63-397: Myctophidae Neoscopelidae † Sardinioididae The Myctophiformes / ˈ m ɪ k t ə f ɪ f ɔːr m iː z / are an order of ray-finned fishes consisting of two families of deep-sea marine fish, most notably the highly abundant lanternfishes (Myctophidae). The blackchins (Neoscopelidae) contain six species in three genera, while the bulk of the family belongs to
126-673: A monotypic superorder "Lampridiomorpha". In a similar fashion, separation of the Myctophiformes in superorder "Scopelomorpha" has been proposed. The Aulopiformes, though, are usually considered to be closer or even among the Protacanthopterygii , one of the core groups of moderately advanced teleosts. As modern taxonomy tries to avoid a profusion of small taxa , and the delimitation of the Euteleostei (Protacanthopterygii sensu stricto and their allies) versus "Ctenosquamata" such as
189-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
252-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
315-545: A false sea floor 300–500 metres deep at day, and less deep at night. This turned out to be due to millions of marine organisms, most particularly small mesopelagic fish, with swimbladders that reflected the sonar. These organisms migrate up into shallower water at dusk to feed on plankton . The layer is deeper when the moon is out, and can become shallower when clouds pass over the moon. Sampling via deep trawling indicates that lanternfish account for as much as 65% of all deep sea fish biomass . Indeed, lanternfish are among
378-556: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
441-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
504-418: A single high dorsal fin , a forked caudal fin , and an adipose fin . The anal fin is supported by a cartilaginous plate at its base, and originates under, or slightly behind, the rear part of the dorsal fin. The pectoral fins , usually with eight rays, may be large and well-developed to small and degenerate, or completely absent in a few species. In some species, such as those of the genus Lampanyctus ,
567-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
630-742: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
693-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
SECTION 10
#1733084714416756-444: Is interpreted to be related to the change from a halothermal deep-ocean circulation to a thermohaline regime and the associated cooling of the deep ocean and rearrangement of nutrient and silica supply. The size of early Oligocene lanternfish is remarkably congruent with diatom abundance, the main food resource for the zooplankton and thus for lanternfish and whales . The warmer late Oligocene to early middle Miocene period
819-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
882-518: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
945-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
1008-630: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
1071-403: Is thought to play a role in communication , specifically in shoaling and courtship behaviour. The concentration of the photophores on the flanks of the fish also indicate the light's use as camouflage ; in a strategy termed counterillumination , the lanternfish regulate the brightness of the bluish light emitted by their photophores to match the ambient light level above, effectively masking
1134-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
1197-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
1260-576: The Late Cretaceous ( Cenomanian to Campanian ). The genus Neocassandra from the Late Paleocene is either considered its own family or a member of the Neoscopelidae . Some members were previously confused with aulopiforms . The order Myctophiformes is anatomically similar to the grinners (Aulopiformes), but their pharyngobranchials and retractor muscles are more plesiomorphic . It
1323-511: The Neoscopelidae , are much fewer in number but superficially very similar; at least one neoscopelid shares the common name "lanternfish": the large-scaled lantern fish, Neoscopelus macrolepidotus . Lanternfish are among the most widely distributed, diverse and populous vertebrates , with some estimates suggesting that they may have a total global biomass of 1.8 to 16 gigatonnes , accounting for up to 65% of all deep-sea fish biomass. Commercial fisheries for them exist off South Africa , in
SECTION 20
#17330847144161386-713: The Paracanthopterygii remains uncertain, the systematics and taxonomy of the Myctophiformes among the teleosts are in need of further study. Myctophidae See text Lanternfish (or myctophids , from the Greek μυκτήρ myktḗr , "nose" and ophis , "serpent") are small mesopelagic fish of the large family Myctophidae . One of two families in the order Myctophiformes , the Myctophidae are represented by 246 species in 33 genera , and are found in oceans worldwide. Lantern fishes are aptly named after their conspicuous use of bioluminescence . Their sister family,
1449-408: The caudal peduncle , in proximity to the eyes (e.g., the "headlights" of Diaphus species), and luminous patches at the base of the fins. The photophores emit a weak blue, green, or yellow light, and are known to be arranged in species-specific patterns. In some species, the pattern varies between males and females. This is true for the luminous caudal patches, with the males' being typically above
1512-503: The jumbo squid , Dosidicus gigas . Lanternfish themselves have been found to feed on bits of plastic debris accumulating in the oceans. At least one lanternfish was found with over 80 pieces of plastic chips in its gut, according to scientists monitoring ocean plastic in the Pacific Ocean's eastern garbage patch . Sonar operators, using the newly developed sonar technology during World War II , were puzzled by what appeared to be
1575-420: The late Paleocene and early Eocene . During their early evolutionary history, lanternfish were likely not adapted to a high oceanic lifestyle but occurred over shelf and upper-slope regions, where they were locally abundant during the middle Eocene . A distinct upscaling in otolith size is observed in the early Oligocene , which also marks their earliest occurrence in bathyal sediments . This transition
1638-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
1701-511: The sub-Antarctic , and in the Gulf of Oman . Lanternfish typically have a slender, compressed body covered in small, silvery deciduous cycloid scales ( ctenoid in four species), a large bluntly rounded head, large elliptical to round lateral eyes (dorsolateral in Protomyctophum species), and a large terminal mouth with jaws closely set with rows of small teeth. The fins are generally small, with
1764-465: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
1827-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
1890-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
1953-491: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
Myctophiformes - Misplaced Pages Continue
2016-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
2079-661: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
2142-602: The Myctophidae, with over 30 genera and some 252 species. The scientific name ultimately derives from Ancient Greek myktér (μυκτήρ, "nose") + óphis (ὄφῖς, "serpent") + Latin forma ("external form"), the Greek part in reference to the long, slender, and heavy-headed shape of these fishes. These smallish fishes inhabit the pelagic and benthopelagic zones of the deep sea . They are laterally compressed and usually have photophores (light organs). The eyes are large, in some decidedly huge, and generally directed straight sideways. The mouth also quite large and located at
2205-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
2268-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
2331-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
2394-602: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
2457-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
2520-403: The gloomy bathypelagic zone , between 300 and 1,500 m (980 and 4,920 ft) deep, but towards sundown, the fish begin to rise into the epipelagic zone, between 10 and 100 m (33 and 328 ft) deep. The lanternfish are thought to do this to avoid predation, and because they are following the diel vertical migrations of zooplankton , upon which they feed. After a night spent feeding in
2583-484: The impression of a "false ocean bottom"; this is the so-called deep scattering layer that so perplexed early oceanographers (see below). Great variability in migration patterns occurs within the family. Some deeper-living species may not migrate at all, while others may do so only sporadically. Migration patterns may also depend on life stage, sex, latitude , and season. The arrangements of lanternfish photophores are different for each species, so their bioluminescence
Myctophiformes - Misplaced Pages Continue
2646-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
2709-440: The lanternfishes' silhouette when viewed from below. A major source of food for many marine animals, lanternfish are an important link in the food chain of many local ecosystems , being heavily preyed upon by whales and dolphins , large pelagic fish such as salmon , tuna and sharks , grenadiers and other deep-sea fish (including other lanternfish), pinnipeds , sea birds , notably penguins , and large squid such as
2772-463: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
2835-621: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
2898-513: The millions of lanternfish swim bladders , giving the appearance of a false bottom. Lanternfish currently represent one of the dominant groups of mesopelagic fishes in terms of abundance, biomass, and diversity. Their otolith record dominates pelagic sediments below 200 m in dredges, especially during the entire Neogene . The diversity and rise to dominance of lanternfish can be examined by analysing these otolith records. The earliest unambiguous fossil lanternfish are known based on otoliths from
2961-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
3024-399: The most widely distributed, populous, and diverse of all vertebrates , playing an important ecological role as prey for larger organisms. The estimated global biomass of lanternfish is 550–660 million tonnes , several times the entire world fisheries catch. Lanternfish also account for much of the biomass responsible for the deep scattering layer of the world's oceans. Sonar reflects off
3087-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
3150-521: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
3213-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
SECTION 50
#17330847144163276-442: The pectorals are greatly elongated. Most lanternfish have a gas bladder , but it degenerates or fills with lipids during the maturation of a few species. The lateral line is uninterrupted. In all but one species, Taaningichthys paurolychnus , a number of photophores (light-producing organs) are present; these are paired and concentrated in ventrolateral rows on the body and head. Some may also possess specialised photophores on
3339-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
3402-574: The surface layers of the water column, the lanternfish begin to descend back into the lightless depths and are gone by daybreak. By releasing fecal pellets at depth, Laternfish make the carbon capture process called biological pump more efficient. Most species remain near the coast, schooling over the continental slope . Different species are known to segregate themselves by depth, forming dense, discrete conspecific layers, probably to avoid competition between different species. Due to their gas bladders, these layers are visible on sonar scans and give
3465-445: The tail and the females' being below the tail. Lanternfish are generally small fish, ranging from about 2 to 30 cm (0.79 to 11.81 in) in length, with most being under 15 cm (5.9 in). Shallow-living species are an iridescent blue to green or silver, while deeper-living species are dark brown to black. Lanternfish are well known for their diel vertical migrations : during daylight hours, most species remain within
3528-404: The tip of the snout; its gape extends to below the eyes or even beyond. They have an adipose fin . The pelvic fin has eight rays in most myctophiforms, and the number of branchiostegal rays is usually higher than six and lower than 12. The two families of the Myctophiformes are: The extinct family Sardinioididae (containing Sardinioides and possibly Volcichthys ) is known from
3591-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
3654-466: Was also allied with the more advanced spiny- rayed Teleostei (e.g. Paracanthopterygii ) as " Ctenosquamata ". These apomorphically have a fifth upper pharyngeal toothplate and a third internal levator muscle to move it, and molecular data also support the long-held view that these two lineages are at least closely related. Other sources ally them with the Lampriformes , which are often placed in
3717-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
3780-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
3843-1200: Was characterised by an increase in the disparity of lanternfish but with a reduction in their otolith sizes. A second and persisting secular pulse in lanternfish diversity (particularly within the genus Diaphus ) and increase in size begins with the "biogenic bloom" during the late Miocene , paralleled with diatom abundance and gigantism in baleen whales . Benthosema Bolinichthys Centrobranchus Ceratoscopelus Ctenoscopelus Dasyscopelus Diaphus Diogenichthys Electrona Gonichthys Gymnoscopelus Hintonia Hygophum Idiolychnus Krefftichthys Lampadena Lampanyctodes Lampanyctus Lampichthys Lepidophanes Lobianchia Loweina Metelectrona Myctophum Nannobrachium Notolychnus Notoscopelus Parvilux Protomyctophum Scopelopsis Stenobrachius Symbolophorus Taaningichthys Tarletonbeania Triphoturus Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
SECTION 60
#17330847144163906-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
3969-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
#415584