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On September 30, 1987, Foster filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to patent his invented sport. The patent application covered the rules of the game, specifically detailing the goalposts and rebound netting and their impact on gameplay. Foster's application was granted on March 27, 1... |
From the 1987 season until the late 1990s, the most exposure the league would receive was on ESPN, which aired tape-delayed games, often well after midnight, and often edited to match the alloted time slot. The league received its first taste of wide exposure in 1998, when Arena Bowl XII was televised nationally as par... |
On Saturday, July 23, 1989, much of America learned of the AFL for an unintended reason, when the Pittsburgh Gladiators' head coach, Joe Haering, made football history by punching commissioner Jim Foster during a game with the Chicago Bruisers. The national media ran with the story, including a photo in USA Today. The ... |
One of the league's early success stories was the Detroit Drive. A primary team for some of the AFL's most highly regarded players, including George LaFrance and Gary and Alvin Rettig, as well as being a second career chance for quarterback Art Schlichter, the Drive regularly played before sold out crowds at Joe Louis ... |
Although the Drive moved to Massachusetts for the 1994 season, the AFL had a number of other teams which it considered "dynasties", including the Tampa Bay Storm (the only team that has existed in some form for all twenty-eight contested seasons), their arch-rival the Orlando Predators, the now-defunct San Jose SaberCa... |
In 1993, the league staged its first All-Star Game in Des Moines, Iowa, the future home of the long-running Iowa Barnstormers, as a fundraiser for flood victims in the area. The National Conference defeated the American Conference 64–40 in front of a crowd of 7,189. The second Allstar game was in Oct. 2013, with two ga... |
While some teams have enjoyed considerable on-field and even financial success, many teams in the history of the league have enjoyed little success either on or off of the field of play. There are a number of franchises which existed in the form of a number of largely-unrelated teams under numerous management groups un... |
The year 2000 brought heightened interest in the AFL. Then-St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner, who was MVP of Super Bowl XXXIV, was first noticed because he played quarterback for the AFL's Iowa Barnstormers. While many sports commentators and fans continued to ridicule the league, Warner's story gave the league po... |
In 2003, the season expanded to 16 games. There were also several rule changes in this period. In 2005, players were no longer allowed to run out of bounds. The only way for a player to go out of bounds presently is if he is tackled into or deliberately contacts the side boards. This was also the first year the ArenaBo... |
After 12 years as commissioner of the AFL, David Baker retired unexpectedly on July 25, 2008, just two days before ArenaBowl XXII; deputy commissioner Ed Policy was named interim commissioner until Baker's replacement was found. Baker explained, "When I took over as commissioner, I thought it would be for one year. It ... |
In October 2008, Tom Benson announced that the New Orleans VooDoo were ceasing operations and folding "based on circumstances currently affecting the league and the team". Shortly thereafter, an article in Sports Business Journal announced that the AFL had a tentative agreement to sell a $100 million stake in the leagu... |
Because of the sudden loss of the New Orleans franchise, the league announced in October that the beginning of the free agency period would be delayed in order to accommodate a dispersal draft. Dates were eventually announced as December 2 for the dispersal draft and December 4 for free agency, but shortly before the d... |
Although the Arenafootball2 league played its tenth season in 2009, a conference call in December 2008 resulted in enough votes from owners and cooperation from the AFLPA for the AFL to suspend the entire 2009 season in order to create "a long-term plan to improve its economic model". In doing so, the AFL became the se... |
High hopes for the AFL waned when interim commissioner Ed Policy announced his resignation, citing the obsolescence of his position in the reformatted league. Two weeks later, the Los Angeles Avengers announced that they were formally folding the franchise. One month later, the league missed the deadline to formally ra... |
On July 20, 2009, Sports Business Journal reported that the AFL owed approximately $14 million to its creditors and were considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In early August 2009, numerous media outlets began reporting that the AFL was folding permanently and would file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The... |
Following the suspension of the AFL's 2009 season, league officials and owners of af2 (which had played its season as scheduled) began discussing the future of arena football and the two leagues. With its 50.1 percent ownership of af2, the AFL's bankruptcy and dissolution prompted the dissolution of af2 as well. That l... |
All assets of the Arena Football League were put up for auction. On November 11, 2009, the new league announced its intention to purchase the entire assets of the former AFL; the assets included the team names and logos of all but one of the former AFL and af2 teams. The lone exception was that of the Dallas Desperados... |
On February 17, 2010, AF1 announced it would use the "Arena Football League" name. The league announced plans for the upcoming season and details of its contract with NFL Network to broadcast AFL games in 2010. AF1 teams were given the option of restoring historical names to their teams. In addition to the historical t... |
For the 2011 season, the Philadelphia Soul, Kansas City Brigade, San Jose SaberCats, New Orleans VooDoo, and the Georgia Force returned to the AFL after having last played in 2008. However, the Grand Rapids Rampage, Colorado Crush, Columbus Destroyers, Los Angeles Avengers, and the New York Dragons did not return. The ... |
In 2012, the AFL celebrated its silver anniversary for its 25th season of operations. The season kicked off on March 9, 2012. The Tulsa Talons moved to San Antonio, Texas and Jeffrey Vinik became owner of the Tampa Bay Storm. The Dallas Vigilantes were left off the schedule for the 2012 season with no announcement from... |
It was announced on December 12, 2012, that the AFL reached a partnership agreement with NET10 Wireless to be the first non-motorsports-related professional sports league in the United States to have a title sponsor, renaming it the NET10 Wireless Arena Football League. The redesigned website showed the new logo which ... |
In 2013, the league expanded with the addition of two new franchises to play in 2014, the Los Angeles Kiss (owned by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of the legendary rock band Kiss) and the Portland Thunder. |
In 2014, the league announced the granting of a new franchise to former Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil, previously part-owner of the Jacksonville Sharks. That franchise, the Las Vegas Outlaws, were originally to play in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in 2015, but instead played their home games at the Thomas ... |
Jerry Kurz also stepped down as commissioner of the AFL as he was promoted to be the AFL's first president. Former Foxwoods CEO Scott Butera was hired as his successor as commissioner. |
On August 9, 2015, ESPN reported that the New Orleans VooDoo and Las Vegas Outlaws had ceased operations, effective immediately, a claim which was subsequently validated on the AFL website. On September 1, 2015, the Spokane Shock officially left the AFL and joined the IFL under the new name Spokane Empire, becoming the... |
Rumors began swirling with regards to bringing the AFL back to Austin and San Antonio, Texas. Both cities have hosted franchises in the past (Austin Wranglers, San Antonio Force and San Antonio Talons), but an AFL spokesman, BJ Pickard, was quoted as saying, "News to me." Announcements have yet to be made on any sort o... |
On November 12, the league announced the defending champion San Jose SaberCats would be ceasing operations due to "reasons unrelated to League operations". A statement from the league indicated that the AFL is working to secure new, long-term owners for the franchise. This leaves the AFL with eight teams for 2016. |
On January 6, 2016, the league took over "ownership and operational control" of the Portland Thunder from its previous owners. The AFL stated this move was made after months of trying work out an arrangement "to provide financial and operational support." On February 3, 2016, it was announced that the franchise will st... |
The league's 2016 schedule, announced on the league's website on December 10, 2015, shows an eight-team league playing a 16-game regular season over 18 weeks, with two bye weeks for each team, one on a rotational basis and the other a "universal bye" for all teams during the Independence Day weekend, the first weekend ... |
From the league's inception through ArenaBowl XVIII, the championship game was played at the home of the highest-seeded remaining team. The AFL then switched to a neutral-site championship, with ArenaBowls XIX and XX in Las Vegas. New Orleans Arena, home of the New Orleans VooDoo, served as the site of ArenaBowl XXI on... |
The practice of playing one or two preseason exhibition games by each team before the start of the regular season was discontinued when the NBC contract was initiated, and the regular season was extended from 14 games, the length that it had been since 1996, to 16 from 2001 to 2010, and since 2016. From 2011 to 2015, t... |
In August 2012, the AFL announced a new project into China, known as the China American Football League. The CAFL project is headed up by ESPN NFL analyst and Philadelphia Soul majority owner president Ron Jaworski. The plans were to establish a six-team league that would play a 10-week schedule that was slated to star... |
AFL Global and Ganlan Media were created in 2012 by businessman Martin E. Judge, founder and owner of the Judge Group. The company, called AFL Global, LLC, looks to introduce and launch professional Arena Football teams and franchises in various locations throughout the world (like NFL Europe). After their successful t... |
The 2014 scheduled beginning proved to be too ambitious for the group; its official website now cites an anticipated beginning of professional play in 2016 and shows photos from a six-team collegiate tournament staged in early November, 2015 |
Beginning with the 2003 season, the AFL made a deal with NBC to televise league games, which was renewed for another two years in 2005. In conjunction with this, the league moved the beginning of the season from May to February (the week after the NFL's Super Bowl) and scheduled most of its games on Sunday instead of F... |
On December 19, 2006, ESPN announced the purchase of a minority stake in the AFL. This deal included television rights for the ESPN family of networks. ESPN would televise a minimum of 17 regular season games, most on Monday nights, and nine playoff games, including ArenaBowl XXI on ABC. The deal resulted in added expo... |
The AFL also had a regional-cable deal with FSN, where FSN regional affiliates in AFL markets carried local team games. In some areas, such as with the Arizona Rattlers, Fox Sports affiliates still carry the games. |
After its return in 2010, the AFL had its national television deal with the NFL Network for a weekly Friday night game. All AFL games not on the NFL Network could be seen for free online, provided by Ustream. |
The NFL Network ceased airing Arena Football League games partway through the 2012 season as a result of ongoing labor problems within the league. Briefly, the games were broadcast on a tape delay to prevent the embarrassment that would result should the players stage a work stoppage immediately prior to a scheduled br... |
For the 2013 season, the league's new national broadcast partner was the CBS Sports Network. CBSSN would air 19 regular season games and two playoff games. CBS would also air the ArenaBowl, marking the first time since 2008 that the league's finale aired on network television. Regular season CBSSN broadcast games are u... |
Starting in 2014, ESPN returned to the AFL as broadcast partners, with weekly games being shown on CBS Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS along with all games being broadcast on ESPN3 for free live on WatchESPN. ArenaBowl XXVII was also broadcast on ESPN. Most teams also have a local TV station broadcast their games ... |
The first video game based on the AFL was Arena Football for the C-64 released in 1988. On May 18, 2000, Kurt Warner's Arena Football Unleashed was released by Midway Games for the PlayStation game console. On February 7, 2006 EA Sports released Arena Football for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. EA Sports released another ... |
In 2001, Jeff Foley published War on the Floor: An Average Guy Plays in the Arena Football League and Lives to Write About It. The book details a journalist's two preseasons (1999 and 2000) as an offensive specialist/writer with the now-defunct Albany Firebirds. The 5-foot-6 (170 cm), self-described "unathletic writer"... |
The AFL currently runs as under the single-entity model, with the league owning the rights to the teams, players, and coaches. The single-entity model was adopted in 2010 when the league emerged from bankruptcy. Prior to that, the league followed the franchise model more common in North American professional sports lea... |
Average attendance for AFL games were around 10,000–11,000 per game in the 1990s, though during the recession connected to the dot-com bubble and the September 11, 2001 attacks average attendance dropped below 10,000 for several years. From the start of the 2004 season until the final season of the original league in 2... |
In 2010, the first year of the reconstituted league following bankruptcy, the overall attendance average decreased to 8,135, with only one team (Tampa Bay) exceeding 13,000 per game. |
The term dialect (from Latin dialectus, dialectos, from the ancient Greek word διάλεκτος diálektos, "discourse", from διά diá, "through" and λέγω legō, "I speak") is used in two distinct ways to refer to two different types of linguistic phenomena. |
One usage—the more common among linguists—refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class. A dialect that is associated with a... |
The other usage refers to a language that is socially subordinated to a regional or national standard language, often historically cognate or related to the standard language, but not actually derived from it. In this sense, unlike in the first usage, the standard language would not itself be considered a "dialect," as... |
A dialect is distinguished by its vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation (phonology, including prosody). Where a distinction can be made only in terms of pronunciation (including prosody, or just prosody itself), the term accent may be preferred over dialect. Other types of speech varieties include jargons, which are c... |
A standard dialect (also known as a standardized dialect or "standard language") is a dialect that is supported by institutions. Such institutional support may include government recognition or designation; presentation as being the "correct" form of a language in schools; published grammars, dictionaries, and textbook... |
A nonstandard dialect, like a standard dialect, has a complete vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, but is usually not the beneficiary of institutional support. Examples of a nonstandard English dialect are Southern American English, Western Australian English, Scouse and Tyke. The Dialect Test was designed by Joseph Wrigh... |
There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing two different languages from two dialects (i.e. varieties) of the same language. A number of rough measures exist, sometimes leading to contradictory results. The distinction is therefore subjective and depends on the user's frame of reference. For example, ... |
The most common, and most purely linguistic, criterion is that of mutual intelligibility: two varieties are said to be dialects of the same language if being a speaker of one variety confers sufficient knowledge to understand and be understood by a speaker of the other; otherwise, they are said to be different language... |
Another occasionally used criterion for discriminating dialects from languages is that of linguistic authority, a more sociolinguistic notion. According to this definition, two varieties are considered dialects of the same language if (under at least some circumstances) they would defer to the same authority regarding ... |
By the definition most commonly used by linguists, any linguistic variety can be considered a "dialect" of some language—"everybody speaks a dialect". According to that interpretation, the criteria above merely serve to distinguish whether two varieties are dialects of the same language or dialects of different languag... |
A framework was developed in 1967 by Heinz Kloss, abstand and ausbau languages, to describe speech communities, that while unified politically and/or culturally, include multiple dialects which though closely related genetically may be divergent to the point of inter-dialect unintelligibility. |
The terms "language" and "dialect" are not necessarily mutually exclusive: There is nothing contradictory in the statement "the language of the Pennsylvania Dutch is a dialect of German". |
There are various terms that linguists may use to avoid taking a position on whether the speech of a community is an independent language in its own right or a dialect of another language. Perhaps the most common is "variety"; "lect" is another. A more general term is "languoid", which does not distinguish between dial... |
In many societies, however, a particular dialect, often the sociolect of the elite class, comes to be identified as the "standard" or "proper" version of a language by those seeking to make a social distinction, and is contrasted with other varieties. As a result of this, in some contexts the term "dialect" refers spec... |
The status of "language" is not solely determined by linguistic criteria, but it is also the result of a historical and political development. Romansh came to be a written language, and therefore it is recognized as a language, even though it is very close to the Lombardic alpine dialects. An opposite example is the ca... |
Modern Nationalism, as developed especially since the French Revolution, has made the distinction between "language" and "dialect" an issue of great political importance. A group speaking a separate "language" is often seen as having a greater claim to being a separate "people", and thus to be more deserving of its own... |
The Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich published the expression, A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot ("אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמײ און פֿלאָט": "A language is a dialect with an army and navy") in YIVO Bleter 25.1, 1945, p. 13. The significance of the political factors in any attempt at answering the q... |
When talking about the German language, the term German dialects is only used for the traditional regional varieties. That allows them to be distinguished from the regional varieties of modern standard German. |
The German dialects show a wide spectrum of variation. Most of them are not mutually intelligible. German dialectology traditionally names the major dialect groups after Germanic tribes from which they were assumed to have descended.[citation needed] |
The extent to which the dialects are spoken varies according to a number of factors: In Northern Germany, dialects are less common than in the South. In cities, dialects are less common than on the countryside. In a public environment, dialects are less common than in a familiar environment. |
The situation in Switzerland and Liechtenstein is different from the rest of the German-speaking countries. The Swiss German dialects are the default everyday language in virtually every situation, whereas standard German is seldom spoken. Some Swiss German speakers perceive standard German to be a foreign language. |
The Low German varieties spoken in Germany are often counted among the German dialects. This reflects the modern situation where they are roofed by standard German. This is different from the situation in the Middle Ages when Low German had strong tendencies towards an ausbau language. |
Italy is home to a vast array of native regional minority languages, most of which are Romance-based and have their own local variants. These regional languages are often referred to colloquially or in non-linguistic circles as Italian "dialects," or dialetti (standard Italian for "dialects"). However, the majority of ... |
In addition to having evolved, for the most part, separately from one another and with distinct individual histories, the Latin-based regional Romance languages of Italy are also better classified as separate languages rather than true "dialects" due to the often high degree in which they lack mutual intelligibility. T... |
Modern standard Italian itself is heavily based on the Latin-derived Florentine Tuscan language. The Tuscan-based language that would eventually become modern standard Italian had been used in poetry and literature since at least the 12th century, and it first became widely known in Italy through the works of authors s... |
During the Risorgimento, proponents of Italian republicanism and Italian nationalism, such as Alessandro Manzoni, stressed the importance of establishing a uniform national language in order to better create an Italian national identity. With the unification of Italy in the 1860s, standard Italian became the official n... |
In the early 20th century, the vast conscription of Italian men from all throughout Italy during World War I is credited with facilitating the diffusion of standard Italian among less educated Italian men, as these men from various regions with various regional languages were forced to communicate with each other in a ... |
Italians in different regions today may also speak regional varieties of standard Italian, or regional Italian dialects, which, unlike the majority of languages of Italy, are actually dialects of standard Italian rather than separate languages. A regional Italian dialect is generally standard Italian that has been heav... |
The languages of Italy are primarily Latin-based Romance languages, with the most widely spoken languages falling within the Italo-Dalmatian language family. This wide category includes: |
The Sardinian language is considered to be its own Romance language family, separate not only from standard Italian but also the wider Italo-Dalmatian family, and it includes the Campidanese Sardinian and Logudorese Sardinian variants. However, Gallurese, Sassarese, and Corsican are also spoken in Sardinia, and these l... |
The classification of speech varieties as dialects or languages and their relationship to other varieties of speech can be controversial and the verdicts inconsistent. English and Serbo-Croatian illustrate the point. English and Serbo-Croatian each have two major variants (British and American English, and Serbian and ... |
Similar examples abound. Macedonian, although mutually intelligible with Bulgarian, certain dialects of Serbian and to a lesser extent the rest of the South Slavic dialect continuum, is considered by Bulgarian linguists to be a Bulgarian dialect, in contrast with the contemporary international view and the view in the ... |
In Lebanon, a part of the Christian population considers "Lebanese" to be in some sense a distinct language from Arabic and not merely a dialect. During the civil war Christians often used Lebanese Arabic officially, and sporadically used the Latin script to write Lebanese, thus further distinguishing it from Arabic. A... |
In Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, the Darijas (spoken North African languages) are sometimes considered more different from other Arabic dialects. Officially, North African countries prefer to give preference to the Literary Arabic and conduct much of their political and religious life in it (adherence to Islam), and r... |
In the 19th century, the Tsarist Government of the Russian Empire claimed that Ukrainian was merely a dialect of Russian and not a language on its own. The differences were few and caused by the conquest of western Ukraine by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, the dialects in Ukraine eventually differed subst... |
The German Empire conquered Ukraine during World War I and was planning on either annexing it or installing a puppet king, but was defeated by the Entente, with major involvement by the Ukrainian Bolsheviks. After conquering the rest of Ukraine from the Whites, Ukraine joined the USSR and was enlarged (gaining Crimea a... |
After World War II, due to Ukrainian collaborationism with the Axis powers in an attempt to gain independence, Moscow changed its policy towards repression of the Ukrainian language. |
Today the boundaries of the Ukrainian language to the Russian language are still not drawn clearly, with an intermediate dialect between them, called Surzhyk, developing in Ukraine. |
There have been cases of a variety of speech being deliberately reclassified to serve political purposes. One example is Moldovan. In 1996, the Moldovan parliament, citing fears of "Romanian expansionism", rejected a proposal from President Mircea Snegur to change the name of the language to Romanian, and in 2003 a Mol... |
Unlike most languages that use alphabets to indicate the pronunciation, Chinese characters have developed from logograms that do not always give hints to its pronunciation. Although the written characters remained relatively consistent for the last two thousand years, the pronunciation and grammar in different regions ... |
Many historical linguists view any speech form as a dialect of the older medium of communication from which it developed.[citation needed] This point of view sees the modern Romance languages as dialects of Latin, modern Greek as a dialect of Ancient Greek, Tok Pisin as a dialect of English, and North Germanic as diale... |
This can give rise to the situation in which two dialects (defined according to this paradigm) with a somewhat distant genetic relationship are mutually more readily comprehensible than more closely related dialects. In one opinion, this pattern is clearly present among the modern Romance languages, with Italian and Sp... |
For example, the Italian and French words for various foods, some family relationships, and body parts are very similar to each other, yet most of those words are completely different in Spanish. Italian "avere" and "essere" as auxiliaries for forming compound tenses are used similarly to French "avoir" and "être". Spa... |
One language, Interlingua, was developed so that the languages of Western civilization would act as its dialects. Drawing from such concepts as the international scientific vocabulary and Standard Average European, linguists[who?] developed a theory that the modern Western languages were actually dialects of a hidden o... |
The city of Bern or Berne (German: Bern, pronounced [bɛrn] ( listen); French: Berne [bɛʁn]; Italian: Berna [ˈbɛrna]; Romansh: Berna [ˈbɛrnɐ] (help·info); Bernese German: Bärn [b̥æːrn]) is the de facto capital of Switzerland, referred to by the Swiss as their (e.g. in German) Bundesstadt, or "federal city".[note 1] With... |
The official language of Bern is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German, but the main spoken language is the Alemannic Swiss German dialect called Bernese German. |
In 1983 the historic old town in the centre of Bern became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bern is ranked among the world’s top ten cities for the best quality of life (2010). |
The etymology of the name Bern is uncertain. According to the local legend, based on folk etymology, Berchtold V, Duke of Zähringen, the founder of the city of Bern, vowed to name the city after the first animal he met on the hunt, and this turned out to be a bear. It has long been considered likely that the city was n... |
No archaeological evidence that indicates a settlement on the site of today′s city centre prior to the 12th century has been found so far. In antiquity, a Celtic oppidum stood on the Engehalbinsel (peninsula) north of Bern, fortified since the 2nd century BC (late La Tène period), thought to be one of the twelve oppida... |
The medieval city is a foundation of the Zähringer ruling family, which rose to power in Upper Burgundy in the 12th century. According to 14th century historiography (Cronica de Berno, 1309), Bern was founded in 1191 by Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen. |
In 1353 Bern joined the Swiss Confederacy, becoming one of the eight cantons of the formative period of 1353 to 1481. Bern invaded and conquered Aargau in 1415 and Vaud in 1536, as well as other smaller territories; thereby becoming the largest city-state north of the Alps, by the 18th century comprising most of what i... |
The city grew out towards the west of the boundaries of the peninsula formed by the River Aare. The Zytglogge tower marked the western boundary of the city from 1191 until 1256, when the Käfigturm took over this role until 1345. It was, in turn, succeeded by the Christoffelturm (formerly located close to the site of th... |
After a major blaze in 1405, the city's original wooden buildings were gradually replaced by half-timbered houses and subsequently the sandstone buildings which came to be characteristic for the Old Town. Despite the waves of pestilence that hit Europe in the 14th century, the city continued to grow: mainly due to immi... |
Bern was occupied by French troops in 1798 during the French Revolutionary Wars, when it was stripped of parts of its territories. It regained control of the Bernese Oberland in 1802, and following the Congress of Vienna of 1814, it newly acquired the Bernese Jura. At this time, it once again became the largest canton ... |
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