (A205) and long-wheelbase sedan (V205) body styles.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The W205 was the first vehicle to use the all-new Modular Rear Architecture (MRA) platform. The new structure is significantly lighter, using aluminum extensively throughout the body, resulting in a weight decrease. According to Mercedes-Benz, the structure is much more rigid than other vehicles in its class.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The car was officially unveiled on 16 December 2013 and debuted at the 2014 North American International Auto Show. W205 production commenced on 4 February 2014 at the Bremen plant. European sales began in March 2014, while the vehicle went on sale in North America in September 2014, and in South Africa in March 2015.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: As the Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class (released in April 2013) took the mantle of being the new entry-level sedan in Mercedes' line up of cars, Mercedes decided to make the W205 C-Class larger than its predecessor and more like the W222 S-Class, thus making it a "mini-S-Class".


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The W205 included Sport and Luxury trims with 2.0-liter turbocharged I4 engine and 3.0-liter bi-turbo V6 engine options. Mercedes all-wheel drive 4MATIC is standard across the initial offering. The car is about longer and wider than the W204.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: Based on the new modular MRA rear-wheel drive platform, it features front axle four-link and rear axle five-link suspension.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: A plug-in hybrid version was introduced at the January 2015 North American International Auto Show, available in both Saloon and Estate variants. The C 350e plug-in hybrid is powered by a four-cylinder gasoline engine, in conjunction with a 60 kW electric motor, delivering a total system output of and torque of . The motor is powered by 6.2 kWh lithium-ion battery delivering an all-electric range of , emissions of 48 g/km and a fuel consumption of under the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). The C 350e has a haptic accelerator pedal.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: In 2018, Mercedes-Benz released another plug-in hybrid C 350 – but this time it is a variant with a diesel engine.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: Debuted at the 2015 Frankfurt Auto Show, the appearance of the C-Class coupe leans heavily on that of the 2014 C-Class saloon. The two cars share the same basic front-end styling treatment through to the leading edge of the doors. From the back, the second-generation C-Class Coupé closely mimics the design of the 2014 S-Class Coupé.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The interior uses the same dashboard and switchgear as the 2014 C-Class saloon, but the C-Class coupe receives unique front sports seats with integral headrests as well as two individual rear seats. Because of the absence of a B-pillar, there is also a standard automatic seatbelt feeder similar to that used by the 2014 E-Class Coupé.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: A Bluetooth-compatible entertainment system allowing internet capability through a mobile phone is standard. Also included is the Attention Assist function, which warns the driver of inattentiveness and drowsiness. It is joined by Collision Prevention Assist, which can carry out autonomous braking at speeds up to in combination with a further standard system called Adaptive Brake Assist.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: As part of Mercedes-Benz's efforts to establish itself at the forefront of autonomous driving technology, the 2015 C-Class Coupé also comes with an optional Distronic Plus system. It enables the Coupé to autonomously steer in order to remain in its lane at speeds between .


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: Mercedes-Benz’s first-ever C-Class Cabriolet (in fact the only compact cabriolet since 1955) was revealed at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show. Based on the C-Class Coupé, the four-seat soft-top keeps the same basic dimensions as the coupé, but is marginally taller. Its fabric roof can be opened or closed in 20 seconds at up to . When open, the roof is stored in the boot.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The interior of the C-Class Cabriolet is almost identical to that of the coupé but includes heat-reflecting leather and a switch on the centre console to open and close the roof. The sports seats also include Mercedes’ AIRSCARF heating system, while the AIRCAP system stops draughts inside the cabin.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The C 450 AMG 4MATIC replaced the C 400 4MATIC. It has a twin-turbo 3.0 litre V6 producing and of torque. Some components, such as the front axle, steering system and suspension are shared with the C 63. It has all-wheel drive and is paired to a 7-speed automatic transmission. It reaches in 4.9 seconds.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: For the 2017 model year, the C450 AMG was renamed to AMG C 43. It retains the same 3.0-litre twin-turbo but is now mated with a 9-speed automatic transmission and some cosmetic changes.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The AMG C 63 uses a similar 4.0-liter turbocharged V8 to the Mercedes-AMG GT sports car. Mercedes offers it with two outputs: and of torque for the C 63 and and of torque for the more potent C 63 S. By moving to the downsized and turbocharged engine, Mercedes claims the W205 version consumes 32 percent less fuel than the model it replaced.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The C 63 should also be able to complete the sprint in 4.1 seconds with a top speed limited to , and 4.0 seconds in the S with a top speed of with a special request from AMG to raise the speed limiter. The car still uses a seven-speed automatic transmission that sends power to the rear wheels and gets three-stage adaptive dampers specific to AMG models along with speed-sensitive variable steering. High-performance brakes are also a part of the package with discs in front and discs in the rear. On both ends of the car there are AMG-branded calipers. Its first deliveries took place in early 2015 for the European market with a U.S. debut later in the year.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The Estate variant also serves as the official Medical Car of Formula One, alongside the Aston Martin DBX.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: Mercedes-Benz also revealed the high-performance C 63 coupe from Mercedes-AMG at the 2015 Frankfurt Auto Show. The C 63 coupe features many distinct design elements to set it apart from its tamer sibling. The most obvious is the aggressive front bumper, which features larger scoops to feed more air to the car's twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V-8 as well as to its high-performance brakes. The grille is also unique, and the hood features some muscular ripples that the regular C-Class Coupe does not.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The C 63 coupe also benefits from a wider track, as evidenced by the pumped wheel arches. The wheels are also bigger on the Mercedes-AMG model with 19 inches in diameter. The C-Class Coupe comes with 18-in wheels as standard.


title: Mercedes-Benz C-Class (W205)

text: The mechanical package is almost identical to the C 63 sedan. This means in the C 63 coupe and for the S-badged model. Drive will be to the rear wheels only, via a paddle-shifted, seven-speed automatic transmission.


title: Ralf Little

text: Ralf Alastair John Little (born 8 February 1980) is an English actor, writer, presenter, narrator and former semi-professional footballer, working mainly in television comedy. He played Antony Royle in "The Royle Family" and Jonny Keogh in the first six series of "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps". Since 2020, he has starred as DI Neville Parker in "Death in Paradise".


title: Ralf Little

text: He also is the narrator of Channel 5's "The Yorkshire Farm", which follows the life of the Owen family on their Yorkshire Farm (2018-2020).


title: Ralf Little

text: Little was born in Bury and attended Bolton School (Boys' Division). His parents are accountants. He had a Welsh grandmother.


title: Ralf Little

text: Some of his early television roles included minor roles in various programmes such as "Elidor", "Children's Ward and " "Sloggers".


title: Ralf Little

text: Little's big break came when he was offered the role of Antony Royle in the BBC sitcom "The Royle Family". This prompted him to abandon his studies to become a doctor at the University of Manchester medical school and instead to concentrate on his acting career. The original run of the series was from autumn 1998 to December 2000, and after a one-off special in 2006 returned for a series of Christmas specials from 2008 to 2012, with Little returning to the role of Antony in 2006, 2009 and 2010.


title: Ralf Little

text: After the original run of "The Royle Family", he was cast in another sitcom, "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" (or "Two Pints"), as Jonny Keogh. The first series ran from February 2001, and the programme ran for nine series in total. During an interview for "This Morning" in September 2007, Little said that he would not be returning for the next series due to an overwhelming schedule. His character was subsequently killed off. In 1999, Little played the Star of Bethlehem in the ITV comedy drama "The Flint Street Nativity a"nd appeared in a minor role in Granada TVs "Coronation Street" in early as care home assistant Mark Stranks.


title: Ralf Little

text: In December 2000, Little played Wishee Washee in the ITV Panto "Aladdin", which was filmed in the New Wimbledon Theatre.


title: Ralf Little

text: In 2001, he played the young George Harrison in "Presence" at the Royal Court Theatre, for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance. In 2004, he played the title character in "Billy Liar" at the Theatre Royal in Windsor. He appeared in Juliet McKoen's 2005 ghost story/murder mystery film "Frozen", set in Fleetwood, Lancashire. Between November 2002 and January 2003, he hosted 17 one-hour-long episodes of "The Ralf Little Show" on BBC Choice.


title: Ralf Little

text: Other film credits include "24 Hour Party People" (playing Joy Division and New Order bass player Peter Hook) and "Al's Lads". Little also starred as Stephen, alongside Anne-Marie Duff, in Roger Goldby's film, "The Waiting Room", released throughout the UK in June 2008. In television, he also appeared in "Paradise Heights".


title: Ralf Little

text: In August 2007, he released his first online novel (co-written with Stephen Morris), "The Golden Generation", a coming of age tale about a recently single man who is taken under the wings of two city traders who show him the trappings of big money in the big city but that it comes at a price. Money taken from the sale of the novel went to the charity Shelter. He was a cast member of "KateModern", a web series which developed by the creators of the US YouTube hit "lonelygirl15", which started in July 2007 and posted its final video in June 2008.


title: Ralf Little

text: In July 2008, he appeared in "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover", a new play at the Bush Theatre which was revised as "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover at Christmas" later that year, while in September of the same year he starred in "Massive", a BBC comedy about an indie record label. In 2008, he narrated the second series of "Last Man Standing". Also in 2008, Little became the narrator of "Monkey Life". In 2009, he played Clint in "Married Single Other", alongside Miranda Raison He also worked on the film "Powder". In the autumn of 2010, he starred in "The Aliens", a British premiere of a new play by Annie Baker, again at the Bush Theatre. In 2011, he appeared as Richard Dickens in the comedy series "The Café", shown on Sky 1, which he co-wrote with Michelle Terry.


title: Ralf Little

text: In 2013, he appeared in "Death in Paradise" series two, episode six. As of April 2013, he was appearing at the Liverpool Playhouse as the father of a girl with cerebral palsy, in a new production of "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg".


title: Ralf Little

text: In 2014, he appeared in the TV series "Our Zoo". He also voices Captain Skip in the animated English version of "The Unbeatables".


title: Ralf Little

text: He appeared as the character 'Steadfast' in "Smile", the second episode of the 10th series of the BBC1 series "Doctor Who" in 2017.


title: Ralf Little

text: In October 2019, he was confirmed as the new lead in "Death in Paradise", returning to the series as a new character six years after his one-episode guest appearance.


title: Ralf Little

text: In May 2020, Little, alongside his "Royle Family" co-star Ricky Tomlinson, presented a six-part travel series titled "Ricky & Ralf's Very Northern Road Trip" for Gold, repeated in 2022 on sister channel Yesterday.


title: Ralf Little

text: Little, a supporter of Manchester United, is a keen footballer and has played for a number of semi-professional clubs when other commitments allow. In March 2003 he played for Maidstone United against Wimbledon, having previously been training with Staines Town. He joined Isthmian League side Edgware Town in October 2004, making his debut in the FA Vase game against Waltham Abbey.


title: Ralf Little

text: He played for Chertsey Town during the 2007–08 season and on 8 July 2008 signed for North West Counties League side Stone Dominoes. He has also played celebrity football matches for charity on a few occasions and played with members of Hollywood United while in the district for acting career purposes. He also plays for the Arsenal Ex-Pro and Celebrity XI. On 6 June 2010, he participated in a Soccer Aid game for England on the left wing.


title: Ralf Little

text: On 9 August 2011, he played in the John Kennedy testimonial match for Manchester United against Celtic which resulted in a 5–2 win for Celtic.


title: Ralf Little

text: In May 2012, he appeared for the Sealand national football team in a match against the Chagos Islands as captain. The match was held at the grounds of Godalming Town. In August 2012 and March 2013 he played in two games against Alderney, a 1–1 draw and 2–1 win respectively.


title: Ralf Little

text: On 2 September 2017, he played in the Game 4 Grenfell match at Loftus Road, with the match proceeds going to the Grenfell disaster appeal.


title: Ralf Little

text: Little is not religious and identifies as a humanist. He was appointed a patron of the humanist charity Humanists UK in 2020.


title: Ralf Little

text: His great-grandfather, Albert Lockley, was a Welsh international footballer who played for Chirk. Little is engaged to playwright and screenwriter Lindsey Ferrentino who met in 2016 after Little was cast in Ferrentino’s play Ugly Lies the Bone.


title: Burmese language

text: Burmese (, MLCTS: "mranmabhasa", IPA: ) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Myanmar (also known as Burma), where it is an official language, lingua franca, and the native language of the Burmans, the country's principal ethnic group. Burmese is also spoken by the indigenous tribes in Chittagong Hill Tracts (Rangamati, Bandarban, Khagrachari, Cox's Bazar) in Bangladesh, Tripura state in Northeast India. Although the Constitution of Myanmar officially recognizes the English name of the language as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as "Burmese", after Burma, the country's once previous and currently co-official name. Burmese is the common lingua franca in Myanmar, as the most widely-spoken language in the country. In 2007, it was spoken as a first language by 33 million, primarily the Burman people and related ethnic groups, and as a second language by 10 million, particularly ethnic minorities in Myanmar and neighboring countries. In 2022, the Burmese-speaking population was 38.8 million.


title: Burmese language

text: Burmese is a tonal, pitch-register (as well as social-register), and syllable-timed language, largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with a subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The Burmese alphabet is ultimately descended from a Brahmic script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabets.


title: Burmese language

text: Burmese belongs to the Southern Burmish branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, of which Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non-Sinitic languages. Burmese was the fifth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a writing system, after Classical Chinese, Pyu, Old Tibetan and Tangut.


title: Burmese language

text: The majority of Burmese speakers, who live throughout the Irrawaddy River Valley, use a number of largely similar dialects, while a minority speak non-standard dialects found in the peripheral areas of the country. These dialects include:


title: Burmese language

text: Arakanese (Rakhine) in Rakhine State and Marma in Bangladesh are also sometimes considered dialects of Burmese and sometimes as separate languages.


title: Burmese language

text: Despite vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among Burmese dialects, as they share a common set of tones, consonant clusters, and written script. However, several Burmese dialects differ substantially from standard Burmese with respect to vocabulary, lexical particles, and rhymes.


title: Burmese language

text: Spoken Burmese is remarkably uniform among Burmese speakers, particularly those living in the Irrawaddy valley, all of whom use variants of Standard Burmese. The standard dialect of Burmese (the Mandalay-Yangon dialect continuum) comes from the Irrawaddy River valley. Regional differences between speakers from Upper Burma (e.g., Mandalay dialect), called "anya tha" () and speakers from Lower Burma (e.g., Yangon dialect), called "auk tha" (), largely occur in vocabulary choice, not in pronunciation. Minor lexical and pronunciation differences exist throughout the Irrawaddy River valley. For instance, for the term , "food offering [to a monk]", Lower Burmese speakers use instead of , which is the pronunciation used in Upper Burma.


title: Burmese language

text: The standard dialect is represented by the Yangon dialect because of the modern city's media influence and economic clout. In the past, the Mandalay dialect represented standard Burmese. The most noticeable feature of the Mandalay dialect is its use of the first person pronoun , "kya.nau" by both men and women, whereas in Yangon, the said pronoun is used only by male speakers while , "kya.ma." is used by female speakers. Moreover, with regard to kinship terminology, Upper Burmese speakers differentiate the maternal and paternal sides of a family, whereas Lower Burmese speakers do not.


title: Burmese language

text: The Mon language has also influenced subtle grammatical differences between the varieties of Burmese spoken in Lower and Upper Burma. In Lower Burmese varieties, the verb ပေး ('to give') is colloquially used as a permissive causative marker, like in other Southeast Asian languages, but unlike in other Tibeto-Burman languages. This usage is hardly used in Upper Burmese varieties, and is considered a sub-standard construct.


title: Burmese language

text: More distinctive non-standard varieties emerge as one moves farther away from the Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of the country. These varieties include the Yaw, Palaw, Myeik (Merguese), Tavoyan and Intha dialects. Despite substantial vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among most Burmese dialects. Dialects in Tanintharyi Region, including Palaw, Merguese, and Tavoyan, are especially conservative in comparison to Standard Burmese. The Tavoyan and Intha dialects have preserved the medial, which is otherwise only found in Old Burmese inscriptions. They also often reduce the intensity of the glottal stop. Myeik has 250,000 speakers while Tavoyan has 400,000. The grammatical constructs of Burmese dialects in Southern Myanmar show greater Mon influence than Standard Burmese.


title: Burmese language

text: The most pronounced feature of the Arakanese language of Rakhine State is its retention of the sound, which has become in standard Burmese. Moreover, Arakanese features a variety of vowel differences, including the merger of the and vowels. Hence, a word like "blood" is pronounced in standard Burmese and in Arakanese.


title: Burmese language

text: The Burmese language's early forms include Old Burmese and Middle Burmese. Old Burmese dates from the 11th to the 16th century (Pagan to Ava dynasties); Middle Burmese from the 16th to the 18th century (Toungoo to early Konbaung dynasties); modern Burmese from the mid-18th century to the present. Word order, grammatical structure, and vocabulary have remained markedly stable well into Modern Burmese, with the exception of lexical content (e.g., function words).


title: Burmese language

text: The earliest attested form of the Burmese language is called Old Burmese, dating to the 11th and 12th century stone inscriptions of Pagan. The earliest evidence of the Burmese alphabet is dated to 1035, while a casting made in the 18th century of an old stone inscription points to 984.


title: Burmese language

text: Owing to the linguistic prestige of Old Pyu in the Pagan Kingdom era, Old Burmese borrowed a substantial corpus of vocabulary from Pali via the Pyu language. These indirect borrowings can be traced back to orthographic idiosyncrasies in these loanwords, such as the Burmese word "to worship," which is spelt ပူဇော် () instead of ပူဇာ (), as would be expected by the original Pali orthography.


title: Burmese language

text: The transition to Middle Burmese occurred in the 16th century. The transition to Middle Burmese included phonological changes (e.g. mergers of sound pairs that were distinct in Old Burmese) as well as accompanying changes in the underlying orthography.


title: Burmese language

text: From the 1500s onward, Burmese kingdoms saw substantial gains in the populace's literacy rate, which manifested itself in greater participation of laymen in scribing and composing legal and historical documents, domains that were traditionally the domain of Buddhist monks, and drove the ensuing proliferation of Burmese literature, both in terms of genres and works. During this period, the Burmese alphabet began employing cursive-style circular letters typically used in palm-leaf manuscripts, as opposed to the traditional square block-form letters used in earlier periods. The orthographic conventions used in written Burmese today can largely be traced back to Middle Burmese.


title: Burmese language

text: Modern Burmese emerged in the mid-18th century. By this time, male literacy in Burma stood at nearly 50%, which enabled the wide circulation of legal texts, royal chronicles, and religious texts. A major reason for the uniformity of the Burmese language was the near-universal presence of Buddhist monasteries (called "kyaung") in Burmese villages. These "kyaung" served as the foundation of the pre-colonial monastic education system, which fostered uniformity of the language throughout the Upper Irrawaddy valley, the traditional homeland of Burmese speakers. The 1891 Census of India, conducted five years after the annexation of the entire Konbaung Kingdom, found that the former kingdom had an "unusually high male literacy" rate of 62.5% for Upper Burmans aged 25 and above. For all of British Burma, the literacy rate was 49% for men and 5.5% for women (by contrast, British India more broadly had a male literacy rate of 8.44%).


title: Burmese language

text: The expansion of the Burmese language into Lower Burma also coincided with the emergence of Modern Burmese. As late as the mid-1700s, Mon, an Austroasiatic language, was the principal language of Lower Burma, employed by the Mon people who inhabited the region. Lower Burma's shift from Mon to Burmese was accelerated by the Burmese-speaking Konbaung Dynasty's victory over the Mon-speaking Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1757. By 1830, an estimated 90% of the population in Lower Burma self-identified as Burmese-speaking Bamars; huge swaths of former Mon-speaking territory, from the Irrawaddy Delta to upriver in the north, spanning Bassein (now Pathein) and Rangoon (now Yangon) to Tharrawaddy, Toungoo, Prome (now Pyay), and Henzada (now Hinthada), were now Burmese-speaking. The language shift has been ascribed to a combination of population displacement, intermarriage, and voluntary changes in self-identification among increasingly Mon–Burmese bilingual populations in the region.


title: Burmese language

text: Standardized tone marking in written Burmese was not achieved until the 18th century. From the 19th century onward, orthographers created spellers to reform Burmese spelling, because of ambiguities that arose over transcribing sounds that had been merged. British rule saw continued efforts to standardize Burmese spelling through dictionaries and spellers.


title: Burmese language

text: Britain's gradual annexation of Burma throughout the 19th century, in addition to concomitant economic and political instability in Upper Burma (e.g., increased tax burdens from the Burmese crown, British rice production incentives, etc.) also accelerated the migration of Burmese speakers from Upper Burma into Lower Burma. British rule in Burma eroded the strategic and economic importance of the Burmese language; Burmese was effectively subordinated to the English language in the colonial educational system, especially in higher education.


title: Burmese language

text: In the 1930s, the Burmese language saw a linguistic revival, precipitated by the establishment of an independent University of Rangoon in 1920 and the inception of a Burmese language major at the university by Pe Maung Tin, modeled on Anglo Saxon language studies at the University of Oxford. Student protests in December of that year, triggered by the introduction of English into matriculation examinations, fueled growing demand for Burmese to become the medium of education in British Burma; a short-lived but symbolic parallel system of "national schools" that taught in Burmese, was subsequently launched. The role and prominence of the Burmese language in public life and institutions was championed by Burmese nationalists, intertwined with their demands for greater autonomy and independence from the British in the lead-up to the independence of Burma in 1948.


title: Burmese language

text: The 1948 Constitution of Burma prescribed Burmese as the official language of the newly independent nation. The Burma Translation Society and Rangoon University's Department of Translation and Publication were established in 1947 and 1948, respectively, with the joint goal of modernizing the Burmese language in order to replace English across all disciplines. Anti-colonial sentiment throughout the early post-independence era led to a reactionary switch from English to Burmese as the national medium of education, a process that was accelerated by the Burmese Way to Socialism. In August 1963, the socialist Union Revolutionary Government established the Literary and Translation Commission (the immediate precursor of the Myanmar Language Commission) to standardize Burmese spelling, diction, composition, and terminology. The latest spelling authority, named the "Myanma Salonpaung Thatpon Kyan" (), was compiled in 1978 by the commission.


title: Burmese language

text: The literary form of Burmese retains archaic and conservative grammatical structures and modifiers (including affixes and pronouns) no longer used in the colloquial form. Literary Burmese, which has not changed significantly since the 13th century, is the register of Burmese taught in schools. In most cases, the corresponding affixes in the literary and spoken forms are totally unrelated to each other. Examples of this phenomenon include the following lexical terms:


title: Burmese language

text: Historically the literary register was preferred for written Burmese on the grounds that "the spoken style lacks gravity, authority, dignity". In the mid-1960s, some Burmese writers spearheaded efforts to abandon the literary form, asserting that the spoken vernacular form ought to be used. Some Burmese linguists such as Minn Latt, a Czech academic, proposed moving away from the high form of Burmese altogether. Although the literary form is heavily used in written and official contexts (literary and scholarly works, radio news broadcasts, and novels), the recent trend has been to accommodate the spoken form in informal written contexts. Nowadays, television news broadcasts, comics, and commercial publications use the spoken form or a combination of the spoken and simpler, less ornate formal forms.


title: Burmese language

text: The following sample sentence reveals that differences between literary and spoken Burmese mostly occur in affixes:


title: Burmese language

text: Burmese has politeness levels and honorifics that take the speaker's status and age in relation to the audience into account. The suffix "pa" is frequently used after a verb to express politeness. Moreover, Burmese pronouns relay varying degrees of deference or respect. In many instances, polite speech (e.g., addressing teachers, officials, or elders) employs feudal-era third person pronouns or kinship terms in lieu of first- and second-person pronouns. Furthermore, with regard to vocabulary choice, spoken Burmese clearly distinguishes the Buddhist clergy (monks) from the laity (householders), especially when speaking to or about bhikkhus (monks). The following are examples of varying vocabulary used for Buddhist clergy and for laity:


title: Burmese language

text: Burmese primarily has a monosyllabic received Sino-Tibetan vocabulary. Nonetheless, many words, especially loanwords from Indo-European languages like English, are polysyllabic, and others, from Mon, an Austroasiatic language, are sesquisyllabic. Burmese loanwords are overwhelmingly in the form of nouns.


title: Burmese language

text: Historically, Pali, the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism, had a profound influence on Burmese vocabulary. Burmese has readily adopted words of Pali origin; this may be due to phonotactic similarities between the two languages, alongside the fact that the script used for Burmese can be used to reproduce Pali spellings with complete accuracy. Pali loanwords are often related to religion, government, arts, and science.


title: Burmese language

text: Burmese has also adapted numerous words from Mon, traditionally spoken by the Mon people, who until recently formed the majority in Lower Burma. Most Mon loanwords are so well assimilated that they are not distinguished as loanwords, as Burmese and Mon were used interchangeably for several centuries in pre-colonial Burma. Mon loans are often related to flora, fauna, administration, textiles, foods, boats, crafts, architecture, and music.


title: Burmese language

text: As a natural consequence of British rule in Burma, English has been another major source of vocabulary, especially with regard to technology, measurements, and modern institutions. English loanwords tend to take one of three forms:


title: Burmese language

text: To a lesser extent, Burmese has also imported words from Sanskrit (religion), Hindi (food, administration, and shipping), and Chinese (games and food). Burmese has also imported a handful of words from other European languages such as Portuguese.


title: Burmese language

text: Since the end of British rule, the Burmese government has attempted to limit usage of Western loans (especially from English) by coining new words (neologisms). For instance, for the word "television," Burmese publications are mandated to use the term (lit. 'see picture, hear sound') in lieu of , a direct English transliteration. Another example is the word "vehicle", which is officially (derived from Pali) but (from English "car") in spoken Burmese. Some previously common English loanwords have fallen out of use with the adoption of neologisms. An example is the word "university", formerly , from English "university", now , a Pali-derived neologism recently created by the Burmese government and derived from the Pali spelling of Taxila ( "Takkasīla"), an ancient university town in modern-day Pakistan.


title: Burmese language

text: Some words in Burmese may have many synonyms, each having certain usages, such as formal, literary, colloquial, and poetic. One example is the word "moon", which can be (native Tibeto-Burman), (derivatives of Pali "canda" 'moon'), or (Sanskrit).


title: Burmese language

text: According to , contrary to their use of symbols θ and ð, consonants of are dental stops (), rather than fricatives () or affricates.


title: Burmese language

text: The final nasal is the value of the four native final nasals: , , , , as well as the retroflex (used in Pali loans) and nasalisation mark anusvara demonstrated here above ka (က → ကံ) which most often stands in for a homorganic nasal word medially as in တံခါး "tankhá" ('door', and တံတား "tantá" ('bridge') or else replaces final "-m" in both Pali and native vocabulary, especially after the OB vowel *u e.g. ငံ "ngam" ('salty'), သုံး "thóum" ('three; use'), and ဆုံး "sóum" ('end'). It does not, however, apply to which is never realised as a nasal, but rather as an open front vowel or .


title: Burmese language

text: The final nasal is usually realised as nasalisation of the vowel. It may also allophonically appear as a homorganic nasal before stops. For example, in ('storm'), which is pronounced .


title: Burmese language

text: The monophthongs , , and occur only in open syllables (those without a syllable coda); the diphthongs , , and occur only in closed syllables (those with a syllable coda). only occurs in a minor syllable, and is the only vowel that is permitted in a minor syllable (see below).


title: Burmese language

text: The close vowels and and the close portions of the diphthongs are somewhat mid-centralized () in closed syllables, i.e. before and . Thus ('two') is phonetically and ('cat') is phonetically .


title: Burmese language

text: Burmese is a tonal language, which means phonemic contrasts can be made on the basis of the tone of a vowel. In Burmese, these contrasts involve not only pitch, but also phonation, intensity (loudness), duration, and vowel quality. However, some linguists consider Burmese a pitch-register language like Shanghainese.


title: Burmese language

text: There are four contrastive tones in Burmese. In the following table, the tones are shown marked on the vowel as an example.


title: Burmese language

text: In spoken Burmese, some linguists classify two real tones (there are four nominal tones transcribed in written Burmese), "high" (applied to words that terminate with a stop or check, high-rising pitch) and "ordinary" (unchecked and non-glottal words, with falling or lower pitch), with those tones encompassing a variety of pitches. The "ordinary" tone consists of a range of pitches. Linguist L. F. Taylor concluded that "conversational rhythm and euphonic intonation possess importance" not found in related tonal languages and that "its tonal system is now in an advanced state of decay."


title: Burmese language

text: The syllable structure of Burmese is C(G)V((V)C), which is to say the onset consists of a consonant optionally followed by a glide, and the rime consists of a monophthong alone, a monophthong with a consonant, or a diphthong with a consonant. The only consonants that can stand in the coda are and . Some representative words are:


title: Burmese language

text: The Burmese alphabet consists of 33 letters and 12 vowels and is written from left to right. It requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability. Characterized by its circular letters and diacritics, the script is an abugida, with all letters having an inherent vowel "a." or . The consonants are arranged into six consonant groups (called ) based on articulation, like other Brahmi scripts. Tone markings and vowel modifications are written as diacritics placed to the left, right, top, and bottom of letters.


title: Burmese language

text: Orthographic changes subsequent to shifts in phonology (such as the merging of the and medials) rather than transformations in Burmese grammatical structure and phonology, which by contrast, has remained stable between Old Burmese and modern Burmese. For example, during the Pagan era, the medial was transcribed in writing, which has been replaced by medials and in modern Burmese (e.g. "school" in old Burmese → in modern Burmese). Likewise, written Burmese has preserved all nasalized finals , which have merged to in spoken Burmese. (The exception is , which, in spoken Burmese, can be one of many open vowels . Similarly, other consonantal finals have been reduced to . Similar mergers are seen in other Sino-Tibetan languages like Shanghainese, and to a lesser extent, Cantonese.


title: Burmese language

text: Written Burmese dates to the early Pagan period. Burmese orthography originally followed a square block format, but the cursive format took hold from the 17th century when increased literacy and the resulting explosion of Burmese literature led to the wider use of palm leaves and folded paper known as "parabaiks" ().


title: Burmese language

text: The basic word order of the Burmese language is subject-object-verb. Pronouns in Burmese vary according to the gender and status of the audience, although pronouns are often omitted. Affixes are used to convey information. Verbs almost always suffixed and nouns declined.


title: Burmese language

text: Burmese is an agglutinative with an extensive case system and nouns are suffixed to determine their syntactic function in a sentence or clause. For example, the subject marker tells us the noun is the doer of an action and the object marker tells us that it is getting the recipient of an action. Sometimes the case markers are different in the High Literary register and the Colloquial register.


title: Burmese language

text: Burmese does not have adjectives per se. Rather, it has verbs that carry the meaning "to be X", where X is an English adjective. These verbs can modify a noun by means of the suffix "tai." in colloquial Burmese (literary form: "sau:" ), which is suffixed as follows:


title: Burmese language

text: Comparatives are usually ordered: X + "htak pui" + adjective, where X is the object being compared to. Superlatives are indicated with the prefix "a." + adjective + "hcum:" .


title: Burmese language

text: The roots of Burmese verbs are almost always have suffixes which convey information like tense, aspect, intention, politeness, mood, etc. Many of these suffixes also have formal/literary and colloquial equivalents. In fact, the only time in which no suffix is attached to a verb is in imperative commands.


title: Burmese language

text: The most commonly used verb suffixes and their usage are shown below with an example verb root "ca:" ('to eat'). Alone, the statement is imperative.


title: Burmese language

text: The suffix "tai" (literary form: "sany" ) can be viewed as a suffix marking the present tense and/or a factual statement:


title: Burmese language

text: The suffix "hkai." denotes that the action took place in the past. However, this suffix is not always necessary to indicate the past tense such that it can convey the same information without it. But to emphasize that the action happened before another event that is also currently being discussed, the suffix becomes imperative. Note that the suffix "tai" in this case denotes a factual statement rather than the present tense:


title: Burmese language

text: This suffix "pri" , which is used when an action that had been expected to be performed by the subject is now finally being performed, has no equivalent in English. So in the above example, if someone had been expecting the subject to eat, and the subject has finally started eating, the suffix is used as follows:


title: Burmese language

text: The suffix "mai" (literary form: "many" ) is used to indicate the future tense or an action which is yet to be performed:


title: Burmese language

text: The suffix "tau." is used when the action is about to be performed immediately when used in conjunction with . Therefore, it could be termed as the "immediate future tense suffix".


title: Burmese language

text: Verbs are negated by the prefix "ma." . Generally speaking, there are other suffixes on verb, along with .