document_title: Spanish orthography

question_text: what is the spanish name for the letter h

text: Spanish orthography

text: Alphabet in Spanish[edit]

text: The Spanish language is written using the Spanish alphabet, which is the Latin script with one additional letter: eñe "ñ", for a total of 27 letters.[1] Although the letters "k" and "w" are part of the alphabet, they appear only in loanwords such as karate, kilo, waterpolo and wolframio (tungsten). Each letter has a single official name according to the Real Academia Española's new 2010 Common Orthography,[2] but in some regions alternative traditional names coexist as explained below. The digraphs "ch" and "ll" were considered letters of the alphabet from 1754 to 2010 (and sorted separately from "c" and "l" from 1803 to 1994).[citation needed] The digraph "rr" is occasionally considered a letter, but officially it was never so.[citation needed]

text:
Spanish alphabet

Letter
A
B
C1
D
E
F
G
H
I

Name
a
be, be larga, be alta
ce
de
e
efe
ge
hache
i

Phoneme(s)
/a/
/b/
/k/, /θ/2
/d/
/e/
/f/
/ɡ/ /x/
silent3
/i/

text: ^1 The sequence ⟨ch⟩ represents the affricate /tʃ/. The digraph was formerly treated as a single letter, called che.

text: ^2 The phonemes /θ/ and /s/ are not distinguished in many dialects; see seseo.

text: ^3 With the exception of some loanwords: hámster, hachís, hawaiano, which have /x/.

text:
Letter
J
K
L
M
N
Ñ
O
P
Q

Name
jota
ka
ele
eme
ene
eñe
o
pe
cu

Phoneme(s)
/x/
/k/
/l/4
/m/
/n/
/ɲ/
/o/
/p/
/k/5

text: ^4 When ⟨l⟩ is written double (e.g. calle), it represents the palatal lateral /ʎ/ in a few dialects; but in most dialects—because of the historical merger called yeísmo—it, like the letter ⟨y⟩, represents the phoneme /ʝ/.

text: ^5 Used only in the digraph ⟨qu⟩.

text:
Letter
R6
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Name
erre
ese
te
u
uve, ve, ve corta, ve baja
uve doble, ve doble, doble ve, doble u[3]
equis
ye, i griega
zeta

Phoneme(s)
/ɾ/, /r/
/s/
/t/
/u/
/b/
/w/, /b/
/ks/, /x/, /s/
/ʝ/, /i/
/θ/2

text: ^6 The digraph ⟨rr⟩, which only appears between vowels, represents the trill [r].

text: For details on Spanish pronunciation, see Spanish phonology and Help:IPA/Spanish.

text: When acute accent and diaeresis marks are used on vowels (⟨á⟩, ⟨é⟩, ⟨í⟩, ⟨ó⟩, ⟨ú⟩ and ⟨ü⟩) they are considered variants of the plain vowel letters, but ⟨ñ⟩ is considered a separate letter from ⟨n⟩. This makes a difference when sorting alphabetically: ⟨ñ⟩ appears in dictionaries after ⟨n⟩. For example, in a Spanish dictionary piñata comes after pinza.

text: There are five digraphs: ⟨ch⟩ ("che" or "ce hache"), ⟨ll⟩ ("elle" or "doble ele"), ⟨rr⟩ ("doble erre"), ⟨gu⟩ ("ge u") and ⟨qu⟩ ("cu u").[4] While che and elle were formerly treated each as a single letter,[1] in 1994 the tenth congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, by request of UNESCO and other international organizations, agreed to alphabetize ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ll⟩ as ordinary sequences of letters. Thus, for example, in dictionaries, chico is alphabetized after centro and before ciudad, instead of being alphabetized after all words beginning with cu- as was formerly done.[5] Despite their former status as unitary letters of the alphabet, ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ll⟩ have always been treated as sequences with regard to the rules of capitalization. Thus the word chillón in a text written in all caps is CHILLÓN, not *ChILlÓN, and if it is the first word of a sentence, it is written Chillón, not *CHillón. Sometimes, one finds lifts with buttons marked LLamar, but this double capitalization has always been incorrect according to RAE rules.

text: This is the list of letters from most to least frequent in Spanish texts: ⟨E A O S R N I D L C T U M P B G V Y Q H F Z J Ñ X W K⟩; [6] the vowels take around 45% of the text.

text: Alternative names[edit]

text: Orthography[edit]

text: Spanish orthography is such that the pronunciation of most words is unambiguous given their written form; the main exception is the letter ⟨x⟩, which usually represents /ks/ or /s/, but can also represent /x/ or /ʃ/, especially in proper nouns from times of Old Spanish, as in México or Pedro Ximénez (both /x/). These orthographic rules are similar to, but not the same as, those of other Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Portuguese, Catalan and Galician.

text: The converse does not always hold, i.e. for a given pronunciation there may be multiple possible spellings. The main issues are:

text:
the use of both ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩ for /b/;
the use of both ⟨j⟩ and ⟨g⟩ for /x/ before ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩;
the silent ⟨h⟩;
for the speakers who have merged /ʝ/ and /ʎ/, the various use of ⟨y⟩, ⟨ll⟩ or ⟨hi⟩ in different words;
the use of ⟨hu⟩, ⟨gu⟩ or ⟨bu⟩ before a vowel for /w/ (although many speakers distinguish some or all of these combinations);
for speakers not in central and northern Spain, the use of ⟨c/z⟩ and ⟨s⟩ for /s/;
the occasional use of accents to distinguish two words that sound the same, such as tú and tu, sí and si, más and mas.

text:
Use of different letters for the same sound

sound
before ⟨e/i⟩
elsewhere

/θ/ or /s/
⟨c⟩ (or ⟨z⟩ in some loanwords) or ⟨s⟩
⟨z⟩ or ⟨s⟩

/k/
⟨qu⟩ (or ⟨k⟩ in some loanwords)
⟨c⟩ (or ⟨k⟩ in some loanwords)

/kw/
⟨cu⟩

/x/
⟨g⟩ or ⟨j⟩ (or ⟨x⟩ in Mexico)
⟨j⟩ (or ⟨x⟩ in Mexico)

/ɡ/
⟨gu⟩
⟨g⟩

/ɡw/
⟨gü⟩
⟨gu⟩

text: Consonants[edit]

text:
Consonants

Letter
Context
IPA
Examples
English approximation

b or v
word-initial after a pause, or after ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩
[b]
bestia; embuste; vaca; envidia
practically the same as the typical English ⟨b⟩, except that it is fully voiced; e.g. about

elsewhere (i.e. after a vowel, even across a word boundary, or after any consonant other than ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩)
[β]
bebé; obtuso; vivir; curva; mi bebé; mi vaca[11]
between baby and bevy (like the typical English ⟨v⟩, but with the upper lip in place of the upper teeth)

c
before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩
[θ] (central and northern Spain) or
[s] (most other regions)[12]
cereal; encima
same as the English voiceless ⟨th⟩ (as in thing) in central and northern Spain,
or the typical English ⟨s⟩ (as in sass) in all other regions

elsewhere
[k]
casa; claro; vaca; escudo
same as certain instances of English ⟨k⟩ or ⟨c⟩; e.g. skull, scan, or picking (unaspirated, i.e. without the puff of air that accompanies English /k/ at the beginning of a word, e.g. in can)

before voiced consonants
[ɣ]
anécdota
a sound between a light English ⟨g⟩ and the typical English ⟨h⟩ (between gold and ahold)

ch
everywhere[13]
[tʃ] or [ʃ] (depending upon the dialect)
ocho; chícharo
same as the typical English ⟨ch⟩; church

d
word-initial after a pause, or after ⟨l⟩ or ⟨n⟩
[d]
dedo; cuando; aldaba
practically the same as the typical English ⟨d⟩, except that it is fully voiced and the tip of the tongue touches the upper teeth; e.g. adore

elsewhere
[ð]
dádiva; arder; admirar; mi dedo; verdad[11]
same as the typical English voiced ⟨th⟩; e.g. this

f
everywhere
[f]
fase; café
same as the typical English ⟨f⟩; e.g. face

g
before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩
[x] or [h]
general
similar to a "strong" English ⟨h⟩-sound (e.g. the ⟨ch⟩ in Scottish loch or in German Bach) or aspirated ⟨h⟩ (as in heaven)

not before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, and either word-initial after a pause, or after ⟨n⟩
[ɡ]
gato; grande; vengo
practically the same as the typical English ⟨g⟩ sound, except that it is fully voiced; e.g. ago

not before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, and not in the above contexts
[ɣ]
trigo; amargo; signo; mi gato[11]
a sound between a light English ⟨g⟩ and the typical English ⟨h⟩ (between gold and ahold)

gu
before ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩, and either word-initial after a pause, or after ⟨n⟩; but only in some dialects
[ɡw]
guante; lengua
a sound like the ⟨gu⟩ in English penguin

before ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩, and not in the above contexts
[ɣw]
agua; averiguar[11]
similar to the typical English ⟨w⟩, but preceded by a soft guttural sound

before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, and either word-initial after a pause, or after ⟨n⟩
[ɡ]
guerra
practically the same as the typical English ⟨g⟩ sound, except that it is fully voiced; e.g. ago

before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, and not in the above contexts
[ɣ]
sigue[11]
a sound between a light English ⟨g⟩ and the typical English ⟨h⟩ (between gold and ahold)

gü
before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, and either word-initial after a pause, or after ⟨n⟩; but only in some dialects
[ɡw]
güero, pingüino
a sound like the ⟨gu⟩ in English penguin

before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, and not in the above contexts
[ɣw]
averigüe[11]
similar to the typical English ⟨w⟩, but preceded by a soft guttural sound

h
everywhere
(silent)[14]
hoy; hacer; prohibir; huevo; hielo
silent (like the English ⟨h⟩ in English honor or hour)

everywhere; occurs in loanwords and foreign proper names
[x] or [h]
hámster, hawaiano, hachís, yihad, harakiri, Yokohama
similar to a "strong" English ⟨h⟩-sound (e.g. the ⟨ch⟩ in Scottish loch or in German Bach) or aspirated ⟨h⟩ (as in heaven)

hi
before a vowel
[j] or [ʝ]
hierba; hielo
similar to or the same as the typical English ⟨y⟩; e.g. you (but often more strongly pronounced, sometimes resembling the English ⟨j⟩, as in jam)

hu
before a vowel
[w]
hueso; huevo[15]
same as the typical English ⟨w⟩; we (sometimes sounds closer to the English ⟨gw⟩, like in Gwen, or ⟨bw⟩, like in cobweb)

j
everywhere
[x] or [h]
jamón; eje; reloj;[16]
similar to a "strong" English ⟨h⟩-sound (e.g. the ⟨ch⟩ in Scottish loch or in German Bach) or aspirated ⟨h⟩ (as in heaven)

k
rare; only occurs in a few loanwords
[k]
kilo, karate
same as certain instances of English ⟨k⟩ or ⟨c⟩; e.g. skull, scan, or picking (unaspirated, i.e. without the puff of air that accompanies English /k/ at the beginning of a word, e.g. in can)

l
everywhere
[l]
lino; alhaja; principal
same as the typical English ⟨l⟩ (especially like the clear ⟨l⟩ of British English, rather than the dark ⟨l⟩ of American English);e.g. lull

ll
everywhere
[ʎ], [ʝ] or [dʒ](depending upon the dialect)
llave; pollo
similar to the ⟨lli⟩ in English million (in some dialects simplified to a sound between the typical English ⟨y⟩ and ⟨j⟩, e.g. between yes and Jess)

m
everywhere except word-finally
[m]
madre; comer; campo[17]
same as the typical English ⟨m⟩; madam

word-final
[n] or [ŋ] (depending upon the dialect)
álbum
varying between the typical English ⟨n⟩ and ⟨ng⟩, e.g. the ⟨ng⟩ in English sing

n
sin

everywhere but before other consonants
[n]
nido; anillo; anhelo
same as the typical English ⟨n⟩; e.g. nun

before other consonants[17]
[m]
[ɱ]
[n]
[ɲ]
[ŋ]
invierno
confite
mundo
enyesar
cinco
same as the typical English ⟨m⟩; madam
same as the English ⟨m⟩ in symphony
same as the typical English ⟨n⟩ (as in nun)
same as the English ⟨ny⟩ in canyon
same as the typical English ⟨ng⟩ (as in sink or sing)

ñ
everywhere
[ɲ]
ñandú; cabaña[17]
roughly like canyon

p
everywhere
[p]
pozo; topo; esposa
same as certain instances of English ⟨p⟩; e.g. span or typing (unaspirated, i.e. without the puff of air that accompanies English /p/ at the beginning of a word, e.g. in pan)

qu
only occurs before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩
[k]
quise
same as certain instances of English ⟨k⟩ or ⟨c⟩; e.g. skull, scan, or picking (unaspirated, i.e. without the puff of air that accompanies English /k/ at the beginning of a word, e.g. in can)

r
word-initial, morpheme-initial,[18]
or after ⟨l⟩, ⟨n⟩, or ⟨s⟩, or syllable-final (especially before ⟨l⟩, ⟨m⟩, ⟨n⟩, or ⟨s⟩) and word-final positions (before pause or consonant-initial words only)
[r]
rumbo; honra; Israel; subrayar; invierno; persona; verde; carta; amor puro
trilled or rolled ⟨r⟩

elsewhere (sometimes word-initial (after a pause or consonant-ending words only), morpheme-initial, or after ⟨l⟩, ⟨m⟩, ⟨n⟩, or ⟨s⟩, or syllable-final positions, and word-final positions before vowel-initial words only)
[ɾ]
caro; cabra; bravo; rumbo; honra; Israel; invierno; persona; verde; carta; amor puro; amor eterno
flapped ⟨r⟩; e.g. the same sound as the ⟨dd⟩ of ladder or ⟨tt⟩ of latter in American English

rr
only occurs between vowels
[r]
carro
trilled or rolled ⟨r⟩

s
before a voiced consonant (e.g. ⟨l⟩, ⟨m⟩, ⟨d⟩)
[z]
isla; mismo; desde; deshuesar[19]
same as the typical English ⟨z⟩; e.g. the ⟨s⟩ in is or busy; in central and northern Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes, this sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar [z] of English busy and the palato-alveolar [ʒ] of pleasure

everywhere else
[s]
saco; casa; deshora; espita[19]
same as the typical English ⟨s⟩; sass; in central and northern Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes, this sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar [s] of English sea and the palato-alveolar [ʃ] of she

sh
Not considered to be a Spanish digraph (hence words like sherpa, show, flash are considered extranjerismos crudos), but used in proper names from other languages, some of them being accentuated in the Spanish manner (names from Native American languages or from languages using non-Latin writing systems)
[ʃ] or [tʃ] (sometimes [s])
Áncash; Shanghái; shiitake, shah, Washington
same as the typical English ⟨sh⟩;e.g. sheesh; when this digraph is equated with the phoneme /s/ (typically in northern and central Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes), the sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar [s] of English sea and the palato-alveolar [ʃ] of she

t
everywhere
[t]
tamiz; átomo
same as certain instances of English ⟨t⟩; e.g. stand (unaspirated, i.e. without the puff of air that accompanies English /t/ at the beginning of a word, e.g. in tan). Also, the tip of the tongue touches the upper teeth, rather than the alveolar ridge

before voiced consonants
[ð]
atmósfera
same as the typical English voiced ⟨th⟩; e.g. this

tl
rare; mostly in loanwords from Nahuatl
[tl] or [tɬ]
tlapalería; cenzontle; Popocatépetl
similar to the combined ⟨tl⟩ sound in English cat-like

tx
rare; from loanwords
[tʃ]
pintxo
same as "ch".

tz
rare; from loanwords
[ts]
quetzal; Pátzcuaro
same as the "ts" in English cats

w
rare; in loanwords from English
[w]
waterpolo
when (sometimes turn to /gw/ or /bw/)[15]

rare; in loanwords from German and in Visigothic names
[b]1
wolframio; Wamba
same as the typical English ⟨b⟩; e.g. bib

x
between vowels and word-finally
[ks]
exacto; taxi; relax
same as the typical English ⟨x⟩; e.g. taxi

word-initially
[s]
xenofobia
same as the typical English ⟨s⟩; sass; in central and northern Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes, this sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar [s] of English sea and the palato-alveolar [ʃ] of she

before a consonant
[ks] or [s]
extremo[19][20]
same as the typical English ⟨x⟩ or ⟨s⟩; e.g. max or mass

in some words borrowed from Nahuatl, mostly place names, and in some Spanish proper names conserving archaic spelling
[x] or [h]
México; Oaxaca; xiote; Texas; La Axarquía; Ximena; Ximénez; Mexía
similar to a "strong" English ⟨h⟩-sound (e.g. the ⟨ch⟩ in Scottish loch or in German Bach) or aspirated ⟨h⟩ (as in heaven)

in some words from indigenous American languages, mostly place names
[ʃ] or [tʃ] (sometimes [s])
Xela; xocoyote
same as the typical English ⟨sh⟩; e.g. sheesh; when this is equated with the phoneme /s/ (typically in northern and central Spain, Paisa region of Colombia, and Andes), the sound is made with the tip of the tongue rather than the blade, with a sound quality intermediate between the alveolar [s] of English sea and the palato-alveolar [ʃ] of she

y
as a semivowel (almost always in a diphthong)
[i] or [j]
hay, soy
same as the typical English ⟨y⟩ (but joined in a single syllable with another vowel sound); aye, boy

as a consonant
[j], [ʝ], or [dʒ]
ya; yelmo; ayuno[11]
similar to the typical English ⟨y⟩, or ⟨j⟩ but softer; e.g. similar to yes or Jess

z
usually does not occur before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩
[θ] (central and northern Spain) or
[s] (most other regions)[12]
zorro; paz; caza
same as the English voiceless ⟨th⟩ (as in thing) in central and northern Spain,
or the typical English ⟨s⟩ (as in sass) in all other regions

before voiced consonants
[ð] (central and northern Spain) or [z] (most other regions)[12]
jazmín, juzgado, Aznar
same as the typical English voiced ⟨th⟩; e.g. this in central and northern Spain,
or the typical English ⟨z⟩; e.g. the ⟨s⟩ in is or busy;

text: ^ Orthographic <w> in names of Visigothic origin is thought to have been pronounced [β] in Old Spanish (in which /b/ and /β/ are separate phonemes); /β/ is also spelled <v> in Old Spanish. See History of Spanish#Merger of /b/ and /v/.

tag: ol

text: The only consonant letters that can be doubled in the Spanish orthography are "l", "r" (as the digraphs "ll" and "rr"), "c" (only when the two "c"s have different sounds: acción, diccionario), "n" (e.g. innato, perenne, connotar, dígannos), and "b" (in a few words with the prefix sub-: subbase, subbético). Exceptions are gamma (and its derivatives gammaglobulina, gammagrafía), digamma, kappa, atto-, as well as unadapted foreign words (including proper names) and their derivations (see below).

text: Vowels[edit]

text:
Vowels

Letter
IPA
Examples
English approximation

a
[a]
azahar
spa

e
[e]
vehemente
bet

i
[i]
dimitir; mío
see

y
y

o
[o]
boscoso
between coat (American more than British) and caught

u
[u]
cucurucho; dúo
food

text:
Semivowels[21]

IPA
Spelling
Examples
English approximation

[j]
i before a vowel
aliada; cielo; amplio; ciudad
you

[w]
u before a vowel
(but silent in qu, also gu before an e or i)
cuadro; fuego; Huila;[15] arduo
wine

text: The letter Y[edit]

text: The letter "y" is consistently used in the consonantal value. The use of the letter "y" for a vowel or a semivowel is very restricted. The diphthongs ai, ei, oi, ui are usually written ay, ey, oy, uy at the end of words (e. g. hay, ley, voy, muy), though exceptions may occur in loanwords (e.g. bonsái, agnusdéi). The letter y is conserved in rarely used encliticized verbal forms like doyte, haylas (it is more normal to say te doy, las hay). The letter "y" is used for the vowel /i/ in the conjunction y and in some acronyms, like pyme (from pequeña y mediana empresa). Otherwise, "y" for a vowel or semivowel occurs only in some archaically-spelled proper names and their derivations: Guaymas, guaymeño, and also fraybentino (from Fray Bentos with regular usage of "y" in a word-final diphthong). Derivatives of foreign proper names also conserve "y": taylorismo, from Taylor.

text: Special and modified letters[edit]

text: The vowels can be marked with an acute accent—á, é, í, ó, ú, ý—for two purposes: to mark stress if it does not follow the most common pattern, or to differentiate words that are otherwise spelled identically (called the tilde diacrítica in Spanish). The accented "y" is found only in some proper names: Aýna, Laýna, Ýñiguez.

text: A silent "u" is used between "g" and "e" or "i" to indicate a hard "g" pronunciation, so that "gue" represents /ɡe/ and "gui" represents /ɡi/. The letter "ü" ("u" with diaeresis,) is used in this context to indicate that the "u" is not silent, e.g. pingüino /pinˈgwino/. The diaeresis may occur also in Spanish poetry, occasionally, over either vowel of a diphthong, to indicate an irregular disyllabic pronunciation required by the meter (vïuda, to be pronounced as three syllables). This is analogous to the use of "ï" in naïve in English.

text: Also a silent "u" always follows a "q" when followed by "e" or "i", as in queso, química, but there is no case for the combination "qü", with "cu" fulfilling this role (as in cuestión). There are no native words in Spanish with the combination "qua" nor "quo"; again, "cu" is used instead (cuando). When they appear, usually from Latin idioms such as statu quo, the "u" is always pronounced, so "ü" is never needed after "q". Prior to the introduction of the 2010 Common Orthography words such as cuórum ('quorum'), cuásar ('quasar') or Catar ('Qatar') were spelled with "q"; this is no longer so.

text: Keyboard requirements[edit]

text: To write Spanish on a typewriter or to set type, the special characters required are á, é, í,ó, ú, ñ, Ñ, ü, Ü, ¿, and ¡. The upper-case Á, É, Í, Ó, and Ú are also prescribed by the RAE, although occasionally dispensed with in practice.

text: As implemented on the mechanical typewriter, the keyboard contained a single dead key, with the acute accent ( ´ ) in the lower-case position, and the dieresis ( ¨ ) in the upper-case position. With these, one could write á, é, í, ó, ú, and ü. A separate key provided ñ/Ñ. (A dead key "~" is used on the Spanish and Portuguese keyboards, but on the Latin American keyboard the "~" is not a dead key). The inverted marks "¿" and "¡" completed the required minimum. When an additional key was added to electro-mechanical typewriters, this was used for "ª" and "º", though these are not required. (They are somewhat archaic ordinal abbreviations: "1º" for primero, "2ª" for segunda, etc.)

text: As implemented in the MS-DOS operating system and its successor Microsoft Windows, a ç/Ç pair—not required in Spanish but needed for Catalan, Portuguese, and French—is typically added, and the use of the acute accent and dieresis with capital letters (Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú, Ü) is supported. Although not needed for Spanish, another dead key with "`" (the grave accent) in lower-case position and "^" (the circumflex accent) in upper-case position was included. Also available is "·" (the "flying point", required in Catalan). To make room for these characters not on the standard English keyboard, characters used primarily in programming, science, and mathematics—"[" and "]", "{" and "}", "/" and "\", "|", and "<" and ">"—are removed, requiring special keystroke sequences to access.

text: Stress and accentuation[edit]

text: Stress in Spanish is marked unequivocally through a series of orthographic rules. The default stress is on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, ⟨n⟩ or ⟨s⟩ and on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than ⟨n⟩ or ⟨s⟩. Words that do not follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel. The written accent will thus appear only in certain forms of a word and not others, for example andén, plural andenes. In many cases the accent is essential to understanding what a word means, for example hablo (I speak) as opposed to habló (he/she/Ud. spoke).

text: For purposes of counting syllables and assigning stress in Spanish, where an unmarked high vowel is followed by another vowel the sequence is treated as a rising diphthong, counted as a single syllable—unlike Portuguese and Catalan, which tend to treat such a sequence as two syllables.[22] A syllable is of the form XAXX, where X represents a consonant, permissible consonant cluster, or no sound at all, and A represents a vowel, diphthong, or triphthong. A diphthong is any sequence of an unstressed high vowel (⟨i⟩ or ⟨u⟩) with another vowel (as in gracias or náutico). And a triphthong is any combination of three vowels beginning and ending with unstressed high vowels (as in cambiáis or buey). Hence Spanish writes familia (no accent), while Portuguese and Catalan both put an accent mark on família (all three languages stress the first ⟨i⟩). The letter ⟨h⟩ is not considered an interruption between vowels (so that ahumar is considered to have two syllables: ahu-mar; this may vary in some regions, where ⟨h⟩ is used as a hiatus or diphthong-broking mark for unstressed vowels, so the pronunciation would be then a-hu-mar, though that trait is gradually disappearing).

text: An accent over the high vowel (⟨i⟩ or ⟨u⟩) of a vowel sequence prevents it from being a diphthong (i.e., it signals a hiatus): for example, tía and país have two syllables each.

text: A word with final stress is called oxytone (or aguda in traditional Spanish grammar texts); a word with penultimate stress is called paroxytone (llana or grave); a word with antepenultimate stress (stress on the third-to-last syllable) is called proparoxytone (esdrújula). A word with preantepenultimate stress (on the fourth last syllable) or earlier does not have a common linguistic term in English, but in Spanish receives the name sobresdrújula. (Spanish words can be stressed only on one of the last three syllables, except in the case of a verb form with enclitic pronouns, such as poniéndoselo.) All proparoxytones and sobresdrújulas have a written accent mark.

text: Adjectives spelled with a written accent (such as fácil, geográfico, cortés) keep the written accent when they are made into adverbs with the -mente ending (thus fácilmente, geográficamente, cortésmente), and do not gain any if they do not have one (thus libremente from libre). In the pronunciation of these adverbs—as with all adverbs in -mente—primary stress is on the ending, on the penultimate syllable. The original stress of the adjective—whether marked, as in fácilmente, or not marked, as in libremente—may be manifested as a secondary stress in the adverb.

text: Accentuation of capital letters[edit]

text: The Real Academia Española indicates that accents are required on capitals (but not when the capitals are used in acronyms).[23]

text: Differential accents[edit]

text: In a number of cases, homonyms are distinguished with written accents on the stressed (or only) syllable: for example, te (informal object case of 'you') vs. té ('tea'); se (third person reflexive) vs. sé ('I know' or imperative 'be'); tu (informal 'your') vs. tú (informal subject case of 'you'). When relative and interrogative pronouns have the same letters (as is often the case), the interrogative pronoun is accented and the relative pronoun is not:

text: The use of ó is poetic for the vocative: ¡Ó señor! The use of ⟨ó⟩ for the word o (meaning 'or') is a hypercorrection. Up until 2010, ⟨ó⟩ was used when applied to numbers: 7 ó 9 ('7 or 9'), to avoid possible confusion with the digit 0. The tenth congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies deemed the use of an accent unnecessary, as typewriting eliminates possible confusion due to the different shapes of ⟨0⟩ (zero) and ⟨o⟩ (the letter).[1]

text: These diacritics are often called acentos diacríticos or tildes diacríticas in traditional Spanish grammar.

text: Foreign words[edit]

text: Loanwords in Spanish are usually written according to Spanish spelling conventions (extranjerismos adaptados): e.g. pádel, fútbol, chófer, máster, cederrón ('CD-ROM'). However, some foreign words (extranjerismos crudos) are used in Spanish texts in their original forms, not conforming to Spanish orthographic conventions: e.g. ballet, blues, jazz, jeep, lady, pizza, sheriff, software. The RAE prescribes extranjerismos crudos to be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available:

text: In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

text: This typographical emphasis is not used for foreign proper names and their derivations; nor is it used for some Spanish derivations of extranjerismos crudos, such as pizzería.

text: Capitalization[edit]

text: Capitalization in Spanish is sparse compared to English. In general, only personal and place names, some abbreviations (e.g. Sr. López, but señor López); the first word (only) in the title of a book, movie, song, etc. (except when the title contains only two words, then the second word is also sometimes capitalized); and the first word in a sentence are capitalized, as are names of companies, government bodies, etc. Names of nationalities or languages are not capitalized, nor (in standard style) are days of the week and months of the year.[24][25]

text: Older conventions[edit]

text: The Spanish Royal Academy has reformed the orthographic rules of Spanish many times.

text: In Old Spanish, ⟨x⟩ was used to represent the voiceless palatal sound /ʃ/ (as in dixo 'he/she said'), while ⟨j⟩ represented the voiced palatal /ʒ/ (as in fijo 'son'). With the changes of sibilants in the 16th century, the two sounds merged as /ʃ/ (later to become velar /x/), and the letter ⟨j⟩ was chosen for the single resulting phoneme in 1815. When Cervantes wrote Don Quixote he spelled the name in the old way (and English preserves the ⟨x⟩), but modern editions in Spanish spell it with ⟨j⟩. For the use of ⟨x⟩ in Mexico—and in the name México itself—see below.

text: The letter ⟨ç⟩ (c-cedilla)—which was first used in Old Spanish—is now obsolete in Spanish, having merged with ⟨z⟩ in a process similar to that of ⟨x⟩ and ⟨j⟩. Old Spanish coraçon, cabeça, fuerça became modern corazón, cabeza, fuerza.

text: Words formerly spelled with ⟨ze⟩ or ⟨zi⟩ (such as catorze, dezir, and vezino) are now written with ⟨ce⟩ and ⟨ci⟩ (catorce, decir, vecino, respectively). The sequences ⟨ze⟩ and ⟨zi⟩ do not occur in modern Spanish except some loanwords: zeugma, zigurat, zipizape; some borrowed words have double spellings: zinc/cinc.[26]

text: The old spellings with ⟨ç⟩, ⟨ze⟩, and ⟨zi⟩ remained in use until the eighteenth century. They were replaced by ⟨z⟩, ⟨ce⟩, and ⟨ci⟩, respectively in 1726.[27] ⟨Ze⟩ and ⟨zi⟩ continued to be used in some words due to their etymology (e.g. zelo, zizaña), but this usage was largely reduced during the 1860—1880s, so these words became celo and cizaña. The letter ⟨x⟩ was replaced by ⟨j⟩ in 1815,[28] although word-final ⟨x⟩ remained until 1832 (e.g. relox, now reloj).[29] The combinations ⟨je⟩ and ⟨ji⟩ were originally used only in a few etymological cases (e.g. Jesús, Jeremías) and also in diminutives (pajita); after the reform of 1815, ⟨xe⟩ and ⟨xi⟩ were replaced by ⟨ge⟩ and ⟨gi⟩ in the Ortografía but by ⟨je⟩ and ⟨ji⟩ in the Diccionario; since 1832, the spelling was firmly established to be ⟨je⟩ and ⟨ji⟩. Also, unetymological spellings with ⟨ge⟩, ⟨gi⟩ (that is, words that did not have g in Latin) were changed to ⟨je⟩, ⟨ji⟩ (e.g. muger, from Latin mulier, became mujer).

text: Old Spanish used to distinguish /s/ and /z/ between vowels, and it distinguished them by using ⟨ss⟩ for the former and ⟨s⟩ for the latter, e.g. osso ('bear') and oso ('I dare to'). In orthography, the distinction was suppressed in 1763.[30]

text: Words spelled in modern Spanish with ⟨cua⟩, ⟨cuo⟩ (e.g. cuando, cuatro, cuota) were written with ⟨qua⟩, ⟨quo⟩ up until 1815.[28]

text: In 1726, most double consonants were simplified (e.g. grammatica → gramática, addicion → adición)[27]—but the ⟨m⟩ of a prefix before the ⟨m⟩ of a root was differentiated to ⟨n⟩ in 1763 (e.g. "commover → conmover").[30] And the Graeco-Latin digraphs ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨(r)rh⟩ and ⟨th⟩ were reduced to ⟨c⟩, ⟨f⟩, ⟨(r)r⟩ and ⟨t⟩, respectively (e.g. christiano → cristiano, triumpho → triunfo, myrrha → mirra, theatro → teatro).

text: From 1741[31] to 1815, the circumflex was used over vowels to indicate that preceding ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨x⟩ should be pronounced /k/ and /ks/ respectively and not /tʃ/ and /x/, e.g. exâctitud, patriarchâ.

text: The use of accent marks in publishing varies with different historical periods, due mainly to reforms promulgated by the Spanish Royal Academy. For example, many of the words that are today standardly written with an accent mark appeared more often without it up until around 1880. These include words with final stress ending in -n (e.g. capitán, también, jardín, acción, común—but not future-tense verb forms like serán, tendrán);[32][33] verbs in the imperfect tense (e.g. tenía, vivían);[34] the possessives mío and mía;[35] and the word día.[36] Meanwhile, one-letter words other than the conjunction y—namely the preposition a and the conjunctions e (the form of y before an [i] sound), o, and u (form of o before [o])—are generally written with accent marks from the mid-1700s to 1911.[37][38][39] The accent-marked infinitive oír begins to outnumber the unaccented form around 1920.[40] Monosyllabic preterit verb forms such as dio and fue were usually written with accent marks before the 1950s.[41]

text: The names of numbers in the upper teens and the twenties were originally written as three words (e.g. diez y seis, veinte y nueve), but nowadays they have come to be spelled predominantly as a single word (e.g. dieciséis, veintinueve). For the numbers from 21 to 29, the "fused" forms emerged over the second half of the 19th century.[42] For those from 16 to 19, the one-word forms took the lead in the 1940s.[43] Fusing of number-names above 30 (e.g. treintaicinco, cuarentaiocho)[44] is rare.

text: Reform proposals[edit]

text: In spite of the relatively regular orthography of Spanish, there have been several initiatives to simplify it further. Andrés Bello succeeded in making his proposal official in several South American countries, but they later returned to the standard set by the Real Academia Española.[45] Another initiative, the Ortografia Fonetika Rasional Ispanoamerikana, remained a curiosity. Juan Ramón Jiménez proposed changing ⟨ge⟩ and ⟨gi⟩ to ⟨je⟩ and ⟨ji⟩, but this is only applied in editions of his works or those of his wife, Zenobia Camprubí. Gabriel García Márquez raised the issue of reform during a congress at Zacatecas, most notoriously advocating for the suppression of ⟨h⟩, which is mute in Spanish, but, despite his prestige, no serious changes were adopted. The Academies, however, from time to time have made minor changes, such as allowing este instead of éste ('this one'), when there is no possible confusion.

text: A Mexican Spanish convention is to spell certain indigenous words with ⟨x⟩ rather than the ⟨j⟩ that would be the standard spelling in Spanish. This is generally due to the origin of the word (or the present pronunciation) containing the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ sound or another sibilant that is not used in modern standard Spanish. The most noticeable word with this feature is México (see Toponymy of Mexico). The Real Academia Española recommends this spelling.[46] The American Spanish colloquial term chicano is shortened from mechicano, which uses /tʃ/ in place of the /ʃ/ of rural Mexican Spanish /meʃiˈkano/.

text: Arabic alphabet[edit]

text: In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish (as well as Portuguese and Ladino) was sometimes written in the Arabic alphabet by moriscos. This form of Spanish is called aljamiado.


document_title: List of The Bill episodes

question_text: when was the last episode of the bill aired

root

text: List of The Bill episodes

text: This is a list of The Bill episodes.

tag: p

text: Series overview[edit]

text:
Series
Episodes
Originally aired

First aired
Last aired

1
12
16 October 1984 (1984-10-16)
22 January 1985 (1985-01-22)

2
12
11 November 1985 (1985-11-11)
10 February 1986 (1986-02-10)

3
12
21 September 1987 (1987-09-21)
7 December 1987 (1987-12-07)

4
48
19 July 1988 (1988-07-19)
29 December 1988 (1988-12-29)

5
104
3 January 1989 (1989-01-03)
28 December 1989 (1989-12-28)

6
104
2 January 1990 (1990-01-02)
27 December 1990 (1990-12-27)

7
105
1 January 1991 (1991-01-01)
31 December 1991 (1991-12-31)

8
105
2 January 1992 (1992-01-02)
31 December 1992 (1992-12-31)

9
155
5 January 1993 (1993-01-05)
31 December 1993 (1993-12-31)

10
156
4 January 1994 (1994-01-04)
30 December 1994 (1994-12-30)

11
149
5 January 1995 (1995-01-05)
29 December 1995 (1995-12-29)

12
156
2 January 1996 (1996-01-02)
31 December 1996 (1996-12-31)

13
152
2 January 1997 (1997-01-02)
30 December 1997 (1997-12-30)

14
121
1 January 1998 (1998-01-01)
31 December 1998 (1998-12-31)

15
87
7 January 1999 (1999-01-07)
31 December 1999 (1999-12-31)

16
86
4 January 2000 (2000-01-04)
29 December 2000 (2000-12-29)

17
92
5 January 2001 (2001-01-05)
21 December 2001 (2001-12-21)

18
86
3 January 2002 (2002-01-03)
31 December 2002 (2002-12-31)

19
106
1 January 2003 (2003-01-01)
31 December 2003 (2003-12-31)

20
98
7 January 2004 (2004-01-07)
30 December 2004 (2004-12-30)

21
106
5 January 2005 (2005-01-05)
29 December 2005 (2005-12-29)

22
93
4 January 2006 (2006-01-04)
29 December 2006 (2006-12-29)

23
92
3 January 2007 (2007-01-03)
28 December 2007 (2007-12-28)

24
88
2 January 2008 (2008-01-02)
31 December 2008 (2008-12-31)

25
65
1 January 2009 (2009-01-01)
29 December 2009 (2009-12-29)

26
31
7 January 2010 (2010-01-07)
31 August 2010 (2010-08-31)

tag: table

text: Episodes[edit]

text: Series 1[edit]

text:
No.
Title
Directed by
Written by
Episode notes
Guest stars
Original air date

1
"Woodentop"
Peter Cregeen
Geoff McQueen
Originally broadcast as part of the Storyboard series
Colin McCormack and Dawn Perllman
16 August 1983 (1983-08-16)

2
"Funny Ol' Business - Cops and Robbers"
Peter Cregeen
Geoff McQueen
TBA
Sarah Webb, Paul Cooper and David Gooderson
16 October 1984 (1984-10-16)

3
"A Friend in Need"
Peter Cregeen
Barry Appleton
First appearances of DS Ted Roach and DC Mike Dashwood
James Wilby, Perry Fenwick, Peter Lovstrom, Stanley McGeagh, Malcolm Rogers, Meera Syal and Esther Freud
23 October 1984 (1984-10-23)

4
"Clutching at Straws"
Christopher Hodson
Barry Appleton
TBA
Bruce Payne, June Brown, Tim Barker and Albert Moses
30 October 1984 (1984-10-30)

5
"Long Odds"
John Michael Phillips
Geoff McQueen
TBA
Sean Bean and John Lyons
6 November 1984 (1984-11-06)

6
"It's Not Such a Bad Job After All"
John Woods
Barry Appleton
TBA
John Savident, Edward Brayshaw and Geoffrey Bateman
13 November 1984 (1984-11-13)

7
"The Drugs Raid"
John Woods
Barry Appleton
First Appearance of PC Tony Stamp (uncredited)
Liz Smith, Norman Beaton, Roland Oliver, Cy Town and Mark Heath
20 November 1984 (1984-11-20)

8
"A Dangerous Breed"
Christopher Hodson
Barry Appleton
TBA
Trevor Martin, John Bleasdale and John Hasler (uncredited)
27 November 1984 (1984-11-27)

9
"Rough in the Afternoon"
Christopher Hodson
John Kershaw
TBA
James Marcus, Godfrey James, Bernard Kay and Tip Tipping
4 December 1984 (1984-12-04)

10
"Burning the Books"
Peter Cregeen
Barry Appleton
TBA
Brian Croucher, James Faulkner and John Woodnutt
8 January 1985 (1985-01-08)

11
"Death of a Cracksman"
Christopher Hodson
Barry Appleton
TBA
Kate Williams, Pam Ferris and Colin Spaull
15 January 1985 (1985-01-15)

12
"The Sweet Smell of Failure"
John Michael Phillips
Barry Appleton
TBA
Leonard Fenton, Linal Haft, Wolfe Morris and Jack Le White
22 January 1985 (1985-01-22)

text: Series 2[edit]

text: Series 3[edit]

text: Series 4[edit]

text: Series 5[edit]

text: Series 6[edit]

text: Series 7[edit]

text: Series 8[edit]

text: Series 9[edit]

text: Series 10[edit]

text: Series 11[edit]

text: Series 12[edit]

text: Series 13[edit]

text: Series 14[edit]

text: Series 15[edit]

text: Series 16[edit]

text: Series 17[edit]

text: Series 18[edit]

text: Series 19[edit]

text: Series 20[edit]

text: Series 21[edit]

text: Series 22[edit]

text: Series 23[edit]

text: Series 24[edit]

text: Series 25[edit]

text: Series 26[edit]


document_title: Chariots of Fire

question_text: where were the beach scenes in chariots of fire filmed

text: Chariots of Fire

text: Plot[edit]

text: In 1919, Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) enters the University of Cambridge, where he experiences anti-Semitism from the staff, but enjoys participating in the Gilbert and Sullivan club. He becomes the first person to ever complete the Trinity Great Court Run – running around the college courtyard in the time it takes for the clock to strike 12. Abrahams achieves an undefeated string of victories in various national running competitions. Although focused on his running, he falls in love with a leading Gilbert and Sullivan soprano, Sybil (Alice Krige).

text: Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), born in China of Scottish missionary parents, is in Scotland. His devout sister Jennie (Cheryl Campbell) disapproves of Liddell's plans to pursue competitive running. But Liddell sees running as a way of glorifying God before returning to China to work as a missionary.

text: When they first race against each other, Liddell beats Abrahams. Abrahams takes it poorly, but Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm), a professional trainer whom he had approached earlier, offers to take him on to improve his technique. This attracts criticism from the Cambridge college masters (John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson), who allege it is not gentlemanly for an amateur to "play the tradesman" by employing a professional coach. Abrahams dismisses this concern, interpreting it as cover for anti-Semitic and class-based prejudice.

text: When Eric Liddell accidentally misses a church prayer meeting because of his running, his sister Jennie upbraids him and accuses him of no longer caring about God. Eric tells her that though he intends to eventually return to the China mission, he feels divinely inspired when running, and that not to run would be to dishonour God, saying, "I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure."

text: The two athletes, after years of training and racing, are accepted to represent Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Also accepted are Abrahams' Cambridge friends, Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers), Aubrey Montague (Nicholas Farrell), and Henry Stallard (Daniel Gerroll). While boarding the boat to Paris for the Olympics, Liddell learns the news that the heat for his 100-metre race will be on a Sunday. He refuses to run the race – despite strong pressure from the Prince of Wales and the British Olympic committee – because his Christian convictions prevent him from running on the Sabbath.

text: Hope appears when Liddell's teammate Lindsay, having already won a silver medal in the 400 metres hurdles, proposes to yield his place in the 400-metre race on the following Thursday to Liddell, who gratefully agrees. His religious convictions in the face of national athletic pride make headlines around the world.

text: Liddell delivers a sermon at the Paris Church of Scotland that Sunday, and quotes from Isaiah 40, ending with, "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

text: Abrahams is badly beaten by the heavily favoured United States runners in the 200 metre race. He knows his last chance for a medal will be the 100 metres. He competes in the race, and wins. His coach Sam Mussabini is overcome that the years of dedication and training have paid off with an Olympic gold medal. Now Abrahams can get on with his life and reunite with his girlfriend Sybil, whom he had neglected for the sake of running. Before Liddell's race, the American coach remarks dismissively to his runners that Liddell has little chance of doing well in his now far longer 400 metre race. But one of the American runners, Jackson Scholz, hands Liddell a note of support for his convictions. Liddell defeats the American favourites and wins the gold medal.

text: The British team returns home triumphant. As the film ends, onscreen text explains that Abrahams married Sybil, and became the elder statesman of British athletics. Liddell went on to missionary work in China. All of Scotland mourned his death in 1945 in Japanese-occupied China.

text: Cast [edit]

text:
Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams, a Jewish student at Cambridge University
Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell, the son of Scottish missionaries to China
Nicholas Farrell as Aubrey Montague, a runner and friend of Harold Abrahams
Nigel Havers as Lord Andrew Lindsay, a Cambridge student runner partially based on David Burghley and Douglas Lowe
Ian Holm as Sam Mussabini, Abrahams's running coach
John Gielgud as Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University
Lindsay Anderson as Master of Caius College at Cambridge University
Cheryl Campbell as Jennie Liddell, Eric's devout sister (Janet Lillian "Jenny" Liddell)
Alice Krige as Sybil Gordon, Abrahams' fiancée (his actual fiancée was Sybil Evers)
Struan Rodger as Sandy McGrath, Liddell's friend and running coach
Nigel Davenport as Lord Birkenhead, member of the British Olympic Committee, who counsels the athletes
Patrick Magee as Lord Cadogan, chairman of the British Olympics Committee, who is unsympathetic to Liddell's religious plight
David Yelland as the Prince of Wales, who tries to get Liddell to change his mind about running on Sunday
Peter Egan as the Duke of Sutherland, president of the British Olympic Committee, who is sympathetic to Liddell
Daniel Gerroll as Henry Stallard, a Cambridge student and runner
Dennis Christopher as Charley Paddock, American Olympic runner
Brad Davis as Jackson Scholz, American Olympic runner

tag: ul

text: Historical accuracy[edit]

text: Characters[edit]

text: The film depicts Abrahams as attending Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge with three other Olympic athletes: Henry Stallard, Aubrey Montague, and Lord Andrew Lindsay. Abrahams and Stallard were in fact students there and competed in the 1924 Olympics. Montague also competed in the Olympics as depicted, but he attended Oxford, not Cambridge.[4] Aubrey Montague sent daily letters to his mother about his time at Oxford and the Olympics; these letters were the basis of Montague's narration in the film.

text: The character of Lindsay was based partially on Lord Burghley, a significant figure in the history of British athletics. Although Burghley did attend Cambridge, he was not a contemporary of Harold Abrahams, as Abrahams was an undergraduate from 1919 to 1923 and Burghley was at Cambridge from 1923 to 1927. One scene in the film depicts the Burghley-based "Lindsay" as practising hurdles on his estate with full champagne glasses placed on each hurdle – this was something the wealthy Burghley did, although he used matchboxes instead of champagne glasses.[5] The fictional character of Lindsay was created when Douglas Lowe, who was Britain's third athletics gold medallist in the 1924 Olympics, was not willing to be involved with the film.[6]

text: Another scene in the film recreates the Great Court Run, in which the runners attempt to run around the perimeter of the Great Court at Trinity College, Cambridge in the time it takes the clock to strike 12 at midday. The film shows Abrahams performing the feat for the first time in history. In fact, Abrahams never attempted this race, and at the time of filming the only person on record known to have succeeded was Lord Burghley, in 1927. In Chariots of Fire, Lindsay, who is based on Lord Burghley, runs the Great Court Run with Abrahams in order to spur him on, and crosses the finish line just a moment too late. Since the film's release, the Great Court Run has also been successfully run by Trinity undergraduate Sam Dobin, in October 2007.[7]

text: In the film, Eric Liddell is tripped up by a Frenchman in the 400-metre event of a Scotland–France international athletic meeting. He recovers, makes up a 20-metre deficit, and wins. This was based on fact; the actual race was the 440 yards at a Triangular Contest meet between Scotland, England, and Ireland at Stoke-on-Trent in England in July 1923. His achievement was remarkable as he had already won the 100- and 220-yard events that day.[8] Also unmentioned with regard to Liddell is that it was he who introduced Abrahams to Sam Mussabini.[9] This is alluded to: In the film Abrahams first encounters Mussabini while he is watching Liddell race. The film, however, suggests that Abrahams himself sought Mussabini's assistance.

text: Abrahams and Liddell did race against each other once, but not quite as depicted in the film, which shows Liddell winning the final of the 100 yards against a shattered Abrahams at the 1923 AAA Championship at Stamford Bridge. In fact, they raced only in a heat of the 220 yards, which Liddell won, five yards ahead of Abrahams, who did not progress to the final. In the 100 yards, Abrahams was eliminated in the heats and never raced against Liddell, who won the finals of both races the next day.[10]

text: Abrahams' fiancée is misidentified as Sybil Gordon, a soprano at the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. In fact, in 1936, Abrahams married Sybil Evers, who sang at the D'Oyly Carte, but they did not meet until 1934.[11] Also, in the film, Sybil is depicted as singing the role of Yum-Yum in The Mikado, but neither Sybil Gordon nor Sybil Evers ever sang that role with D'Oyly Carte,[12][13] although Evers was known for her charm in singing Peep-Bo, one of the two other "little maids from school".[11] Harold Abrahams' love of and heavy involvement with Gilbert and Sullivan, as depicted in the film, is factual.[14]

text: Liddell's sister was several years younger than she was portrayed in the film. Her disapproval of Liddell's track career was creative licence; she actually fully supported his sporting work. Jenny Liddell Somerville cooperated fully with the making of the film and has a brief cameo in the Paris Church of Scotland during Liddell's sermon.[15]

text: At the memorial service for Harold Abrahams, which opens the film, Lord Lindsay mentions that he and Aubrey Montague are the only members of the 1924 Olympic team still alive. However, Montague died in 1948, 30 years before Abrahams' death.

text: 1924 Olympics[edit]

text: The film takes some liberties with the events at the 1924 Olympics, including the events surrounding Liddell's refusal to race on a Sunday. In the film, he doesn't learn that the 100-metre heat is to be held on the Christian Sabbath until he is boarding the boat to Paris. In fact, the schedule was made public several months in advance. Liddell did however face immense pressure to run on that Sunday and to compete in the 100 metres, getting called before a grilling by the British Olympic Committee, the Prince of Wales, and other grandees;[14] and his refusal to run made headlines around the world.[16] The decision to change races was, even so, made well before embarking to Paris, and Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 metres, an event in which he had previously excelled. It is true, nonetheless, that Liddell's success in the Olympic 400m was largely unexpected.

text: The film depicts Lindsay, having already won a medal in the 400-metre hurdles, giving up his place in the 400-metre race for Liddell. In fact Burghley, on whom Lindsay is loosely based, was eliminated in the heats of the 110 hurdles (he would go on to win a gold medal in the 400 hurdles at the 1928 Olympics), and was not entered for the 400 metres.

text: The film reverses the order of Abrahams' 100m and 200m races at the Olympics. In reality, after winning the 100 metres race, Abrahams ran the 200 metres but finished last, Jackson Scholz taking the gold medal. In the film, before his triumph in the 100m, Abrahams is shown losing the 200m and being scolded by Mussabini. And during the following scene in which Abrahams speaks with his friend Montague while receiving a massage from Mussabini, there is a French newspaper clipping showing Scholz and Charlie Paddock with a headline which states that the 200 metres was a triumph for the United States. In the same conversation, Abrahams laments getting "beaten out of sight" in the 200. The film thus has Abrahams overcoming the disappointment of losing the 200 by going on to win the 100, a reversal of the real order.

text: Eric Liddell actually also ran in the 200m race, and finished third, behind Paddock and Scholz. This was the only time in reality that Liddell and Abrahams competed in the same race. Their meeting in the 1923 AAA Championship in the film was fictitious, though Liddell's record win in that race did spur Abrahams to train even harder.[17]

text: Abrahams also won a silver medal as an opening runner for the 4 x 100 metres relay team, not shown in the film. Aubrey Montague placed sixth in the steeplechase, as depicted.[4]

text: Personal inaccuracies at the Olympics[edit]

text: In the film, the 100m bronze medallist is a character called "Tom Watson"; the real medallist was Arthur Porritt of New Zealand, who refused permission for his name to be used in the film, allegedly out of modesty. His wish was accepted by the film's producers, even though his permission was not necessary.[18] However, the brief back-story given for Watson, who is called up to the New Zealand team from the University of Oxford, substantially matches Porritt's history. With the exception of Porritt, all the runners in the 100m final are identified correctly when they line up for inspection by the Prince of Wales.

text: Jackson Scholz is depicted as handing Liddell an inspirational Bible-quotation message before the 400 metres final: "It says in the good Book, 'He that honors me, I will honor.' Good luck."[19] In reality, the note was from members of the British team, and was handed to Liddell before the race by his attending masseur at the team's Paris hotel.[20] For dramatic purposes, screenwriter Welland asked Scholz if he could be depicted handing the note, and Scholz readily agreed, saying "Yes, great, as long as it makes me look good."[14][21]

text: Production[edit]

text: Script and direction[edit]

text: Producer David Puttnam was looking for a story in the mold of A Man for All Seasons (1966), regarding someone who follows his conscience, and felt sports provided clear situations in this sense.[22] He discovered Eric Liddell's story by accident in 1977, when he happened upon a reference book on the Olympics while housebound from the flu in a rented house in Los Angeles.[23][24]

text: Screenwriter Colin Welland, commissioned by Puttnam, did an enormous amount of research for his Academy Award-winning script. Among other things, he took out advertisements in London newspapers seeking memories of the 1924 Olympics, went to the National Film Archives for pictures and footage of the 1924 Olympics, and interviewed everyone involved who was still alive. Welland just missed Abrahams, who died 14 January 1978, but he did attend Abrahams' February 1978 memorial service, which inspired the present-day framing device of the film.[5] Aubrey Montague's son saw Welland's newspaper ad and sent him copies of the letters his father had sent home – which gave Welland something to use as a narrative bridge in the film. Except for changes in the greetings of the letters from "Darling Mummy" to "Dear Mum" and the change from Oxford to Cambridge, all of the readings from Montague's letters are from the originals.[14]

text: Welland's original script also featured, in addition to Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, a third protagonist, 1924 Olympic gold medallist Douglas Lowe, who was presented as a privileged aristocratic athlete. However, Lowe refused to have anything to do with the film, and his character was written out and replaced by the fictional character of Lord Andrew Lindsay.[25]

text: Ian Charleson himself wrote Eric Liddell's speech to the post-race workingmen's crowd at the Scotland v. Ireland races. Charleson, who had studied the Bible intensively in preparation for the role, told director Hugh Hudson that he didn't feel the portentous and sanctimonious scripted speech was either authentic or inspiring. Hudson and Welland allowed him to write words he personally found inspirational instead.[26]

text: The film was slightly altered for the U.S. audience. A brief scene depicting a pre-Olympics cricket game between Abrahams, Liddell, Montague, and the rest of the British track team appears shortly after the beginning of the original film. For the American audience, this brief scene was deleted. In the U.S., to avoid the initial G rating, which had been strongly associated with children's films and might have hindered box office sales, a different scene was used – one depicting Abrahams and Montague arriving at a Cambridge railway station and encountering two World War I veterans who use an obscenity – in order to be given a PG rating.[27]

text: Puttnam chose Hugh Hudson, a multiple award-winning advertising and documentary filmmaker who had never helmed a feature film, to direct Chariots of Fire. Hudson and Puttnam had known each other since the 1960s, when Puttnam was an advertising executive and Hudson was making films for ad agencies. In 1977, Hudson had also been second-unit director on the Puttnam-produced film Midnight Express.[28]

text: Casting[edit]

text: Director Hugh Hudson was determined to cast young, unknown actors in all the major roles of the film, and to back them up by using veterans like John Gielgud, Lindsay Anderson, and Ian Holm as their supporting cast. Hudson and producer David Puttnam did months of fruitless searching for the perfect actor to play Eric Liddell. They then saw Scottish stage actor Ian Charleson performing the role of Pierre in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Piaf, and knew immediately they had found their man. Unbeknownst to them, Charleson had heard about the film from his father, and desperately wanted to play the part, feeling it would "fit like a kid glove".[29]

text: Ben Cross, who plays Harold Abrahams, was discovered while playing Billy Flynn in Chicago. In addition to having a natural pugnaciousness, he had the desired ability to sing and play the piano.[14][30] Cross was thrilled to be cast, and said he was moved to tears by the film's script.[31]

text: 20th Century Fox, which put up half of the production budget in exchange for distribution rights outside of North America,[32] insisted on having a couple of notable American names in the cast.[24] Thus the small parts of the two American champion runners, Jackson Scholz and Charlie Paddock, were cast with recent headliners: Brad Davis had recently starred in Midnight Express (also produced by Puttnam), and Dennis Christopher had recently starred, as a young bicycle racer, in the popular indie film Breaking Away.[31]

text: All of the actors portraying runners underwent a gruelling three-month training intensive with renowned running coach Tom McNab. This training and isolation of the actors also created a strong bond and sense of camaraderie among them.[31]

text: Music[edit]

text: Although the film is a period piece, set in the 1920s, the Academy Award-winning original soundtrack composed by Vangelis uses a modern 1980s electronic sound, with a strong use of synthesizer and piano among other instruments. This was a bold and significant departure from earlier period films, which employed sweeping orchestral instrumentals. The title theme of the film has become iconic, and has been used in subsequent films and television shows during slow-motion segments.

text: Vangelis, a Greek-born electronic composer who moved to Paris in the late 1960s, had been living in London since 1974.[33] Director Hugh Hudson had collaborated with him on documentaries and commercials, and was also particularly impressed with his 1979 albums Opera Sauvage and China.[34] David Puttnam also greatly admired Vangelis's body of work, having originally selected his compositions for his previous film Midnight Express.[35] Hudson made the choice for Vangelis and for a modern score: "I knew we needed a piece which was anachronistic to the period to give it a feel of modernity. It was a risky idea but we went with it rather than have a period symphonic score."[28] The soundtrack had a personal significance to Vangelis: After composing the iconic theme tune he told Puttnam, "My father is a runner, and this is an anthem to him."[5][33]

text: Hudson originally wanted Vangelis's 1977 tune "L'Enfant",[36] from his Opera Sauvage album, to be the title theme of the film, and the beach running sequence was actually filmed with "L'Enfant" playing on loudspeakers for the runners to pace to. Vangelis finally convinced Hudson he could create a new and better piece for the film's main theme – and when he played the now-iconic "Chariots of Fire" theme for Hudson, it was agreed the new tune was unquestionably better.[37] The "L'Enfant" melody still made it into the film: When the athletes reach Paris and enter the stadium, a brass band marches through the field, and first plays a modified, acoustic performance of the piece.[38] Vangelis's electronic "L'Enfant" track eventually was used prominently in the 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously.

text: Some pieces of Vangelis's music in the film did not end up on the film's soundtrack album. One of them is the background music to the race Eric Liddell runs in the Scottish highlands. This piece is a version of "Hymne", the original version of which appears on Vangelis's 1979 album, Opéra sauvage. Various versions are also included on Vangelis's compilation albums Themes, Portraits, and Odyssey: The Definitive Collection, though none of these include the version used in the film.

text: Five lively Gilbert and Sullivan tunes also appear in the soundtrack, and serve as jaunty period music which nicely counterpoints Vangelis's modern electronic score. These are: "He is an Englishman" from H.M.S. Pinafore, "Three Little Maids from School Are We" from The Mikado, "With Catlike Tread" from The Pirates of Penzance, "The Soldiers of Our Queen" from Patience, and "There Lived a King" from The Gondoliers.

text: The film also incorporates a major traditional work: "Jerusalem", sung by a British choir at the 1978 funeral of Harold Abrahams. The words, written by William Blake in 1804-8, were set to music by Parry in 1916 as a celebration of England. This hymn has been described as "England's unofficial national anthem",[39] concludes the film and inspired its title.[40] A handful of other traditional anthems and hymns and period-appropriate instrumental ballroom-dance music round out the film's soundtrack.

text: Filming locations[edit]

text: The beach scenes associated with the theme tune were filmed at West Sands, St Andrews. A plaque commemorating the filming can be found there today. The very last scene of the opening titles crosses the 1st and 18th holes of the Old Course at St Andrews Links.[41][42]

text: All of the Cambridge scenes were actually filmed at Hugh Hudson's alma mater Eton College, because Cambridge refused filming rights, fearing depictions of anti-Semitism. The Cambridge administration greatly regretted the decision after the film's enormous success.[14]

text: Liverpool Town Hall was the setting for the scenes depicting the British Embassy in Paris.[14] The Colombes Olympic Stadium in Paris was represented by the Oval Sports Centre, Bebington, Merseyside.[43] The nearby Woodside ferry terminal was used to represent the embarkation scenes set in Dover.[43] The railway station scenes were filmed in York, using locomotives from the National Railway Museum.[14] The scene depicting a performance of The Mikado was filmed in the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool with members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company who were on tour.[44]

text: Revival for the 2012 Olympics[edit]

text: Chariots of Fire became a recurring theme in promotions for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The film's theme tune was featured at the opening of the 2012 London New Years fireworks celebrating the Olympics,[45] and the film's iconic beach-running scene and theme tune were used in The Sun's "Let's Make It Great, Britain" Olympic ads.[46] The runners who first tested the new Olympic Park were spurred on by the Chariots of Fire theme tune,[47] and the iconic music was also used to fanfare the carriers of the Olympic flame on parts of its route through the UK.[48][49] The film's theme was also performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle, during the Opening Ceremony of the games; the performance was accompanied by a comedy skit by Rowan Atkinson which included the opening beach-running footage from the film.[50] The film's theme tune was also played during each medal ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.

text: Stage adaptation[edit]

text: A stage adaptation of Chariots of Fire was mounted in honour of the 2012 Olympics. The play, Chariots of Fire, which was adapted by playwright Mike Bartlett and included the iconic Vangelis score, ran from 9 May to 16 June 2012 at London's Hampstead Theatre, and transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End on 23 June, where it ran until 5 January 2013.[51] It starred Jack Lowden as Eric Liddell and James McArdle as Harold Abrahams, and Edward Hall directed. Stage designer Miriam Buether transformed each theatre into an Olympic stadium, and composer Jason Carr wrote additional music.[52][53][54] Vangelis also created several new pieces of music for the production.[55][56] The stage version for the London Olympic year was the idea of the film's director, Hugh Hudson, who co-produced the play; he stated, "Issues of faith, of refusal to compromise, standing up for one's beliefs, achieving something for the sake of it, with passion, and not just for fame or financial gain, are even more vital today."[57]

text: Another play, Running for Glory, written by Philip Dart, based on the 1924 Olympics, and focusing on Abrahams and Liddell, toured parts of Britain from 25 February to 1 April 2012. It starred Nicholas Jacobs as Harold Abrahams, and Tom Micklem as Eric Liddell.[58][59]

text: UK cinematic re-release, Blu-ray[edit]

text: As an official part of the London 2012 Festival celebrations, a new digitally re-mastered version of the film screened in 150 cinemas throughout the UK. The re-release began 13 July 2012, two weeks before the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.[60]

text: A Blu-ray of the film was released on 10 July 2012 in North America,[61] and was released 16 July 2012 in the UK.[62] The release includes nearly an hour of special features, a CD sampler, and a 32-page "digibook".[63][64]

text: Critical reception[edit]

text: Since its release Chariots of Fire has received generally positive reviews from critics. As of 2017 the film holds an 83% "Certified Fresh" rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 64 reviews, accompanied by the summary "Decidedly slower and less limber than the Olympic runners at the center of its story, the film nevertheless manages to make effectively stirring use of its spiritual and patriotic themes."[65]

text: For its 2012 re-release, Kate Muir of The Times gave the film five stars, writing: "In a time when drug tests and synthetic fibres have replaced gumption and moral fibre, the tale of two runners competing against each other in the 1924 Olympics has a simple, undiminished power. From the opening scene of pale young men racing barefoot along the beach, full of hope and elation, backed by Vangelis's now famous anthem, the film is utterly compelling."[66]

text: Accolades[edit]

text: Chariots of Fire was very successful at the 54th Academy Awards, winning four of seven nominations. When accepting his Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Colin Welland famously announced "The British are coming".[67] At the 1981 Cannes Film Festival the film won two awards and competed for the Palme d'Or.[68]

text:
BFI Top 100 British films (1999) – rank 19
Hot 100 No. 1 Hits of 1982 (USA) (8 May) – Vangelis, Chariots of Fire theme

text: American Film Institute recognition

text:
1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated
2005: AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores - Nominated
2006: AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers - No. 100
2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated
2008: AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated Sports Movie

text: Awards and nominations[edit]

text:
Award
Category
Recipients and nominees
Result

54th Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Picture
David Puttnam
Won

Academy Award for Best Director
Hugh Hudson
Nominated

Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
Colin Welland
Won

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Ian Holm
Nominated

Academy Award for Best Film Editing
Terry Rawlings
Nominated

Academy Award for Best Costume Design
Milena Canonero
Won

Academy Award for Best Original Score
Vangelis
Won

American Movie Awards
Best Supporting Actor
Ian Holm
Nominated

35th British Academy Film Awards
BAFTA Award for Best Film
David Puttnam
Won

BAFTA Award for Best Direction
Hugh Hudson
Nominated

BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay
Colin Welland
Nominated

BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Nigel Havers
Nominated

Ian Holm
Won

BAFTA Award for Best Editing
Terry Rawlings
Nominated

BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design
Milena Canonero
Won

BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography
David Watkin
Nominated

BAFTA Award for Best Film Music
Vangelis
Nominated

BAFTA Award for Best Production Design
Roger Hall
Nominated

BAFTA Award for Best Sound
Clive Winter, Bill Rowe, Jim Shields
Nominated

British Society of Cinematographers

David Watkin
Nominated

1981 Cannes Film Festival
Palme d'Or
Hugh Hudson
Nominated

Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Special Mention
Won

Best Supporting Actor
Ian Holm
Won

Directors Guild of America Award
Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film
Hugh Hudson
Nominated

39th Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film
Hugh Hudson
Won

25th Grammy Awards
Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance
Ernie Watts
Won

London Film Critics' Circle
London Film Critics Circle Award for Film of the Year
Hugh Hudson
Won

London Film Critics Circle Award for Screenwriter of the Year
Colin Welland
Won

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 1981
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Film
Hugh Hudson
2nd place

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Music
Vangelis
2nd place

National Board of Review Awards 1981
National Board of Review Award for Best Film

Won

National Board of Review: Top Ten Films

Won

1981 New York Film Critics Circle Awards
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film

4th place

New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director
Hugh Hudson
3rd place

New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography
David Watkin
Won

Toronto International Film Festival
People's Choice Award
Hugh Hudson
Won