title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: In the 1950s a landmark decision was made by the Grand Council of England against the New Zealand Sub Council regarding the admittance of Māori as members. The Upper Valley Grand Lodge, a Governing Authority overseeing the Grand Council Lodges in the Wairarapa, fought to have the ban on Māori lifted. The New Zealand Sub Council were reluctant to do this, citing the excuse they had Lodges in the dry area of the King Country and there was concern that as the lodges served alcohol that Māori could not join, owing to a long-standing agreement that existed between the Kingitanga and Government. Grand Council England considered the matter, after the Upper Valley Grand Lodge wrote to GC in the United Kingdom to seek a ruling. Grand Council decided that the refusal by the New Zealand Sub Council to admit Māori as members was thoroughly inconstant with the principles of the Order and Sub Council were forced to comply with the decision of Grand Council. It was pointed out that "Māori were British Subjects", that "the policy of racial exclusion could not be justified because Māori brothers from the GLNZ GLE could attend Sub Council Lodges as visitor" and that by refusing to initiate Māori GC was missing out and GLE was gaining. New Zealand Sub Council thus was forced changed its policy and many brothers have joined since then. One such Māori brother to have joined and who rose through the ranks, was Bro. Percy Maniopoto RoH LM who become Grand President of New Zealand Sub Council in 1996.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: By the end of the decade of the 1950s New Zealand Sub Council had meeting registrations in the thousands but this would not last long. In the 1970s registrations began to decline, a situation that has continued to the present day, except for the Progressive Lodge of New Zealand.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: Since 1922, a total of 95 Grand Council Lodges have been opened in New Zealand. Apart from Chatham Lodge, the Grand Council has only ever been North Island based with no lodges to date in the South Island. As of May 2022, there remain 14 Grand Council Minor Lodges in New Zealand.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: The Grand Executive Banner (GEB) was another Buffalo Order to have come out of Great Britain in the early 1920s. GEB were first formed in New Zealand, in Dunedin around 1920. The first Lodge was Otago GEB No 1. A second Lodge formed was the Royal Athenic Lodge in Port Chalmers, also under the Grand Executive Banner. Royal Athenic would later shift allegiance to the Grand Lodge of New Zealand of the Grand Lodge of England.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: Other GEB Lodges were formed around New Zealand, up to 7 GEB Lodges, including Waitemata in Devonport. There were thus 4 Buffalo Orders operating in Devonport, at the time, Making Devonport the town with more buffalo orders in it then at any other time or place in New Zealand history.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: The Grand Executive Banner established a Zealandia Council and Executive. GEB had a good relationship with the Naval Lodge Chatham No 2 of the Grand Council. Eventually the Chatham members separated from Grand Council and formed a GEB lodge aboard HMS Dunedin.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: In or around 1927 GEB fell out of favour with both the Grand Council and the Grand Lodge of New Zealand and was forbidden from any fraternal connections. This included being barred from any usage or interaction with the New Zealand Buffalo Recorder. Whilst the GEB thus disappeared off the main Buffalo radar in New Zealand, a report in a copy of the New Zealand Buffalo Review referred to a Brother attending a Lodge on the West Coast of the South Island as having represented the GEB Pacific Lodge.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: A short-lived attempt to establish a New Zealand Buffalo Order. At least seven lodges were formed under the Grand New Zealand Banner, with one of these being located in Devonport, the Order was disbanded in the mid-1920s, on account of having no legitimate connection to an English Order.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: There have been a number of Floating Dispensation or moveable lodges operating in New Zealand. Established under the Grand Surrey Banner, Grand Council, the GLNZ GLE and the Grand Executive Banner.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: The Harbour Lights Lodge NZ No 72 of Grand Council was opened in 1957 on Waiheke Island. It was opened by the Grand Primo of Auckland Grand Lodge GC, Bro Tom Lane KoM. Among those present at the opening were Bro Stinger Martin and Bro.Les Foster KoM. In the early years the Lodge met in Palm Beach Hall, which had been built by a Brother buff and was intended for the Buffs and Local community to use. Eventually the Buffs raised the funds and built their own Lodge Hall out of an old Army Hutt from the Stoney Batter Base. The men's Lodge was later joined by a Ladies lodge as well. In the later days of the Harbour Lights Lodge, one of the key members was Rod Murray, well known on Waiheke Island for Jaguar Tours. Rod provided transport for the members to and from Lodge meetings.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: The Loyal Elizabethan Order of Bisons was established in 1952 as an order for the Wives of Buffalo Lodge Members. It is unclear how many Lodges of that Order remain.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: The Loyal Order of the Mystic Star was begun in Otahuhu in the late 1950s, originating out of the Otahuhu Ladies Social Club. The Order was intended for the wives, and partners of Grand Council Buffalo Lodge members. The foundations for the movement were laid by Chas Burnet RoH and David Glen KOM both members of the Otahuhu Lodge No 36 of Grand Council (opened 1949). To date the LOMS have opened 16 Lodges, of which only three remain in operation as well as a Grand Lodge.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: In 2017, two lodges of the GLNZ formed their own order, the Progressive Lodge of New Zealand (PLNZ), owing to dissatisfaction with GLNZ and the RAOB Trust. Three other lodges, Kiwi, Jubilee and Mangamuka-Kaitaia Combined have joined PLNZ. PLNZ emphasises philanthropy and fraternity, while minimising ceremony and administration. PLNZ states that its order continues to grow, along with its philanthropic efforts.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: On 22 October 1966 the Parliament of New Zealand enacted the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes Trust Act 1966, a Private Act. The Act created the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes Trust Board for GLNZ lodges that had closed, so that their properties could be held in the trust. As a statutory entity, the Trust is not a registered charitable trust. In 2021, the lodges of the Progressive Lodge of New Zealand formed their own charitable trust, the Buffs Charitable Trust. The accounts of this trust are available for all members of the public to see.


title: Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes

text: The four orders that make up the movement within New Zealand, cover most parts of the country with Lodges stretching from the Bay of Islands to Southland. There are 78 RAOB lodges in New Zealand, 58 under the Grand Lodge of New Zealand of GLE, 14 under the Grand Council and five under the Progressive Lodge of New Zealand. These provide a reasonable coverage, owing to closure of lodges in the last 30 years, Palmerston North, Timaru, Oamaru and Nelson are major towns now without a Lodge.


title: Private Resort

text: Private Resort is a 1985 American adventure comedy film directed by George Bowers, and written by Gordon Mitchell, Ken Segall and Alan Wenkus. The film starred the then-unknown Rob Morrow in his first film appearance, Johnny Depp in his first starring role, and Andrew Dice Clay.


title: Private Resort

text: "Private Resort" was the third in a series of comic teen sex romps from producer R. Ben Efraim, each of which had the word Private in the title. The previous two films were "Private Lessons" and "Private School".


title: Private Resort

text: Johnny Depp and Rob Morrow star as Jack and Ben, respectively, teen buddies on the prowl for wealthy girls at a posh Miami resort where they are weekend guests. Also on the prowl is The Maestro (Hector Elizondo), a skilled jewel thief pursuing the diamond necklace of society woman Amanda Rawlings (Dody Goodman). When they accidentally run afoul of the Maestro, Jack and Ben suddenly have their hands full.


title: Eme Ikwuakor

text: Eme Ikwuakor ( ; born August 13, 1984) is an Nigerian- American actor. He is best known for his roles in "Ink" (2009), "On My Block" (2018), and Gorgon in "Inhumans" (2017).


title: Eme Ikwuakor

text: Eme Ikwuakor was born to Patricia and Killian Ikwuakor and is one of triplets. The other triplets are a sister, Obi, and a brother, AK, who is a former All-American runner, professional athlete and the founder of the non-profit organization, Empower2Play; they also have three older brothers. Eme attended University of Colorado on a track and field scholarship. His college adviser suggested he try acting instead. His first major role was in the 2009 sci-fi film "Ink". He continued to act whilst working a day job, but he decided to pursue acting full-time after writing, producing and starring in a short film called "Chance".


title: Eme Ikwuakor

text: Eme began making appearances on television shows, such as "Hawaii Five-0", "Castle" and "Extant". He also appeared as himself, alongside his brother Ak, on "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?". Eme was cast as the Marvel Comics character Gorgon in "Marvel's Inhumans" which is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: Peter John Carlesimo (born May 30, 1949) is an American basketball coach who coached in both the National Basketball Association (NBA) and college basketball for nearly 40 years. He is also a television broadcaster, having worked with ESPN, "The NBA on TNT", Westwood One, Fox Sports Southwest, Pac-12 Network, "The NBA on NBC" and CSN New England.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: Carlesimo served as head coach of four different NBA teams, and was named Seton Hall University's "Coach of the Century." He was an assistant coach for the United States men's Olympic basketball team ("The Dream Team") that won the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics. He was also an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs team that won three championships between 2003 and 2007.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: Carlesimo is a 1971 graduate of Fordham University, where he played basketball under coach Digger Phelps. He began his coaching career as an assistant at the school after he graduated. He received his first head coaching job when he took over New Hampshire College (now Southern New Hampshire University) for one year, beginning in 1975. The New Hampshire Penmen ended the 1975–1976 season with a 14–13 record and won the Mayflower Conference championship. Carlesimo also had a successful coaching stint at Wagner College of Staten Island, New York, a Division I school, leading the team to two NIT berths in six years as coach from 1976 to 1982. In addition, Carlesimo spent time coaching in Puerto Rico during the summers.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: Carlesimo coached Seton Hall University from 1982–1994, leading the turnaround of a struggling program. The Pirates made their first ever NCAA tournament in 1988, and Carlesimo was named the Big East Conference coach of the year.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: In 1989, Carlesimo led the Pirates to their first-ever Final Four appearance following a 78–65 upset over the #2 seed Indiana Hoosiers coached by Bobby Knight. They advanced to the NCAA Championship game against the Michigan Wolverines, but lost in overtime 80–79. Carlesimo was again named Big East coach of the year, following the 1989 season.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: During Carlesimo's tenure, the Pirates made the NCAA tournament six times, four consecutively from 1991 until 1994. After going 6–23 his first season, he turned the team into a consistent title contender and eventual tournament runner-up and number one seed. Compiling an overall record of 212–166, he was named Seton Hall's "Coach of the Century."


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: Carlesimo was an assistant coach under Mike Krzyzewski with the U.S. national team in the 1990 FIBA World Championship, winning the bronze medal. He also served as an assistant coach on the 1992 Olympic "Dream Team", winning the gold medal.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: On June 23, 1994, Carlesimo was hired as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers. Midway into his first season with the team, the team traded long-time Blazer Clyde Drexler in an effort to rebuild. However instead of falling in the standings, Carlesimo led the team to a winning record and the playoffs in his first season as an NBA head coach. He led the Blazers to the playoffs in each of his three years as their head coach, but was unable to lead the team out of the first round of the playoffs and was fired following the 1996–97 season.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: In 1997, Carlesimo headed to the Golden State Warriors, again succeeding Rick Adelman as head coach (Adelman had previously coached the Trail Blazers prior to Carlesimo's hiring). He coached that team until December 1999, at which point he was fired after his team got off to a losing start for the third straight year.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: In a practice during the 1997–98 season while Carlesimo was head coach of the Warriors, Carlesimo was attacked by Latrell Sprewell. Sprewell choked Carlesimo for nearly 15 seconds until being pulled off by several teammates, and elbowed him several minutes later. The Warriors terminated Sprewell's contract, and the NBA suspended him for one year.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: After leaving the Warriors, Carlesimo worked as a broadcaster and analyst with "The NBA on TNT" until being hired as an assistant coach under Gregg Popovich in 2002. He worked with the Spurs until 2007, winning three championships in five seasons (2003, 2005 and 2007).


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: Spurs GM Sam Presti was hired as general manager of the Seattle SuperSonics following the 2007 championship, and hired Carlesimo as their head coach on July 5, 2007. The team broke up their core of Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis which made for a difficult first season. That season, their second overall pick Kevin Durant was named NBA Rookie of the Year.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: The Sonics relocated to Oklahoma City a year later, where they became the Oklahoma City Thunder, making him the first head coach in Thunder history. Carlesimo was fired on November 22, 2008 by the Thunder after a 1–12 start. During his time with the Sonics and Thunder, he coached the USA select basketball team that scrimmaged the US National Team in preparation for the 2007 FIBA tournament and 2008 Summer Olympics. The team included Kevin Durant and Jeff Green of the Thunder.


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: On May 31, 2010, Carlesimo had reached an agreement to join the Toronto Raptors as an assistant coach under Jay Triano. After one season with the Raptors, he was hired as an assistant coach by the New Jersey Nets (now known as the Brooklyn Nets).


title: P. J. Carlesimo

text: On December 27, 2012, he was promoted to interim head coach of the Nets after the firing of Avery Johnson. Carlesimo took a team floundering at 14–14, and compiled 35–19 record for a fourth-place finish in the East, earning home-court advantage for the Nets in the first round. On May 5, 2013, Nets general manager Billy King announced Carlesimo would not be retained as head coach after the team lost in their first round series against the Chicago Bulls in 7 games.


title: God gene

text: The God gene hypothesis proposes that human spirituality is influenced by heredity and that a specific gene, called vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2), predisposes humans towards spiritual or mystic experiences. The idea has been proposed by geneticist Dean Hamer in the 2004 book called "The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes".


title: God gene

text: The God gene hypothesis is based on a combination of behavioral genetic, neurobiological and psychological studies. The major arguments of the hypothesis are: (1) spirituality can be quantified by psychometric measurements; (2) the underlying tendency to spirituality is partially heritable; (3) part of this heritability can be attributed to the gene VMAT2; (4) this gene acts by altering monoamine levels; and (5) spirituality provides an evolutionary advantage by providing individuals with an innate sense of optimism.


title: God gene

text: According to the God Gene hypothesis, spirituality has a genetic component, of which (VMAT2) comprises one component by contributing to sensations associated with mystic experiences, including the presence of God and feelings of connection to a larger universe.


title: God gene

text: The research uses the self-transcendence scale developed by psychologist Robert Cloninger to quantify spirituality using three sub-scales: "self-forgetfulness" (as in the tendency to become totally absorbed in some activity, such as reading); "transpersonal identification" (a feeling of connectedness to a larger universe); and "mysticism" (an openness to believe things that remain unproven, such as ESP). Cloninger suggests that taken together, these measurements are a reasonable way to quantify (make measurable) an individual's propensity to be spiritual.


title: God gene

text: The self-transcendence measure was shown to be heritable by classical twin studies conducted by Lindon Eaves and Nicholas Martin. Their work demonstrated that approximately 40% of the variation in self-transcendence was due to genes. By contrast, specific religious beliefs (such as belief in a particular deity) were found to have no genetic basis and are instead cultural units or memes. Similar conclusions were drawn from studies of identical twins reared apart.


title: God gene

text: In order to identify some of the specific genes involved in self-transcendence, Hamer analyzed DNA and personality score data from over 1,000 individuals and identified one particular locus, VMAT2, with a significant correlation. VMAT2 codes for a vesicular monoamine transporter that plays a key role in regulating the levels of the brain chemicals serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. These monoamine transmitters are in turn postulated to play an important role in regulating the brain activities associated with mystic beliefs.


title: God gene

text: Hamer hypothesized that self-transcendence might provide an evolutionary advantage by providing human beings with an innate sense of optimism that gives people the will to keep on living and procreating, despite the inevitability of death, and promoting better health and recovery from diseases.


title: God gene

text: In the brain, VMAT2 proteins are located on synaptic vesicles. VMAT2 transports monoamine neurotransmitters from the cytosol of monoamine neurons into vesicles. Developmental biologist and science blogger PZ Myers argues: "It's a pump. A teeny-tiny pump responsible for packaging a neurotransmitter for export during brain activity. Yes, it's important, and it may even be active and necessary during higher order processing, like religious thought. But one thing it isn't is a 'god gene.'"


title: God gene

text: Popular science writer Carl Zimmer said that VMAT2 can be characterized as a gene that accounts for less than one percent of the variance of self-transcendence scores. These, Zimmer says, can signify anything from belonging to the Green Party to believing in ESP. Zimmer also points out that the God Gene theory is based on only one unpublished, unreplicated study.


title: God gene

text: However, Hamer notes that the importance of the VMAT2 finding is not that it explains all spiritual or religious feelings, but rather that it points the way toward one neurobiological pathway that may be important. Currently, there are several VMAT2 inhibitors marketed as drugs including deutetrabenazine, tetrabenazine, and valbenazine. The question of the God Gene could be answered by experimental studies.


title: God gene

text: John Polkinghorne, a theoretical physicist and Anglican priest, member of the Royal Society and Canon Theologian at Liverpool Cathedral, was asked for a comment on Hamer's theory by the British national daily newspaper, "The Daily Telegraph". He replied: "The idea of a God gene goes against all my personal theological convictions. You can't cut faith down to the lowest common denominator of genetic survival. It shows the poverty of reductionist thinking."


title: God gene

text: Walter Houston, the chaplain of Mansfield College, Oxford, and a fellow in theology, told the "Telegraph": "Religious belief is not just related to a person's constitution; it's related to society, tradition, character—everything's involved. Having a gene that could do all that seems pretty unlikely to me."


title: God gene

text: Hamer responded that the existence of such a gene would not be incompatible with the existence of a personal God: "Religious believers can point to the existence of God genes as one more sign of the creator's ingenuity—a clever way to help humans acknowledge and embrace a divine presence." He repeatedly notes in his book that, "This book is about whether God genes exist, not about whether there is a God."


title: Record (computer science)

text: In computer science, a record (also called a structure, struct, or compound data) is a basic data structure. Records in a database or spreadsheet are usually called "rows".


title: Record (computer science)

text: A record is a collection of "fields", possibly of different data types, typically in a fixed number and sequence. The fields of a record may also be called "members", particularly in object-oriented programming; fields may also be called "elements", though this risks confusion with the elements of a collection.


title: Record (computer science)

text: For example, a date could be stored as a record containing a numeric year field, a month field represented as a string, and a numeric day-of-month field. A personnel record might contain a name, a salary, and a rank. A Circle record might contain a center and a radius—in this instance, the center itself might be represented as a point record containing x and y coordinates.


title: Record (computer science)

text: Records are distinguished from arrays by the fact that their number of fields is determined in the definition of the record, and by the fact the records are a heterogenous data type; not all of the fields must contain the same type of data.


title: Record (computer science)

text: A "record type" is a data type that describes such values and variables. Most modern computer languages allow the programmer to define new record types. The definition includes specifying the data type of each field and an identifier (name or label) by which it can be accessed. In type theory, product types (with no field names) are generally preferred due to their simplicity, but proper record types are studied in languages such as System F-sub. Since type-theoretical records may contain first-class function-typed fields in addition to data, they can express many features of object-oriented programming.


title: Record (computer science)

text: Records can exist in any storage medium, including main memory and mass storage devices such as magnetic tapes or hard disks. Records are a fundamental component of most data structures, especially linked data structures. Many computer files are organized as arrays of logical records, often grouped into larger physical records or blocks for efficiency.


title: Record (computer science)

text: The parameters of a function or procedure can often be viewed as the fields of a record variable; and the arguments passed to that function can be viewed as a record value that gets assigned to that variable at the time of the call. Also, in the call stack that is often used to implement procedure calls, each entry is an "activation record" or "call frame", containing the procedure parameters and local variables, the return address, and other internal fields.


title: Record (computer science)

text: An object in object-oriented language is essentially a record that contains procedures specialized to handle that record; and object types are an elaboration of record types. Indeed, in most object-oriented languages, records are just special cases of objects, and are known as plain old data structures (PODSs), to contrast with objects that use OO features.


title: Record (computer science)

text: A record can be viewed as the computer analog of a mathematical tuple, although a tuple may or may not be considered a record, and vice versa, depending on conventions and the specific programming language. In the same vein, a record type can be viewed as the computer language analog of the Cartesian product of two or more mathematical sets, or the implementation of an abstract product type in a specific language.


title: Record (computer science)

text: A record may have zero or more "key"s. A key maps an expression to a value, or a set of values, in the record. A primary key is a key this is unique throughout all stored records; only one if this key exists. In other words, no duplicate may exist for any primary key. For example an employee file might contain employee number, name, department, and salary. The employee number will be unique in the organization and would be the primary key. Depending on the storage medium and file organization the employee number might be "indexed"—that is also stored in a separate file to make lookup faster. The department code is not necessarily unique; it may also be indexed, in which case it would be considered a "secondary key", or "alternate key". If it is not indexed the entire employee file would have to be scanned to produce a listing of all employees in a specific department. Keys are usually chosen in a way that minimizes the chances of multiple values being feasibly mapped to by one key. For example, the salary field would not normally be considered usable as a key since many employees will likely have the same salary. Indexing is one factor considered when designing a file.


title: Record (computer science)

text: The concept of a record can be traced to various types of tables and ledgers used in accounting since remote times. The modern notion of records in computer science, with fields of well-defined type and size, was already implicit in 19th century mechanical calculators, such as Babbage's Analytical Engine.


title: Record (computer science)

text: The original machine-readable medium used for data (as opposed to control) was punch card used for records in the 1890 United States Census: each punch card was a single record. Compare the journal entry from 1880 and the punch card from 1895. Records were well-established in the first half of the 20th century, when most data processing was done using punched cards. Typically each record of a data file would be recorded in one punched card, with specific columns assigned to specific fields. Generally, a record was the smallest unit that could be read in from external storage (e.g. card reader, tape or disk). The contents of punchcard-style records were originally called "unit records" because since punchcards had pre-determined document lengths. When storage systems became more advanced with the use of hard drives and magnetic tape, variable-length records became the standard. A variable-length record is a record in which the size of the record in bytes is approximately equal to the sum of the sizes of its fields. This was not possible to do before more advanced storage hardware was invented because all of the punchcards had to conform to pre-determined document lengths that the computer could read, since at the time the cards had to be physically fed into a machine.


title: Record (computer science)

text: Most machine language implementations and early assembly languages did not have special syntax for records, but the concept was available (and extensively used) through the use of index registers, indirect addressing, and self-modifying code. Some early computers, such as the IBM 1620, had hardware support for delimiting records and fields, and special instructions for copying such records.


title: Record (computer science)

text: The concept of records and fields was central in some early file sorting and tabulating utilities, such as IBM's Report Program Generator (RPG).


title: Record (computer science)

text: The early languages developed for numeric computing, such as FORTRAN (up to FORTRAN IV) and Algol 60, did not have support for record types; but later versions of those languages, such as FORTRAN 77 and Algol 68 did add them. The original Lisp programming language too was lacking records (except for the built-in cons cell), but its S-expressions provided an adequate surrogate. The Pascal programming language was one of the first languages to fully integrate record types with other basic types into a logically consistent type system. The PL/I programming language provided for COBOL-style records. The C programming language initially provided the record concept as a kind of template (codice_3) that could be laid on top of a memory area, rather than a true record data type. The latter were provided eventually (by the codice_4 declaration), but the two concepts are still distinct in the language. Most languages designed after Pascal (such as Ada, Modula, and Java), also supported records.


title: Record (computer science)

text: Although records are not often used in their original context anymore (i.e. being used solely for the purpose of containing data), records influenced newer object oriented programming languages and relational database management systems. Since records provided more modularity in the way data was stored and handled, they are better suited at representing complex, real-world concepts than the primitive data types provided by default in languages. This influenced later languages such as C++, Python, JavaScript, and Objective-C which address the same modularity concerns of programmers. Objects in these languages are essentially records with the addition of methods and inheritance, which allow programmers to manipulate the way data behaves instead of only the contents of a record. Many programmers regard records as obsolete now since object-oriented languages have features that far surpass what records are capable of. On the other hand, many programmers argue that the low overhead and ability to use records in assembly language make records still relevant when programming with low levels of abstraction. to Today, the most popular languages on the TIOBE index, an indicator of the popularity of programming languages, have been influenced in some way by records due to the fact that they are object oriented. Query languages such as SQL and Object Query Language were also influenced by the concept of records. These languages allow the programmer to store sets of data, which are essentially records, in tables. This data can then be retrieved using a primary key. The tables themselves are also records which may have a foreign key: a key that references data in another table.


title: Record (computer science)

text: Some languages may provide facilities that enumerate all fields of a record, or at least the fields that are references. This facility is needed to implement certain services such as debuggers, garbage collectors, and serialization. It requires some degree of type polymorphism.


title: Record (computer science)

text: In such settings, a specific record type implies that a specific set of fields are present, but values of that type may contain additional fields. A record with fields "x", "y", and "z" would thus belong to the type of records with fields "x" and "y", as would a record with fields "x", "y", and "r". The rationale is that passing an ("x","y","z") record to a function that expects an ("x","y") record as argument should work, since that function will find all the fields it requires within the record. Many ways of practically implementing records in programming languages would have trouble with allowing such variability, but the matter is a central characteristic of record types in more theoretical contexts.


title: Record (computer science)

text: Most languages allow assignment between records that have exactly the same record type (including same field types and names, in the same order). Depending on the language, however, two record data types defined separately may be regarded as distinct types even if they have exactly the same fields.


title: Record (computer science)

text: Some languages may also allow assignment between records whose fields have different names, matching each field value with the corresponding field variable by their positions within the record; so that, for example, a complex number with fields called codice_5 and codice_6 can be assigned to a 2D point record variable with fields codice_7 and codice_8. In this alternative, the two operands are still required to have the same sequence of field types. Some languages may also require that corresponding types have the same size and encoding as well, so that the whole record can be assigned as an uninterpreted bit string. Other languages may be more flexible in this regard, and require only that each value field can be legally assigned to the corresponding variable field; so that, for example, a short integer field can be assigned to a long integer field, or vice versa.


title: Record (computer science)

text: These same possibilities apply to the comparison of two record values for equality. Some languages may also allow order comparisons ('<'and '>'), using the lexicographic order based on the comparison of individual fields.


title: Record (computer science)

text: PL/I allows both of the preceding types of assignment, and also allows "structure expressions", such as codice_9 where "a" is a record, or structure in PL/I terminology.


title: Record (computer science)

text: In Algol 68, if codice_10 was an array of records, each with integer fields codice_7 and codice_8, one could write codice_13 to obtain an array of integers, consisting of the codice_8 fields of all the elements of codice_10. As a result, the statements codice_16 and codice_17 would have the same effect.


title: Record (computer science)

text: In the Pascal programming language, the command codice_18 would execute the command sequence codice_19 as if all the fields of record codice_20 had been declared as variables. Similarly to entering a different namespace in an object-oriented language like C#, it is no longer necessary to use the record name as a prefix to access the fields. So, instead of writing codice_21 one could write codice_22.


title: Record (computer science)

text: The representation of records in memory varies depending on the programming languages. Usually the fields are stored in consecutive positions in memory, in the same order as they are declared in the record type. This may result in two or more fields stored into the same word of memory; indeed, this feature is often used in systems programming to access specific bits of a word. On the other hand, most compilers will add padding fields, mostly invisible to the programmer, in order to comply with alignment constraints imposed by the machine—say, that a floating point field must occupy a single word.


title: Record (computer science)

text: Some languages may implement a record as an array of addresses pointing to the fields (and, possibly, to their names and/or types). Objects in object-oriented languages are often implemented in rather complicated ways, especially in languages that allow multiple class inheritance.


title: Record (computer science)

text: A "self-defining record" is a type of record which contains information to identify the record type and to locate information within the record. It may contain the offsets of elements; the elements can therefore be stored in any order or may be omitted. The information stored in a self-defining record can be interpreted as metadata for the record, which is similar to what one would expect to find in the UNIX metadata regarding a file, containing information such as the record's creation time and the size of the record in bytes. Alternatively, various elements of the record, each including an element identifier, can simply follow one another in any order.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: The Cessna O-2 Skymaster (nicknamed "Oscar Deuce") is a military version of the Cessna 337 Super Skymaster, used for forward air control (FAC) and psychological operations (PSYOPS) by the US military between 1967 and 2010.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: In 1966, the United States Air Force (USAF) commissioned Cessna to build a military variant of the Skymaster to replace the Cessna O-1 Bird Dog.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: Both the civilian and military Skymasters were low-cost twin-engine piston-powered aircraft, with one engine in the nose of the aircraft and a second in the rear of the fuselage. The push-pull configuration provided centerline thrust, allowing simpler operation than the low-wing mounting of most twin-engine light aircraft, and allowed a high wing to be used, providing clear observation below and behind the aircraft.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: Modifications made for the military configuration included fore-and-aft seating for a pilot and observer, instead of the six seats of the civilian version; installation of view panels in the doors (for improved ground observation); installation of flame-retardant foam in the wing-mounted fuel tanks (slightly increasing weight, and reducing maximum fuel capacity by 3%); installation of military, rather than civilian, communication and navigation equipment and antennas; removal of propeller spinners; increased gross weight (5,400 lb vs. 4,400 lb in civilian version), with component strengthening as required to support the increase; and removal of interior upholstery.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: The first O-2 flew in January 1967, and the plane went into production shortly thereafter. Performance (especially at cruising altitudes) was degraded due to the added antennas and significant weight increase, but was considered sufficient for the anticipated low-level operation.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: The USAF took delivery of the O-2 Skymaster in March 1967 and the O-2A also entered the U.S. Army's inventory during 1967, from USAF stock. By 1970, a total of 532 O-2s had been built, in two variants, for the USAF.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: During the Vietnam War, the O-2A was introduced as a replacement for the O-1 Bird Dog, in the forward air control (FAC) aircraft and served in that role with the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron. The O-2B was equipped with loudspeakers and a leaflet dispenser for use in the psychological operations (PSYOPS) role.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: While it was intended that the Skymaster be replaced in the FAC mission by the OV-10 Bronco, the O-2A continued to be used for night missions after the OV-10's introduction, due to the OV-10's high level of cockpit illumination, rendering night reconnaissance impractical. The O-2 was phased out completely after additional night upgrades to the OV-10.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: Following the Vietnam War, the O-2 continued to operate with both U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard units into the late 1980s.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: Six former USAF O-2A airframes were transferred to the U.S. Navy in 1983 for use as range controllers with Attack Squadron 122 (VA-122), the Pacific Fleet Replacement Squadron for the A-7 Corsair II at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California. These aircraft were later transferred to Strike Fighter Squadron 125 (VFA-125), the F/A-18 Hornet FRS at NAS Lemoore, in 1986 for use in the same range control role. These O-2A aircraft were eventually replaced by T-34C Turbomentor aircraft transferred from the Naval Air Training Command.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: Of the six USN aircraft mentioned above, two were transferred to the U.S. Army in late 1990. USAF O-2As were augmented by the 1990 aircraft transfer from the Navy. Several disassembled USAF O-2s remain in storage at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona. Two O-2As were used at Laguna Army Airfield, Arizona as part of testing programs carried out by the Yuma Proving Ground. These were retired in October 2010 and sent to a museum.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: 35 USAF O-2 aircraft were later transferred to and operated by the former Republic of Vietnam Air Force.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: During the Salvadoran Civil War, the Salvadoran Air Force received a total of 23 O-2As and 2 O-2Bs from the United States, the first arriving in 1981. They were employed to observe the movements of FMLN formations and direct air strikes against them, playing a major role in forcing the rebel movement to abandon large-scale operations.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: Near the end of the war in 1990, the rebels' acquisition of SA-7 missiles resulted in the loss of two O-2As, while another was destroyed by mortar fire, and two more were lost in crashes.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: In the mid 1970s, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CAL FIRE, found that the contractor-owned air attack aircraft, mostly single-engine Cessna 182s and Cessna 210s, did not provide the airspeed and safety needed for the department's new air tanker program. In 1974, Senior Air Operations Officer Cotton Mason inspected 40 USAF O-2s at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The best 20 were selected and shipped to Fresno, California. These aircraft had been FAC aircraft in Vietnam and were shipped back to the United States in containers, and were disassembled and on pallets when they arrived at Fresno. A crew of California Conservation Corps (CCC) members under the supervision of a CDF Battalion Chief, who was an FAA Certificated Mechanic with Inspection Authorization (IA), reassembled the aircraft.


title: Cessna O-2 Skymaster

text: They were placed in service in 1976, and served CAL FIRE for more than 20 years, until replaced by a fleet of OV-10 Broncos.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: Paul Massey (7 January 1960 – 26 July 2015) was an English organised crime figure and Salford-based businessman. He was shot dead outside his home by Mark Fellows on 26 July 2015.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: Massey was born on 7 January 1960 in Ordsall, Salford, England. He was one of six children of Rose Massey and John Massey. When Massey was 12, he was arrested for criminal damage and sent to approved school.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: In the 1990s, Massey established several security companies. Through these businesses, Damian Noonan, he and his gang were able to control the doors of several Manchester-area nightclubs.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: Several media outlets reported that Massey served as an important mediator between rival organised crime firms in Greater Manchester.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: At the time of his death, the regional organised crime squad was investigating Massey over allegations of money-laundering.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: In 2012, following his 2007 release from Frankland Prison, Massey announced he was running for mayor of Salford. He finished seventh out of ten candidates.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: On 26 July 2015, Massey was shot dead outside his home on Manchester Road, Clifton, by a lone gunman. Mark Fellows, the killer, was reported to have been wearing military style fatigues and carried a weapon "similar to a sub machine gun". Greater Manchester Police offered a £50,000 reward for information pertaining to the killing.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: Authorities in the Manchester area feared an escalation in gang violence related to Massey's death. Manchester police believe that the shooting of a 29-year-old woman and her seven-year-old son was linked to retribution for the Massey killing. From January–December 2015, there were 19 shootings in Salford.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: On 1 June 2018, Fellows was charged with Massey's murder and also that of Massey's close friend, Liverpool gangster John Kinsella. Fellows was subsequently convicted and sentenced to a whole life order. Conspirators used PGP-equipped BlackBerry phones to co-ordinate the murder.


title: Paul Massey (gangster)

text: Massey had five children and eight grandchildren at the time of his death. Massey was given the nickname "Mr Big" by city councillor Joe Burrows during a meeting in 1992 held to address ongoing civil disturbances in Salford.


title: Hut

text: A hut is a small dwelling, which may be constructed of various local materials. Huts are a type of vernacular architecture because they are built of readily available materials such as wood, snow, ice, stone, grass, palm leaves, branches, hides, fabric, or mud using techniques passed down through the generations.


title: Hut

text: The construction of a hut is generally less complex than that of a house (durable, well-built dwelling) but more so than that of a shelter (place of refuge or safety) such as a tent and is used as temporary or seasonal shelter or as a permanent dwelling in some indigenous societies.


title: Hut

text: Huts exist in practically all nomadic cultures. Some huts are transportable and can stand most conditions of weather.


title: Hut

text: The term is often employed by people who consider non-western style homes in tropical and sub-tropical areas to be crude or primitive, but often the designs are based on traditions of local craftsmanship using sophisticated architectural techniques. The designs in tropical and sub-tropical areas favour high airflow configurations built from non-conducting materials, which allow heat dissipation. The term "house" or "home" is considered by some to be more appropriate.


title: Hut

text: The term has also been adopted by climbers and backpackers to refer to a more solid and permanent structure offering refuge. These vary from simple bothies – which are little more than very basic shelters – to mountain huts that are far more luxurious and can even include facilities such as restaurants.


title: Hut

text: The word comes from the 1650s, from French "hutte" "cottage" (16c.), from Middle High German hütte "cottage, hut," probably from Proto-Germanic *hudjon-, related to the root of Old English hydan "to hide," from PIE *keudh-, from root (s)keu- (see hide (n.1)). Apparently first in English as a military word. Old Saxon hutta, Danish hytte, Swedish hytta, West Frisian and Middle Dutch hutte, Dutch hut are from High German. seems to be known from even earlier ages. Avestan or ancient Iranian origins presumably." related to "hide", a covering.


title: Hut

text: Huts are used by shepherds when moving livestock between seasonal grazing areas such as mountainous and lowland pastures (transhumance).


title: Hut

text: Some displaced populations of people use huts throughout the world during a diaspora. For example, temporary collectors in the wilderness agricultural workers at plantations in the Amazon jungle.


title: Hut

text: Many huts are designed to be relatively quick and inexpensive to build. Construction often does not require specialized tools or knowledge.


title: Hut

text: The term Hut is also used to name many commercial stores, companies, and concepts. The name implies a small, casual venue, often with a fun and friendly atmosphere. Examples include Pizza Hut and Sunglass Hut. Kiosks may be constructed to look like huts and are often found at parks, malls, beaches, or other public places, selling a variety of inexpensive food or goods. Luxury hotels in tropical areas where guests are assigned to occupy their own freestanding structure sometimes call the structure a "hut", though such huts typically bear little more than superficial resemblance to the traditional concept of a hut.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is a real-time strategy video game developed by Tantalus Media and Forgotten Empires and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is a remaster of the 2005 game "Age of Empires III", celebrating the 15th anniversary of the original. It features improved visuals, a remastered soundtrack, two new game modes, and four new civilizations, plus African and Mediterranean-themed downloadable content . The Mediterranean expansion introduces the Italians as a playable civilization. It includes all previous expansions from the original game. It was released on October 15, 2020 for Microsoft Windows.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: The core gameplay elements are shared heavily with the original, but "Definitive Edition" builds upon it. The remaster includes new 4K Ultra HD graphics, rebuilt 3D assets, improved destruction animations on buildings, a spectator mode, an overhauled and scalable UI, mod support, new server-based online multiplayer with cross-network play, new maps, and remastered sounds and music. It features two new civilizations: Inca and Swedes with two new game modes: The Art of War and Historical Battles. It includes all previous expansions from the original game ("", "").


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: The AI was improved, and a new "extreme" difficulty level was added. The number of cheats AI uses in the original game was reduced. The new AI can micromanage now, it is better at picking units, reading the map, reading its opponent's army, making well-rounded army compositions, retreating from lost battles, and hit-and-run tactics on the highest levels.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: An expansion pack adding the United States civilization was announced on April 10, 2021 and released on April 13, 2021. For a limited time, players could unlock it for free by completing 50 challenges, each themed around a US state.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: A second expansion pack, "The African Royals", was announced on July 20, 2021 and released on August 2, 2021. "The African Royals" expansion adds two new civilizations, the Ethiopians and the Hausa, as well as three new Historical Battles, 15 new African maps, 5 new indigenous African civilizations to ally with, and 11 new achievements.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: An expansion pack adding the Mexico civilization was announced on November 22, 2021 and released on December 1, 2021. In addition to the new civilization, several historical battle scenarios were added to the game centered around both the Mexican civilization and the United States civilization, as well as 10 new achievements and additional content for the American civilization.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: Another expansion pack, "Knights of the Mediterranean", was announced on May 12, 2022 adding both Italian and Maltese (Knights Hospitaller) civilizations, and released on May 26, 2022.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: On August 21, 2017, at Gamescom, Microsoft announced "Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition". On August 20, 2019, Microsoft announced "Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition" was in development by Tantalus Media.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: On January 23, 2020, Microsoft announced that the closed beta would begin in early February. Each beta session will include a small piece of the game. Larger closed beta sessions will be dedicated to multiplayer and matchmaking. Campaign beta sessions will be limited to a very small group of players and only certain missions. The first closed beta session began on February 11, 2020, and ended on February 19, 2020. The second closed multiplayer session began on March 31 and ran through April 7, 2020.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: On August 27, 2020, Microsoft revealed the announce trailer at Gamescom. The game was released on Steam, Microsoft Store, and Xbox Game Pass on October 15, 2020.


title: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

text: "Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition" received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic with a score of 75/100 from 46 reviews. "Windows Central"'s Samuel Tolbert praised the new graphics and campaign changes but criticized the AI path finding.


title: Memorandum of association

text: The memorandum of association of a company is an important corporate document in certain jurisdictions. It is often simply referred to as the memorandum. In the UK, it has to be filed with the Registrar of Companies during the process of incorporating a company. It is the document that regulates the company's external affairs, and complements the articles of association which cover the company's internal constitution. It contains the fundamental conditions under which the company is allowed to operate. Until recently it had to include the "objects clause" which let the shareholders, creditors and those dealing with the company know what is its permitted range of operation, although this was usually drafted very broadly. It also shows the company's initial capital. It is one of the documents required to incorporate a company in India, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Nigeria, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania and is also used in many of the common law jurisdictions of the Commonwealth.


title: Memorandum of association

text: It is still a requirement to file a memorandum of association to incorporate a new company, but it contains less information than was required before 1 October 2010. The Companies (Registration) Regulation 2008 included pro-forma Memorandum.


title: Memorandum of association

text: It is basically a statement that the subscribers wish to form a company under the Companies Act 2006, have agreed to become members and, in the case of a company that is to have a share capital, to take at least one share each. It is no longer required to state the name of the company, the type of company (such as public limited company or private company limited by shares), the location of its registered office, the objects of the company, and its authorized share capital. Instead, these details appear solely in the Articles of Association. Companies incorporated prior to 1 October 2009 are not required to amend their memorandum, and for these companies the provisions which would have appeared in the memorandum but are now required to appear in the Articles, such as the objects clause and details of the share capital, are deemed to form a part of the latter.


title: Memorandum of association

text: The memorandum no longer restricts the activities of a company. Since 1 October 2009, if a company's constitution contains any restrictions on the objects at all, those restrictions will form part of the articles of association.


title: Memorandum of association

text: Historically, a company's memorandum of association contained an objects clause, which limited its capacity to act. When the first limited companies were incorporated, the objects clause had to be widely drafted so as not to restrict the board of directors in their day to day trading. In the Companies Act 1989, the term "General Commercial Company" was introduced which meant that companies could undertake "any lawful or legal trade or business".


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is a financial term used by lenders to express the ratio of a loan to the value of an asset purchased.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: In Real estate, the term is commonly used by banks and building societies to represent the ratio of the first mortgage line as a percentage of the total appraised value of real property. For instance, if someone borrows to purchase a house worth , the LTV ratio is or , or 87%. The remaining 13% represent the lender's haircut, adding up to 100% and being covered from the borrower's equity. The higher the LTV ratio, the riskier the loan is for a lender.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: The valuation of a property is typically determined by an appraiser, but a better measure is an arms-length transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller. Typically, banks will utilize the lesser of the appraised value and purchase price if the purchase is "recent" (within 1–2 years).


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: Loan to value is one of the key risk factors that lenders assess when qualifying borrowers for a mortgage. The risk of default is always at the forefront of lending decisions, and the likelihood of a lender absorbing a loss increases as the amount of equity decreases. Therefore, as the LTV ratio of a loan increases, the qualification guidelines for certain mortgage programs become much more strict. Lenders can require borrowers of high LTV loans to buy mortgage insurance to protect the lender from the buyer's default, which increases the costs of the mortgage.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: Low LTV ratios (below 80%) may carry with them lower rates for lower-risk borrowers and allow lenders to consider higher-risk borrowers, such as those with low credit scores, previous late payments in their mortgage history, high debt-to-income ratios, high loan amounts or cash-out requirements, insufficient reserves and/or no income. However, an LTV higher than 80% may carry Mortgage Insurance requirements, which will in turn offered the borrower a lower interest rate. Higher LTV ratios are primarily reserved for borrowers with higher credit scores and a satisfactory mortgage history. Full financing, or 100% LTV, is reserved for only the most credit-worthy borrowers. The loans with LTV ratios higher than 100% are called underwater mortgages.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: Combined loan to value ratio (CLTV) is the proportion of loans (secured by a property) in relation to its value. The term ""combined" loan to value" adds additional specificity to the basic loan to value which simply indicates the ratio between one primary loan and the property value. When "combined" is added, it indicates that additional loans on the property have been considered in the calculation of the percentage ratio.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: The aggregate principal balance(s) of all mortgages on a property divided by its appraised value or purchase price, whichever is less. Distinguishing CLTV from LTV serves to identify loan scenarios that involve more than one mortgage. For example, a property valued at with a single mortgage of has an LTV of 50%. A similar property with a value of with a first mortgage of and a second mortgage of has an aggregate mortgage balance of . The CLTV is 75%.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: Combined loan to value is an amount in addition to the Loan to Value, which simply represents the first position mortgage or loan as a percentage of the property's value.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: In the United States, conforming loans that meet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwriting guidelines are limited to an LTV ratio that is less than or equal to 80%. Conforming loans above 80% are allowed but typically require private mortgage insurance. Other over-80% LTV loan options exist as well. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insures purchase loans to 96.5% and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and United States Department of Agriculture guarantee purchase loans to 100%.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: Properties with more than one lien, such as a second lien, are subject to combined loan to value (CLTV) criteria. The CLTV for a property valued at with a first mortgage and a home equity lines of credit (HELOC) balance of would be the 60% ( + )/. The LTV for the stand-alone seconds and Home Equity Line of Credit would be the loan balance as a percentage of the appraised value. However, in order to measure the riskiness of the borrower, one should look at all outstanding mortgage debt.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: In Australia, the term loan to value ratio (LVR) is used. An LVR of 80% or below is considered to be low risk for standard conforming loans, and 60% and below for a no doc loan or low doc loan. Higher LVRs of up to 95% are available if the loan is mortgage insured. It's also possible to take out a home loan with a 100% LVR, where home buyers aren't required to save up for a deposit. However, due to its risky stance, there are strict requirements for those who wish to take out a 100% LVR home loan such as using a guarantor, also known as a Guarantor home loan.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: In New Zealand, the Reserve Bank has introduced Loan-to-Value restrictions on the banks in order to slow the rapidly growing property market - particularly in Auckland. The LVR restrictions mean that banks are not permitted to make more than 10 percent of their residential mortgage lending to high-LVR (less than 20 percent deposit) owner-occupier borrowers and they must restrict their high-LVR (less than 40 percent deposit) lending to investors to no more than 5 percent of residential mortgage lending.


title: Loan-to-value ratio

text: In the UK, mortgages with an LTV of up to 125% were quite common in the run-up to the national / global economic problems, but today (November 2011) there are very few mortgages available with an LTV of over 90% - and 75% LTV mortgages are the most common.


title: Refund Sisters

text: Refund Sisters () is a seasonal South Korean supergroup formed on the MBC variety show "Hangout with Yoo". The group is a spin-off of SSAK3 – another group formed on "Hangout with Yoo". They made their debut with the single "Don't Touch Me" on October 10, 2020.


title: Refund Sisters

text: In June 2020, Lee Hyori joked about forming the ideal girl crush girl group with herself, Jessi, Uhm Jung-hwa, and MAMAMOO's Hwasa. In a later episode, she shared the idea of having Yoo Jae-suk, the main entertainer on "Hangout with Yoo", as the group's manager. After the episode's broadcast, all three mentioned singers responded positively to Hyori's idea and were willing to participate in the project. The concept also received positive support from the public.


title: Refund Sisters

text: In August 2020, the "Refund Sisters" project was initiated right after the end of the SSAK3 project, bringing the four singers together to form a girl group. Auditions for the group's manager role was carried out, with Kim Jong-min and Jung Jae-hyung chosen for the role. Like the SSAK3 project, all proceeds from Refund Sisters' promotions will be donated to charities.


title: Refund Sisters

text: The group released their debut single "Don't Touch Me" on October 10. The official MV for "Don't Touch Me" was released on October 28.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: La mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre (French for The sea, three symphonic sketches for orchestra), or simply La mer (The Sea), L. 109, CD. 111, is an orchestral composition by the French composer Claude Debussy.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: Composed between 1903 and 1905, the piece was premiered in Paris in October 1905. It was initially not well received. Even some who had been strong supporters of Debussy's work were unenthusiastic, even though "La mer" presented three key aspects of Debussy's aesthetic: Impressionism, Symbolism and Japonism. The work was performed in the US in 1907 and Britain in 1908; after its second performance in Paris, in 1908, it quickly became one of Debussy's most admired and frequently performed orchestral works.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: The first audio recording of the work was made in 1928. Since then, orchestras and conductors from around the world have set it down in many studio or live concert recordings.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: "La mer" was the second of Debussy's three orchestral works in three sections, the other being "Nocturnes" (1892–1899) and "Images pour orchestre" (1905–1912). The first, the "Nocturnes", was premiered in Paris in 1901, and though it had not made any great impact with the public, it was well reviewed by musicians including Paul Dukas, Alfred Bruneau, and Pierre de Bréville. Debussy conceived the idea of a more complex tripartite orchestral piece, and began work in August 1903. He was usually a slow worker, and although the composition of "La mer" took him more than a year and a half, this was unusually quick progress by his standards, particularly at a time of upheaval in his personal life. He began composing the work while visiting his parents-in-law in Burgundy; by the time it was complete, he had left his wife and was living with Emma Bardac, who was pregnant with Debussy's child.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: Debussy retained fond childhood memories of the beauties of the sea, but when composing "La mer" he rarely visited it, spending most of his time far away from large bodies of water. He drew inspiration from art, "preferring the seascapes available in painting and literature" to the physical sea. Although the detailed scheme of the work changed during its composition, Debussy decided from the outset that it was to be "three symphonic sketches" with the title "La mer". In a letter to André Messager, he described the planned sections as "Mère belle aux Îles Sanguinaires", "Jeu de vagues", and "Le vent fait danser la mer". The first of these, inspired by a short story of the same name by Camille Mauclair, was abandoned in favour of a less restrictive theme, the sea from dawn to midday. The last was also dropped, as too reminiscent of ballet, and the less specific theme of the dialogue between the wind and the sea took its place.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: Debussy completed "La mer" on 5 March 1905 and took the proofs to correct on holiday at the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne on the English Channel coast, at which he arrived 23 July 1905; he described Eastbourne to his publisher, Durand, as "a charming peaceful spot: the sea unfurls itself with an utterly British correctness." He arranged the piece for piano four hands in 1905, and in 1909 Durand published a second edition of "La mer" with the composer's revisions.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: "La mer" is scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 French horns, 3 trumpets, 2 cornets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tam tam, glockenspiel, 2 harps and strings.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: Debussy called "La mer" "three symphonic sketches", deliberately avoiding the term symphony. Simon Trezise, in his 1994 book "Debussy: La Mer", comments: "He had not composed an orthodox symphony, but neither did he want "La mer" to be known as a symphonic poem ... [and by calling it] 'Three symphonic sketches' ... [Debussy] must have felt that he had deftly avoided association with either genre." The work has sometimes been called a symphony, including by Debussy himself. It consists of two powerful outer movements framing a lighter, faster piece which acts as a type of scherzo. Jean Barraqué described "La mer" as the first work to have an "open" form – a "devenir" "sonore" or "sonorous becoming... a developmental process in which the very notions of exposition and development coexist in an uninterrupted burst." Trezise says, "motifs are constantly propagated by derivation from earlier motifs".


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: Trezise writes that "for much of "La Mer," Debussy spurns the more obvious devices associated with the sea, wind, and concomitant storm in favour of his own, highly individual vocabulary". Caroline Potter, in "The Cambridge Companion to Debussy", comments that Debussy's depiction of the sea "avoids monotony by using a multitude of water figurations that could be classified as musical onomatopoeia: they evoke the sensation of swaying movement of waves and suggest the pitter-patter of falling droplets of spray" (and so forth), and – significantly – avoid the arpeggiated triads used by Schubert and Wagner to evoke the movement of water. In "The Cambridge Companion to Debussy", Mark DeVoto describes "La mer" as "much more complex than anything Debussy had written earlier", particularly the "Nocturnes":


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: The author, musicologist and pianist Roy Howat has observed, in his book "Debussy in Proportion", that the formal boundaries of "La mer" correspond exactly to the mathematical ratios called the Golden Section. Trezise finds the intrinsic evidence "remarkable", but cautions that no written or reported evidence suggests that Debussy consciously sought such proportions.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: The premiere was given on 15 October 1905 in Paris by the Orchestre Lamoureux under the direction of Camille Chevillard. The piece was initially not well received. Pierre Lalo, critic of "Le Temps", hitherto an admirer of Debussy's work, wrote: "I do not hear, I do not see, I do not smell the sea." Another Parisian critic, Louis Schneider, wrote, "The audience seemed rather disappointed: they expected the ocean, something big, something colossal, but they were served instead with some agitated water in a saucer." When the conductor Karl Muck gave the first American performances of "La mer" in March 1907, the critic Henry Krehbiel wrote:


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: The work was not performed in Britain until 1908, when the composer – though a reluctant conductor – gave a performance at the Queen's Hall; the work was enthusiastically reviewed in "The Times", but "The Observer" thought it lacked "real force of elemental strength". "The Manchester Guardian" thought the work an advance on Debussy's earlier work in some respects, although "the vagueness of thematic outline is carried to hitherto unheard-of lengths", and found "moments of great beauty" in the work; and "The Musical Times" reserved judgment, but noted that the audience had been highly enthusiastic. Debussy commented that his music was more popular in London than in Paris.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: One reason for the negative reception at the Paris premiere may have been public disapproval of Debussy's treatment of his wife, but another was the mediocre performance by the conductor and orchestra. Chevillard was a respected interpreter of the classics, but was not at home with new music. It was not until 1908, at the second performance of the work in Paris, conducted by the composer, that "La mer" became a success with the public. Trezise records that at the time, many felt the 1908 concert presented the real first performance of the piece.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: Although some of Debussy's contemporaries drew analogies between "La mer" and French Impressionist paintings – much to the composer's irritation – others have detected the influence of his admiration for the English painter J. M. W. Turner and Debussy's choice of Hokusai's c. 1831 woodblock print "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" for the cover of the printed score indicates the influence of Japanese art on him. Despite Debussy's scorn for the term "impressionism" applied to his or anyone else's music – a matter on which he and Ravel were of the same firm opinion – the term was used by some of his most devoted admirers. His biographer Edward Lockspeiser called "La mer" "the greatest example of an orchestral Impressionist work", and more recently in "The Cambridge Companion to Debussy" Nigel Simeone commented, "It does not seem unduly far-fetched to see a parallel in Monet's seascapes".


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: In the decades after the premiere "La mer" established itself in the core orchestral repertoire. In 2018 the online archive of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra reported that the orchestra had played the work at 135 concert performances since 1917, under conductors including Willem Mengelberg, Arturo Toscanini, John Barbirolli, Pierre Monteux, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and Valery Gergiev. In 1979 "The Musical Times" rated "La mer" the composer's most important orchestral work. The pianist Sviatoslav Richter called "La mer" "A piece that I rank alongside the "St Matthew Passion" and the "Ring" cycle as one of my favourite works".


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: The first recording of "La mer" was made by the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, conducted by Piero Coppola in 1928. It has been reissued on LP and CD. Recordings conducted by other musicians who had known and worked with Debussy include those by Monteux and Ernest Ansermet, who both conducted the work on more than one recording. Well known recordings from the monaural era include those by the NBC Symphony Orchestra and Toscanini, and the Philharmonia on recordings conducted by Herbert von Karajan and Guido Cantelli. Of recordings from the stereophonic LP era, "The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music" singled out those by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner, and the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: Of the many recordings available, a comparative survey for Classic FM (2018) recommended a short list of five, those by the Orchestre National de France and Jean Martinon; the Cleveland Orchestra and Boulez; the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle; the Seoul Philharmonic and Myung-Whun Chung, and – its top recommendation – the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink.


title: La mer (Debussy)

text: "La mer" has influenced a number of composers throughout the 20th century. British composers Frank Merrick and Hope Squire arranged La Mer for piano duet and performed it in 1915 in one of their new music recitals. Luciano Berio quoted "La mer" in the 3rd movement of his 1968 "Sinfonia"; John Williams used simplified versions of motifs from "La mer" in the score he wrote for "Jaws" (1975); and in 2002 the Norwegian composer Biosphere loosely based his ambient album "Shenzhou" around looped samples of "La mer".


title: Geographical distribution of German speakers

text: This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the German-speaking area () in Europe, German-speaking minorities are present in many countries and on all six inhabited continents.


text: Mostly depending on the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties with a disputed status as separate languages (e.g., Low German/Plautdietsch), it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language, 10–25 million as a second language, and 75–100 million as a foreign language. This would imply approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide.


text: The German language is spoken in a number of countries and territories in Europe, where it is used both as an official language and as a minority language in various countries. To cover this language area, they are often referred to as the German-speaking countries, the German-speaking area (), or equivalently German-speaking Europe (non-European German-speaking communities are not commonly included in the concept).


text: German is the main language of approximately 95 to 100 million people in Europe, or 13.3% of all Europeans. This makes it the second most spoken native language in Europe, behind only Russian (with 144 million speakers), and ahead of French (with 66.5 million) and English (with 64.2 million).


text: The European countries with German-speaking majorities are Germany (95%, 78.3 million), Austria (89%, 8.9 million), and Switzerland (65%, 4.6 million), also known as the "D-A-CH" countries. Other European countries and regions with a German-speaking majority include Liechtenstein (30,000), the Italian autonomous region of South Tyrol (0.5 million), and the German-speaking Community of Belgium with around 90,000 native speakers, constituting around 1% of the total population of Belgium.


text: Since 2004, there has been an annual informal meeting of the heads of state of German-speaking countries including the Presidents of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and the Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein. Since 2014, the King of Belgium and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg have also been taking part.


text: D-A-CH or DACH is an acronym used to represent the dominant states of the German language "Sprachraum". It is based on the international vehicle registration codes for:


text: "Dach" is also the German word for "roof", and is used in linguistics in the term Dachsprache, which standard German arguably is in relation to some outlying dialects of German, especially in Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, and Austria.


text: The term is sometimes extended to D-A-CH-Li, DACHL, or DACH+ to include Liechtenstein. Another version is DACHS (with "Dachs" meaning "Badger" in German) with the inclusion of the German-speaking region of South Tyrol in Italy.


text: DACH is also the name of an Interreg IIIA project, which focuses on crossborder cooperation in planning.


text: In the early modern period, German varieties were a "lingua franca" of Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe (Hanseatic League).


text: German is a recognised minority language in Czechia, Hungary, Italy (Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol), Poland, Romania, Russia, and Slovakia.


text: Today German, together with French, is a common second foreign language in the western world, with English well established as a first foreign language. German ranks second (after English) among the best known foreign languages in the EU (on a par with French) as well as in Russia. In terms of student numbers across all levels of education, German ranks third in the EU (after English and French) as well as in the United States (after Spanish and French). In 2015, approximately 15.4 million people were in the process of learning German across all levels of education worldwide. This number has remained relatively stable since 2005 (± 1 million) and roughly 75–100 million people able to communicate in German as a foreign language can be inferred, assuming an average course duration of three years and other estimated parameters. According to a 2012 survey, ca. 47 million people within the EU (i.e., up to two thirds of the 75–100 million worldwide) claimed to have sufficient German skills to have a conversation. Within the EU, and not counting countries where it is a (co-)official language, German as a foreign language is most widely taught in Central and Northern Europe, namely Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden.


text: German as a foreign language is promoted by the Goethe Institute, which works to promote German language and culture worldwide. In association with the Goethe Institute, the German foreign broadcasting service, Deutsche Welle, offers a range of online German courses and worldwide television as well as radio broadcasts produced with non-native German speakers in mind.


text: Namibia used to be a colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1915. Mostly originating from German settlers who immigrated during this time, 25,000 to 30,000 people still speak German as a native tongue today. German, along with English and Afrikaans used to be a co-official language of Namibia from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. At this point, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols for Apartheid and colonialism, and decided for English to be the sole official language, claiming that it was a "neutral" language as virtually no English native speakers existed in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans and several indigenous languages became "national languages" by law, identifying them as cultural heritages of the nation and ensuring the state to acknowledge and support their presence in the country. Today, German is used in a wide variety of spheres, especially business and tourism, as well as churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK)), schools (e.g., the Deutsche Höhere Privatschule Windhoek), literature (German-Namibian authors include ), radio (the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation produces radio programs in German), and music (e.g., artist EES). The "Allgemeine Zeitung" is also one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa.


text: Mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries, an estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa. Germans settled quite extensively in South Africa, with many Calvinists immigrating from Northern Europe. Later on, more Germans settled in the KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere. Here, one of the largest communities are the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German, who are concentrated in and around Wartburg and to a lesser extent around Winterton. German is slowly disappearing elsewhere, but a number of communities still have a large number of speakers and some even have German language schools, such as the Hermannsburg German School. Furthermore, German was often a language taught as a foreign language in White South African schools during the Apartheid years (1948–1994). Today, the South African constitution identifies German as a "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it.


text: Nowadays, at least one million German speakers live in Latin America. There are German-speaking minorities in almost every Latin American country, including Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Initially, in the eighteenth century, only isolated or small groups of German emigrants left for Latin America; however, at the start of the last century, this pattern was reversed as a tidal wave of German emigration totaling some 200,000 people began. These included groups such as land-hungry peasants, political refugees known as Forty-Eighters, and religious minorities such as Russian Mennonites fleeing religious persecution at home. During the 1880s, during the wave of mass emigration, this figure was reached annually. The "Handbuch des Deutschtums im Ausland" ("The Germans Abroad Handbook") from 1906 puts a figure of 11 million people in North and South America with a knowledge of the German language, of which 9 million were in the US. Although the US was the focal point for emigration in the 19th century, emigration to Latin America was also significant for differing economic and political reasons.


text: The majority of German emigrants to Latin America went especially to Brazil, but also to Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. The three countries with the biggest ethnic German populations in Latin America to this day are Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico


text: Starting in 1818, when King D. João VI brought the first German and Swiss immigrants to Brazil, German immigration continued a constant flow with an average of 25 to 30 thousand immigrants per decade entering the country since 1818. It peaked in the years following World War I, to around 90 thousand, and again in the 1940s to around 50,000. In the 1880s and 1890s, German emigration to Latin America grew and in some years was the destination of up to 30% of German emigrants. During the Nazi period – until the ban on emigration came into effect in 1941 – some 100,000 Jews from Central Europe, the vast majority of which were German-speaking, moved to South America with 90% of these moving to the Cono Sur or Southern Cone. From the start of the 20th century until 1946 80% of Jews lived in Europe but by the end of World War II this was reduced to 25%, however after the war over 50% of Jews now lived in the Americas. This change was aided by Jewish emigration groups such as the Hilfsverein deutschsprechender Juden (later to become Asociación Filantrópica Israelita) which was based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The majority of German minorities in Latin America – as well as elsewhere around the world – experienced a decline in the use of the German language, with the exception of Brazil, where the dialect Riograndenser Hunsrückisch is being taught in schools and in some media, totaling over 200 thousand speakers spread over the Brazilian southern states.


text: The main cause of this decrease is the integration of communities, often originally sheltered, into the dominant society, and as well as the invariable pull of societal assimilation which confronts all immigrant groups. German migration to colonial Mexico is less accounted for due to the geopolitical isolation following independence from Spain, as well as the deterrents of Mexico's ensuing civil wars. Despite these obstacles and lack of documentation however, over 200,000 Prussian/German nationals have been registered entering the country between 1860 and 1960. The first wave of Germans immigrated from northern Prussia under the reign of Princess Carlota during the 2nd French Mexican empire. Of special interest is the settlement Villa Carlota: that was the name under which two German farming settlements, in the villages of Santa Elena and Pustunich in Yucatán, were founded during the Second Mexican Empire (1864–1867). Villa Carlota attracted a total of 443 German-speaking immigrant families, most of them were farmers and artisans who emigrated with their families: the majority came from Prussia and many among them were Protestants. The second wave was during Porfirio Díaz's open settlement policy in the Yucatán Peninsula that favored and attracted many Europeans. Most German-speaking or self identifying German-Mexicans today are descended from these two events as well as around 20,000 ethnic Germans from Russia and around 100,000 Mennonites from Canada.


text: Specific reasons for language change from German to the national language usually derive from the desire of many Germans to belong to their new communities after the end of World War II. This is a common feature among the German minorities in Latin America and those in Central and Eastern Europe: the majority of countries where German minorities lived had fought against the Germans during the war. With this change in situation, the members of the German minorities, previously communities of status and prestige, were turned into undesirable minorities (though there were widespread elements of sympathy for Germany in many South American countries as well).


text: For many German minorities, World War II thus represented the breaking point in the development of their language. In some South American countries the war period and immediately afterwards was a time of massive assimilation to the local culture (for example during the Getúlio Vargas period in Brazil).


text: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Paraguay show some clear demographic differences that affect the minority situation of the German language: Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina are massive countries and offer large amounts of land for immigrants to settle. The population density of the Southern Cone countries is relatively low (Brazil has 17 inhabitants/km, Chile has 15/km, Argentina and Paraguay both have 10/km, data from 1993), but there are major differences in the areas settled by Germans: Buenos Aires Province, which was settled by Germans, has a far higher population density than that of the Chaco in northern Paraguay (with 1 inhabitant/km). While Argentina and Chile have a far greater proportion of city dwellers (86% and 84% respectively), in contrast, Brazil and Paraguay are 82% and 47% urbanized, respectively. Most of the German immigrants that arrived in Brazil and Mexico went on to live in small inland communities. The original 58 German communities of the early 19th century Brazil, grew today to over 250 towns where Germans are a majority, and German-speaking is encouraged.


text: There are about 500,000 German speakers and around 320,000 Volga-Germans alone, of which 200,000 hold German citizenship. This makes Argentina one of the countries with the largest number of German speakers and is second only in Latin America to Brazil. In the 1930s there were about 700,000 people of German descent.


text: Regional concentrations can be found in the provinces of Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires (with around 500,000 to 600,000) as well as Misiones and in the general area of the Chaco and the Pampas.


text: However most German-descended Argentinians do not speak German with native fluency (that role has been taken by Spanish). The 300,000 German speakers are estimated to be immigrants and not actually born in Argentina, and because of this they still speak their home language while their descendants who were born in Argentina speak primarily Spanish.


text: According to Deutsche Welle, there are some twelve million people of German ancestry in Brazil. Nevertheless, the number of people speaking any sort of German (Standard German, Hunsrückisch or East Pomeranian) is on the decrease, with 3 million speaking German as a first language today. The main variety of German in Brazil is Riograndenser Hunsrückisch which is to be found in the southern states. This version of German there has changed over 180 years of contact with Portuguese as well as the languages of other immigrant communities. Such contact has led to a new dialect of German concentrated in the German colonies in the southern province of Rio Grande do Sul. Although Riograndenser Hunsrückisch has long been the most widely spoken German dialect in southern Brazil, like all other minority languages in the region, it is experiencing very strong decline – especially in the last three or four decades. In all the vast majority of German descended Brazilians speaks Portuguese as their mother tongue today, and German is known only as a second or third language, if at all, to the point of initiatives to preserve the language being started recently in areas with strong German-descended presence, with government sponsored Gemeindeschulen. This is especially true for younger German-Brazilians. Another place where the German language continues alive is in some of the more of four thousand Brazilian Lutheran churches, in which some of the services continue to be in German.


text: The German language is co-official in the municipality of Pomerode, besides being cultural patrimony of the State of Espírito Santo. In Rio Grande do Sul, the Riograndenser Hunsrückisch German is an integral part of the State's historical and cultural heritage.


text: About 30,000 ethnic Germans arrived in Chile. During the first flux of German immigration (between 1846 and 1875) German colonies were primarily set up in the "Frontera" region. The second wave of immigration occurred between 1882 and 1914 and consisted mainly of industrial and agricultural workers, mainly from eastern Germany; the third wave (after 1918) settled mainly in the cities. As in Argentina and Brazil, these populations are today overwhelmingly Spanish speaking, and German as a home language is in heavy decline; if German-Chileans can still speak German, most of them speak German only as a second or third language.


text: Colombia has a population of about 40 million people. Of the 40 million only 5,000 people of German descent speak the language. Many of these people settled in Antioquia, and el Eje Cafetero. Most of the immigration occurred during World War I until the end of the Cold War. Many of these ethnic Germans now speak primarily Spanish at home.


text: Germans came to South America in the world wars I and II, settling first in Colombia because of its wealth in natural resources as well as weather conditions conducive to agriculture. German immigrants built the Bavaria, Pilsen, and Club soda Klausen factories in Cali, Barranquilla, Pereira, Medellin, and other cities. Nowadays, Germans born in Colombia celebrate Oktoberfest in Cali along with other traditions. There are currently German schools in various major cities around the country.


text: Costa Rica has a population of 4.9 million, and a German speaker population of 8,000 people. Many of these people are immigrants or native German speakers from Germany or Switzerland and 18th, 19th and 20th centuries massive immigration descendants. But also in the northern area of the country, there are 2,200 German Mennonites communities in Sarapiquí and San Carlos that spoke Plautdietsch and other Low German dialects.


text: This German-Costa Rican community is one of the most important and biggest collectivities of German speakers in Central America and the Caribbean, and has a lot of cultural and social institutions, churches, farms, business companies and schools.


text: Mexico (with a population of over 120 million) has an estimated 200,000 speakers of standard German either as a first or second language, not counting foreign learned German speakers or the Low-German dialects. Documented immigration of Germans to Mexico began in 1856, though historical research suggest as many as 1.2 million German speaking immigrants arrived in Mexico during the colonial period likely as agricultural laborers. Due to pro-nationalistic propagation by the federal government which encouraged the “mestijaze” or ambiguously mixed-race identification, many Mexicans do not know their ancestral origins and demographic numbers of German Mexicans are sourced on recent and limited data. Regardless, Mexico stands as the 3rd country with the largest German community in Latin America, behind Brazil and Argentina. Included in the ethnic German immigration to Mexico are from Austria, Switzerland, and the French region of Alsace which was part of France since the end of WWI, as well those from Bavaria and High German regions of Germany. . There are about 2,000,000 Mexicans with recent German ancestry, without counting the ones with partial or unknown German ancestry. Like Argentina, however most German-descended citizens do not speak German with native fluency, rather it is spoken as a second language or influenced their regional varieties of Spanish. As of 2012, about 20,000 Germans nationals resided in Mexico. That number has risen to almost 40,000 in 2020. Despite groggy heritage claims to the language, German is slightly ahead of French as the second most studied foreign language in Mexico behind only English. Mexico is home to over 3,000 German language schools, second only to Brazil. The Colegio Humboldt campuses in Mexico are the biggest German language K-12 schools in the Americas, with each of the 3 branches graduating over 2,000 students per year.


text: In Canada, there are 622,650 speakers of German according to the most recent census in 2006, with people of German ancestry (German Canadians) found throughout the country. German-speaking communities are particularly found in British Columbia (118,035) and Ontario (230,330). There is a large and vibrant community in the city of Kitchener, Ontario, which was at one point named Berlin. German immigrants were instrumental in the country's three largest urban areas: Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver; post-Second World War immigrants managed to preserve a fluency in the German language in their respective neighborhoods and sections. In the first half of the 20th century, over a million German-Canadians made the language Canada's third most spoken after French and English.


text: In the United States, the states of North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states where German is the most common language spoken at home after English. German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region of the country, such as New Ulm and many other towns in Minnesota; Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), Munich, Karlsruhe, and Strasburg (named after a town near Odessa in Ukraine) in North Dakota; New Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Weimar, and Muenster in Texas; Corn (formerly Korn), Kiefer and Berlin in Oklahoma; and Kiel, Schleswig, Berlin, and Germantown in Wisconsin.


text: Between 1843 and 1910, more than 5 million Germans emigrated overseas, mostly to the United States. German remained an important language in churches, schools, newspapers, and even the administration of the United States Brewers' Association through the early 20th century, but was severely repressed during World War I. Over the course of the 20th century, many of the descendants of 18th century and 19th century immigrants ceased speaking German at home, but small populations of speakers are still found in Pennsylvania (Amish, Hutterites, Dunkards and some Mennonites historically spoke Hutterite German and a West Central German variety of German known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch), Kansas (Mennonites and Volga Germans), North Dakota (Hutterite Germans, Mennonites, Russian Germans, Volga Germans, and Baltic Germans), South Dakota, Montana, Texas (Texas German), Wisconsin, Indiana, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Ohio (72,570). A significant group of German Pietists in Iowa formed the Amana Colonies and continue to practice speaking their heritage language. Early twentieth century immigration was often to St. Louis, Chicago, New York City, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati.


text: The dialects of German which are or were primarily spoken in colonies or communities founded by German-speaking people resemble the dialects of the regions the founders came from. For example, Hutterite German resembles dialects of Carinthia. Texas German is a dialect spoken in the areas of Texas settled by the Adelsverein, such as New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. In the Amana Colonies in the state of Iowa, Amana German is spoken. Plautdietsch is a large minority language spoken in Northern Mexico by the Mennonite communities, and is spoken by more than 200,000 people in Mexico. Pennsylvania German is a West Central German dialect spoken by most of the Amish population of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana and resembles Palatinate German dialects.