Names.

In Irish.

In (the official written standard) the name of the language – in the Irish language – is (), this being in origin the Connacht form. Before the spelling reform of 1948, this form was spelled ; originally this was the genitive of, the form used in Classical Gaelic. Older spellings of

In English.

The English word for the language is "Irish", which is defined by the European Union as "the Celtic language of Ireland". According to the EU, the "two terms ["Irish" and "Gaelic"] are not synonymous"; it defines "Gaelic"

History.

Written Irish is first attested in inscriptions from the 4th century AD, a stage of the language known as Primitive Irish. These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish transitioned into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the 6th century, used the Latin alphabet and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. During this time, the Irish language absorbed some Latin words, some via Old Welsh, including ecclesiastical terms: examples are (bishop) from, and (Sunday, from ).  By the 10th century, Old Irish had evolved into Middle Irish, which was spoken throughout Ireland and in Scotland and the Isle of Man. It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the Ulster Cycle. From the 12th century, Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and into the Manx language in the Isle of Man.  Early Modern Irish, dating from the 13th century, was the basis of the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Modern Irish, as attested in the work of such writers as Geoffrey Keating, may be said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on.  From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind this shift were complex but came down to a number of factors:  It was a change characterised by diglossia (two languages being used by the same community in different social and economic situations) and transitional bilingualism (monoglot Irish-speaking grandparents with bilingual children and monoglot English-speaking grandchildren). By

Current status.

Republic of Ireland.

Irish is recognised by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland (English being the other official language). Despite this, almost all government debates and business are conducted in English. In 1938, the founder of (Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde, was inaugurated as the first President of Ireland. The record of his delivering his inaugural "Declaration of Office" in Roscommon Irish is one of only a few recordings of that dialect.  In the 2016 census, 10.5% of respondents stated that they spoke Irish, either daily or weekly, while over 70,000 people (4.2%) speak it as a habitual daily means of communication.  From the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (see also History of the Republic of Ireland), a degree of proficiency in Irish was required of all those newly appointed to the Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland, including postal workers, tax collectors, agricultural inspectors, Garda Síochána, etc. By law if a Garda was stopped and addressed in Irish he had to respond in Irish as well. Proficiency in just one official language for entrance to the public service was introduced in 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like the Language Freedom Movement.  Although the Irish requirement was also dropped for wider public service jobs, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools within the Republic which receive public money (see also Education in the Republic of Ireland). Those wishing to teach in primary schools in the State must also pass a compulsory examination called. The need for a pass in Leaving Certificate Irish or English for entry to the Garda Síochána (police) was introduced in September 2005, and recruits are given lessons in the language during their two years of training. The most important official documents of the Irish government

Northern Ireland.

Before the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had devolved government. During those years the political party holding power in the Stormont Parliament, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), was hostile to the language. The context of this hostility was the use of the language by nationalists. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of

European Parliament.

Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs with Irish fluency can now speak the language in the European Parliament and at committees, although in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter in order to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages. While an official language of the European Union, only co-decision regulations must be available in Irish

Outside Ireland.

The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diaspora, chiefly to Great Britain and North America, but also to Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. The first large movements began in the 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies. Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine. This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them.  Relatively few of the emigrants were literate in Irish, but manuscripts in the language were brought to both Australia and the United States, and it was in the

Use.

The following 2016 census data shows:The total number of people who answered 'yes' to being able to speak Irish in April 2016 was 1,761,420, a slight

Daily Irish speakers in Gaeltacht areas between 2011 and 2016.

In 1996, the 3 electoral divisions in the State where

Dialects.

Irish is represented by several traditional dialects and by various varieties of "urban" Irish. The latter have acquired lives of their own and a growing number of native speakers. Differences between the dialects make themselves felt in stress, intonation, vocabulary and structural features.  Roughly speaking, the three major dialect areas which survive coincide roughly with the provinces of Munster (), Connacht () and Ulster (). Records of some dialects of Leinster ("") were made by the Irish Folklore Commission and others. Newfoundland, in eastern Canada, had a form of Irish derived from the Munster Irish of the later 18th century (see Newfoundland Irish).

Munster.

Munster Irish is the dialect spoken in the Gaeltacht areas of the three counties Cork (), Kerry (), Waterford (). The Gaeltacht areas of Cork can be found in Cape Clear Island () and Muskerry (); those

Connacht.

Historically, Connacht Irish represents the westernmost remnant of a dialect area which once stretched from east to west across the centre of Ireland. The strongest dialect of Connacht Irish is to be found in Connemara and the Aran Islands. Much closer to the larger Connacht Gaeltacht is the dialect spoken in the smaller region on the border between Galway () and Mayo (). There are a number of differences between the popular South Connemara form of Irish, the Mid-Connacht/Joyce Country form (on the border between Mayo and Galway) and the Achill and Erris forms in the north of the province.  Features in Connacht

Ulster.

Ulster Irish is the dialect spoken in the Gaeltacht regions of Donegal. These regions contain all of Ulster's communities where Irish has been spoken in an unbroken line back to when the language was the dominant language of Ireland. The Irish-speaking communities in other parts of Ulster are a result of language revival – English-speaking families deciding to learn Irish. Census data shows that 4,130 people speak it at home.  Linguistically, the most important of the Ulster dialects today is that which is spoken, with slight differences, in both Gweedore ( = Inlet of Streaming Water) and The Rosses (). Natives of Gweedore include singers Enya () and Moya Brennan and their siblings in Clannad ( = Family from the Dobhar [a section of Gweedore]), and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh from another local band Altan.

Leinster.

Down to the early 19th century and even later, Irish was spoken in all twelve counties of Leinster. The evidence furnished by placenames, literary sources and recorded speech indicates that there was no Leinster dialect as such. Instead, the main dialect used in the province was represented by a broad central belt stretching from west Connacht eastwards to the Liffey estuary and southwards to Wexford, though with many local variations. Two smaller dialects were represented by the Ulster speech of counties Meath and Louth, which extended as far south as the Boyne valley, and a Munster dialect found in Kilkenny and south Laois.  The main dialect

The Pale.

The Pale () was an area around late medieval Dublin under the control of the English government. By the late 15th century it consisted of an area along the coast from Dalkey, south of Dublin, to the garrison town of Dundalk, with an inland boundary encompassing Naas and Leixlip in the Earldom of Kildare and Trim and Kells in County Meath to the north. In this area of "Englyshe tunge" English had never actually been a dominant language – and was moreover

General decline.

English expanded strongly in Leinster in the 18th century, but Irish speakers were still numerous. In the decennial period 1771–81 certain counties had estimated percentages of Irish speakers as follows (though the estimates are likely to be too low):  The language saw its most rapid initial decline in Laois, Wexford, Wicklow, County Dublin and perhaps Kildare. The proportion of Irish-speaking children in Leinster went down as follows: 17% in the 1700s, 11% in the 1800s, 3% in the 1830s and virtually none in the 1860s.  The Irish census of 1851 showed that there were still a number of older speakers in County Dublin. Sound recordings were made between 1928 and 1931 of some of the last speakers in Omeath, County Louth (now available in digital form). The last known traditional native speaker in Omeath, and in Leinster as a whole, was Annie O'Hanlon (née Dobbin), who died in 1960.

Urban use from the middle ages to the 19th century.

Irish was spoken as a community language in Irish towns and cities down to the 19th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was widespread even in Dublin and the Pale. The English administrator William Gerard (1518-1581) commented as follows: "All Englishe, and the most part with delight, even in Dublin, speak Irishe," while the Old English historian Richard Stanihurst (1547-1618) lamented that "When their posteritie became not altogither so warie in keeping, as their ancestors were valiant in conquering, the Irish language was free dennized in the English Pale: this canker tooke such deep root, as the bodie that before was whole and sound, was by little and little

Modern urban Irish.

The 19th century saw a reduction in the number of Dublin's Irish speakers, in keeping with the trend elsewhere. This continued until the end of the century, when the Gaelic revival saw the creation of a strong Irish–speaking network, typically united by various branches of the, and accompanied by renewed literary activity. By the 1930s Dublin had a lively literary life in Irish.  Urban Irish has been the beneficiary, over the last few decades, of a rapidly expanding independent school system, known generally as, teaching entirely through Irish. As of 2019 there are 37 such primary schools in Dublin alone.  It has been suggested that Ireland's towns and cities are acquiring a critical mass of Irish speakers, reflected in the expansion of Irish language media. Many are younger speakers who, after encountering Irish at school, made an effort

Towards a standard Irish - An Caighdeán Oifigiúil.

There is no single official standard for pronouncing the Irish language. Certain dictionaries, such as, provide a single pronunciation. Online dictionaries such as "Foclóir Béarla-Gaeilge" provide audio files in the three major dialects, although the recordings

Phonology.

In pronunciation, Irish most closely resembles its nearest relatives, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. One notable feature is that consonants (except ) come in pairs, one "broad" (velarised, pronounced with the back of

Syntax and morphology.

Irish is a fusional, VSO, nominative-accusative language. Irish is neither verb nor satellite framed, and makes liberal use of deictic verbs.  Nouns decline for 3 numbers: singular, dual (only in conjunction with the number dhá/dá "two"), plural; 2 genders: masculine, feminine; and 4 cases: ainmneach (nomino-accusative), gairmeach (vocative), ginideach (genitive), and tabharthach (prepositional-locative), with fossilised traces of the older accusative. Adjectives agree with nouns in number, gender, and case. Adjectives generally follow nouns, though some precede or prefix nouns. Demonstrative adjectives have proximal, medial, and distal forms. The prepositional-locative case is called the dative by convention, though it originates in the Proto-Celtic ablative.  Verbs conjugate for 3 tenses: past, present, future; 2 aspects: simple, habitual; 2 numbers: singular, plural; 4 moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative; 2 relative forms, the present and future relative; and in some verbs, independent and dependent forms. Verbs conjugate for 3 persons and an impersonal form which is actor-free; the 3rd person singular acts as a person-free personal form that can be followed or otherwise refer to any person or number.  There are two verbs for "to be", one for inherent qualities with only two forms, is "present" and ba "past" and "conditional", and one for transient qualities, with a full complement of forms except for the verbal adjective. The two verbs share the one verbal noun.  The passive voice and many other forms are periphrastic. There are a number of preverbal particles marking the negative, interrogative, subjunctive, relative clauses, etc. There is a verbal noun and verbal adjective. Verb forms are highly regular, many grammars recognise only 11 irregular verbs.  Prepositions inflect for person and number. Different prepositions govern different cases. In Old and Middle Irish, prepositions governed different cases depending on intended semantics; this has disappeared in Modern Irish except in fossilised form.  Irish had no verb to express having; instead, the word (at, etc.) is used in conjunction with the transient "be" verb bheith:  Numerals have 3 forms: abstract, general and ordinal. The numbers from 2 to 10 (and these in combination with higher numbers) are rarely used for people, numeral nominals being used instead:  Irish had both decimal and vigesimal systems:  10: "a deich"  20: "fiche"  30: vigesimal - "a deich is fiche"; decimal - "tríocha"  40: v. "daichead, dá fhichead"; d. "ceathracha"  50: v. "a deich is daichead"; d. "caoga" (also: "leathchéad" "half-hundred")  60: v. "trí fichid"; d. "seasca"  70: v. "a deich is trí fichid"; d. "seachtó"  80: v. "cheithre fichid"; d. "ochtó"  90: v. "a deich is cheithre fichid"; d. "nócha"  100: v. "cúig fichid"; d. "céad"  A number such as 35 has various forms:  "a cúigdéag is fichid" "15 and 20"  "a cúig is tríocha" "5 and 30"  "fiche's a cúigdéag" "20 and 15"  "tríocha's a cúig" "30 and 5"  The latter is most commonly used in mathematics.

Orthography.

Modern Irish traditionally used the Latin alphabet without the letters j, k, q, w, x, y and z. However, some Gaelicised words use those letters: for instance, "jeep" is written as "" (the letter v has been naturalised into the language, although it is not part of the traditional alphabet, and has the same pronunciation as "bh"). One diacritic sign, the acute accent ("á é í ó ú"), known in Irish as the ("long mark"; plural: ), is used in the alphabet. In idiomatic English usage, this diacritic is frequently referred to simply as the, where the adjective is used as a noun. The "fada" serves to lengthen the sound of the vowels and in some cases also changes their quality. For example, in Munster Irish (Kerry), "a" is or and "á" is in "father", but in Ulster Irish (Donegal), "á" tends to be.  Traditional orthography had an additional diacritica dot over some consonants to indicate lenition. In modern Irish, the letter h suffixed to a consonant indicates that the consonant is lenited. Thus, for example, " has become ". This dot-above diacritic, called a or (often shortened to ), derives from the "punctum delens" used in medieval manuscripts to indicate deletion, similar to crossing out unwanted words in handwriting today. From this usage it was used to indicate the lenition of "s" (from to ) and "f" (from to zero) in Old Irish texts. Lenition of "c", "p", and "t" was indicated by placing the letter "h" after the affected consonant; lenition of "b", "d", "g", or "m" was left unmarked. Later, both and postposed "h" were extended to be indicators of lenition of any sound except "l", "n", and "r", which could not be lenited. Eventually, use of the predominated when texts were written using Gaelic letters, while the "h" predominated when writing using Roman letters.  Today, Gaelic type and the are rarely used except where a "traditional" style is required, e.g. the motto on the University College Dublin coat of arms or the symbol of the Irish Defence Forces, the Irish Defence Forces cap badge. Letters with the are available in Unicode and Latin-8 character sets (see Latin Extended Additional chart and Dot (diacritic)). Postposed "h" has predominated due to its convenience and the lack of a character set containing the overdot before Unicode, although extending the latter method to Roman letters would theoretically have the advantage of making Irish texts significantly shorter, particularly as a large portion of the "h"-containing digraphs in a typical Irish text are silent (ex. the above ', the old spelling of Louth, which would become ').

Spelling reform.

Around the time of the Second World War, Séamas Daltún, in charge of (the official translations department of the Irish government), issued his own guidelines about how to standardise Irish spelling and grammar. This de facto standard was subsequently approved by the State and called the Official Standard or. It simplified and standardised the orthography. Many words had silent letters removed and vowel combination brought closer to the spoken language. Where multiple versions existed in different dialects for the same word, one or more were selected.  Examples:  The standard spelling does not necessarily

Irish (Standard Irish: ) is a Goidelic language of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Irish originated in Ireland and was historically and still is spoken by Irish people throughout Ireland. Although English is the more common first language elsewhere in Ireland, Irish is spoken as a first language in substantial areas of counties Galway, Kerry, Cork and Donegal, smaller areas of Waterford, Mayo and Meath, and a few other locations. It is also spoken by a much larger group of habitual but non-traditional speakers across the country, mostly in urban areas where the majority are second language speakers.

Irština (také irská gaelština) je goidelský (gaelský) jazyk keltské větve indoevropské jazykové rodiny, blízce příbuzný skotské gaelštině. Irštinou se mluví v Irské republice a Severním Irsku jako menšinovým jazykem (vedle angličtiny), získala však status národního a úředního jazyka Irska. Irsky mluvící obyvatelé se soustřeďují především v oblastech zvaných Gaeltacht, které jsou v situovány přibližně do oblastí západně od Galway s přilehlými Aranskými ostrovy, oblast v okolí města Bangor a přilehlého poloostrova. Menší oblasti jsou i ve vnitrozemí.


History.

Early history.

Abraham Ortelius, Theodor Christoph Lilienthal (1756), Alexander von Humboldt (1801 and 1845), Antonio Snider-Pellegrini, and others had noted earlier that the shapes of continents on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean (most notably, Africa and South America) seem to fit together. W. J. Kious described Ortelius' thoughts in this way:  In 1889, Alfred Russel Wallace remarked, "It was formerly a very general belief, even amongst geologists, that the great features of the earth's surface, no less than the smaller ones, were subject to continual mutations, and that during the course of known geological time the continents and great oceans had, again and again, changed places with each other." He quotes Charles Lyell as saying, "Continents, therefore, although permanent for whole geological epochs, shift their positions entirely in the course of ages." and claims that the first to throw doubt on this was James Dwight Dana in 1849.  In his "Manual of Geology" (1863), Dana wrote, "The continents and oceans had their general outline or form defined in earliest time. This has been proved with regard to North America from the position and distribution of the first beds of the Lower Silurian, – those of the Potsdam epoch. The facts indicate that the continent of North America had its surface near tide-level, part above and part below it (p.196); and this will probably be proved to be the condition in Primordial time of the other continents also. And, if the outlines of the continents were marked out, it follows that the outlines of the oceans were no less so". Dana was enormously influential in America – his "Manual of Mineralogy" is still in print in revised form – and the theory became known as "Permanence theory".  This appeared to be confirmed by the exploration of the deep sea beds conducted by the Challenger expedition, 1872–1876, which showed that contrary to expectation, land debris brought down by rivers to the ocean is deposited comparatively close to the shore on what is now known as the continental shelf. This suggested that the oceans were a permanent feature of the Earth's surface, and did not change places with the continents.

Wegener and his predecessors.

Apart from the earlier speculations mentioned in the previous section, the idea that the American continents had once formed a single landmass together with Europe and Asia before assuming their present shapes and positions was postulated by several scientists before Alfred Wegener's 1912 paper. Although Wegener's theory was formed independently and was more complete than those of his predecessors, Wegener later credited a number of past authors with similar ideas: Franklin Coxworthy (between 1848 and 1890), Roberto Mantovani (between 1889 and 1909), William Henry Pickering (1907) and Frank Bursley Taylor (1908). In addition, Eduard Suess had proposed a supercontinent Gondwana in 1885 and the Tethys Ocean in 1893, assuming a land-bridge between the present continents submerged in the form of a geosyncline, and John Perry had written an 1895 paper proposing that the earth's interior was fluid, and disagreeing with Lord Kelvin on the age of the earth.  For example: the similarity of southern continent geological formations had led Roberto Mantovani to conjecture in 1889 and 1909 that all the continents had once been joined into a supercontinent; Wegener noted the similarity of Mantovani's and his own maps of the former positions of the southern continents. In Mantovani's conjecture, this continent broke due to volcanic activity caused by thermal expansion, and the new continents drifted away from each other because of further expansion of the rip-zones, where the oceans now lie. This led Mantovani to propose an Expanding Earth theory which has since been shown to be incorrect.  Continental drift without expansion was proposed by Frank Bursley Taylor, who suggested in 1908 (published in 1910) that the continents were moved into their present positions by a process of "continental creep". In a later paper he proposed that this occurred by their being dragged towards the equator by tidal forces during the hypothesized capture of the moon in the Cretaceous, resulting in "general crustal creep" toward the equator. Although his proposed mechanism was wrong, he was the first to realize the insight that one of the effects of continental motion would be the formation of mountains, and attributed the formation of the Himalayas to the collision between the Indian subcontinent with Asia. Wegener said that of all those theories, Taylor's, although not fully developed, had the most similarities to his own. In the mid-20th century, the theory of continental drift was referred to as the "Taylor-Wegener hypothesis", although this terminology eventually fell out of common use.  Alfred Wegener first presented his hypothesis to the German Geological Society on 6 January 1912. His hypothesis was that the continents had once formed a single landmass, called Pangaea, before breaking apart and drifting to their present locations.  Wegener was the first to use the phrase "continental drift" (1912, 1915) (in German "die Verschiebung der Kontinente" – translated into English in 1922) and formally publish the hypothesis that the continents had somehow "drifted" apart. Although he presented much evidence for continental drift, he was unable to provide a convincing explanation for the physical processes which might have caused this drift. His suggestion that the continents had been pulled apart by the centrifugal pseudoforce ("Polflucht") of the Earth's rotation or by a small component of astronomical precession was rejected, as calculations showed that the force was not sufficient. The Polflucht hypothesis was also studied by Paul Sophus Epstein in 1920 and found to be implausible.

Rejection of Wegener's theory, 1910s–1950s.

The theory of continental drift was not accepted for many years. One problem was that a plausible driving force was missing. A second problem was that Wegener's estimate of the speed of continental motion, 250 cm/year, was implausibly high. (The currently accepted rate for the separation of the Americas from Europe and Africa is about 2.5 cm/year). It also did not help that Wegener was not a geologist. Other geologists also believed that the evidence that Wegener had provided was not sufficient. It is now accepted that the plates carrying the continents do move across the Earth's surface, although not as fast as Wegener believed; ironically one of the chief outstanding questions is the one Wegener failed to resolve: what is the nature of the forces propelling the plates?  The British geologist Arthur Holmes championed the theory of continental drift at a time when it was deeply unfashionable. He proposed in 1931 that the Earth's mantle contained convection cells which dissipated heat produced by radioactive decay and moved the crust at the surface. His "Principles of Physical Geology", ending with a chapter on continental drift, was published in 1944.  Geological maps of the time showed huge land bridges spanning the Atlantic and Indian oceans to account for the similarities of fauna and flora and the divisions of the Asian continent in the Permian period but failing to account for glaciation in India, Australia and South Africa.  Geophysicist Jack Oliver is credited with providing seismologic evidence supporting plate tectonics which encompassed and superseded continental drift with the article "Seismology and the New Global Tectonics", published in 1968, using data collected from seismologic stations, including those he set up in the South Pacific.  It is now known that there are two kinds of crust: continental crust and oceanic crust. Continental crust is inherently lighter and its composition is different from oceanic crust, but both kinds reside above a much deeper "plastic" mantle. Oceanic crust is created at spreading centers, and this, along with subduction, drives the system of plates in a chaotic manner, resulting in continuous orogeny and areas of isostatic imbalance. The theory of plate tectonics explains all this, including the movement of the continents, better than Wegener's theory.

The fixists.

Hans Stille and Leopold Kober opposed the idea of continental drift and worked on a "fixist" geosyncline model with Earth contraction playing a key role in the formation of orogens. Other geologists who opposed continental drift were Bailey Willis, Charles Schuchert, Rollin Chamberlin and Walther Bucher. In 1939 an international geological conference was held in Frankfurt. This conference came to be dominated by the fixists, especially as those geologists specializing in tectonics were all fixists except Willem van der Gracht. Criticism of continental drift and mobilism was abundant at the conference not only from tectonicists but also from sedimentological (Nölke), paleontological (Nölke), mechanical (Lehmann) and oceanographic (Troll, Wüst) perspectives. Hans Cloos, the organizer of the conference, was also a fixist who together with Troll held the view that excepting the Pacific Ocean continents were not radically different from oceans in their behaviour. The mobilist theory of Émile Argand for the Alpine orogeny was criticized by Kurt Leuchs. The few drifters and mobilists at the conference appealed to biogeography (Kirsch, Wittmann), paleoclimatology (Wegener, K), paleontology (Gerth) and geodetic measurements (Wegener, K). F. Bernauer correctly equated Reykjanes in south-west Iceland with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, arguing with this that the floor of the Atlantic Ocean was undergoing extension just like Reykjanes. Bernauer thought this extension had drifted the continents only 100–200 km apart, the approximate width of the volcanic zone in Iceland.  David Attenborough, who attended university in the second half of the 1940s, recounted an incident illustrating its lack of acceptance then: "I once asked one of my lecturers why he was not talking to us about continental drift and I was told, sneeringly, that if I could prove there was a force that could move continents, then he might think about it. The idea was moonshine, I was informed."  As late as 1953 – just five years before Carey introduced the theory of plate tectonics – the theory of continental drift was rejected by the physicist Scheidegger on the following grounds.

Road to acceptance.

From the 1930s to the late 1950s, works by Vening-Meinesz, Holmes, Umbgrove, and numerous others outlined concepts that were close or nearly identical to modern plate tectonics theory. In particular, the English geologist Arthur Holmes proposed in 1920 that plate junctions might lie beneath the sea, and in 1928 that convection currents within the mantle might be the driving force. Holmes' views were particularly influential: in his bestselling textbook, "Principles of Physical Geology," he included a chapter on continental drift, proposing that Earth's mantle contained convection cells which dissipated radioactive heat and moved the crust at the surface. Holmes' proposal resolved the phase disequilibrium objection (the underlying fluid was kept from solidifying by radioactive heating from the core). However, scientific communication in the '30 and '40s was inhibited by the war, and the theory still required work to avoid foundering on the orogeny and isostasy objections. Worse, the most viable forms of the theory predicted the existence of convection cell boundaries reaching deep into the earth that had yet to be observed.  In 1947, a team of scientists led by Maurice Ewing confirmed the existence of a rise in the central Atlantic Ocean, and found that the floor of the seabed beneath the sediments was chemically and physically different from continental crust. As oceanographers continued to bathymeter the ocean basins, a system of mid-oceanic ridges was detected. An important conclusion was that along this system, new ocean floor was being created, which led to the concept of the "Great Global Rift".  Meanwhile, scientists began recognizing odd magnetic variations across the ocean floor using devices developed during World War II to detect submarines. Over the next decade, it became increasingly clear that the magnetization patterns were not anomalies, as had been originally supposed. In a series of papers in 1959–1963, Heezen, Dietz, Hess, Mason, Vine, Matthews, and Morley collectively realized that the magnetization of the ocean floor formed extensive, zebra-like patterns: one stripe would exhibit normal polarity and the adjoining stripes reversed polarity. The best explanation was the "conveyor belt" or Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis. New magma from deep within the Earth rises easily through these weak zones and eventually erupts along the crest of the ridges to create new oceanic crust. The new crust is magnetized by the earth's magnetic field, which undergoes occasional reversals. Formation of new crust then displaces the magnetized crust apart, akin to a conveyor belt – hence the name.  Without workable alternatives to explain the stripes, geophysicists were forced to conclude that Holmes had been right: ocean rifts were sites of perpetual orogeny at the boundaries of convection cells. By 1967, barely two decades after discovery of the mid-oceanic rifts, and a decade after discovery of the striping, plate tectonics had become axiomatic to modern geophysics.  In addition, Marie Tharp, in collaboration with Bruce Heezen, who initially ridiculed Tharp's observations that her maps confirmed continental drift theory, provided essential corroboration, using her skills in cartography and seismographic data, to confirm the theory.

Modern evidence.

Evidence for the movement of continents on tectonic plates is now extensive. Similar plant and animal fossils are found around the shores of different continents, suggesting that they were once joined. The fossils of "Mesosaurus", a freshwater reptile rather like a small crocodile, found both in Brazil and South Africa, are one example; another is the discovery of fossils of the land reptile "Lystrosaurus" in rocks of the same age at locations in Africa, India, and Antarctica. There is also living evidence, with the same animals being found on two continents. Some earthworm families (such as Ocnerodrilidae, Acanthodrilidae, Octochaetidae) are found in South America and Africa.  The complementary arrangement of the facing sides of South America and Africa is obvious but a temporary coincidence. In millions of years, slab pull, ridge-push, and other forces of tectonophysics will further separate and rotate those two continents. It was that temporary feature that inspired Wegener to study what he defined as continental drift although he did not live to see his hypothesis generally accepted.  The widespread distribution of Permo-Carboniferous glacial sediments in South America, Africa, Madagascar, Arabia, India, Antarctica and Australia was one of the major pieces of evidence for the theory of continental drift. The continuity of glaciers, inferred from oriented glacial striations and deposits called tillites, suggested the existence of the supercontinent of Gondwana, which became a central element of the concept of continental drift. Striations indicated glacial flow away from the equator and toward the poles, based on continents' current positions and orientations, and supported the idea that the southern continents had previously been in dramatically different locations that were contiguous with one another.

Continental drift is the theory that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but his theory was rejected by many for lack of any motive mechanism. Arthur Holmes later proposed mantle convection for that mechanism. The idea of continental drift has since been subsumed by the theory of plate tectonics, which explains that the continents move by riding on plates of the Earth's lithosphere.

Kontinentální drift (pohyb světadílů) je teorie navržená v roce 1912 německým meteorologem a geofyzikem Alfredem Wegenerem vysvětlující vznik kontinentů rozpadem původního superkontinentu Pangea.


Etymology.

The use of the word "abacus" dates before 1387 AD, when a Middle English work borrowed the word from Latin to describe a sandboard abacus. The Latin word came from Greek ("abax") which means something without base, and improperly, any piece of rectangular board or plank. Alternatively, without reference to ancient texts on etymology, it has been suggested that it means "a square tablet strewn with dust", or "drawing-board covered with dust (for the use of mathematics)" (the exact shape of the Latin perhaps reflects the genitive form of the Greek word, "abakos"). Whereas the table strewn with dust definition is popular, there are those that do not place credence in this at all and in fact state that it is not proven. Greek itself is probably a borrowing of a Northwest Semitic, perhaps Phoenician, and cognate with the Hebrew word "ʾābāq" (), or "dust" (in post-Biblical sense meaning "sand used as a writing surface").  The preferred plural of "abacus" is a subject of disagreement, with both "abacuses" and "abaci" (soft or hard "c") in use. The user of an abacus is called an "abacist".

History.

Mesopotamian.

The period 2700–2300 BC saw the first appearance of the Sumerian abacus, a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system.  Some scholars point to a character from the Babylonian cuneiform which may have been derived from a representation of the abacus. It is the belief of Old Babylonian scholars such as Carruccio that Old Babylonians "may have used the abacus for the operations of addition and subtraction; however, this primitive device proved difficult to use for more complex calculations".

Egyptian.

The use of the abacus in Ancient Egypt is mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus, who writes that the Egyptians manipulated the pebbles from right to left, opposite in direction to the Greek left-to-right method. Archaeologists have found ancient disks of various sizes that are thought to have been used as counters. However, wall depictions of this instrument have not been discovered.

Persian.

During the Achaemenid Empire, around 600 BC the Persians first began to use the abacus. Under the Parthian, Sassanian and Iranian empires, scholars concentrated on exchanging knowledge and inventions with the countries around them – India, China, and the Roman Empire, when it is thought to have been exported to other countries.

Greek.

The earliest archaeological evidence for the use of the Greek abacus dates to the 5th century BC. Also Demosthenes (384 BC–322 BC) talked of the need to use pebbles for calculations too difficult for your head. A play by Alexis from the 4th century BC mentions an abacus and pebbles for accounting, and both Diogenes and Polybius mention men that sometimes stood for more and sometimes for less, like the pebbles on an abacus. The Greek abacus was a table of wood or marble, pre-set with small counters in wood or metal for mathematical calculations. This Greek abacus saw use in Achaemenid Persia, the Etruscan civilization, Ancient Rome and, until the French Revolution, the Western Christian world.  A tablet found on the Greek island Salamis in 1846 AD (the Salamis Tablet), dates back to 300 BC, making it the oldest counting board discovered so far. It is a slab of white marble long, wide, and thick, on which are 5 groups of markings. In the center of the tablet is a set of 5 parallel lines equally divided by a vertical line, capped with a semicircle at the intersection of the bottom-most horizontal line and the single vertical line. Below these lines is a wide space with a horizontal crack dividing it. Below this crack is another group of eleven parallel lines, again divided into two sections by a line perpendicular to them, but with the semicircle at the top of the intersection; the third, sixth and ninth of these lines are marked with a cross where they intersect with the vertical line. Also from this time frame the "Darius Vase" was unearthed in 1851. It was covered with pictures including a "treasurer" holding a wax tablet in one hand while manipulating counters on a table with the other.

Chinese.

The earliest known written documentation of the Chinese abacus dates to the 2nd century BC.  The Chinese abacus, known as the "suanpan" (算盤/算盘, lit. "calculating tray"), is typically tall and comes in various widths depending on the operator. It usually has more than seven rods. There are two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads each in the bottom. The beads are usually rounded and made of a hardwood. The beads are counted by moving them up or down towards the beam; beads moved toward the beam are counted, while those moved away from it are not. One of the top beads is 5, while one of the bottom beads is 1. Each rod has a number under it, showing the place value.The "suanpan" can be reset to the starting position instantly by a quick movement along the horizontal axis to spin all the beads away from the horizontal beam at the center.  The prototype of the Chinese abacus appeared during the Han Dynasty, and the beads are oval. The Song Dynasty and earlier used the 1:4 type or four-beads abacus similar to the modern abacus including the shape of the beads commonly known as Japanese-style abacus.  In the early Ming Dynasty, the abacus began to appear in the form of 1:5 abacus. The upper deck had one bead and the bottom had five beads.  In the late Ming Dynasty, the abacus styles appeared in the form of 2:5. The upper deck had two beads, and the bottom had five beads.  Various calculation techniques were devised for "Suanpan" enabling efficient calculations. There are currently schools teaching students how to use it.  In the long scroll "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" painted by Zhang Zeduan during the Song dynasty (960–1297), a "suanpan" is clearly visible beside an account book and doctor's prescriptions on the counter of an apothecary's (Feibao).  The similarity of the Roman abacus to the Chinese one suggests that one could have inspired the other, as there is some evidence of a trade relationship between the Roman Empire and China. However, no direct connection can be demonstrated, and the similarity of the abacuses may be coincidental, both ultimately arising from counting with five fingers per hand. Where the Roman model (like most modern Korean and Japanese) has 4 plus 1 bead per decimal place, the standard "suanpan" has 5 plus 2. Incidentally, this allows use with a hexadecimal numeral system (or any base up to 18) which may have been used for traditional Chinese measures of weight. (Instead of running on wires as in the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese models, the beads of Roman model run in grooves, presumably making arithmetic calculations much slower.  Another possible source of the "suanpan" is Chinese counting rods, which operated with a decimal system but lacked the concept of zero as a place holder. The zero was probably introduced to the Chinese in the Tang dynasty (618–907) when travel in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East would have provided direct contact with India, allowing them to acquire the concept of zero and the decimal point from Indian merchants and mathematicians.

Roman.

The normal method of calculation in ancient Rome, as in Greece, was by moving counters on a smooth table. Originally pebbles ("calculi") were used. Later, and in medieval Europe, jetons were manufactured. Marked lines indicated units, fives, tens etc. as in the Roman numeral system. This system of 'counter casting' continued into the late Roman empire and in medieval Europe, and persisted in limited use into the nineteenth century. Due to Pope Sylvester II's reintroduction of the abacus with modifications, it became widely used in Europe once again during the 11th century This abacus used beads on wires, unlike the traditional Roman counting boards, which meant the abacus could be used much faster.  Writing in the 1st century BC, Horace refers to the wax abacus, a board covered with a thin layer of black wax on which columns and figures were inscribed using a stylus.  One example of archaeological evidence of the Roman abacus, shown here in reconstruction, dates to the 1st century AD. It has eight long grooves containing up to five beads in each and eight shorter grooves having either one or no beads in each. The groove marked I indicates units, X tens, and so on up to millions. The beads in the shorter grooves denote fives –five units, five tens etc., essentially in a bi-quinary coded decimal system, related to the Roman numerals. The short grooves on the right may have been used for marking Roman "ounces" (i.e. fractions).

Indian.

The "Abhidharmakośabhāṣya" of Vasubandhu (316-396), a Sanskrit work on Buddhist philosophy, says that the second-century CE philosopher Vasumitra said that "placing a wick (Sanskrit "vartikā") on the number one ("ekāṅka") means it is a one, while placing the wick on the number hundred means it is called a hundred, and on the number one thousand means it is a thousand". It is unclear exactly what this arrangement may have been. Around the 5th century, Indian clerks were already finding new ways of recording the contents of the Abacus. Hindu texts used the term "śūnya" (zero) to indicate the empty column on the abacus.

Japanese.

In Japanese, the abacus is called "soroban" (, lit. "Counting tray"), imported from China in the 14th century. It was probably in use by the working class a century or more before the ruling class started, as the class structure did not allow for devices used by the lower class to be adopted or used by the ruling class. The 1/4 abacus, which removes the seldom used second and fifth bead became popular in the 1940s.  Today's Japanese abacus is a 1:4 type, four-bead abacus was introduced from China in the Muromachi era. It adopts the form of the upper deck one bead and the bottom four beads. The top bead on the upper deck was equal to five and the bottom one is equal to one like the Chinese or Korean abacus, and the decimal number can be expressed, so the abacus is designed as one four abacus. The beads are always in the shape of a diamond. The quotient division is generally used instead of the division method; at the same time, in order to make the multiplication and division digits consistently use the division multiplication. Later, Japan had a 3:5 abacus called 天三算盤, which is now the Ize Rongji collection of Shansi Village in Yamagata City. There were also 2:5 type abacus.  With the four-bead abacus spread, it is also common to use Japanese abacus around the world. There are also improved Japanese abacus in various places. One of the Japanese-made abacus made in China is an aluminum frame plastic bead abacus. The file is next to the four beads, and the "clearing" button, press the clearing button, immediately put the upper bead to the upper position, the lower bead is dialed to the lower position, immediately clearing, easy to use.  The abacus is still manufactured in Japan today even with the proliferation, practicality, and affordability of pocket electronic calculators. The use of the soroban is still taught in Japanese primary schools as part of mathematics, primarily as an aid to faster mental calculation. Using visual imagery of a soroban, one can arrive at the answer in the same time as, or even faster than, is possible with a physical instrument.

Korean.

The Chinese abacus migrated from China to Korea around 1400 AD. Koreans call it "jupan" (주판), "supan" (수판) or "jusan" (주산). The four beads abacus( 1:4 ) was introduced to Korea Goryeo Dynasty from the China during Song Dynasty, later the five beads abacus (5:1) abacus was introduced to Korean from China during the Ming Dynasty.

Native American.

Some sources mention the use of an abacus called a "nepohualtzintzin" in ancient Aztec culture. This Mesoamerican abacus used a 5-digit base-20 system. The word Nepōhualtzintzin comes from Nahuatl and it is formed by the roots; "Ne" – personal -; "pōhual" or "pōhualli" – the account -; and "tzintzin" – small similar elements. Its complete meaning was taken as: counting with small similar elements by somebody. Its use was taught in the Calmecac to the "temalpouhqueh", who were students dedicated to take the accounts of skies, from childhood.  The Nepōhualtzintzin was divided in two main parts separated by a bar or intermediate cord. In the left part there were four beads, which in the first row have unitary values (1, 2, 3, and 4), and in the right side there are three beads with values of 5, 10, and 15 respectively. In order to know the value of the respective beads of the upper rows, it is enough to multiply by 20 (by each row), the value of the corresponding account in the first row.  Altogether, there were 13 rows with 7 beads in each one, which made up 91 beads in each Nepōhualtzintzin. This was a basic number to understand, 7 times 13, a close relation conceived between natural phenomena, the underworld and the cycles of the heavens. One Nepōhualtzintzin (91) represented the number of days that a season of the year lasts, two Nepōhualtzitzin (182) is the number of days of the corn's cycle, from its sowing to its harvest, three Nepōhualtzintzin (273) is the number of days of a baby's gestation, and four Nepōhualtzintzin (364) completed a cycle and approximate a year (1 days short). When translated into modern computer arithmetic, the Nepōhualtzintzin amounted to the rank from 10 to the 18 in floating point, which calculated stellar as well as infinitesimal amounts with absolute precision, meant that no round off was allowed.  The rediscovery of the Nepōhualtzintzin was due to the Mexican engineer David Esparza Hidalgo, who in his wanderings throughout Mexico found diverse engravings and paintings of this instrument and reconstructed several of them made in gold, jade, encrustations of shell, etc. There have also been found very old Nepōhualtzintzin attributed to the Olmec culture, and even some bracelets of Mayan origin, as well as a diversity of forms and materials in other cultures.  George I. Sanchez, "Arithmetic in Maya", Austin-Texas, 1961 found another base 5, base 4 abacus in the Yucatán Peninsula that also computed calendar data. This was a finger abacus, on one hand 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 were used; and on the other hand 0, 1, 2 and 3 were used. Note the use of zero at the beginning and end of the two cycles. Sanchez worked with Sylvanus Morley, a noted Mayanist.  The quipu of the Incas was a system of colored knotted cords used to record numerical data, like advanced tally sticks – but not used to perform calculations. Calculations were carried out using a yupana (Quechua for "counting tool"; see figure) which was still in use after the conquest of Peru. The working principle of a yupana is unknown, but in 2001 an explanation of the mathematical basis of these instruments was proposed by Italian mathematician Nicolino De Pasquale. By comparing the form of several yupanas, researchers found that calculations were based using the Fibonacci sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and powers of 10, 20 and 40 as place values for the different fields in the instrument. Using the Fibonacci sequence would keep the number of grains within any one field at a minimum.

Russian.

The Russian abacus, the "schoty" (, plural from, counting), usually has a single slanted deck, with ten beads on each wire (except one wire, usually positioned near the user, with four beads for quarter-ruble fractions). Older models have another 4-bead wire for quarter-kopeks, which were minted until 1916. The Russian abacus is often used vertically, with each wire from left to right like lines in a book. The wires are usually bowed to bulge upward in the center, to keep the beads pinned to either of the two sides. It is cleared when all the beads are moved to the right. During manipulation, beads are moved to the left. For easy viewing, the middle 2 beads on each wire (the 5th and 6th bead) usually are of a different color from the other eight beads. Likewise, the left bead of the thousands wire (and the million wire, if present) may have a different color.  As a simple, cheap and reliable device, the Russian abacus was in use in all shops and markets throughout the former Soviet Union, and the usage of it was taught in most schools until the 1990s. Even the 1874 invention of mechanical calculator, Odhner arithmometer, had not replaced them in Russia; according to Yakov Perelman, even in his times, some businessmen attempting to import such devices into the Russian Empire were known to give up and leave in despair after being shown the work of a skilled abacus operator. Likewise the mass production of Felix arithmometers since 1924 did not significantly reduce their use in the Soviet Union. The Russian abacus began to lose popularity only after the mass production of microcalculators had started in the Soviet Union in 1974. Today it is regarded as an archaism and replaced by the handheld calculator.  The Russian abacus was brought to France around 1820 by the mathematician Jean-Victor Poncelet, who served in Napoleon's army and had been a prisoner of war in Russia. The abacus had fallen out of use in western Europe in the 16th century with the rise of decimal notation and algorismic methods. To Poncelet's French contemporaries, it was something new. Poncelet used it, not for any applied purpose, but as a teaching and demonstration aid. The Turks and the Armenian people also used abacuses similar to the Russian schoty. It was named a "coulba" by the Turks and a "choreb" by the Armenians.

School abacus.

Around the world, abacuses have been used in pre-schools and elementary schools as an aid in teaching the numeral system and arithmetic.  In Western countries, a bead frame similar to the Russian abacus but with straight wires and a vertical frame has been common (see image). It is still often seen as a plastic or wooden toy.  The wire frame may be used either with positional notation like other abacuses (thus the 10-wire version may represent numbers up to 9,999,999,999), or each bead may represent one unit (so that e.g. 74 can be represented by shifting all beads on 7 wires and 4 beads on the 8th wire, so numbers up to 100 may be represented). Teaching multiplication, e.g. 6 times 7 may be represented by shifting 7 beads on 6 wires. In the bead frame shown, the gap between the 5th and 6th wire, corresponding to the color change between the 5th and the 6th bead on each wire, suggests the latter use.  The red-and-white abacus is used in contemporary primary schools for a wide range of number-related lessons. The twenty bead version, referred to by its Dutch name "rekenrek" ("calculating frame"), is often used, sometimes on a string of beads, sometimes on a rigid framework.

Neurological analysis.

By learning how to calculate with abacus, one can improve one's mental calculation which becomes faster and more accurate in doing large number calculations. Abacus‐based mental calculation (AMC) was derived from the abacus which means doing calculation, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, in mind with an imagined abacus. It is a high-level cognitive skill that runs through calculations with an effective algorithm. People doing long-term AMC training show higher numerical memory capacity and have more effectively connected neural pathways. They are able to retrieve memory to deal with complex processes to calculate. The processing of AMC involves both the visuospatial and visuomotor processing which generate the visual abacus and perform the movement of the imaginary bead. Since the only thing needed to be remembered is the finial position of beads, it takes less memory and less computation time.

Binary abacus.

The binary abacus is used to explain how computers manipulate numbers. The abacus shows how numbers, letters, and signs can be stored in a binary system on a computer, or via ASCII. The device consists of a series of beads on parallel wires arranged in three separate rows. The beads represent a switch on the computer in either an "on" or "off" position.

Uses by the blind.

An adapted abacus, invented by Tim Cranmer, called a Cranmer abacus is still commonly used by individuals who are blind. A piece of soft fabric or rubber is placed behind the beads so that they do not move inadvertently. This keeps the beads in place while the users feel or manipulate them. They use an abacus to perform the mathematical functions multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, square root and cube root.  Although blind students have benefited from talking calculators, the abacus is still very often taught to these students in early grades, both in public schools and state schools for the blind. Blind students also complete mathematical assignments using a braille-writer and Nemeth code (a type of braille code for mathematics) but large multiplication and long division problems can be long and difficult. The abacus gives blind and visually impaired students a tool to compute mathematical problems that equals the speed and mathematical knowledge required by their sighted peers using pencil and paper. Many blind people find this number machine a very useful tool throughout life.

Alaska (; ; ; Alutiiq: "Alas'kaaq;" Tlingit: "Anáaski;" ) is a state located in the northwest extremity of the United States West Coast, just across the Bering Strait from Asia. An exclave of the U.S., it borders the Canadian province of British Columbia and territory of Yukon to the east and southeast and has a maritime border with Russia's Chukotka Autonomous Okrug to the west. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort seas of the Arctic Ocean, while the Pacific Ocean lies to the south and southwest.

Aljaška ( ', oficiálně ') je stát nacházející se na západním pobřeží Spojených států amerických, v oblasti pacifických států v západním regionu USA. Aljaška, která leží převážně na stejnojmenném poloostrově a která tvoří exklávu Spojených států, je nejsevernějším a nejzápadnějším státem USA. Na východě hraničí s kanadským teritoriem Yukon a na jihovýchodě s kanadskou provincií Britská Kolumbie, která ji odděluje od kontinentálních Spojených států (vzdálenost Aljašky od státu Washington je přibližně 800 km). Severní a severozápadní ohraničení státu tvoří Severní ledový oceán, zbytek poloostrova a území státu je ohraničen Tichým oceánem.


History.

Serie A, as it is structured today, began during the 1929–30 season. From 1898 to 1922, the competition was organised into regional groups. Because of ever growing teams attending regional championships, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) split the CCI (Italian Football Confederation) in 1921. When CCI teams rejoined the FIGC created two interregional divisions renaming Categories into Divisions and splitting FIGC sections into two north–south leagues. In 1926, due to internal crises and fascist pressures, the FIGC changed internal settings, adding southern teams to the national division, ultimately leading to the 1929–30 final settlement. Torino were declared champions in the 1948–49 season following a plane crash near the end of the season in which the entire team was killed.  The Serie A Championship title is often referred to as the "scudetto" ("small shield") because since the 1923–24 season, the winning team will bear a small coat of arms with the Italian tricolour on their strip in the following season. The most successful club is Juventus with 35 championships, followed by both Milan and Internazionale, with 18 championships apiece. From the 2004–05 season onwards, an actual trophy was awarded to club on the pitch after the last turn of the championship. The trophy, called the Coppa Campioni d'Italia, has officially been used since the 1960–61 season, but between 1961 and 2004 was consigned to the winning clubs at the head office of the Lega Nazionale Professionisti.  In April 2009, Serie A announced a split from Serie B. Nineteen of the twenty clubs voted in favour of the move in an argument over television rights; the relegation-threatened Lecce had voted against the decision. Maurizio Beretta, the former head of Italy's employers' association, became president of the new league.  In April 2016, it was announced that Serie A was selected by the International Football Association Board to test video replays, which were initially private for the 2016–17 season, allowing them to become a live pilot phase, with replay assistance implemented in the 2017–18 season. On the decision, FIGC President Carlo Tavecchio said, "We were among the first supporters of using technology on the pitch and we believe we have everything required to offer our contribution to this important experiment."

Format.

For most of Serie A's history, there were 16 or 18 clubs competing at the top level. Since 2004–05, however, there have been 20 clubs altogether. One season (1947–48) was played with 21 teams for political reasons. Below is a complete record of how many teams played in each season throughout the league's history; During the season, which runs from August to May, each club plays each of the other teams twice; once at home and once away, totalling 38 games for each team by the end of the season. Thus, in Italian football a true round-robin format is used. In the first half of the season, called the "andata", each team plays once against each league opponent, for a total of 19 games. In the second half of the season, called the "ritorno", the teams play in exactly the same order that they did in the first half of the season, the only difference being that home and away situations are switched. Since the 1994–95 season, teams are awarded three points for a win, one point for a draw and no points for a loss.  The top four teams in the Serie A qualify straight to the UEFA Champions League group stages (from the 2017–18 season). Teams finishing fifth and sixth qualify for the UEFA Europa League tournament. A third UEFA Europa League spot is reserved for the winner of the Coppa Italia. If the Coppa Italia champion already qualified for European football by finishing among the top six teams in Serie A, the seventh-ranked team in Serie A is awarded the UEFA Europa League spot. The three lowest-placed teams are relegated to Serie B.  From 2005–06 season if two or more teams are tied in points (for any place), the deciding tie-breakers are as follows:  Until 2004–05 season, a playoff would be used to determine the champions, European spots or relegation, if the two teams were tied on points. Any play-off was held after the end of regular season. The last championship playoff occurred in the 1963–64 season when Bologna and Inter both finished on 54 points. Bologna won the play-off 2–0.

Clubs.

Prior to 1929, many clubs competed in the top level of Italian football as the earlier rounds were competed up to 1922 on a regional basis then interregional up to 1929. Below is a list of Serie A clubs who have competed in the competition when it has been a league format (66 in total).

Seasons in Serie A.

There are 67 teams that have taken part in 88 Serie A championships in a single round that was played from the 1929–30 season until the 2019–20 season. The teams in bold compete in Serie A currently. Internazionale is the only team that has played Serie A football in every season.

Logos.

Serie A had logos that featured its sponsor Telecom Italia (TIM). The logo that was introduced in 2010, had minor change in 2016 due to the change of the logo of Telecom Italia itself. In August 2018, a new logo was announced.

Television rights.

In the past, individual clubs competing in the league had the rights to sell their broadcast rights to specific channels throughout Italy, unlike in most other European countries. Currently, the two broadcasters in Italy are the satellite broadcaster Sky Italia and streaming platform DAZN for its own pay television networks; RAI is allowed to broadcast only highlights (in exclusive from 13:30 to 22:30 CET). This is a list of television rights in Italy (since 2018–19):  Since the 2010–11 season, Serie A clubs have negotiated television rights collectively rather than on an individual club basis, having previously abandoned collective negotiation at the end of the 1998–99 season.

International.

In countries and territories outside of Italy, the league is broadcast on:  In the 1990s, Serie A was at its most popular in the United Kingdom when it was shown on "Football Italia" on Channel 4, although it has actually appeared on more UK channels than any other league, rarely staying in one place for long since 2002. Serie A has appeared in the UK on BSB's The Sports Channel (1990–91), Sky Sports (1991–92), Channel 4 (1992–2002), Eurosport (2002–04), Setanta Sports and Bravo (2004–07), Channel 5 (2007–08), ESPN (2009–13), BT Sport (2013–2018), Eleven Sports Network (2018), Premier and FreeSports (2019–present).

Champions.

Bold indicates clubs which play in the 2019–20 Serie A.

Records.

Boldface indicates a player still active in Serie A. "Italics" indicates a player active outside Serie A.

Players.

Non-EU players.

Unlike La Liga, which imposed a quota on the number of non-EU players on each club, Serie A clubs could sign as many non-EU players as available on domestic transfer.  During the 1980s and 1990s, most Serie A clubs signed a large number of players from foreign nations (both EU and non-EU members). Notable foreign players to play in Serie A during this era included Irish international Liam Brady, England internationals Paul Gascoigne and David Platt, France's Michel Platini and Laurent Blanc, Lothar Matthäus and Jürgen Klinsmann from Germany, Dutchmen Ruud Gullit and Dennis Bergkamp, and Argentina's Diego Maradona.  But since the 2003–04 season, a quota has been imposed on each of the clubs limiting the number of non-EU, non-EFTA and non-Swiss players who may be signed from abroad each season, following provisional measures introduced in the 2002–03 season, which allowed Serie A and B clubs to sign only one non-EU player in the 2002 summer transfer window.  In the middle of the 2000–01 season, the old quota system was abolished, which no longer limited each team to having more than five non-EU players and using no more than three in each match. Concurrent with the abolishment of the quota, the FIGC had investigated footballers that used fake passports. Alberto and Warley, Alejandro Da Silva and Jorginho Paulista of Udinese; Fábio Júnior and Gustavo Bartelt of Roma; Dida of Milan; Álvaro Recoba of Inter; Thomas Job, Francis Zé, Jean Ondoa of Sampdoria; and Jeda and Dede of Vicenza were all banned in July 2001 for lengths ranging from six months to one year. However, most of the bans were subsequently reduced.  The number of non-EU players was reduced from 265 in 2002–03 season to 166 in 2006–07 season. It also included players who received EU status after their respective countries joined the EU (see 2004 and 2007 enlargement), which made players such as Adrian Mutu, Valeri Bojinov, Marek Jankulovski and Marius Stankevičius EU players.  The rule underwent minor changes in August 2004, June 2005, June 2006. and June 2007.  Since the 2008–09 season, three quotas have been awarded to clubs that do not have non-EU players in their squad (previously only newly promoted clubs could have three quotas); clubs that have one non-EU player have two quotas. Those clubs that have two non-EU players, are awarded one quota and one conditional quota, which is awarded after: 1) Transferred 1 non-EU player abroad, or 2) Release 1 non-EU player as free agent, or 3) A non-EU player received EU nationality. Clubs with three or more non-EU players, have two conditional quotas, but releasing two non-EU players as free agent, will only have one quota instead of two. Serie B and Lega Pro clubs cannot sign non-EU player from abroad, except those followed the club promoted from Serie D.  Large clubs with many foreigners usually borrow quotas from other clubs that have few foreigners or no foreigners in order to sign more non-EU players. For example, Adrian Mutu joined Juventus via Livorno in 2005, as at the time Romania was not a member of the EU. Other examples include Júlio César, Victor Obinna and Maxwell, who joined Internazionale from Chievo (first two) and Empoli respectively.  On 2 July 2010, the above conditional quota reduced back to one, though if a team did not have any non-EU players, that team could still sign up to three non-EU players. In 2011 the signing quota reverted to two.

Homegrown players.

Serie A also imposed Homegrown players rule, a modification of Homegrown Player Rule (UEFA). Unlike UEFA, Serie A at first did not cap the number of players in first team squad at 25, meaning the club could employ more foreigners by increasing the size of the squad. However, a cap of 25 (under-21 players were excluded) was introduced to 2015–16 season (in 2015–16 season, squad simply require 8 homegrown players but not require 4 of them from their own youth team). In the 2016–17 season, the FIGC sanctioned Sassuolo for fielding ineligible player, Antonino Ragusa. Although the club did not exceed the capacity of 21 players that were not from their own youth team (only Domenico Berardi was eligible as youth product of their own) as well as under 21 of age (born 1995 or after, of which four players were eligible) in their 24-men call-up, It was reported that on Lega Serie A side the squad list was not updated.  In 2015–16 season, the following quota was announced.

Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM due to sponsorship by TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa Campioni d'Italia. It has been operating as a round-robin tournament for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had been organized by the Direttorio Divisioni Superiori until 1943 and the Lega Calcio until 2010, when the Lega Serie A was created for the 2010–11 season. Serie A is regarded as one of the best football leagues in the world and it is often depicted as the most tactical national league. Serie A was the world's second-strongest national league in 2014 according to IFFHS. Serie A is ranked fourth among European leagues according to UEFA's league coefficient, behind La Liga, the Premier League and the Bundesliga, and ahead of Ligue 1, which is based on the performance of Italian clubs in the Champions League and the Europa League during the last five years. Serie A led the UEFA ranking from 1986 to 1988 and from 1990 to 1999.

Serie A (oficiálně známá jako Serie A TIM) je nejvyšší italská fotbalová soutěž. Hlavním sponzorem soutěže je společnost "Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM)". Založena byla v roce 1929 a plynule navázala na předchozí italské celonárodní soutěže (hrané od roku 1898), jejichž vítězové mohou počítat tituly z nich získané. V Serii A hraje 20 týmů, 3 nejhorší sestupují do Serie B a nejlepší tým získá italský titul, takzvané "Scudetto". Nejvíce ligových titulů má Juventus FC, který jich má po sezoně 2015/16 na kontě 36 (mimo odebrané z let 2005 a 2006).


Competition format.

The competition format follows the usual double round-robin format. During the course of a season, which lasts from August to May, each club plays every other club twice, once at home and once away, for 38 matchdays. Teams receive three points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a loss. Teams are ranked by total points, with the highest-ranked club at the end of the season crowned champion.

Promotion and relegation.

A system of promotion and relegation exists between the "Primera División" and the "Segunda División". The three lowest placed teams in La Liga are relegated to the "Segunda División", and the top two teams from the "Segunda División" promoted to La Liga, with an additional club promoted after a series of play-offs involving the third, fourth, fifth and sixth placed clubs. Below is a complete record of how many teams played in each season throughout the league's history;

Ranking of clubs on equal points.

If points are equal between two or more clubs, the rules are:

Qualification for European competitions.

Current Criteria.

The top four teams in La Liga qualify for the subsequent season's UEFA Champions League group stage. The winners of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League also qualify for the subsequent season's UEFA Champions League group stage. If this means 6 La Liga teams qualify, then the 4th place team in La Liga instead plays in the UEFA Europa League, as any single nation is limited to a maximum of 5 teams.  The 5th place team in La Liga qualifies for the subsequent season's UEFA Europa League group stage. The winner of the Copa del Rey also qualifies for the subsequent season's UEFA Europa League group stage, but if the winner also finished in the top 5 places in La Liga, then this place reverts to the team that finished 6th in La Liga. Furthermore, the 6th place (or 7th if 6th already qualifies) team qualifies for the subsequent season's UEFA Europa League second qualifying round.  The number of places allocated to Spanish clubs in UEFA competitions is dependent upon the position a country holds in the UEFA country coefficients, which are calculated based upon the performance of teams in UEFA competitions in the previous 5 years. Currently the ranking of Spain (and de facto La Liga) is 1st.

History.

Foundation.

In April 1928, José María Acha, a director at Arenas Club de Getxo, first proposed the idea of a national league in Spain. After much debate about the size of the league and who would take part, the Real Federación Española de Fútbol eventually agreed on the ten teams who would form the first "Primera División" in 1929. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Arenas Club de Getxo, and Real Unión were all selected as previous winners of the Copa del Rey. Atlético Madrid, Espanyol, and Europa qualified as Copa del Rey runners-up and Racing de Santander qualified through a knockout competition. Only three of the founding clubs, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao, have never been relegated from the "Primera División".

1930s: Athletic Bilbao prominence.

Although Barcelona won the very first "Liga" in 1929 and Real Madrid won their first titles in 1932 and 1933, it was Athletic Bilbao that set the early pace winning "Primera División" in 1930, 1931, 1934 and 1936. They were also runners-up in 1932 and 1933. In 1935, Real Betis, then known as "Betis Balompié", won their only title to date. "Primera División" was suspended during the Spanish Civil War.  In 1937, the teams in the Republican area of Spain, with the notable exception of the two Madrid clubs, competed in the Mediterranean League and Barcelona emerged as champions. Seventy years later, on 28 September 2007, Barcelona requested the Royal Spanish Football Federation (Spanish acronym RFEF) to recognise that title as a "Liga" title. This action was taken after RFEF was asked to recognise Levante FC's Copa de la España Libre win as equivalent to Copa del Rey trophy. Nevertheless, the governing body of Spanish football has not made an outright decision yet.

1940s: Atlético Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia emerge.

When the "Primera División" resumed after the Spanish Civil War, it was Atlético Aviación (nowadays "Atlético Madrid"), Valencia, and FC Barcelona that emerged as the strongest clubs. Atlético were only awarded a place during the 1939–40 season as a replacement for Real Oviedo, whose ground had been damaged during the war. The club subsequently won their first Liga title and retained it in 1941. While other clubs lost players to exile, execution, and as casualties of the war, the Atlético team was reinforced by a merger. The young, pre-war squad of Valencia had also remained intact and in the post-war years matured into champions, gaining three Liga titles in 1942, 1944, and 1947. They were also runners-up in 1948 and 1949. Sevilla also enjoyed a brief golden era, finishing as runners-up in 1940 and 1942 before winning their only title to date in 1946.  Meanwhile, on the other side of Spain, FC Barcelona began to emerge as a force under the legendary Josep Samitier. A Spanish footballer for both Barcelona and Real Madrid, Samitier cemented his legacy with Barcelona. During his playing career with them, he scored 333 goals, won the inaugural La Liga title and five Copa Del Rey. In 1944, Samitier returned to Barcelona as a coach and guided them in winning their second La Liga title in 1945. Under Samitier and legendary players Cesar Rodriguez, Josep Escola, Estanislau Basora and Mariano Gonzalvo, Barcelona dominated La Liga in the late 1940s, winning back to back La Liga titles in 1948 and 1949. The 1940s proved to be a successful season for Barcelona, winning three La Liga titles and one Copa Del Rey, but the 1950s proved to be a decade of dominance, not just from Barcelona, but from Real Madrid.

1950s: Barcelona and Real Madrid Dominate La Liga.

Although Atlético Madrid, previously known as "Atlético Aviación", were champions in 1950 and 1951 under "catenaccio" mastermind Helenio Herrera, the 1950s continued the success FC Barcelona had during the late 1940s after they had won back to back La Liga titles. During this decade, Barcelona's first golden era emerged. Under coach Ferdinand Daučík, FC Barcelona won back to back doubles, winning La Liga and Copa Del Rey in 1952 and 1953. In 1952, FC Barcelona made history yet again by winning five distinctive trophies in one year. This team, composed of László Kubala, Mariano Gonzalvo, Cesar Rodriguez and Joan Segarra won La Liga, Copa Del Rey, Copa Eva Duarte (predecessor of Spanish Super Cup), The Latin Cup and The Copa Martini Rossi. Their success in winning five different trophies in one year earned them the name 'L’equip de les cinc Copes' or The Team of The Five Cups. In the latter parts of the 1950s, coached by Helenio Herrera and featuring Luis Suárez, Barcelona won yet again their third set of back to back La Liga, winning them in 1959 and 1960. In 1959, FC Barcelona also won another double of La Liga / Copa Del Rey, conquering three doubles in the 1950s.  The 1950s also saw the beginning of the Real Madrid dominance. During the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, there were strict limits imposed on foreign players. In most cases, clubs could only have three foreign players in their squads, meaning that at least eight local players had to play in every game. During the 1950s, however, these rules were circumvented by Real Madrid who naturalized Alfredo Di Stéfano and Ferenc Puskás. Di Stéfano, Puskás, Raymond Kopa and Francisco Gento formed the nucleus of the Real Madrid team that dominated the second half of the 1950s. Real Madrid won their third La Liga in 1954, 21 years later since 1933, and retained its title in 1955. In 1956, Athletic Bilbao won their sixth La Liga title, but Real Madrid won La Liga again in 1957 and 1958. All in all, Barcelona and Real Madrid won 4 La Liga titles each, with Atletico Madrid winning two Ligas and Athletic Bilbao winning one during this decade.

1960s–1970s: Real Madrid Superiority.

Real Madrid dominated La Liga between 1960 and 1980, being crowned champions 14 times. Real Madrid won five La Liga titles in a row from 1961-1965 as well as winning three doubles between 1960-1980. During the 1960s and 1970s, only Atlético Madrid offered Real Madrid any serious challenge. Atletico Madrid were crowned La Liga champions four times in 1966, 1970, 1973, and 1977. Atletico Madrid also finished second place in 1961, 1963 and 1965. In 1971, Valencia won their fourth La Liga title in 1971 under Alfredo di Stefano, and the Johan Cruyff-inspired Barcelona won their ninth La Liga in 1974.

1980s: Real Madrid and the Basque Clubs.

Real Madrid's monopoly in La Liga was interrupted significantly in the 1980s. Although Real Madrid won another five La Liga titles in a row from 1986-1990 under the brilliance of Emilio Butragueño and Hugo Sanchez, the Basque Clubs of Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao also dominated the 1980s. Real Sociedad won back-to-back La Liga titles in 1981 and 1982, after leaving both Real Madrid and Barcelona as runner ups. Their title wins were followed by fellow Basque club Athletic Bilbao, who won back-to-back titles in 1983 and 1984, with Athletic Bilbao winning their fifth La Liga and Copa Del Rey double in 1984. Barcelona won their tenth La Liga title in 1985 under coach Terry Venables, their first La Liga win since 1974.

1990s: Barcelona's Dream Team.

Johan Cruyff returned to Barcelona as manager in 1988, and assembled the legendary "Dream Team". When Cruyff took hold of this Barcelona side they had won only two La Liga titles in the past 11 years. Cruyff decided to build a team composed of international stars and La Masia graduates in order to restore Barcelona to their former glorious days. This team was formed by international stars Romario, Michael Laudrup, Hristo Stoichkov and Ronald Koeman. Cruyff's Dream Team also consisted of La Masia graduates Pep Guardiola, Albert Ferrer, and Guillermo Amor, as well as Spaniard Andoni Zubizarreta.  Johan Cruyff changed the way modern football was played and incorporated the principles of ‘Total Football’ into this team. The success of possession-based football was revolutionary and Cruyff's team won their first European Cup in 1992 and four consecutive La Liga titles between 1991 and 1994. In total, Cruyff won 11 trophies in eight years, making him the most successful manager in Barcelona's history until the record was broken by his protégé Pep Guardiola two decades later.  Barcelona's run ended with Real Madrid winning La Liga in 1995. Atlético Madrid won their ninth La Liga title in 1996, as well as their only Liga/Copa Del Rey double, before Real Madrid added another Liga to their cabinet in 1997. After the success of Cruyff, another Dutchman – Ajax manager, Louis van Gaal – arrived at the Camp Nou, and with the talents of Luís Figo, Luis Enrique, and Rivaldo, Barcelona won the La Liga title in 1998 and 1999, including their fourth double of Liga and Copa Del Rey in 1998. All in all, Barcelona won six La Liga titles in the 1990s and continued their success through the 2000s.

2000s–present: Barcelona's hegemony and new challengers.

The 21st Century has continued the success FC Barcelona had in the 1990s under Johan Cruyff, dominating La Liga. Although Real Madrid have been prominent, Barcelona have created a hegemony in Spain not seen since the Real Madrid of the 1960s-1970s. Since the start of the new century, Barcelona have won a total of 10 La Ligas, including two trebles and four doubles. This new century however has also seen new challengers being crowned champions. Between 1999-00 and 2004, Deportivo La Coruña finished in the top three on five occasions, a better record than either Real Madrid or Barcelona, and in 2000, under Javier Irureta, Deportivo became the ninth team to be crowned champions. Valencia were also a fierce team in the early 2000s, as they were crowned La Liga champions in 2002 and 2004 under Rafael Benitez.  Real Madrid won their first Liga titles of the century in 2001 and 2003. With world-class players like Raúl, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Gonzalo Higuaín, Real Madrid won back-to-back La Liga titles in 2006–07 and 2007–08. FC Barcelona won their first title of the new century under the brilliance of Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto'o in the 2004-2005 season. Barcelona retained the title and won it again in the 2005-2006 season. Under the era of Pep Guardiola, powered by La Masia's talent, such as Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta, Barcelona added two straight Liga titles in 2009 and 2010. FC Barcelona also became the first team in Spain to achieve the Treble in the 2008–09 season, consisting of winning the La Liga/Copa del Rey double and the UEFA Champions League.  Barcelona won a third straight La Liga title in the 2010–11 season, but Real Madrid ended their winning streak in the 2011-2012 season under the management of José Mourinho. Real Madrid won their 32nd La Liga title with a record at the time of 100 points. The following year, in the 2012-2013 season, Barcelona won yet again another La Liga title under coach Tito Vilanova, replicating the 100 points record Real Madrid achieved the previous year. Atlético Madrid, under the management of Diego Simeone won their tenth La Liga title in 2013–14, their first since 1996. Atletico Madrid became the first team since Valencia in 2004 to win La Liga and break Barcelona and Real Madrid's dominion over the league. In the 2014–15 season, under the trio of Messi, Neymar, and Suarez nicknamed 'MSN', Barcelona made history by becoming the first team to achieve a second treble, and winning a sixth Liga/Copa Del Rey double. Barcelona continued their dominance and in the 2015–16 season, won back-to-back Liga/Copa Del Rey double, something that has not been achieved since the 1950s. Real Madrid brought back the La Liga title under the management of Zinedine Zidane in 2016–17, but Barcelona won the title again in the 2017–18 season, as well as winning their eighth double, for a total of 7 La Liga titles in 10 years. Barcelona retained the title yet again and won their 26th La Liga title in the 2018–19 season, for a total of 8 La Liga titles in 11 years.

Clubs.

20 teams contest the league in its current season, including the top 17 sides from the 2018–19 season and three promoted from the 2018–19 Segunda División. The promoted clubs include Osasuna and Granada, promoted directly from the second division, and the winner of the promotion play-off, Mallorca.

La Liga clubs in Europe.

The "Primera División" is currently first in the UEFA rankings of European leagues based on their performances in European competitions over a five-year period, ahead of England's Premier League, Germany's Bundesliga, and Italy's Serie A in fourth.  Real Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia are in the top ten most successful clubs in European football in terms of total European trophies. These three clubs, along with Sevilla and Atlético Madrid, are five of the most successful teams in European competition history; these five are the only Spanish clubs to have won five or more international trophies. Deportivo La Coruña are the joint fifth-most participating Spanish team in the Champions League with Sevilla — after Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Atlético Madrid — with five Champions League appearances in a row, including a semifinal appearance in 2003–04.  In 2005–06, Barcelona won the Champions League and Sevilla won the UEFA Cup, making La Liga the first league to do the European "double" since 1997. This feat was repeated in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2018. On 25 August 2015, La Liga became the first league to qualify five teams for the UEFA Champions League group stage (Atlético Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Sevilla and Valencia).

Performance comparison since 2010.

Performance comparison of top teams since 2010.

All-time La Liga table.

The all-time La Liga table is an overall record of all match results, points, and goals of every team that has played in La Liga since its inception in 1929. The table is accurate as of the end of the 2018–19 season. Teams in bold are part of the 2019–20 La Liga season.

Players.

Eligibility of non-EU players.

In La Liga, players can claim citizenship from the nation their ancestors came from. If a player does not have European ancestry, he can claim Spanish citizenship after playing in Spain for five years. Sometimes, this can lead to a triple-citizenship situation; for example, Leo Franco, who was born in Argentina, is of Italian heritage yet can claim a Spanish passport, having played in La Liga for over five years.  In addition, players from the ACP countries—countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific that are signatories to the Cotonou Agreement—are not counted against non-EU quotas due to the Kolpak ruling.

Individual awards.

Until the 2008–09 season, no official individual awards existed in La Liga. In 2008–09 season, the LFP governing body created the LFP Awards (now called La Liga Awards), awarded each season to individual players and coaches. Additional awards relating to La Liga are distributed, some not sanctioned by the Liga de Futbol Profesional or RFEF and therefore not regarded as official. The most notable of these are four awarded by Spain's largest sports paper, "Marca", namely the Pichichi Trophy, awarded to the top scorer of the season; the Ricardo Zamora Trophy, for the goalkeeper with the fewest goals allowed per game (minimum 28 games); the Alfredo di Stéfano Trophy, for the player judged to be the best overall player in the division; and the Zarra Trophy, for the top scorer among Spanish domestic players.  Since the 2013–14 season, La Liga has also bestowed the monthly manager of the month and player of the month awards.

Transfers.

The first La Liga player to be involved in a transfer which broke the world record was Luis Suárez in 1961, who moved from Barcelona to Internazionale for £152,000 (£ million in ). Twelve years later, Johan Cruyff was the first player to join a La Liga club for a record fee, £922,000 (£ million in ) from Ajax to Barcelona. In 1982, Barcelona again set the record by signing Diego Maradona from Boca Juniors for £5 million (£ million in ). Real Betis set the world record in 1998 when they signed Denílson from São Paulo for £21.5 million (£ million in ).  Four of the last six world transfer records have been set by Real Madrid, signing Luís Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Cristiano Ronaldo (plus a deal for Kaká days before Ronaldo which fell just below a world record due to the way the fee was calculated) and finally Gareth Bale, who was bought in 2013 for £85.3m (€103.4m or $140m at the time; £m in ) from Tottenham Hotspur.  The Brazilian forward Neymar was the subject of an when he joined Barcelona from Santos in 2013, and his outgoing transfer to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 set a new world record fee at €222m via his buyout clause. Barcelona soon invested a large amount of the money received from this transfer in a replacement, Ousmane Dembélé, whose deal – €105m – was the second most expensive ever before Philippe Coutinho's transfer to Barcelona for €142m in January 2018.

Player records.

Most goals.

Boldface indicates a player still active in La Liga. "Italics" indicates a player still active outside La Liga.

The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known as La Liga (LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons with Santander), is the men's top professional football division of the Spanish football league system. Administered by the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional "(English: National Professional Football League)", also known as the Liga de Fútbol Profesional, and is contested by 20 teams, with the three lowest-placed teams at the end of each season relegated to the Segunda División and replaced by the top two teams and a play-off winner in that division.

Primera División (v překladu První liga), obecně známá také jako La Liga (pod sponzorským názvem jako La Liga Santander) je nejvyšší španělská fotbalová soutěž. Je pořádána pod hlavičkou "Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (LFP)" stejně jako druhá nejvyšší soutěž Segunda División. Její vítěz získává titul Mistr Španělska. Níže pak stojí různé regionální, většinou amatérské soutěže.