120-480: The Fertile Crescent ( Arabic : الهلال الخصيب ) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East , spanning modern-day Iraq , Israel , Jordan , Lebanon , Palestine , and Syria , together with northern Kuwait , south-eastern Turkey , and western Iran . Some authors also include Cyprus and northern Egypt . The Fertile Crescent is believed to be the first region where settled farming emerged as people started
240-562: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
360-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
480-1077: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
600-562: A high percentage of plants that can self-pollinate , but may also be cross-pollinated . These plants, called " selfers ", were one of the geographical advantages of the area because they did not depend on other plants for reproduction. As well as possessing many sites with the skeletal and cultural remains of both pre-modern and early modern humans (e.g., at Tabun and Es Skhul caves), later Pleistocene hunter-gatherers , and Epipalaeolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers (the Natufians );
720-483: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
840-548: A long history of irrigation. Prehistoric seedless figs were discovered at Gilgal I in the Jordan Valley , suggesting that fig trees were being planted some 11,400 years ago. Cereals were already grown in Syria as long as 9,000 years ago. Small cats ( Felis silvestris ) also were domesticated in this region. Also, legumes including peas , lentils and chickpea were domesticated in this region. Domesticated animals include
960-677: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
1080-861: A region of great diversity. Historically, Semitic languages generally prevailed in the modern regions of Iraq , Syria , Jordan , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Sinai and the fringes of southeast Turkey and northwest Iran , as well as the Sumerian (a language isolate ) in Iraq, whilst in the mountainous areas to the east and north a number of generally unrelated language isolates were found, including; Elamite , Gutian and Kassite in Iran , and Hattic , Kaskian and Hurro-Urartian in Turkey. The precise affiliation of these, and their date of arrival, remain topics of scholarly discussion. However, given lack of textual evidence for
1200-576: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
1320-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
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#17328373778661440-465: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
1560-503: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
1680-499: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
1800-470: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
1920-644: Is Palestine; Assyria makes up a large part of the center; while the end of the eastern wing is Babylonia. [...] This great semicircle, for lack of a name, may be called the Fertile Crescent. There is no single term for this region in antiquity. At the time that Breasted was writing, it roughly corresponded with the territories of the Ottoman Empire ceded to Britain and France in the Sykes–Picot Agreement . Historian Thomas Scheffler has noted that Breasted
2040-727: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
2160-607: Is a calque of the Latin name, from μέσος ( mésos , "in the middle") and γήινος ( gḗinos , "of the earth"), from γῆ ( gê , "land, earth"). The original meaning may have been 'the sea in the middle of the earth', rather than 'the sea enclosed by land'. Ancient Iranians called it the "Roman Sea", and in Classical Persian texts , it was called Daryāy-e Rōm (دریای روم), which may be from Middle Persian form, Zrēh ī Hrōm (𐭦𐭫𐭩𐭤 𐭩 𐭤𐭫𐭥𐭬). The Carthaginians called it
2280-742: Is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean , surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia , on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Europe , on the south by North Africa , and on the west almost by the Morocco–Spain border . The Mediterranean has played a central role in the history of Western civilization . Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago,
2400-585: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
2520-542: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
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#17328373778662640-469: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
2760-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
2880-468: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
3000-570: Is known as al-Baḥr [al-Abyaḍ] al-Mutawassiṭ ( البحر [الأبيض] المتوسط ) 'the [White] Middle Sea'. In Islamic and older Arabic literature, it was Baḥr al-Rūm ( بحر الروم ) or al- Baḥr al-Rūmī ( بحر الرومي ) 'the Sea of the Romans' or 'the Roman Sea' or Baḥr al-šām ( بحر الشام ) or al-Baḥr al-šāmī ( البحر الشامي ) ("the Sea of Syria"). At first, that name referred only to the eastern Mediterranean, but
3120-566: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
3240-788: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
3360-559: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
3480-584: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
3600-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
3720-516: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
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3840-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
3960-465: The Basques and Canary Islanders of the same time period, as the studies demonstrate those ancient peoples to be "clearly associated with modern Europeans". Additionally, no evidence from the studies demonstrates Cro-Magnon influence, contrary to former suggestions. The studies further suggest a diffusion of this diverse population away from the Fertile Crescent, with the early migrants moving away from
4080-509: The Black Sea . In Persian, the name was translated as Baḥr-i Safīd , which was also used in later Ottoman Turkish . Similarly, in 19th century Greek, the name was Άσπρη Θάλασσα ( áspri thálassa ; "white sea"). According to Johann Knobloch, in classical antiquity , cultures in the Levant used colours to refer to the cardinal points: black referred to the north (explaining the name Black Sea ), yellow or blue to east, red to south (e.g.,
4200-516: The Bronze Age , the region's natural fertility has been greatly extended by irrigation works, upon which much of its agricultural production continues to depend. The last two millennia have seen repeated cycles of decline and recovery as past works have fallen into disrepair through the replacement of states, to be replaced under their successors. Another ongoing problem has been salination —gradual concentration of salt and other minerals in soils with
4320-586: The Ice Age led to repeated extinction events when ecosystems became squeezed against the waters of the Mediterranean Sea . The Saharan pump theory posits that this Middle Eastern land bridge was extremely important to the modern distribution of Old World flora and fauna , including the spread of humanity . The area has borne the brunt of the tectonic divergence between the African and Arabian plates and
4440-701: The Italian Lakes (Po). While the Mediterranean watershed is bordered by other river basins in Europe, it is essentially bordered by endorheic basins or deserts elsewhere. The following countries are in the Mediterranean drainage basin while not having a coastline on the Mediterranean Sea: The following countries have a coastline on the Mediterranean Sea: Several other territories also border
4560-705: The Italian city-states like Amalfi and Genoa before the Crusades, according to the Cairo Geniza documents. A document dated 996 mentions Amalfian merchants living in Cairo . Another letter states that the Genoese had traded with Alexandria . The caliph al-Mustansir had allowed Amalfian merchants to reside in Jerusalem about 1060 in place of the Latin hospice . The Crusades led to
4680-508: The Near East —westward into Europe and North Africa , northward to Crimea , and northeastward to Mongolia . They took their agricultural practices with them and interbred with the hunter-gatherers whom they subsequently came in contact with while perpetuating their farming practices. This supports prior genetic and archaeological studies which have all arrived at the same conclusion. Consequently, contemporary in situ peoples absorbed
4800-743: The Punic Wars in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the Roman Republic defeated the Carthaginians to become the preeminent power in the Mediterranean. When Augustus founded the Roman Empire , the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum ("Our Sea"). For the next 400 years, the Roman Empire completely controlled the Mediterranean Sea and virtually all its coastal regions from Gibraltar to
4920-569: The Red Sea ) and white to west. That would explain the Bulgarian Byalo More , the Turkish Akdeniz , and the Arab nomenclature described above, lit. "White Sea". Major ancient civilizations were located around the Mediterranean. The sea provided routes for trade, colonization, and war, as well as food (from fishing and the gathering of other seafood) for numerous communities throughout
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5040-503: The Roman Empire , Mare Nostrum ("Our Sea"). The term Mare Mediterrāneum appears later: Solinus apparently used this in the 3rd century, but the earliest extant witness to it is in the 6th century, in Isidore of Seville . It means 'in the middle of land, inland' in Latin , a compound of medius ("middle"), terra ("land, earth"), and -āneus ("having the nature of"). The modern Greek name Μεσόγειος Θάλασσα ( mesógeios ; "inland")
5160-935: The Tigris–Euphrates river basin , including Sumer , Akkad , Babylonia , Assyria , and the Abbasid Caliphate . It is in this region where the first libraries appeared about 4,500 years ago. The oldest known libraries are found in Nippur (in Sumer) and Ebla (in Syria), both from c. 2500 BCE . Both the Tigris and Euphrates start in the Taurus Mountains of what is modern-day Turkey . Farmers in southern Mesopotamia had to protect their fields from flooding each year. Northern Mesopotamia had sufficient rain to make some farming possible. To protect against flooding they made levees. Since
5280-561: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
5400-464: The cattle , sheep , goat , domestic pig , cat , and domestic goose . Mesopotamia Egypt Iran Anatolia The Levant Arabia Cosmology Modern analyses comparing 24 craniofacial measurements reveal a relatively diverse population within the pre- Neolithic , Neolithic and Bronze Age Fertile Crescent, supporting the view that several populations occupied this region during these time periods. Similar arguments do not hold true for
5520-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
5640-517: The "Syrian Sea". In ancient Syrian texts, Phoenician epics and in the Hebrew Bible , it was primarily known as the "Great Sea", הים הגדול HaYam HaGadol , ( Numbers ; Book of Joshua ; Ezekiel ) or simply as "The Sea" ( 1 Kings ). However, it has also been called the "Hinder Sea" because of its location on the west coast of the region of Syria or the Holy Land (and therefore behind a person facing
5760-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
5880-852: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Mediterranean Sea For other countries, click here . The Mediterranean Sea ( / ˌ m ɛ d ɪ t ə ˈ r eɪ n i ən / MED -ih-tə- RAY -nee-ən )
6000-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
6120-565: The 16th century and also maintained naval bases in southern France (1543–1544), Algeria and Tunisia. Barbarossa , the Ottoman captain is a symbol of this domination with the victory of the Battle of Preveza (1538). The Battle of Djerba (1560) marked the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the eastern Mediterranean. As the naval prowess of the European powers increased, they confronted Ottoman expansion in
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#17328373778666240-562: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
6360-515: The 7th century, and with it the religion of Islam , which soon swept across from the east; at its greatest extent, the Arabs, under the Umayyads , controlled most of the Mediterranean region and left a lasting footprint on its eastern and southern shores. A variety of foodstuffs, spices and crops were introduced to the western Mediterranean's Spain and Sicily during Arab rule, via the commercial networks of
6480-812: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
6600-491: The Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar —the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa —is only 14 km (9 mi) wide. The Mediterranean Sea encompasses a vast number of islands , some of them of volcanic origin. The two largest islands, in both area and population, are Sicily and Sardinia . The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and
6720-417: The Fertile Crescent includes Israel , Palestine , Iraq , Syria , Lebanon , Egypt , and Jordan , as well as the surrounding portions of Turkey and Iran . In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates , riverwater sources include the Jordan River . The inner boundary is delimited by the dry climate of the Syrian Desert to the south. Around the outer boundary are the Anatolian and Armenian highlands to
6840-477: The Fertile Crescent is most famous for its sites related to the origins of agriculture . The western zone around the Jordan and upper Euphrates rivers gave rise to the first known Neolithic farming settlements (referred to as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA)), which date to around 9,000 BCE and includes very ancient sites such as Göbekli Tepe , Chogha Golan , and Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) . This region, alongside Mesopotamia (Greek for "between rivers", between
6960-410: The Fertile Crescent was home to the eight Neolithic founder crops important in early agriculture (i.e., wild progenitors to emmer wheat , einkorn , barley , flax , chick pea , pea , lentil , bitter vetch ), and four of the five most important species of domesticated animals— cows , goats , sheep , and pigs ; the fifth species, the horse , lived nearby. The Fertile Crescent flora comprises
7080-492: The Islamic world. These include sugarcane, rice, cotton, alfalfa, oranges, lemons, apricots, spinach, eggplants, carrots, saffron and bananas. The Arabs also continued extensive cultivation and production of olive oil (the Spanish words for 'oil' and 'olive'— aceite and aceituna , respectively—are derived from the Arabic al-zait , meaning 'olive juice'), and pomegranates (the heraldic symbol of Granada) from classical Greco-Roman times. The Arab invasions disrupted
7200-411: The Levant, being the only state in history to ever do so, being given the nickname "Roman Lake". The Western Roman Empire collapsed around 476 AD. The east was again dominant as Roman power lived on in the Byzantine Empire formed in the 4th century from the eastern half of the Roman Empire . Though the Eastern Roman Empire would continue to hold almost all of the Mediterranean, another power arose in
7320-405: The Mediterranean Sea is the Nile , which takes its sources in equatorial Africa. The basin of the Nile constitutes about two-thirds of the Mediterranean drainage basin and encompasses areas as high as the Ruwenzori Mountains . Among other important rivers in Africa, are the Moulouya and the Chelif , both on the north side of the Atlas Mountains . In Asia, are the Ceyhan and Seyhan , both on
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#17328373778667440-450: The Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea without ship lock, because the water level is essentially the same. The westernmost point of the Mediterranean is located at the transition from the Alborán Sea to the Strait of Gibraltar, the easternmost point is on the coast of the Gulf of Iskenderun in southeastern Turkey. The northernmost point of the Mediterranean is on the coast of the Gulf of Trieste near Monfalcone in northern Italy while
7560-411: The Mediterranean towards East Africa and Asia. This led to a preference for the Mediterranean countries and their ports like Trieste with direct connections to Central and Eastern Europe experienced a rapid economic rise. In the 20th century, the 1st and 2nd World Wars as well as the Suez Crisis and the Cold War led to a shift of trade routes to the European northern ports, which changed again towards
7680-405: The Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. The Mediterranean Sea covers an area of about 2,500,000 km (970,000 sq mi), representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface, but its connection to
7800-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
7920-474: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
8040-413: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
8160-406: The ages. The earliest advanced civilizations in the Mediterranean were the Egyptians and the Minoans , who traded extensively with each other. Other notable civilizations that appeared somewhat later are the Hittites and other Anatolian peoples , the Phoenicians , and Mycenean Greece . Around 1200 BC the eastern Mediterranean was greatly affected by the Bronze Age Collapse , which resulted in
8280-432: The agricultural way of life of those early migrants who ventured out of the Fertile Crescent. This is contrary to the suggestion that the spread of agriculture disseminated out of the Fertile Crescent by way of sharing of knowledge. Instead, the view now supported by a preponderance of evidence is that it occurred by actual migration out of the region, coupled with subsequent interbreeding with indigenous local populations whom
8400-407: The area as generic Mediterranean Sea, in the Western Basin. It does not recognize the label Sea of Sardinia . Note 2: Thracian Sea and Myrtoan Sea are seas that are part of the Aegean Sea . Note 3: The Black Sea is not considered part of it. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Mediterranean Sea as follows: Stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar in
8520-471: The converging Arabian and Eurasian plates, which has made the region a very diverse zone of high snow-covered mountains. The Fertile Crescent had many diverse climates , and major climatic changes encouraged the evolution of many "r" type annual plants , which produce more edible seeds than "K" type perennial plants . The region's dramatic variety in elevation gave rise to many species of edible plants for early experiments in cultivation. Most importantly,
8640-567: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
8760-727: The deepest recorded point is 5,109 ± 1 m (16,762 ± 3 ft) in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea . It lies between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E . Its west–east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Alexandretta , on the southeastern coast of Turkey , is about 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi). The north–south length varies greatly between different shorelines and whether only straight routes are considered. Also including longitudinal changes,
8880-659: The destruction of many cities and trade routes. The most notable Mediterranean civilizations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states and the Phoenicians , both of which extensively colonized the coastlines of the Mediterranean. Darius I of Persia , who conquered Ancient Egypt, built a canal linking the Red Sea to the Nile, and thus the Mediterranean. Darius's canal was wide enough for two triremes to pass each other with oars extended and required four days to traverse. Following
9000-803: The earliest era of prehistory, this debate is unlikely to be resolved in the near future. The evidence that does exist suggests that, by the third millennium BCE and into the second, several language groups already existed in the region. These included: Links between Hurro-Urartian and Hattic and the indigenous languages of the Caucasus have frequently been suggested, but are not generally accepted. 36°N 40°E / 36°N 40°E / 36; 40 Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
9120-578: The east), which is sometimes translated as "Western Sea". Another name was the "Sea of the Philistines ", ( Book of Exodus ), from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites . In Modern Hebrew , it is called הים התיכון HaYam HaTikhon 'the Middle Sea'. In Classic Persian texts was called Daryāy-e Šām (دریای شام) "The Western Sea" or "Syrian Sea". In Modern Standard Arabic , it
9240-577: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
9360-645: The entire Mediterranean. Once, most of the trade between Western Europe and the East was passing through the region , but after the 1490s the development of a sea route to the Indian Ocean allowed the importation of Asian spices and other goods through the Atlantic ports of western Europe. The sea remained strategically important. British mastery of Gibraltar ensured their influence in Africa and Southwest Asia. Especially after
9480-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
9600-593: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
9720-649: The flourishing of trade between Europe and the outremer region. Genoa, Venice and Pisa created colonies in regions controlled by the Crusaders and came to control the trade with the Orient. These colonies also allowed them to trade with the Eastern world. Though the fall of the Crusader states and attempts at banning of trade relations with Muslim states by the Popes temporarily disrupted
9840-501: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
9960-436: The immediate coastline on all sides of the Mediterranean tends to have strong maritime moderation. The sea was an important route for merchants and travellers of ancient times, facilitating trade and cultural exchange between the peoples of the region. The history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. The Roman Empire maintained nautical hegemony over
10080-579: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
10200-608: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
10320-599: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
10440-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
10560-683: The major ranges bordering Southern Europe. Total annual precipitation is significantly higher on the European part of the Mediterranean basin, especially near the Alps (the 'water tower of Europe') and other high mountain ranges. As a consequence, the river discharges of the Rhône and Po are similar to that of the Nile, despite the latter having a much larger basin. These are the only three rivers with an average discharge of over 1,000 m /s (35,000 cu ft/s). Among large natural fresh bodies of water are Lake Victoria (Nile basin), Lake Geneva (Rhône), and
10680-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
10800-462: The migrants and arrest the traffickers of immigrants. In 2015, more than one million migrants crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe. Italy was particularly affected by the European migrant crisis . Since 2013, over 700,000 migrants have landed in Italy, mainly sub-Saharan Africans. The Mediterranean Sea connects: The 163 km (101 mi) long artificial Suez Canal in the southeast connects
10920-452: The migrants came in contact with. The studies show also that not all present day Europeans share strong genetic affinities to the Neolithic and Bronze Age inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent; the closest ties to the Fertile Crescent rest with Southern Europeans. The same study further demonstrates all present-day Europeans to be closely related. Linguistically, the Fertile Crescent was
11040-485: The naval battles of Abukir (1799, Battle of the Nile ) and Trafalgar (1805), the British had for a long time strengthened their dominance in the Mediterranean. Wars included Naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I and Mediterranean theatre of World War II . With the opening of the lockless Suez Canal in 1869, the flow of trade between Europe and Asia changed fundamentally. The fastest route now led through
11160-721: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
11280-567: The north, the Sahara Desert to the west, Sudan to the south, and the Iranian plateau to the east. As crucial as rivers and marshlands were to the rise of civilization in the Fertile Crescent, they were not the only factor. The area is geographically important as the "bridge" between North Africa and Eurasia , which has allowed it to retain a greater amount of biodiversity than either Europe or North Africa , where climate changes during
11400-428: The number of drowned refugees in the region as a direct result of the policies. An Azerbaijani official described the sea as "a burial ground ... where people die". Following the 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck , the Italian government decided to strengthen the national system for the patrolling of the Mediterranean Sea by authorising " Operation Mare Nostrum ", a military and humanitarian mission in order to rescue
11520-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
11640-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
11760-462: The process of clearance and modification of natural vegetation to grow newly domesticated plants as crops . Early human civilizations such as Sumer in Mesopotamia flourished as a result. Technological advances in the region include the development of agriculture and the use of irrigation , of writing , the wheel , and glass , most emerging first in Mesopotamia . The term "Fertile Crescent"
11880-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
12000-596: The region when the Battle of Lepanto (1571) checked the power of the Ottoman Navy . This was the last naval battle to be fought primarily between galleys . The Barbary pirates of Northwest Africa preyed on Christian shipping and coastlines in the Western Mediterranean Sea. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th centuries, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. The development of oceanic shipping began to affect
12120-465: The rivers Tigris and Euphrates , lies in the east of the Fertile Crescent), also saw the emergence of early complex societies during the succeeding Bronze Age . There is also early evidence from the region for writing and the formation of hierarchical state level societies. This has earned the region the nickname "The cradle of civilization ". From ancient times empires arose and fell in
12240-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
12360-468: The sea for centuries and is the only state to have ever controlled all of its coast. The countries surrounding the Mediterranean and its marginal seas in clockwise order are Spain , France , Monaco , Italy , Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Montenegro , Albania , Greece , Turkey , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine ( Gaza Strip ), Egypt , Libya , Tunisia , Algeria , and Morocco ; Cyprus and Malta are island countries in
12480-641: The sea. In addition, Northern Cyprus ( de facto state ) and two overseas territories of the United Kingdom ( Akrotiri and Dhekelia , and Gibraltar ) also have coastlines along the Mediterranean Sea. The drainage basin encompasses a large number of other countries, the Nile being the longest river ending in the Mediterranean Sea. The Ancient Egyptians called the Mediterranean Wadj-wr/Wadj-Wer/Wadj-Ur. This term (literally "great green")
12600-527: The shortest shipping route between the multinational Gulf of Trieste and the Libyan coastline of the Gulf of Sidra is about 1,900 kilometres (1,200 mi). The water temperatures are mild in winter and warm in summer and give name to the Mediterranean climate type due to the majority of precipitation falling in the cooler months. Its southern and eastern coastlines are lined with hot deserts not far inland, but
12720-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
12840-646: The south side of the Taurus Mountains . In Europe, the largest basins are those of the Rhône , Ebro , Po , and Maritsa . The basin of the Rhône is the largest and extends up as far north as the Jura Mountains , encompassing areas even on the north side of the Alps . The basins of the Ebro, Po, and Maritsa, are respectively south of the Pyrenees , Alps, and Balkan Mountains , which are
12960-570: The southern ports through European integration, the activation of the Silk Road and free world trade. In 2013, the Maltese president described the Mediterranean Sea as a "cemetery" due to the large number of migrants who drowned there after their boats capsized. European Parliament president Martin Schulz said in 2014 that Europe's migration policy "turned the Mediterranean into a graveyard", referring to
13080-599: The southernmost point is on the coast of the Gulf of Sidra near the Libyan town of El Agheila . Large islands in the Mediterranean include: The Alpine arc , which also has a great meteorological impact on the Mediterranean area, touches the Mediterranean in the west in the area around Nice . The typical Mediterranean climate has hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. Crops of the region include olives , grapes , oranges , tangerines , carobs and cork . The Mediterranean Sea includes 15 marginal seas : Note 1: The International Hydrographic Organization defines
13200-556: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
13320-640: The term was later extended to the whole Mediterranean, it was also called Baḥr al-Maghrib ( بحر المغرب ) ("the Sea of the West"). A name that was used mainly for the western basin. In Turkish , it is the Akdeniz 'the White Sea'; in Ottoman, ﺁق دڭيز , which sometimes means only the Aegean Sea . The origin of the name is not clear, as it is not known in earlier Greek, Byzantine or Islamic sources. It may be to contrast with
13440-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
13560-658: The trade in western Europe and brought it to a halt. However, the Norsemen developed the trade from Norway to the White Sea , while also trading in luxury goods from Spain and the Mediterranean. The Byzantines in the mid-8th century retook control of the area around the north-eastern part of the Mediterranean. Venetian ships from the 9th century armed themselves to counter the harassment by Arabs while concentrating trade of Asian goods in Venice. The Fatimids maintained trade relations with
13680-589: The trade relations between Western and Eastern Europe while disrupting trade routes with Eastern Asian Empires. This, however, had the indirect effect of promoting trade across the Caspian Sea . The export of grains from Egypt was re-routed towards the Eastern world . Products from East Asian empires, like silk and spices, were carried from Egypt under the Arab rule to ports like Venice and Constantinople by sailors and Jewish merchants. The Viking raids further disrupted
13800-625: The trade with the Orient, it however continued. Europe started to revive, however, as more organized and centralized states began to form in the later Middle Ages after the Renaissance of the 12th century . Ottoman power based in Anatolia continued to grow, and in 1453 extinguished the Byzantine Empire with the Conquest of Constantinople . Ottomans gained control of much of the eastern part sea in
13920-645: The west to the entrances to the Dardanelles and the Suez Canal in the east, the Mediterranean Sea is bounded by the coasts of Europe, Africa, and Asia and is divided into two deep basins: The drainage basin of the Mediterranean Sea is particularly heterogeneous and extends much further than the Mediterranean region. Its size has been estimated between 4,000,000 and 5,500,000 km (1,500,000 and 2,100,000 sq mi), depending on whether non-active parts (deserts) are included or not. The longest river ending in
14040-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
14160-460: Was following a trend in Western geography to "overwrite the classical geographical distinctions between continents, countries and landscapes with large, abstract spaces", drawing parallels with the work of Halford Mackinder , who conceptualised Eurasia as a 'pivot area' surrounded by an 'inner crescent', Alfred Thayer Mahan's Middle East , and Friedrich Naumann's Mitteleuropa . In current usage,
14280-570: Was popularized by archaeologist James Henry Breasted in Outlines of European History (1914) and Ancient Times, A History of the Early World (1916). He wrote: It lies like an army facing south, with one wing stretching along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and the other reaching out to the Persian Gulf, while the center has its back against the northern mountains. The end of the western wing
14400-721: Was the name given by the Ancient Egyptians to the semi-solid, semi-aquatic region characterized by papyrus forests to the north of the cultivated Nile delta, and, by extension, the sea beyond. The Ancient Greeks called the Mediterranean simply ἡ θάλασσα ( hē thálassa ; "the Sea") or sometimes ἡ μεγάλη θάλασσα ( hē megálē thálassa ; "the Great Sea"), ἡ ἡμετέρα θάλασσα ( hē hēmetérā thálassa ; "Our Sea"), or ἡ θάλασσα ἡ καθ’ ἡμᾶς ( hē thálassa hē kath’hēmâs ; "the sea around us"). The Romans called it Mare Magnum ("Great Sea") or Mare Internum ("Internal Sea") and, starting with
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