query: What percentage of U.S. PhD candidates complete their dissertation?

title: Doctor of Philosophy

text: Depending on the specific field of study, completion of a Ph.D. program usually takes four to eight years of study after the Bachelor's Degree; those students who begin a Ph.D. program with a master's degree may complete their Ph.D. degree a year or two sooner.[114] As Ph.D. programs typically lack the formal structure of undergraduate education, there are significant individual differences in the time taken to complete the degree. Overall, 57% of students who begin a Ph.D. program in the US will complete their degree within ten years, approximately 30% will drop out or be dismissed, and the remaining 13% of students will continue on past ten years.[115]

title: National Institutes of Technology

text: The NITs also offer the Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD) as part of their doctoral education programme. In it, the candidates are given a topic of academic interest by the professor or have to work on a consultancy project given by the industries. The duration of the program is usually unspecified and depends on the specific discipline. PhD candidates have to submit a dissertation as well as provide an oral defence for their thesis. Teaching Assistantships (TA) and Research Assistantships (RA) are often provided. The NITs, along with IITs and IISc, account for nearly 80% of all engineering PhDs in India.

title: All but dissertation

text: The use of ABD or the similar PhD(c) for PhD candidate (also PhD-c or PhDc) as a credential has been criticized as potentially misleading by some writers as the terms are not widely understood outside of academia or indeed outside of the USA.

title: Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi (politician)

text: He studied for his master's degree at SAIS in Washington, D.C. beginning in the fall of 1980 through the spring of 1982 and completed his doctoral dissertation and received his PhD thereafter. His PhD adviser was Nathaniel B. Thayer, Yasuhiro Nakasone Professor and senior adviser to the Reischauer Center at SAIS. A strong interest of Yamaguchi's that figured prominently in his master's thesis and doctoral dissertation was the evolution of U.S.-Japanese relations in the modern era. The dissertation is titled "The Making of an Alliance: Japan’s Alliance Policy 1945-1952."

title: Rowan Cahill

text: In 2013 Cahill was awarded a PhD by the University of Wollongong for his dissertation on the life and times of controversial Australian left-wing journalist and intellectual Rupert Lockwood (1908–1997), a key figure in the Petrov Affair and the ensuing Royal Commission on Espionage (1954–1955). In 2014 this dissertation was awarded the prestigious 'Jim Hagan Memorial Prize' at the University of Wollongong. This prize is awarded to the PhD candidate "who has received the highest recommendation from one or both assessors in the previous year".

title: California Pacific University

text: According to an annual catalog issued by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, California Pacific University had two Proctored Comprehensive Examinations in each of its programs to assure that the student earning the degree or credit is the person who completed the coursework. The courses are administered by a qualified credentialed Proctor who was nominated and approved by the university. However local students had the option of taking courses at night on site in a classroom setting. Students were required to study on a course-by-course basis, studying one course at a time, building upon their personal experiences prior to entry in the program and daily application of what is learned in the program to their own business careers. Upon completion of all courses, credits and passing scores on the five-part College Level Examination Program (CLEP) Test, students are conferred a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree. Potential students for Master programs were required to submit or complete Graduate Record Examinations prior to admission. Master of Business Administration degrees are awarded when the candidate has completed fifty (50) quarter hours in a ten course outline with a minimum grade point average of 3.0. There were two doctorate level programs: Doctor of Philosophy Ph.D. degree for a professor, researcher, or scientist in many fields, and a Doctor of Business Administration D.B.A. in Business administration for business professionals. Candidates for doctoral degrees are required to have completed a minimum of 125 quarter hours of post-baccalaureate credits, complete all required courses and prepare a proposal for a dissertation and complete the Final Doctoral Dissertation or project of original research to be presented and approved by the faculty. The university's doctoral programs were designed to provide advanced courses in management for the successful executive in business, government, labor unions, the military, and non-profit organizations. Candidates for the Doctor of Philosophy in Management complete the same courses as candidates for the Doctor of Business Administration D.B.A. degree. The final product, the Proposal and the Dissertation are significantly different in that the dissertation requires original research on a topic in business or management.

title: Master of Research

text: Some universities may award this degree to a doctoral candidate who has not completed the required period of study for a doctorate, but has completed a sufficient dissertation and taught content to be acceptable for an MRes. In most cases, however, a PhD candidate will step down to the level of a Master of Philosophy at British universities. The main difference between an MRes and an MPhil is that MRes sometimes (but not always) has taught components (although the main focus is still on research) and therefore might require a first year taught component during the doctoral studies. Research undertaken for a Master of Research degree is typically shorter in duration to that of an MPhil or PhD - around one year, as opposed to two or three, full-time. For humanities subjects, MPhil theses are typically 60,000 words (and PhDs 80-100,000), while MRes or MA(Res) are usually around 35-40,000 by thesis, or lesser for courses with a taught component (a mixture of smaller essays and a dissertation). Some universities require an oral viva in addition to a written thesis for successful completion of an MRes degree.

title: Kekuni Blaisdell

text: Director, Center for Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Blaisdell served as Interim Director from 1987-1988. Blaisdell served on the Dissertation committees for nearly a dozen native Hawaiian PhD candidates, including Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa and Kamana'opono Crabbe. He has helped numerous candidates write PhD papers, including Malcolm Chun.1,2,5

title: Experimental Lakes Area

text: According to John Shearer, who worked at the ELA as Senior Biologist and Operations Manager, from 1969 until his retirement 2007, 47 PhD candidates completed dissertations and 80 master’s students completed theses, using research they participated in at the ELA.

title: Simon Critchley

text: Returning to Essex in 1987 Critchley was at a loss as to what to write on for his forthcoming dissertation. He eventually completed a dissertation on Derrida and Levinas (which would later be expanded into his monograph, "The Ethics of Deconstruction" (Blackwell, 1992)). In 1988 he attained his PhD from Essex. Not long after he was appointed a lecturer of philosophy at Essex in 1989, becoming reader in philosophy in 1995, and professor in 1999.

title: Doctor of Law

text: Doctoral studies leading to PhD degree are different from the JUDr exam. PhD studies are internal (PhD student is at the same time teacher at the University), which lasts 3–5 years, and external up to 8 years long. PhD. students are obliged to pass some exams during the studies and mainly to work on their dissertation. The PhD is intended basically for candidates interested in an academic career, and it gives them the right to teach at a university.

title: Doctor of Philosophy

text: The specific requirements to earn a PhD degree vary considerably according to the country, institution, and time period, from entry-level research degrees to higher doctorates. During the studies that lead to the degree, the student is called a doctoral student or PhD student; a student who has completed all of their coursework and comprehensive examinations and is working on their thesis/dissertation is sometimes known as a doctoral candidate or PhD candidate (see: all but dissertation). A student attaining this level may be granted a Candidate of Philosophy degree at some institutions, or may be granted a master's degree en route to the doctoral degree. Sometimes this status is also colloquially known as "Ph.D. ABD", meaning "All But Dissertation."[5]

title: ACM SIGHPC

text: SIGHPC offers a variety of travel grants to support student participation in its conferences, including a program in partnership with ACM-W that focuses specifically on participation by women. SIGHPC also sponsors an Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, given each year for the best doctoral dissertation completed in high performance computing. This award is open to students studying anywhere in the world who have completed a PhD dissertation with HPC as a central research theme.

title: Doctor of Education

text: Colleges and universities in the United States that offer doctorates in education choose to offer only the Doctor "of" Education, only the Doctor of Philosophy "in" education (e.g., Stanford University), or both (e.g., UCLA, University of Missouri, and University of Pennsylvania). The distinction between the PhD and the EdD in this last group can take different forms. At the University of Illinois, for example, the PhD in education dissertation requires an original contribution to academic knowledge, whereas the EdD dissertation "is intended to demonstrate the candidate's ability to relate academic knowledge to the problems of professional practice." At Teachers College, Columbia University the PhD is designed for students who wish specifically to pursue an academic career, whereas the EdD is designed for broader aims including educational administration and policy work. In St. Louis University's Educational Studies program, the EdD requires "successful completion of a culminating project dealing with a problem in educational practice" and the PhD requires a dissertation and an "oral defense of the dissertation proposal and [of] the final dissertation. Most Ed.D., Psy.D. and Ph.D. programs require a dissertation and an oral defense while others have a research project leading to publication as an alternative." Finally, some schools frame the EdD specifically in terms of applied research, such as New York University, The University of Texas at Austin, and the University of California, Berkeley.

title: Graduate science education in the United States

text: Some programs also include a Master of Philosophy degree as part of the PhD program. The MPhil, in those universities that offer it, is usually awarded after the appropriate MA or MS (as above) is awarded, and the degree candidate has completed all further requirements for the PhD degree (which may include additional language requirements, course credits, teaching experiences, and comprehensive exams) aside from the writing and defense of the dissertation itself. This formalizes the "all but dissertation" (ABD) status used informally by some students, and represents that the student has achieved a higher level of scholarship than the MA/MS would indicate – as such, the MPhil is sometimes a helpful credential for those applying for teaching or research posts while completing their dissertation work for the PhD degree itself.

title: Academic ranks in Russia

text: After the presentation the professors vote, and decide whether to recommend the dissertant to the degree of Candidate of Science. The right for final decision belongs to the VAK (governmental commission, granting official academic degrees and ranks), but it usually follows the recommendation of the Dissertation Council. In rare cases the dissertant can be called to go through the additional defense in VAK (Russian: ВАК). At last a person is granted with a degree "Candidate of Science" (Russian: кандидат наук), which is a Russian name for a PhD degree.

title: Doctor of Education

text: In the United Kingdom, the EdD is equivalent in level and has equal status with the PhD. It is a research degree that requires students to make an original contribution of knowledge to the field. The EdD thesis may be shorter than that of the PhD, because the doctoral student will have done other research work as part of their coursework, whereas PhD students only write a doctoral thesis without coursework. The EdD thesis differs from a PhD thesis only in length and scope but not in quality. As with PhD candidates, all EdD candidates undergo a viva voce examination (comprehensive oral defense of one's thesis/dissertation). Research by Scott, Lunt, Browne and Thorne (2002) found that the difference between an EdD and a PhD was often overstated, as students of both tend to follow similar courses of study and to research similar topics. The study also found that admissions requirements formally equaled or exceeded those for PhD admission.

title: Joseph Sgro

text: During his first year as a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin, Sgro proved that a topological extension of first-order logic using the open set logic quantifier has logical completeness, which had previously been widely believed but had not been proven. Sgro’s proof drew attention throughout mathematical world, and, in 1974, a year before finishing his PhD, he was awarded an appointment as a Josiah Willard Gibbs Instructor in Mathematics at Yale University, received an NSF research grant to continue his work in topological model theory. Yale allowed him to accept this honor while remotely completing his thesis and dissertation at Wisconsin, which he did in 1975. His conclusions regarding the topological model theory formed the basis of his PhD thesis and dissertation. During the 1976-1977 academic year Sgro received a Centennial Fellowship from the AMS. His work also resulted in an invitation to speak at the Logica Colloquim ’77 European Meeting of the Association for Symbolic Logic. This event was held in Wrocław, Poland, which was then still part of the Eastern Bloc, making Sgro among the first mathematicians from the West to speak at an event “behind the Iron Curtain.” Sgro also spent 1977-1978 at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University.

title: Thesis

text: The (DEA) can last two years and candidates must complete coursework and demonstrate their ability to research the specific topics they have studied. After completing this part of the PhD, students begin a dissertation on a set topic. The dissertation must reach a minimum length depending on the subject and it is valued more highly if it contains field research. Once candidates have finished their written dissertations, they must present them before a committee. Following this presentation, the examiners will ask questions.

title: Magister degree

text: Together with the licentiate's degree, it is one of two formal predecessors of the current PhD degrees in Denmark, whereas in Norway, it is one of many predecessors of the current PhD degrees introduced in 2003. In modern times, the Magister's degree typically required 7–8 years of studies, with strong emphasis on the scientific dissertation. In Norway the Magister's degree eventually had a formal standardized scope of 3 years of study (following a cand.mag. or equivalent) and required an independent scientific work with a dissertation workload corresponding to three years of full-time research and dissertation work; hence it was a research-only degree. The dissertation was evaluated by a committee and the candidate also had to deliver a trial lecture to demonstrate his or her suitability for permanent (tenured) academic positions at university-level. The Magister's degree became increasingly rare from the 1970s, and as a result of Denmark and Norway implementing the Bologna Process, it has now been completely abolished and replaced by PhD degrees. In Norway, the formal requirements for equivalence with the modern PhD are "a standardized scope of at least 3 years of study" and "an independent scientific work" with a thesis workload corresponding to "at least two years of standardized full time study," which is one year less than the requirements for the Magister's degree.

title: Hertie School of Governance

text: In autumn 2012, the Hertie School welcomed its first PhD cohort. PhD candidates take core curriculum courses in their first year while beginning their dissertation research and are expected to complete their PhDs within three years.

title: Doctor of Management

text: Although it can be completed in as little as three years, the D.M. typically takes 4–6 years to complete. The first two years of the program are usually focused on intensive doctoral-level coursework and generally at least one research practicum (near the end of core courses, residencies, and research and writing training). It may be followed by a comprehensive examination (comps) at this point if the candidate has successfully reached this stage. Similar to the PhD, the subsequent dissertation completion phase for the D.M. can take an additional two or more years. In some programs where the candidate has a good deal of professional management practical experience, the D.M. can be completed in as little as three years if the candidate has proven capable of taking a full load of credits each term, as well as successful completion of the required dissertation and its defense.

title: Belarusian State University

text: The PhD Program is aimed to prepare highly qualified researchers holding a candidate of science degree (equivalent of PhD). Training is provided through 142 specialities of different branches of science. Duration of studies is 3-4 academic years. Classes last from 1 November until 31 October. International students have the opportunity to study according to the individual curriculum without a fixed dates enrollment. Upon successful completion graduates receive a Certificate on Graduation and in case if dissertation was presented and defended the student confers the Candidate if Science degree. The BSU has 22 Scientific Councils which conduct evaluations of theses presented for defence.

title: UCLA School of Dentistry

text: The PhD degree program is for applicants who are interested in becoming leaders in academic dentistry. Oral Biology also offers a duel DDS and PhD degree program. The PhD program ranges in time between four and six years and accepts two to five individuals. The program requires students to complete the core courses in the Oral Biology Program, as well as courses designed to build a research foundation. Candidates will experience laboratory rotations and take academic courses in that first year. A research mentor will be chosen at the end of the first year, and these mentors will advise them throughout the next three to four years and while they work on their thesis dissertation. A written and oral exam are issued at the end of their second year, called the Qualifying Presentation. Before candidates can graduate, a dissertation defense is required and a midterm exam occurs between these two presentations.

text: Depending on the specific field of study, completion of a PhD program usually takes four to eight years of study after the Bachelor's Degree; those students who begin a PhD program with a master's degree may complete their PhD degree a year or two sooner. As PhD programs typically lack the formal structure of undergraduate education or related professional degree education (JD, MD, DVM, MBA, etc.), there are significant individual differences in the time taken to complete the degree. Many U.S. universities have set a ten-year limit for students in PhD programs, or refuse to consider graduate credit older than ten years as counting towards a PhD degree. Similarly, students may be required to re-take the comprehensive exam if they do not defend their dissertations within five years after submitting it to their self-chosen dissertation advisors. Overall, 57% of students who begin a PhD program in the US will complete their degree within ten years, approximately 30% will drop out or be dismissed, and the remaining 13% of students will continue on past ten years.

title: Marguerite Williams

text: In 1942, she completed her PhD dissertation at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. The title of her dissertation was "A History of Erosion in the Anacostia Drainage Basin". Her dissertation was published by the Catholic University of America Press.

title: Khatchig Mouradian

text: Mouradian was the editor of the Armenian Weekly from 2007-2014. He is the recipient the Gulbenkian Armenian Studies research fellowship to study the Armenian community in China in the 20th century (2014). Mouradian is also the recipient of the first Hrant Dink Freedom and Justice Medal (2014) of the Organization of Istanbul Armenians . Mouradian is a PhD Candidate at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, currently completing his dissertation, titled “Genocide and Humanitarian Resistance in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1917.” He is a PhD Candidate in Genocide Studies at Clark University .

title: Thesis

text: In Sweden, there are different types of theses. Practices and definitions vary between fields but commonly include the "C thesis"/Bachelor thesis, which corresponds to 15 HP or 10 weeks of independent studies, "D thesis"/'/Magister/one year master's thesis, which corresponds to 15 HP or 10 weeks of independent studies and "E Thesis"/two-year master's thesis, which corresponds to 30 HP or 20 weeks of independent studies. After that there are two types of post graduate degrees, Licentiate dissertation and PhD dissertation. A licentiate degree is approximately "half a PhD" in terms of size and scope of the thesis. Swedish PhD studies should in theory last for four years, including course work and thesis work, but as many PhD students also teach, the PhD often takes longer to complete.

title: Eleanor Maccoby

text: Maccoby was given the opportunity to work with B.F. Skinner. Maccoby had completed all the requirements for her PhD except the dissertation. B.F. Skinner offered to let Maccoby use his automated data recording equipment in his laboratory at Harvard University. She then completed her dissertation research on an operant conditioning study involving pigeons. Within the following year, Maccoby was able to earn her PhD from the University of Michigan (1950).

title: Doctor of Philosophy by publication

text: In general, awarding of the Ph.D. requires an original contribution to human knowledge. This is typically achieved through a period of research culminating in the presentation and examination of a major dissertation on an approved subject, and may be preceded by one or more years of formal coursework on research methodology and academic writing. A Ph.D. awarded "by publication", by contrast, may not require any formal coursework and does not necessitate preparation of a dissertation. Instead, the candidate proves the past publication of several quality articles in peer-reviewed, scholarly journals which, in the opinion of the degree-granting university, represent a contribution to human knowledge. According to the University of Brighton, "while the traditional route to a PhD remains suitable for those at the start of their research careers, the PhD by publication offers distinct advantages for those who are well established in their research careers but who have not had the opportunity to complete a conventional PhD".

title: Ivan Charota

text: From 1969 to 1974. he studied at the Department of Russian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philology of the Belarus State University. After completing the studies, he worked for three years as a teacher at the Palackishka High School of the Voronezh district, Grodno region. In 1977. he was hired by Belarussian State University, as a lecturer - senior lecturer, associate professor, and after defending his PhD dissertation (studies lasting from 1991 until 1994, he became the head of the newly formed Chair of Slavic Studies (Slovene Literature). His Candidate dissertation "Творчество М.А.Шолохова и литературный процесс Югославии (1956-1986)", was defended at the Institute in Leningrad in 1986), and his PhD dissertation «Беларуская літаратура ХХ стагоддзя і працэсы нацыянальнага самавызначэння» at the Belarus State University in Minsk, 1998.


query: Can cats control their purr?

title: Purr

text: One hypothesis, backed by electromyographic studies, is that cats produce the purring noise by using the vocal folds or the muscles of the larynx to alternately dilate and constrict the glottis rapidly, causing air vibrations during inhalation and exhalation.[2] Combined with the steady inhalation and exhalation of air as the cat breathes, a purring noise is produced with strong harmonics.[3]

title: Emotion in animals

text: It has been postulated that domestic cats can learn to manipulate their owners through vocalizations that are similar to the cries of human babies. Some cats learn to add a purr to the vocalization, which makes it less harmonious and more dissonant to humans, and therefore harder to ignore. Individual cats learn to make these vocalizations through trial-and-error; when a particular vocalization elicits a positive response from a human, the probability increases that the cat will use that vocalization in the future.

title: Purr by Katy Perry

text: Purr by Katy Perry is a fragrance created by American singer Katy Perry and Gigantic Parfums. Katy's love for cats and kittens influenced both her decision to create the perfume and its design, although further inspiration for the bottle's design came from other perfume products worldwide. Purr features a variety of scents, including citrus fruits. Released in November 2010, it is available in a purple cat-shaped bottle. Purr is available in 1.7 and 3.4 fluid ounce bottles, with a retail price in the US of $35.00 to $45.00 for the smaller size and $65.00 for the larger.

title: Kneading (cats)

text: Many cats purr while kneading. They also purr mostly when newborn, when feeding, or when trying to feed on their mother's teat. The common association between the two behaviors may indicate the origin of kneading as a remnant instinct. Some experts consider kneading to "stimulate" the cat and make it feel good, in the same manner as a human stretching.

title: Bombay cat

text: Bombay cats are highly social; they tend to be attached to their families and crave attention, and for this reason, cats of this breed are highly suitable for children. Most Bombay cats are not independent. Older Bombays are somewhat more independent than younger ones. They seek attention from their owners and people around them often and dislike being left alone for extended periods of time. Although they like to be around people generally, Bombay cats also tend to have a certain person whom they pay special attention to in their lives. Overall, the Bombay breed is intelligent, playful, and attention-seeking. The Bombay's muscular medium-sized body can be deceiving, as they often weigh slightly more than they might appear to. They don't shed as much as other breeds and require very little grooming. They tend to get along well with other cats, as they have an established pecking order in the household. They have a loud distinctive purr. Bombay cats are known to be vocal and they cry and meow more than other cats.

title: Cat café

text: Thailand has several cat cafés, most in Bangkok. Cat Cafe by Dome, Cat Up Cafe, Caturday, Cataholic Cafe, The Coffee Cat, Mohu Mohu Cafe and Purr Cat Cafe Club are all located in Bangkok. Each serves baked goods with a small menu of main dishes and coffee and tea. Many have special pricing for petting time with a specific cat. Prices are usually higher than at most cafés but not unreasonably so. They all have rules regarding the behavior of guests towards the cats and often have purebred cats. Catmosphere Cat Cafe and Maewmoth cafés are located in Chiang Mai.

title: Purr

text: Purring may have developed as an evolutionary advantage as a signalling mechanism of reassurance between mother cats and nursing kittens. Post-nursing cats often purr as a sign of contentment: when being petted, becoming relaxed,[4][5] or eating. Some purring may be a signal to another animal that the purring cat does not pose a threat.[6]

title: Cat communication

text: Domestic cats purr at varying frequencies. One study reported that domestic cats purr at average frequencies of 21.98 Hz in the egressive phase and 23.24 Hz in the ingressive phase with an overall mean of 22.6 Hz. Further research on purring in four domestic cats found that the fundamental frequency varied between 20.94 and 27.21 Hz for the egressive phase and between 23.0 and 26.09 Hz for the ingressive phase. There was considerable variation between the four cats in the relative amplitude, duration and frequency between egressive and ingressive phases, although this variation generally occurred within the normal range.

title: Cat behavior

text: Since most of the preferred "domestic traits" are neotenous or juvenile traits that persist in the adult, kneading may be a relic juvenile behavior retained in adult domestic cats. It may also stimulate the cat and make it feel good, in the same manner as a human stretching. Kneading is often a precursor to sleeping. Many cats purr while kneading. They also purr mostly when newborn, when feeding, or when trying to feed on their mother's teat. The common association between the two behaviors may corroborate the evidence in favor of the origin of kneading as a remnant instinct.

title: Flat-headed cat

text: Vocalizations of a flat-headed cat kitten resembled those of a domestic cat. The vocal repertoire of adults has not been analyzed completely, but they purr and give other short-ranged vocalizations.

title: Purr by Katy Perry

text: Katy Perry chose to release her own signature fragrance, Purr, to add a personal touch and compete with other celebrities' perfumes; she cited Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian as examples. Having teamed up with Gigantic Parfums, she was actively involved in the development of her fragrance. She mentioned in an interview that she created the product because she loves cats.

title: Purr

text: The "roaring cats" (lion, Panthera leo; tiger, P. tigris; jaguar, P. onca; leopard, P. pardus) have an incompletely ossified hyoid, which according to this theory, enables them to roar but not to purr. However, the snow leopard (Uncia uncia, or P. uncia), as the fifth felid species with an incompletely ossified hyoid, purrs (Hemmer, 1972).

title: Purr

text: Cats often purr when distressed or in pain, such as in labour.[4][8][9][10] This purring may trigger a cat's brain to release a hormone which helps it in relaxing and acts as a painkiller.[11] Purring may also be a healing mechanism to offset long periods of rest and sleep that would otherwise contribute to a loss of bone density. The vibrations and contractions of a purr show a consistent pattern and frequency around 25Hz; these frequencies have been shown to improve bone density and promote healing in animal models and humans.[12][13]

title: Purr

text: All remaining species of the family Felidae (‘purring cats’) have a completely ossified hyoid, which enables them to purr but not to roar. Based on a technical acoustic definition of roaring, the presence of this vocalization type depends on specific characteristics of the vocal folds and an elongated vocal tract, which is rendered possible by an incompletely ossified hyoid.

title: Cat communication

text: It was once believed that only the cats of the genus "Felis" could purr. However, felids of the genus "Panthera" (tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards) also produce sounds similar to purring, but only when exhaling. The subdivision of the Felidae into ‘purring cats’ on the one hand and ‘roaring cats ’ (i.e. non-purring) on the other, originally goes back to Owen (1834/1835) and was definitely introduced by Pocock (1916), based on a difference in hyoid anatomy. The ‘roaring cats’ (lion, "Panthera leo"; tiger, "P. tigris"; jaguar, "P. onca"; leopard, "P. pardus") have an incompletely ossified hyoid, which according to this theory, enables them to roar but not to purr. On the other hand, the snow leopard ("Uncia uncia"), as the fifth felid species with an incompletely ossified hyoid, purrs (Hemmer, 1972). All remaining species of the family Felidae (‘purring cats’) have a completely ossified hyoid which enables them to purr but not to roar. However, Weissengruber et al. (2002) argued that the ability of a cat species to purr is not affected by the anatomy of its hyoid, i.e. whether it is fully ossified or has a ligamentous epihyoid, and that, based on a technical acoustic definition of roaring, the presence of this vocalization type depends on specific characteristics of the vocal folds and an elongated vocal tract, the latter rendered possible by an incompletely ossified hyoid.

title: Purr

text: Purring sometimes seems to be a way for cats to signal their caretakers for food. This purring has a high-frequency component not present in other purrs. This variety of purring seems to be found only in cats in a one-to-one relationship with a caretaker.[7]

title: Cat

text: Purring may have developed as an evolutionary advantage as a signalling mechanism of reassurance between mother cats and nursing kittens. Post-nursing cats often purr as a sign of contentment: when being petted, becoming relaxed, or eating. The mechanism by which cats purr is elusive. The cat has no unique anatomical feature that is clearly responsible for the sound. It was until recent times, believed that only the cats of the "Felis" genus could purr. However, felids of the genus "Panthera" (tiger, lion, jaguar, and leopard) also produce non-continuous sounds, called "chuffs", similar to purring, but only when exhaling.

title: Gua Operon

text: The repressor purR encoded by purR genes controls the synthesis of enzymes involved in purine biosynthesis. A putative 16 bp pur operator was found in the gua promoter. The purR repressor works with other co-repressors, for example guanine which is a co-repressor in "E. coli."

title: Purr (disambiguation)

text: A purr is a sound in cat communication.

title: Cat communication

text: The purr is a continuous, soft, vibrating sound made in the throat by most species of felines. Domestic kittens can purr as early as two days of age. This tonal rumbling can characterize different personalities in domestic cats. Purring is often believed to indicate a positive emotional state, but cats sometimes purr when they are ill, tense, or experiencing traumatic or painful moments such as giving birth. A more expansive definition is "purring signals a friendly social mood, and it can be given as a signal to, say, a vet from an injured cat indicating the need for friendship, or as a signal to an owner, saying thank you for friendship given."

title: Hairstyling tool

text: The brushing of a domestic animal's fur is often perceived as a mark of affection and/or a bonding experience, which can have a soothing effect, e.g. making a cat purr. Special brushes are made for cats and dogs. For an equine's tougher hair, a curry-comb is used.

title: List of Dilbert characters

text: The company's evil feline Human Resources director. Although he was originally just supposed to be around for a few strips, the fans named him and demanded more of him. He derives pleasure from seeing employees worry about their jobs, and particularly enjoys tormenting Wally. Merely mentioning the term "layoffs" causes him to purr with delight. Unlike Dogbert, Catbert has no apparent owner, but retains all of the qualities of a cat, and frequently purrs or sheds or performs other acts of "catness", which he uses to torture the employees. He is particularly cooperative and friendly with the Pointy Haired Boss.

title: Purr

text: The mechanism by which cats purr is an object of speculation. There is a unique "neural oscillator" in the cat’s brain of uncertain significance.[1]

title: June Tarpé Mills

text: During World War II, "Miss Fury" was painted on the nose of three American warplanes in Europe and the South Pacific. Two of the recurring villains were the Nazi agents Erica Von Kampf and General Bruno. Mills' own white Persian cat Perri-Purr was introduced in the strip, and during World War II Perri-Purr became an unofficial mascot of the American troops.

title: Purr by Katy Perry

text: Following the theme of the bottle's design, Purr's feline-inspired print advertisements featured Perry posing provocatively in a purple and pink cat suit. While she was shooting the commercial advert for Purr, the television show "Extra" conducted a behind-the-scenes interview with Perry about the design of the bottle. Purr was launched in November 2010 in the United Kingdom, where it was available exclusively at London's Selfridges store for one week, ahead of a national roll-out beginning November 20.

title: Purr

text: No cat can both purr and roar. The subdivision of the Felidae into "purring cats" on one hand and "roaring cats" on the other goes back to Owen (1834/1835) and was definitively introduced by Pocock (1916), based on whether the hyoid bone of the larynx is incompletely ("roarers") or completely ("purrers") ossified. However, Weissengruber et al. (2002) argued that the ability of a cat species to purr is not affected by the anatomy of its hyoid.

title: Cat communication

text:
Cats often lick other cats as allogrooming or to bond (this grooming is usually done between familiar cats). They also sometimes lick humans which may indicate affection.
Cats sometimes repeatedly tread their front paws on humans or soft objects with a kneading action. This is instinctive to cats and in adults, is presumably derived from the action used to stimulate milk let-down by the mother during nursing. Cats often purr during this behaviour, usually taken to indicate contentment and affection.

title: Cat behavior

text:
Cats rely strongly on body language to communicate. A cat may rub against an object, lick a person, and purr. Much of a cat's body language is through its tail, ears, head position, and back posture. Cats flick their tails in an oscillating, snake-like motion, or abruptly from side to side, often just before pouncing on an object or animal in what looks like "play" hunting behavior. If spoken to, a cat may flutter its tail in response, which may be the only indication of the interaction, though movement of its ears or head toward the source of the sound may be a better indication of the cat's awareness that a sound was made in their direction.
When cats greet another cat in their vicinity, they can do a slow, languid, long blink to communicate affection if they trust the person or animal they are in contact with. It is a sign of trust. A way to communicate love and trust to your cat from a human perspective is to say their name, and get their attention, and then look them the eyes and slowly blink at them to emulate trust and love, and they may return the gesture.

title: Cat intelligence

text: Bergler, Reinhold "Man and Cat: The Benefits of Cat Ownership" Blackwell Scientific Publications (1989) Bradshaw, John W S "The Behaviour of the Domestic Cat" C A B International (1992) Hobhouse, L T Mind in Evolution MacMillan, London (1915) Turner, Dennis C, and Patrick Bateson. "The Domestic Cat: The Biology of Its Behaviour" Cambridge University Press (1988) Neville, Peter "Claws and Purrs" Sidgwick & Jackson (1992) Neville, Peter "Do Cats Need Shrinks" Sidgwick & Jackson (1990)

title: Carolina Panthers

text: Sir Purr, an anthropomorphic black cat who wears a jersey numbered '00', has been the Panthers' mascot since their first season. During games, Sir Purr provides sideline entertainment through skits and "silly antics". The mascot participates in a number of community events year-round, including a monthly visit to the patients at Levine Children's Hospital. Sir Purr also hosts the annual Mascot Bowl, an event which pits pro and college mascots against each other during halftime at a selected Panthers home game.

title: Cat communication

text: The mechanism of how cats purr is elusive. This is partly because cats do not have a unique anatomical feature that is clearly responsible for this vocalization. One hypothesis, supported by electromyographic studies, is that cats produce the purring noise by using the vocal folds and/or the muscles of the larynx to alternately dilate and constrict the glottis rapidly, causing air vibrations during inhalation and exhalation. Combined with the steady inhalation and exhalation as the cat breathes, a purring noise is produced with strong harmonics. Purring is sometimes accompanied by other sounds, though this varies between individuals. Some may only purr, while other cats also emit low level outbursts sometimes described as "lurps" or "yowps".


query: What Arabic dialects are spoken in Saudi Arabia?

title: Peninsular Arabic

text: Peninsular Arabic, or Southern Arabic, are the varieties of Arabic spoken throughout the Arabian Peninsula. This includes the countries of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Southern Iraq and the tribal people of Jordan (the native Jordanians).

title: Hejaz

text: Historically, the Hejaz has always seen itself as separate from the rest of Saudi Arabia. The Hejaz is the most populated region in Saudi Arabia; 35% of all Saudis live there. Hejazi Arabic is the most widely spoken dialect in the region. Saudi Hejazis are of ethnically diverse origins.

title: Culture of Saudi Arabia

text:
The Saudi–Yemen barrier was constructed by Saudi Arabia against an influx of illegal immigrants and against the smuggling of drugs and weapons.
A 2004 law passed by Saudi Arabia's Council of Ministers, entitles Muslim expatriates of all nationalities (except Palestinian) who have resided in the kingdom for ten years to apply for citizenship with priority being given to holders of degrees in various scientific fields. (The estimated 240,000 Palestinians living in Saudi Arabia are excluded, because of Arab League agreement instructions barring the Arab states from granting them citizenship of another Arab state.)

title: Peninsular Arabic

text: Yemeni Arabic, displays a past conjugation with the very archaic -k suffix, as in southern Semitic languages. It has to be noted that the dialect of Aden has /ɡʲ/ > [ɡ] as in Cairo. Hejazi Arabic, spoken in Saudi Arabia along the coast of the Red Sea, especially in the cities of Mecca and Jeddah. Strictly speaking, there are two distinct dialects spoken in the Hejaz region, one by the Bedouin rural population and another by the urban population. However, the term most often applies to the urban variety, spoken in cities such as Jeddah, Mecca, and Yanbu. Najdi Arabic, spoken in the center of the peninsula in Saudi Arabia and is characterized by a shift of /q/ to [dz] and /k/ to [ts]. Gulf Arabic (including Omani Arabic, Dhofari Arabic and Shihhi Arabic), spoken in the coast of the Persian Gulf. Bahrani Arabic, spoken in Bahrain and Oman. The dialect of Syrian Desert nomads, with the characteristic feature of /q/ > [dz] and /k/ > [ts].

title: Al Bahah

text: It is claimed by some Arab authors that the dialect of Belad Ghamid and Zahran (Now known as Al Baha province in Saudi Arabia) is nearest to classical Arabic. Ahmed Abdul Ghafur Attar (Arabic : احمد عبدالغفور عطار ) has said in an article* that the language of the Hejaz (Arabic لهجات الحجاز), especially that which is spoken in Belad Ghamdi and Zahran is close to the Classical Language.

title: Tourism in the Arab world

text: The peninsula's constituent countries are (clockwise north to south) Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, Yemen on the south and Saudi Arabia at the center. The island nation of Bahrain lies off the east coast of the peninsula. Six countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), also known as the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the greater part of the peninsula. The majority of the population of the peninsula live in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen.

title: Yemeni Arabic

text: Yemeni Arabic is a cluster of varieties of Arabic spoken in Yemen, southwestern Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Djibouti. It is generally considered a very conservative dialect cluster, having many classical features not found across most of the Arabic-speaking world.

title: 2018 AFC Champions League group stage

text: In light of the deterioration of Iran–Saudi Arabia relations since 2016, which caused matches between teams from Iran and Saudi Arabia to be played on neutral venues in 2016 and 2017, and the Qatar diplomatic crisis since 2017, which led to travel bans imposed by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates to Qatar, the AFC reiterated that matches should be played on a home-and-away basis as normal instead of on neutral venues, and would try to mediate the situation with the concerned associations (Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates), such that a solution could be found regarding matches between teams from Iran/Qatar and Saudi Arabia/United Arab Emirates. In the end, the same arrangements were made as of the previous season, where matches between Iran and Saudi Arabia were played on neutral venues, while teams from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates must travel to Qatar to play away matches.

title: Najd

text: The people of Najd have spoken Arabic, in one form or another, for practically all of recorded history. As in other regions of the Peninsula, there is a divergence between the dialect of the nomadic Bedouins and the dialect of the sedentary townspeople. The variation, however, is far less pronounced in Najd than it is elsewhere in the country, and the Najdi sedentary dialect seems to be descended from the Bedouin dialect, just as most sedentary Najdis are descendants of nomadic Bedouins themselves. The Najdi dialect is seen by some to be the least foreign-influenced of all modern Arabic dialects, due to the isolated location and harsh climate of the Najdi plateau, as well as the apparent absence of any substratum from a previous language. Indeed, not even the ancient South Arabian language appears to have been widely spoken in Najd in ancient times, unlike southern Saudi Arabia, for example. Within Najd itself, the different regions and towns have their own distinctive accents and sub-dialects. However, these have largely merged in recent times and have become heavily influenced by Arabic dialects from other regions and countries. This is particularly the case in Riyadh.

title: Bahrani Arabic

text: Bahrani Arabic (also known as Bahrani and Baharna Arabic) is a variety of Arabic spoken in Eastern Arabia and Oman. In Bahrain, the dialect is primarily spoken in Shia villages and some parts of Manama.

title: Eastern Arabia

text: The Arab states of the Persian Gulf are solely Eastern Arabia, the borders of the Arabic-speaking Gulf do not extend beyond Eastern Arabia. The modern-day states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and UAE are the archetypal Gulf Arab states. Saudi Arabia is often considered a Gulf Arab state although most Saudis do not live in Eastern Arabia.

title: Eastern Arabia

text: The Arabs of Eastern Arabia speak a dialect known as Gulf Arabic. Most Saudis do not speak Gulf Arabic because most Saudis do not live in Eastern Arabia. There are approximately 2 million Gulf Arabic speakers in Saudi Arabia, mostly in the coastal eastern region. Before the GCC was formed in 1981, the term "Khaleeji" was solely used to refer to the inhabitants of Eastern Arabia.

title: Mesopotamian Arabic

text: Both the Gelet and the Qeltu varieties of Iraqi Arabic are spoken in Syria, the former is spoken on the Euphrates east of Aleppo and in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia, Khuzestan Province, Iran and across the border in Turkey.

title: Saudi Arabia

text: The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic. The three main regional variants spoken by Saudis are Hejazi Arabic (about 6 million speakers), Najdi Arabic (about 8 million speakers), and Gulf Arabic (about 0.2 million speakers). Saudi Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community. The large expatriate communities also speak their own languages, the most numerous of which are Tagalog (700,000), Rohingya (400,000), Urdu (380,000), Egyptian Arabic (300,000), and Indonesian (250,000).

title: Culture of Eastern Arabia

text: A number of different dialects of Arabic are spoken in the region, including Gulf Arabic and Bahrani Arabic. The Lurs language of Kumzari is also spoken by Omani people of Musandam Peninsula. Kumzari is the only Iranian language native to the Arab world.

title: Palatalization (sound change)

text: Some modern Arabic varieties developed palatalization of ك (turning into , , , or ) and ق (turning into or ), usually when adjacent to front vowel, though these palatalizations also occurred in other environments as well. These two palatalizations occur in a variety of dialects, including Iraqi, rural Palestinian varieties, a number of Gulf Arabic dialects, such as Kuwaiti, Qatari, Bahraini, and Emarati, as well as others in the Arab peninsula like Najdi, the southern dialects of Saudi Arabia, and various Bedouin dialects. Examples:Palatalization occurs in the pronunciation of the second person feminine singular pronoun in those dialects. For instance :

title: Hejazi Arabic

text: Hejazi Arabic or Hijazi Arabic ( '), also known as West Arabian Arabic, is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Hejaz region in Saudi Arabia. Strictly speaking, there are two main groups of dialects spoken in the Hejaz region, one by the urban population, originally spoken in the major cities of Jeddah, Mecca and Medina, and another by the Bedouin or rural populations. However, the term most often applies to the urban variety which is discussed in this article.

title: Saudis

text: Saudi Arabians ( "Suʿūdiyyūn"), or Saudis are a nation composed mainly of various regional ethnic groups who are native to the Arabian Peninsula including Hejazis, Najdis, Hassawis, Southern Arabs and others including non-Arabs, who share a common general Saudi culture and a Saudi nationality. Saudis speak one of the accents and dialects of the Peninsular Arabic, including the Hejazi, Najdi, Gulf and Southern Arabic dialects (which includes Bareqi), as a mother tongue. According to the 2010 census, Saudi nationals represented approximately 19,335,377 making up 74.1% of the total population. Saudi Arabia is a state governed by absolute monarchy, with the king as its head of state.

title: Sudan

text: Sudanese Arabic is the most widely spoken language in the country. It is the variety of Arabic, an Afroasiatic language of the Semitic branch spoken throughout Sudan. The dialect has borrowed much vocabulary from local Nilo-Saharan languages (Nobiin, Fur, Zaghawa, Mabang). This has resulted in a variety of Arabic that is unique to Sudan, reflecting the way in which the country has been influenced by Nilotic, Arab, and western cultures. Few nomads in Sudan still have similar accents to the ones in Saudi Arabia. Other important languages include Beja (Bedawi) along the Red Sea, with perhaps 2 million speakers. It is the only language from the Afroasiatic family's Cushitic branch that is today spoken in the territory.

title: Pluricentric language

text:
Pre-Islamic Arabic can be considered a polycentric language. In Arabic-speaking countries different levels of polycentricity can be detected.
Modern Arabic is a pluricentric language with varying branches correlating with different regions where Arabic is spoken and the type of communities speaking it. The vernacular varieties of Arabic include Gulf Arabic (spoken in the Persian Gulf kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait), Iraqi Arabic, Levantine Arabic (spoken in Levantine countries of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine), Egyptian Arabic, Sudanese Arabic, and Maghrebi Arabic (spoken in Northwestern Africa), among many others. In addition, many speakers use Modern Standard Arabic in education and formal settings. Therefore, in Arabic-speaking communities, diglossia is frequent.

title: Gulf Arabic

text: Gulf varieties' closest related relatives are other dialects native to the Arabian Peninsula, i.e. Najdi Arabic and Bahrani Arabic. Although spoken over much of Saudi Arabia's area, Gulf Arabic is not the native tongue of most Saudis, as the majority of them do not live in Eastern Arabia. There are some 200,000 Gulf Arabic speakers in the country, out of a population of over 30 million, mostly in the aforementioned Eastern Province.

title: Gulf Arabic

text: Gulf Arabic ( ' or ', ) is a variety of the Arabic language spoken in Eastern Arabia around the coasts of the Persian Gulf in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, as well as parts of eastern Saudi Arabia (Eastern Province), southern Iraq (Basra Governorate and Muthanna Governorate), and south Iran (Bushehr Province and Hormozgan Province) and northern Oman.

title: Najdi Arabic

text: Najdi Arabic () is a variety of Arabic spoken in the Najd region of Saudi Arabia.

title: Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia

text: The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic. The three main regional variants spoken by Saudis are Hejazi Arabic, Najdi Arabic, and Gulf Arabic. There are approximately 2 million Gulf Arabic speakers in Saudi Arabia, and the dialect is only spoken in the Eastern Province. The remaining Arabic speakers in the province speak one of the other two dialects, more commonly the Najdi dialect. Saudi Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community. The large expatriate communities also speak their own languages, the most numerous of which are Indian languages, Filipino/Tagalog, Egyptian Arabic, Indonesian, Rohingya, and Urdu.Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil producing company of Saudi Arabia, is based in Dhahran, which is located in the Eastern Province, and most decisions on oil policy and production that affect the global economy are made there. The kingdom's main oil and gas fields are mostly located in the Eastern Province, onshore and offshore. Notable among these are the Ghawar Field and the largest crude increment in the world. Petroleum from the fields is shipped to dozens of countries from the oil port of Ras Tanura and is also used as feedstock in numerous industrial plants in Jubail.

title: Saudi Arabia–United Arab Emirates relations

text: Saudi Arabia – United Arab Emirates relations refers to the current and historical relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia maintains an embassy in Abu Dhabi and a consulate in Dubai while the U.A.E. has an embassy in Riyadh and consulate in Jeddah. Both countries are neighbours and as part of the Middle East and Persian Gulf region, share extensive political and cultural ties.

title: Sudanese Arabic

text: Sudanese Arabic is the variety of Arabic spoken throughout Sudan and in parts of Eritrea. Some of the tribes in Sudan still have similar accents to the ones in Saudi Arabia.

title: Bareqi Arabic

text: Bareqi Arabic () is the variety of Arabic spoken in Bareq, Saudi Arabia. It is spoken in many towns and villages in that wadi.

title: Northwest Arabian Arabic

text: Northwest Arabian Arabic is a variety of Arabic spoken by Bedouins of the Sinai Peninsula, the Negev, southern Jordan, and the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia. In the eastern desert of Egypt, the dialect of the Maʿāzah borders the dialect of the ʿAbābdah, who speak a dialect more closely related to Sudanese Arabic.

title: Mashriqi Arabic

text: It is widely spoken in countries west of Iran and east of Saudi Arabia, such as in Iraq and Kuwait. It is somewhat different from Peninsular Arabic or Egyptian Arabic.

title: Rashaida people

text: The Rashaida, Rashaayda or "Bani Rashid" () is a tribe of ethnic Bedouin Arabs descending from Banu Abs native to the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. They currently inhabit Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Palestine, Jordan, Eritrea, Sudan, Libya and Tunisia. In 1846, many Rashaida migrated from the Hejaz region in present-day Saudi Arabia into what is now Sudan, Kuwait, Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates and Western Malaysia after tribal warfare had broken out in their homeland. They are present in other Arab countries too, such as Egypt, Libya, Palestine. Large numbers of Bani Rasheed are also found on the Arabian Peninsula.


query: When did Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī die?

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Zechariah (Yaḥya) al-Ḍāhirī (Hebrew: זכריה אלצ'אהרי, pronounced[zekharˈyah al-dhahˈiri], b. circa 1531 – d. 1608), often spelled Zechariah al-Dhahiri (Arabic: زكريا الضاهري) (16th century Yemen), was the son of Saʻīd (Saʻadia) al-Ḍāhirī, from Kawkaban, in the District of al-Mahwit, Yemen,[1] a place north-west of Sana’a. He is recognized as one of the most gifted Yemenite Jewish poets and rabbinic scholars who left Yemen in search of a better livelihood, travelling to Calicut and Cochin in India, Hormuz in Persia, Basra and Irbīl in Babylonia, Bursa and Istanbul in Anatolia, Rome in Italy, Aleppo and Damascus in Syria, Safed and Tiberias, as well as Jerusalem and Hebron in the Land of Israel (then part of Ottoman Syria), Sidon in Ottoman Lebanon and Egypt, and finally unto Abyssinia where he returned to Yemen by crossing the Erythraean Sea and alighting at a port city near Mocha, Yemen. He wrote extensively about his travels and experiences in these places, which he penned in a Hebrew rhymed prose narrative, and eventually publishing them in a book which he called Sefer Ha-Mūsar (The Book of Moral Instruction), in circa 1580.

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Al-Ḍāhirī mentions that the community was visited in 1595 – some twenty-seven years after their imprisonment had begun – by an emissary of the rabbis in the Land of Israel, Rabbi Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq Ashkenazi, who had been sent there with many books and with letters of recommendation to raise money for the poor in the Land of Israel.[20] Al-Ḍāhirī, however, deemed it necessary to explain in a letter addressed to the said emissary that the Jewish people in Yemen were too poor themselves to render any assistance to their brothers in the Land of Israel. Scholars of comparative Arabic-Hebrew literature are quick to point out that these hardships facing the Jewish community in Yemen often gave rise to messianic aspirations in al-Ḍāhirī's rhymed prose.[21]

title: Tetzaveh

text: The Mishnah reported that with the death of the former prophets, the Urim and Thummim ceased. In this connection, the Gemara reported differing views of who the former prophets were. Rav Huna said they were David, Samuel, and Solomon. Rav Nachman said that during the days of David, they were sometimes successful and sometimes not (getting an answer from the Urim and Thummim), for Zadok consulted it and succeeded, while Abiathar consulted it and was not successful, as reports, "And Abiathar went up." (He retired from the priesthood because the Urim and Thummim gave him no reply.) Rabbah bar Samuel asked whether the report of "And he (King Uzziah of Judah) set himself to seek God all the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the vision of God," did not refer to the Urim and Thummim. But the Gemara answered that Uzziah did so through Zechariah's prophecy. A Baraita told that when the first Temple was destroyed, the Urim and Thummim ceased, and explained (reporting events after the Jews returned from the Babylonian Captivity), "And the governor said to them that they should not eat of the most holy things till there stood up a priest with Urim and Thummim," as a reference to the remote future, as when one speaks of the time of the Messiah. Rav Nachman concluded that the term "former prophets" referred to a period before Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who were latter prophets. And the Jerusalem Talmud taught that the "former prophets" referred to Samuel and David, and thus the Urim and Thummim did not function in the period of the First Temple, either.

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Kiddush on the Night of Sabbath, by Rabbi Zechariah al-Dhahiri (סדר קידוש לילי שבת לרבי זכריה אלצ'אהרי), Yosef Tobi, in: Afiqim: Journal of Spiritual Awakening and Culture (October 1978), Tel-Aviv; pp.10–11 (Hebrew)

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: The early Spanish poets of the Golden Age, Moses ibn Ezra (b. circa 1060), Alḥarizi (1170–1235), Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (c. 1089–1167), Solomon ibn Gabirol (c. 1020–1058), Judah Halevi (died 1150), among others, had all left an indelible mark on Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī.[23] Some of the greatest exponents of Jewish law had also come from Spain, namely, Maimonides and Alfasi. Other proponents of Jewish law from the Spanish Jewish exiles who were expelled from Spain began to make a name for themselves in the Land of Israel where they had come. Neither al-Ḍāhirī, nor the people of Yemen, were oblivious to this. Al-Ḍāhirī patterns his Sefer Ha`anaḳ (A treatise on Hebrew homonyms) after a work by a similar name written by Moses ibn Ezra. Al-Ḍāhirī's frequent mention of Sephardic prayer rites and customs in his Ṣeidah la’derekh leads one to conclude that al-Ḍāhirī was strongly influenced by the Spanish-rite Siddur (Sephardic Prayer Book), as he brings down portions of its layout in the biblical sections known as Parashat Ṣav and Breishit.[24] So, too, the author shows the influence of kabbalistic practices on his writings, such as where he devotes several chapters to theosophical Kabbalah in his Sefer Ha-Mūsar,[25] and where he brings down in his Ṣeidah la’derekh an esoteric teaching relating to the blowing of the ram's horn on New Year's Day and which practice is cited in the name of the illustrious Rabbi, Moses Cordovero.[26] In another place, al-Ḍāhirī makes mention of the Sephardic practice where some will refrain from shaving their heads during the Counting of the Omer, while others prohibit the shaving of the head from the beginning of the counting until the thirty-third day of the Counting of the Omer. Here, incidentally, it is alluded that the Yemenite Jewish custom in this regard was different.[27] Even so, al-Ḍāhirī levels harsh words of criticism against Spanish Jewry's lack of poetic style in their daily communications and belles lettres, which, by that time, had mostly been lost by them.[28]

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: In Safed, al-Ḍāhirī also met-up with other great rabbis, such as Rabbi Moses Cordovero, the kabbalist, and Rabbi Moses di Trani.[33]

title: Zechariah (priest)

text: As a gift from God, Zechariah was given a son named "Yaḥyá" (, identified with John the Baptist), a name specially chosen for this child alone. Muslim tradition narrates that Zechariah was ninety-two years old when he was told of John's birth.

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Zechariah (Yaḥya) al-Ḍāhirī visited Rabbi Joseph Karo's yeshiva in Safed, in circa 1567 CE (the kabbalistic philosophies of which he describes in Maimonidean, neo-Platonic terms rather than purely mystical, theosophical, or sefirotic),[29] writing of his impressions on this wise:[30]

title: Pinechas (parsha)

text: The Mishnah reported that with the death of the former prophets, the Urim and Thummim ceased. In this connection, the Gemara reported differing views of who the former prophets were. Rav Huna said they were David, Samuel, and Solomon. Rav Nachman said that during the days of David, they were sometimes successful and sometimes not (getting an answer from the Urim and Thummim), for Zadok consulted it and succeeded, while Abiathar consulted it and was not successful, as reports, "And Abiathar went up." (He retired from the priesthood because the Urim and Thummim gave him no reply.) Rabbah bar Samuel asked whether the report of 2 Chronicles "And he (King Uzziah of Judah) set himself to seek God all the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the vision of God," did not refer to the Urim and Thummim. But the Gemara answered that Uzziah did so through Zechariah's prophecy. A Baraita told that when the first Temple was destroyed, the Urim and Thummim ceased, and explained (reporting events after the Jews returned from the Babylonian Captivity), "And the governor said to them that they should not eat of the most holy things till there stood up a priest with Urim and Thummim," as a reference to the remote future, as when one speaks of the time of the Messiah. Rav Nachman concluded that the term "former prophets" referred to a period before Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who were latter prophets. And the Jerusalem Talmud taught that the "former prophets" referred to Samuel and David, and thus the Urim and Thummim did not function in the period of the First Temple, either.

title: Zechariah of Israel

text: The account of his reign is briefly told in "2 Kings" (). According to the Bible, Zechariah did what was evil in the Lord's sight, as the previous kings of Israel since Jeroboam ben Nebat had done. Zechariah ruled Israel for only six months before Shallum, a captain from his own army, murdered him and took the throne. This ended the dynasty of Jehu after four generations of his descendants, fulfilling the prophecy in .

title: Book of Zechariah

text: Zechariah 1–8, sometimes referred to as First Zechariah, was written in the 6th century BC. Zechariah 9–14, often called Second Zechariah, contains within the text no datable references to specific events or individuals but most scholars give the text a date in the fifth century BCE. Second Zechariah, in the opinion of some scholars, appears to make use of the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the Deuteronomistic History, and the themes from First Zechariah. This has led some to believe that the writer(s) or editor(s) of Second Zechariah may have been a disciple of the prophet Zechariah. There are some scholars who go even further and divide Second Zechariah into Second Zechariah (9–11) and Third Zechariah (12–14) since each begins with a heading oracle.

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: The author, while writing about his journeys and experiences, cleverly conceals his own identity while narrating his experiences, and describes the experiences of two men in their journey, the two chief protagonists of his travel narrative: Mordechai Haṣidonī and his old crony, Abner ben Ḥeleḳ the Yemenite, which men are, in fact, the author himself.[9] Some scholars had originally thought that the book was largely fictional because of this anomaly. However, modern Israeli scholars now agree that the author was referring to himself in concealed terms (his alter ego), just as he says explicitly about himself in the Introduction to his book, Sefer Ha-Mūsar. The numerical value of these two names (in Hebrew) is equal to his own real name. This remarkable literary work interweaves folktales, animal fables, riddles, poems, epistles, and travel accounts with pious admonitions, religious polemics, messianic speculations, and philosophical disquisitions in a most engaging fashion.[10] It is not uncommon for al-Ḍāhirī to repeat episodes of his travel narrative, or some important event which happened to the Jewish community of Yemen, in more than one of the book's forty-five chapters.

title: Yemenite Jewish poetry

text: There is to be noted in Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī's ("circa" 1531 – d. 1608) poetic style a marked transition from the early Spanish-type of poetry typical of Yemen prior to his time (depicted in the prosaic writings of Daniel berav Fayyūmī and Avraham b. Ḥalfon, both, of Yemenite Jewish provenance) and the later classical Yemenite poetic writings (as depicted in the liturgical poems composed by Yosef ben Israel and Shalom Shabazi). Unlike the latter who compiled works, both, in Hebrew and in Judeo-Arabic, al-Ḍāhirī's corpus of prosaic writings are written almost exclusively in Hebrew. Much of al-Ḍāhirī's poetry was inspired by the great Spanish poets, while other works are said to have been inspired by Immanuel of Rome. Some of al-Ḍāhirī's poems are panegyrics influenced by the Arabic "madiḥ", in praise of great Jewish scholars, such as Rabbeinu Yerucham (1290-1350), a Provençal rabbi who moved to Spain in 1306, following the expulsion of the Jews from France. Other panegyrics were written about Rabbi Obadiah di Bertinoro (c. 1445-1515) and Maimonides.

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Sometimes the poet deviates from what is proper usage for a given noun, verb or adjective and changes the word's suffix in order to bring it into conformity with the rhyme.[42] Most scholars agree that al-Ḍāhirī's greatest achievement is not just in his making use of rhymes, but rather in his ability to interweave biblical verse and rabbinic sayings taken from the Talmud and Midrash within those same strophes, which, by Jewish literary standards, is the true sign of genius.[43]

title: Angels in Judaism

text: In the Book of Zechariah, Joshua was standing before the angel of the Lord, and God. (Zechariah 3:3) He was “dressed in filthy clothes” when standing before them. The angel then commanded him to take off his filthy clothing and gave him “festal apparel” and a clean turban to put on. At the removal of Zechariah's filthy clothing, the angel proclaimed, “See, I have taken your guilt away from you.” (Zechariah 3: 4-5) Thus, the removal of Joshua's filthy clothing was like healing him from his guilt.[7]

title: Moses the Black

text: A different story of Abba (Father) Moses' death is related in "The Paradise of the Holy Fathers":31. Abba Poemen said: Abba Moses asked Abba Zechariah a question when he was about to die, and said unto him, "Father, is it good that we should hold our peace?" And Zechariah said unto him, "Yea, my son, hold thy peace." And at the time of his death, whilst Abba Isidore was sitting with him, Abba Moses looked up to heaven, and said, "Rejoice and be glad, O my son Zechariah, for the gates of heaven have been opened."

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Upon Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī's return to Yemen in 1568, during the Turkish-Yemeni wars, al-Ḍāhirī was imprisoned in Sana’a, along with other principal persons of the Jewish community, for a period of one year in earnest by the lame theocratic ruler, al-Imām al-Mutahhar b. al-Mutawakkil Yaḥya Sharaf ad-Din, who allegedly suspected them of collaborating with the enemy.[12] Al-Ḍāhirī, writing about this experience, says that he saw his own suffering as God's way of punishing him for his having left the Land of Israel and returning to Yemen.[13] It was during this time that he began to write his momentous work, Sefer Ha-Mūsar – a record of his travel experiences, at the age of thirty-seven, although it was completed several decades later.[14] After the community's release from prison, the lame king still kept a firm grip upon his Jewish subjects, scattering them in different places throughout the country where they were kept under close-surveillance while working in the many towers built in that country.[15] This close-surveillance continued unabated until the king's death in 1573.[16] After the king's death, the Jews of Yemen were released from their incarceration by the succeeding ruler, who had borne a grudge against the former king and had destroyed his heirs to the throne. It was during this confinement to the towers (between 1569-1573) that Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī also completed another momentous work, which he composed mainly in the late hours of the night, viz., the book, Ṣeidah la’derekh (Victuals for the Road),[17] being a commentary on the Pentateuch where he interweaves kabbalistic themes and philosophy drawn from the Zohar, Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, Yosef Albo's Sefer Ha`iqarim and Rabbi Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla’s Sha'are Orah. He mentions that during the period of this book's compilation, he and his family were not permitted to leave the tower except with prior consent of his overseers.[18] It was at this time that al-Ḍāhirī made a vow to return to the Holy Land, after he had performed a pending vow.[19] It is uncertain whether or not he ever made the return trip.

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: The book is one of the finest examples of Hebrew literary genius ever written in Yemen, its author making use of a poetic genre known as maqāma,[2] a prosimetric literary genre of rhymed prose with intervals of poetry in which rhetorical extravagance is conspicuous, to describe his journeys. The vocalization of Sefer Ha-Mūsar gives insight unto scholars into Yemenite Hebrew pronunciation. Al-Ḍāhirī, who is clearly very adept in the Hebrew tongue, admits to having modeled his own poetry – two-hundred and seventy-five of which poems are found in his Sefer Ha-Mūsar and in his Sefer Haʻanaḳ – on the Hebrew work Taḥkemoni of Alḥarizi, who, in turn, was influenced by the Arabic maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī.[3] His vivid descriptions of the town Safed and of Rabbi Joseph Karo’s yeshiva are of primary importance to historians, seeing that they are a first-hand account of these places, and the only extant account which describes the yeshiva of the great Sephardic Rabbi, Joseph Karo.[4] With his broad Jewish education and his exceptional skills in his use of the Hebrew language, Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī is an important source in the study of Jewish history in the Land of Israel during the Renaissance and of Jewish persecution in Yemen at that time.

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: There is to be noted in al-Ḍāhirī's style a marked transition from the early Spanish-type of poetry typical of Yemen prior to his time (depicted in the prosaic writings of Daniel berav Fayyūmī and Avraham b. Ḥalfon, both, of Yemenite Jewish provenance) and the later classical Yemenite poetic writings (as depicted in the liturgical poems composed by Yosef ben Israel and Shalom Shabazi).[38] Unlike the latter who compiled works, both, in Hebrew and in Judeo-Arabic, al-Ḍāhirī's corpus of prosaic writings are written almost exclusively in Hebrew.

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Zechariah Ḍāhirī is said to have been instrumental in introducing elements of the Spanish prayer-rite into Yemen, as well as kabbalistic practices.[22]

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Much of al-Ḍāhirī's poetry was inspired by the great Spanish poets, while other works are said to have been inspired by Immanuel of Rome.[39] Some of al-Ḍāhirī's poems are panegyrics influenced by the Arabic madiḥ, in praise of great Jewish scholars, such as Rabbeinu Yerucham (1290-1350),[40] a Provençal rabbi who moved to Spain in 1306, following the expulsion of the Jews from France. Other panegyrics were written about Rabbi Obadiah di Bertinoro (c. 1445-1515) and Maimonides.[41]

title: Tzav

title: Zechariah ben Jehoiada

text: In rabbinical literature, Zechariah was the son-in-law of the king, and, being also a priest, prophet, and judge, he dared censure the monarch. He was killed in the priests' courtyard of the Temple on a Sabbath which was likewise the Day of Atonement. Later, when Nebuzar-adan, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar's body-guard, came to destroy the Temple, he saw Zechariah's blood which had been boiling since his murder. The Assyrian asked the Jews what that phenomenon meant, but when they replied that it was the blood of sacrifices, he proved the falsity of their answer. The Jews then told him the truth, and Nebuzar-adan, wishing to appease Zechariah's blood, slew in succession the Great and Small Sanhedrins, the young priests, and school-children, till the number of the dead was 940,000. Still the blood continued to boil, whereupon Nebuzar-adan cried: "Zechariah, Zechariah! for thee have I slain the best of them; wouldst thou that I destroy them all?" And at these words the blood ceased to effervesce.

title: Angels in Judaism

text: However, Daniel is only aware of this information due to the assistance of Gabriel, who teaches him the correct interpretation of his vision, and encouraging him when he falters (Daniel 8:15-27). This role of angels is mirrored in Zechariah, where angelic interpretation and teaching is necessary to unravel the bizarre visions that the prophet witnesses. In the passage, the angel literally walks through Zechariah's visions with him, explaining and teaching him as they go along so that Zechariah properly understands God's intended meaning (Zechariah 1:9-5:11).[11]

title: Book of Zechariah

text: Chapters 9–14 of the Book of Zechariah are an early example of apocalyptic literature. Although not as fully developed as the apocalyptic visions described in the Book of Daniel, the "oracles", as they are titled in Zechariah 9–14, contain apocalyptic elements. One theme these oracles contain is descriptions of the Day of the Lord, when "the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle" (Zechariah 14:3). These chapters also contain "pessimism about the present, but optimism for the future based on the expectation of an ultimate divine victory and the subsequent transformation of the cosmos".

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Little is known of the author's early life, other than the fact that he was an Israelite, descended from the Tribe of Reuben.[5] Al-Ḍāhirī spent at least ten years in his travels away from his native Yemen, where he had left behind a wife and children. He writes of himself that he married a second wife in Cochin (India), being a place of Jewish converts,[6] whom he later divorced because of her old age and lack of upper-teeth.[7] He then travelled to Persia where he took another wife in marriage, which wife bare him twin sons, Joshua and Caleb, but after one year, his young bride died. It was at this time that he decided to leave Persia, leaving his two sons with his brother-in-law, and, presumably, continuing with his travels until eventually he returned home to his family in Yemen.[8] After a stint in Yemen where he and the Jewish community were imprisoned, he eventually returned to visit his sons in Persia, and found them doing well, although his brother-in-law had by that time died.

title: Denis Michael Rohan

text: Rohan, a Christian, stated that he considered himself "the Lord's emissary" and that he tried to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque acting upon divine instructions to enable the Jews of Israel to rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount in accordance with the Book of Zechariah, thereby hastening the second coming of Jesus Christ. (Rohan mistakenly believed that the al-Aqsa Mosque occupied the site of the temple, when in fact the Dome of the Rock did.)

title: Zechariah (priest)

text:
According to the Qur'an, Zechariah was the guardian of Mary. The Qur'an states:
Muslim theology maintains that Zechariah, along with John the Baptist and Jesus, ushered in a new era of prophets – all of whom came from the priestly descent of Amram, the father of the prophet Aaron. The fact that, of all the priests, it was Zechariah who was given the duty of keeping care of Mary shows his status as a pious man. Zechariah is frequently praised in the Qur'an as a prophet of God and righteous man. One such appraisal is in sura al-An'am: "And Zachariah and John and Jesus and Elias. Each one was of the righteous."

title: Zechariah (priest)

text: The duties at the temple in Jerusalem alternated between each of the family lines that had descended from those appointed by king David (). Luke states that during the week when it was the duty of Zechariah's family line to serve at "the temple of the Lord", the lot for performing the incense offering had fallen to Zechariah ().

title: Zechariah Dhahiri

text: Perhaps the book's most important contribution to historians is in al-Ḍāhirī's description of the Jewish communities in Safed and in Tiberius, during the mid-16th century, as well as a description of Jewish persecution in Yemen during the same century, under the Zaydī imamate. Modern archaeologists are grateful to Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī and credit him with giving a precise description of the location of Tiberias in the 16th century, whose city's walls adjoined the Sea of Galilee. Al-Ḍāhirī's description of Tiberius during that period conforms with that of another writer, viz., that of Rabbi Hayyim ben Joseph Vital, who also described the city's walls.[11] Al-Ḍāhirī is accredited with bringing the Shulchan Aruch to Yemen, as well as kabbalistic books, among other works, which he sold in Yemen at their face value. Other books, he recalls, had been lost at sea.


query: How big is a pysanka?

title: Vegreville egg

text: The Vegreville egg is a giant sculpture of a pysanka, a Ukrainian-style Easter egg. The work by Paul Maxum Sembaliuk is built of an intricate set of two-dimensional anodized aluminum tiles in the shape of congruent equilateral triangles and star-shaped hexagons, fashioned over an aluminum framework. The egg is 31ft (9m) long and three and a half stories high, weighing in at 2.5t (5,512lb).[1] It is the second largest pysanka in the world.[2] The biggest one was built in Kolomyia, Ukraine in 2000.[3]

title: Pysanka

text: Flowers are a common pysanka motif. They can be divided into two types: specific botanical types, and non-specific.

title: Pysanka

text: Insects are only rarely depicted on pysanky. Highly stylized spiders (and occasionally their webs) are the most common on folk pysanky, and symbolize perseverance. Beetles are sometimes seen, but rarely look anything like a beetle. What they do resemble, somewhat, is the letter Ж, as in their Ukrainian name "жучок." Other insects are sometimes seen on modern, diasporan pysanky, most commonly butterflies and bees, but seem to be a modern innovation. In Onyshchuk's "Symbolism of the Ukrainian Pysanka" she depicts pysanky with a butterfly motif, but the original design, recorded by Kulzhynsky in 1899, was labeled as being swallows' tails.

title: Pysanka

text: In modern times, the art of the pysanka was carried abroad by Ukrainian emigrants to North and South America, where the custom took hold, and concurrently banished in Ukraine by the Soviet regime (as a religious practice), where it was nearly forgotten.[6] Museum collections were destroyed both by war and by Soviet cadres.[6] Since Ukrainian Independence in 1991, there has been a rebirth of this folk art in its homeland, and a renewal of interest in the preservation of traditional designs and research into its symbolism and history.

title: Pysanka

text: The oldest "real" pysanka was excavated in L'viv in 2013,[9] and was found in a rainwater collection system that dates to the 15th or 16th century. The pysanka was written on a goose egg, which was discovered largely intact, and the design is that of a wave pattern. The second oldest known pysanka was excavated in Baturyn in 2008, and dates to the end of the 17th century. Baturyn was Hetman Mazepa's capital, and it was razed in 1708 by the armies of Peter I. A complete (but crushed) pysanka was discovered, a chicken egg shell with geometric designs against a blue-gray background.[10] The pysanka is currently being reconstructed; when completed, it will allow us to see what sort of ornamentation was in use in pre-1708 Ukraine.

title: Ruslana Pysanka

text: Pysanka is a daughter of a Soviet cinematographer. She started acting as a side career but quickly gained popularity because of her distinct look. She received roles in several well-known films as well as TV anchor jobs on different national channels.

title: Pysanka

text: The most popular pysanka designs are geometric figures. The egg itself is most often divided by straight lines into squares, triangles and other shapes. These shapes are then filled with other forms and designs. These are also among the most ancient symbols, with the решето (resheto, sieve) motif dating back to Paleolithic times. Other ancient geometric symbols are agricultural in nature: triangles, which symbolized clouds or rain; quadrilaterals, especially those with a resheto design in them, symbolized a ploughed field; dots stood for seeds.

title: Pysanka Museum

text: The museum also presents temporary exhibitions in its galleries, usually collections of folk or original pysanky by local pysankary. Other exhibits are usually related to the pysanka and Hutsul Easter traditions, but can also encompass other folk arts.

title: Pysanka

text: In a large family, by Holy Thursday, 60 or more eggs would have been completed by the women of the house. (The more daughters a family had, the more pysanky would be produced.) The eggs would then be taken to the church on Easter Sunday to be blessed, after which they were given away. Here is a partial list of how the pysanky would be used:

title: Vegreville

text: Vegreville's pysanka, the largest Ukrainian Easter egg in the world, was created to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1974 and to celebrate Vegreville's ethnic heritage. On July 6, 2009, the pysanka was one of four attractions featured on the first set of the Canadian Roadside Attractions Series of stamps issued by Canada Post.

title: Pysanka Museum

text: The museum was opened on 23 September 2000, during the 10th International Hutsul festival. Director Yaroslava Tkachuk first came up with the idea of a museum in the shape of a pysanka, local artists Vasyl Andrushko and Myroslav Yasinskyi brought the idea to life. The museum is not only shaped like an egg (14 m in height and 10 m in diameter), but parts of the exterior of and inside of the dome are painted to resemble a pysanka.

title: Pysanka

text: Birds were considered the harbingers of spring, thus they were a commonplace pysanka motif. Birds of all kinds are the messengers of the sun and heaven. Birds are always shown perched, at rest, never flying (except for swallows and, in more recent times, white doves carrying letters). Roosters are symbols of masculinity, or the coming of dawn, and hens represent fertility.

title: Pysanka

text: Everyone from the youngest to the oldest received a pysanka for Easter. Young people were given pysanky with bright designs; dark pysanky were given to older people.

title: Pysanka

text: The Hutsuls––Ukrainians who live in the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine––believe that the fate of the world depends upon the pysanka. As long as the egg writing custom continues, the world will exist. If, for any reason, this custom is abandoned, evil––in the shape of a horrible serpent who is forever chained to a cliff–– will overrun the world. Each year the serpent sends out his minions to see how many pysanky have been written. If the number is low the serpent's chains are loosened and he is free to wander the earth causing havoc and destruction. If, on the other hand, the number of pysanky has increased, the chains are tightened and good triumphs over evil for yet another year.[11]

title: Pysanka

text: Many superstitions were attached to pysanky. Pysanky were thought to protect households from evil spirits, catastrophe, lightning and fires. Pysanky with spiral motifs were the most powerful, as the demons and other unholy creatures would be trapped within the spirals forever. A blessed pysanka could be used to find demons hidden in the dark corners of your house.

title: Vegreville egg

text: The next problem was to find a technical solution for the use of the aluminum in the Pysanka's construction. Paul's first cousin, Dr. John Ruptash had also grown up in the Vegreville Area. Dr. Ruptash was at the time dean of engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa. He was an aeronautical engineer. Dr. Ruptash suggested to Paul that a computer be used to execute the technical drawings of the Pysanka. He made some phone calls and recommended to Paul an old friend of his, Dr. Ron Resch and his team of mathematicians at the University of Utah.

title: Ruslana Pysanka

text: Ruslana Pysanka () (born; "Ruslana Ihorivna Pysanko", 17 November 1965 in Kiev), is a Ukrainian actress and cinematographer.

title: Symbols of Ukrainian people

text: Pysanka is a symbol of the sun; life, his immortality; love and beauty; spring renewal; the good, happiness, joy. Every ornamental motif has a certain sacral meaning. They all together shape the painted prayer about consent and peace between people. In the Christian culture of Ukrainians, pysanka has become a symbol of resurrection. There is a Ukrainian saying: "As long as people paint pysanky, there will be love in the world".

title: Pysanka

text: With the advent of Christianity, via a process of religious syncretism, the symbolism of the egg was changed to represent, not nature's rebirth, but the rebirth of man. Christians embraced the egg symbol and likened it to the tomb from which Christ rose.[4] With the acceptance of Christianity in 988, the decorated pysanka, in time, was adapted to play an important role in Ukrainian rituals of the new religion.[5] Many symbols of the old sun worship survived and were adapted to represent Easter and Christ's Resurrection.[5]

title: Pysanka

text: A pysanka (Ukrainian: писанка, plural: pysanky) is a Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated with traditional Ukrainian folk designs using a wax-resist method. The word pysanka comes from the verb pysaty, "to write" or "to in scribe", as the designs are not painted on, but written (inscribed) with beeswax.

title: Pysanka

text: Pysanka is often taken to mean any type of decorated egg, but it specifically refers to an egg created by the written-wax batik method and utilizing traditional folk motifs and designs. Several other types of decorated eggs are seen in Ukrainian tradition, and these vary throughout the regions of Ukraine.

title: Kolomyia

text: The museum was opened on 23 September 2000, during the 10th International Hutsul festival. Director Yaroslava Tkachuk first came up with the idea of a museum in the shape of a pysanka, local artists Vasyl Andrushko and Myroslav Yasinskyi brought the idea to life. The museum is not only shaped like an egg (14 m in height and 10 m in diameter), but parts of the exterior and interior of the dome are painted to resemble a pysanka.

title: Pysanka Museum

text: The central part of the museum is in the shape of a pysanka (Ukrainian Easter egg). This is the only museum in the world dedicated to the pysanka, and it has become a calling card of the city. In August 2007 the museum was recognized as a landmark of modern Ukraine.

title: Pysanka

text: Pysanky are typically made to be given to family members and respected outsiders. To give a pysanka is to give a symbolic gift of life, which is why the egg must remain whole. Furthermore, the design, a combination of the motifs and colors on a traditional folk pysanka, has a deep, symbolic meaning. Traditionally, a pysanka given with its symbolic meaning in mind, be it wishes of protection, fecundity, or love. Typically, pysanky were displayed prominently in a public room of the house.

title: Pysanka

text: Pysanka Museum Easter egg Egg decorating in Slavic culture Pisanka

title: Pysanka

text: Each region, each village, and almost every family in Ukraine had its own special ritual, its own symbols, meanings and secret formulas for dyeing eggs. These customs were preserved faithfully and passed down from mother to daughter through generations. The custom of decorating pysanky was observed with greatest care, and a pysanka, after receiving the Easter blessing, was held to have great powers as a talisman.

title: Pysanka

text: Another ancient symbol is that of the змія or serpent, the ancient god of water and earth. The serpent could be depicted in several ways: as an "S" or sigma, as a curl or spiral, or as a wave. When depicted as a sigma, the zmiya often wears a crown. Depictions of the serpent can be found on Neolithic Trypillian pottery. The serpent symbol on a pysanka is said to bring protection from catastrophe. Spirals were particularly strong talismans, as an evil spirit, upon entering the house, would be drawn into the spiral and trapped there.

title: Pysanka Museum

text: The current Pysanka Museum building was built in 2000 in the western Ukrainian city of Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivska Oblast. Previously the pysanka collection had been housed in the Kolomyia church of the Annunciation. The museum is part of the National Museum of Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttya Folk Art.

title: Pysanka

text: The cloth used to dry pysanky was powerful, too, and could be used to cure skin diseases. And it was considered very bad luck to trample on a pysanka—God would punish anyone who did with a variety of illnesses.[12]

title: Pysanka Museum

text: Another special collection at the museum are pysankas decorated with hand-signatures by all Ukrainian presidents and most of First Ladies, and by foreign politicians who visited the museum.