Theme

Theme or themes may refer to:

Art

See also

Theme (Byzantine district)

The themes or themata (Greek: θέματα; singular θέμα, thema) were the main administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire. They were established in the mid-7th century in the aftermath of the Slavic invasion of Balkans and Muslim conquests of parts of Byzantine territory, and replaced the earlier provincial system established by Diocletian and Constantine the Great. In their origin, the first themes were created from the areas of encampment of the field armies of the East Roman army, and their names corresponded to the military units that had existed in those areas. The theme system reached its apogee in the 9th and 10th centuries, as older themes were split up and the conquest of territory resulted in the creation of new ones. The original theme system underwent significant changes in the 11th and 12th centuries, but the term remained in use as a provincial and financial circumscription, until the very end of the Empire.

History

Background

During the late 6th and early 7th centuries, the Eastern Roman Empire was under frequent attack from all sides. The Sassanid Empire was pressing from the east on Syria, Egypt, and Anatolia. Slavs and Avars raided Thrace, Macedonia, Illyricum and Greece and settled in the Balkans. The Lombards occupied northern Italy, largely unopposed. In order to face the mounting pressure, in the more distant provinces of the West, recently regained by Justinian I (r. 527–565), Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) combined supreme civil and military authority in the person of an exarch, forming the exarchates of Ravenna and Africa. These developments overturned the strict division of civil and military offices, which had been one of the cornerstones of the reforms of Diocletian (r. 284–305). In essence however they merely recognized and formalized the greater prominence of the local general, or magister militum, over the respective civilian praetorian prefect as a result of the provinces' precarious security situation.

Thematic vowel

In Indo-European studies, a thematic vowel or theme vowel is the vowel *e or *o from ablaut placed before the ending of a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the Indo-European languages with this vowel are thematic, and those without it are athematic. Used more generally, a thematic vowel is any vowel found at the end of the stem of a word.

Proto-Indo-European

PIE verbs and nominals (nouns and adjectives) consist of three parts:

The thematic vowel, if present, occurs at the end of the suffix (which may include other vowels or consonants) and before the ending:

Athematic forms, by contrast, have a suffix ending in a consonant, or no suffix at all (or arguably a null suffix):

For several reasons, athematic forms are thought to be older, and the thematic vowel was likely an innovation of late PIE: Athematic paradigms (inflection patterns) are more "irregular", exhibiting ablaut and mobile accent, while the thematic paradigms can be seen as a simplification or regularisation of verbal and nominal grammar. In the Anatolian languages, which were the earliest to split from PIE, thematic verbs are rare or absent. Furthermore, during late PIE and in the older daughter languages, a number of athematic forms were replaced by thematic ones, as in prehistoric Greek *thes- 'god' versus *thes-o- > Classical Greek θεός (theós).

Ethnic groups in Europe

The ethnic groups in Europe are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. According to German monograph Minderheitenrechte in Europa co-edited by Pan and Pfeil (2002) there are 87 distinct peoples of Europe, of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities. The total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people, or 14% of 770 million Europeans.

There is no precise or universally accepted definition of the terms "ethnic group" or "nationality". In the context of European ethnography in particular, the terms ethnic group, people (without nation state), nationality, national minority, ethnic minority, linguistic community, linguistic group and linguistic minority are used as mostly synonymous, although preference may vary in usage with respect to the situation specific to the individual countries of Europe.

Europeans (band)

Europeans were a new wave band formed in Bristol, England in 1977. The line-up was Jonathan Cole (formally of Colortapes, on vocals, guitar and synthesizers), Jon Klein (ex-Emergency Exit on lead guitar), Steve Street (ex-Public Enemy Number One on bass guitar) and James Cole (drums and percussion). According to Klein, ‘we were going to be called 'The Noses.' (They should not be confused with the similarly named The Europeans, a British band formed in 1981).

Their single "Europeans" / "Voices" was engineered by David Lord at his Crescent Studios in Bath and was the second release of Bristols' Heartbeat Records. This single was heard by Cherry Red Records and led to a licensing agreement between them and Heartbeat. The band later contributed the track "On the Continent" to the label's Avon Calling compilation album. The band split in 1979 when Rialto Records signed Jonathan Cole as a solo artist. Jon Klein went to London with Kevin Mills from The X-Certs to form Specimen (and was involved with the Batcave); he later joined Siouxsie and the Banshees and played on three of their albums. Steve Street joined Apartment, then Interview; he then moved on to recording bands as an engineer-producer, and later worked with Tears for Fears.