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104-627: That process was aided by the universal adoption of Greek as the language of intellectual culture and commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean and of Latin as the language of public administration and of forensic advocacy , especially in the Western Mediterranean. Greek and Latin were never the native languages of many or most of the rural peasants, who formed the great majority of the Roman Empire 's population. However, they became

208-515: A 52% majority. Many of Abdallahi's former supporters criticized this as a political ploy and refused to recognize the results. Despite complaints, the elections were almost unanimously accepted by Western, Arab and African countries, which lifted sanctions and resumed relations with Mauritania. By late summer, Abdel Aziz appeared to have secured his position and to have gained widespread international and internal support. Some figures, such as Senate chairman Messaoud Ould Boulkheir , continued to refuse

312-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

416-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in

520-556: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

624-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near

728-530: A negligible player in the territorial dispute, with its official position being that it wishes for an expedient solution that is mutually agreeable to all parties. While most of Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco, the UN still considers the Western Sahara a territory that needs to express its wishes with respect to statehood. A referendum, originally scheduled for 1992, is still supposed to be held at some point in

832-415: A result, Abdallahi formally resigned under protest, as it became clear that some opposition forces had defected from him and most international players, notably including France and Algeria, now aligned with Abdel Aziz. The United States continued to criticize the coup, but did not actively oppose the elections. Abdallahi's resignation allowed the election of Abdel Aziz as civilian president, on 18 July, by

936-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout

1040-679: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system

1144-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During

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1248-650: Is an accepted version of this page Mauritania , formally the Islamic Republic of Mauritania , is a sovereign country in Northwest Africa . It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast , Mali to the east and southeast , and Senegal to the southwest . By land area Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and 28th-largest in

1352-632: Is known as the Char Bouba War . The invaders were led by the Beni Hassan tribe. The descendants of the Beni Hassan warriors became the upper stratum of Moorish society. Hassaniya , a bedouin Arabic dialect named for the Beni Hassan, became the dominant language among the largely nomadic population. Starting in the late 19th century, France laid claim to the territories of present-day Mauritania, from

1456-504: Is multiethnic; the Bidhan , or so-called "white moors", make up 30% of the population, while the Haratin , or so-called "black moors", comprise 40%. Both groups reflect a fusion of Arab-Berber ethnicity, language, and culture. The remaining 30% of the population comprises various sub-Saharan ethnic groups . Mauritania takes its name from the ancient Berber kingdom that flourished beginning in

1560-584: Is not known but the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that, as of June 1991, 52,995 Mauritanian refugees were living in Senegal and at least 13,000 in Mali. Opposition parties were legalized, and a new Constitution approved in 1991 which put an end to formal military rule. But President Ould Taya's election wins were dismissed as fraudulent by some opposition groups. In

1664-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to

1768-760: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Mauritania This

1872-518: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around

1976-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

2080-630: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with

2184-729: The Agri Decumates , southwestern Germany ), the Illyricum (modern-day Northern Albania , Montenegro , Bosnia and Herzegovina and the coast of Croatia ), the Macedonian region , Thrace (corresponding to modern-day Southeastern Bulgaria , Northeastern Greece and the European portion of Turkey ), Moesia (roughly corresponding to modern-day Central Serbia , Kosovo , Northern Macedonia , Northern Bulgaria and Romanian Dobrudja ), and Pannonia (corresponding to modern-day Western Hungary ,

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2288-526: The Atlantic . Berbers occupied what is now Mauritania by beginning of the third century AD. Groups of Arab tribes migrated to this area in the late seventh century, bringing with them Islam, Arab culture, and the Arabic language. In the early 20th century, Mauritania was colonized by France as part of French West Africa . It achieved independence in 1960, but has since experienced recurrent coups and periods of military dictatorship. The 2008 Mauritanian coup d'état

2392-577: The Austrian Länder of Burgenland , Eastern Slovenia and Northern Serbia ). Also included were Dacia (roughly corresponding to modern-day Romania and Moldavia ), Nubia (a region roughly corresponding to the far south of Egypt and modern-day Northern Sudan ), Mauretania (corresponding to modern-day Morocco , Western Algeria and Northern Mauritania ), Arabia Petraea (corresponding to modern-day Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia , Jordan , Southern Syria and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula ), and

2496-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It

2600-634: The Iberian Peninsula , the Anatolian Peninsula (modern-day Turkey ), Gaul (modern-day France ), the Syrian region (modern-day Levantine countries , Central and Northern Syria , Lebanon and Palestine ), Egypt and Roman Africa (corresponding to modern-day Tunisia , Eastern Algeria and Western Libya ). Occupying the periphery of that world were the so-called "Roman Germany" (the modern-day Alpine countries of Austria and Switzerland and

2704-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

2808-570: The Military Committee for National Salvation . The energetic Colonel Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah soon emerged as its strongman. By giving up all claims to Western Sahara, he found peace with the Polisario and improved relations with its main backer, Algeria, but relations with Morocco, the other party to the conflict, and its European ally France, deteriorated. Instability continued, and Haidallah's ambitious reform attempts foundered. His regime

2912-836: The Parthenon and the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, and the Erechtheum , next to the Parthenon, is Ionic. By AD 211, with Caracalla 's edict known as the Constitutio Antoniniana , and although one of the edict's main purposes was to increase tax revenue, all of the empire's free men became citizens with all the rights this entailed. As a result, even after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire ,

3016-537: The Res Gestae , exemplifies the official recognition of the dual vehicles for the common culture. The familiarity of figures from Roman legend and history in the Parallel Lives by Plutarch is one example of the extent to which " universal history " was then synonymous with the accomplishments of famous Latins and Hellenes . Most educated Romans were likely bilingual in Greek and Latin. Graeco-Roman architecture in

3120-660: The Senegal River area northwards. In 1901, Xavier Coppolani took charge of the imperial mission. Through a combination of strategic alliances with Zawaya tribes and military pressure on the Hassane warrior nomads, he managed to extend French rule over the Mauritanian emirates . Beginning in 1903 and 1904, the French armies succeeded in occupying Trarza , Brakna , and Tagant , but the northern emirate of Adrar held out longer, aided by

3224-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in

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3328-536: The southern part of Western Sahara , framed as an attempt to create a " Greater Mauritania ". Col. Mustafa Ould Salek 's Military Committee for National Recovery junta proved incapable of either establishing a strong base of power or extracting the country from its destabilizing conflict with the Sahrawi resistance movement, the Polisario Front . It quickly fell, to be replaced by another military government,

3432-465: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into

3536-448: The BASEP (Presidential Security Battalion) came to our home and took away my father." The coup plotters, all dismissed in a presidential decree shortly beforehand, included Ould Abdel Aziz, General Muhammad Ould Al-Ghazwani , General Philippe Swikri, and Brigadier General (Aqid) Ahmed Ould Bakri. A Mauritanian lawmaker, Mohammed Al Mukhtar, claimed that many of the country's people supported

3640-608: The Berber peoples of the kingdom, the Mauri people . The word "Mauri" is also the root of the name for the Moors . It was more commonly known to Arab geographers as Bilad Chinqit, "the land of the Chinguetti". The term "Mauritanie occidentale" was officially used in a ministerial circular in 1899, based on a proposal by Xavier Coppolani , a French military and colonial leader, who was instrumental in

3744-619: The Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire) fell to the Turks led by Mehmed II in 1453. There is a perception that these events led to the predecessor of Greek nationalism through the Ottoman era and even into modern times. Greco-Roman mythology , sometimes called classical mythology , is the result of the syncretism between Roman and Greek myths, spanning the period of Great Greece at

3848-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

3952-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than

4056-491: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

4160-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow

4264-661: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community

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4368-462: The Halpularen ethnic group. The tension culminated in an international airlift agreed to by Senegal and Mauritania under international pressure to prevent further violence. The Mauritanian Government expelled thousands of black Mauritanians. Most of these so-called 'Senegalese' had few or no ties with Senegal, and many have been repatriated from Senegal and Mali after 2007. The exact number of expulsions

4472-592: The Mauritanian Army and head of the presidential guard, who had recently been fired. Mauritania's presidential spokesman, Abdoulaye Mamadouba, said the President, Prime Minister, and Interior Minister had been arrested by renegade senior Mauritanian army officers and were being held under house arrest at the presidential palace in the capital. In the apparently successful and bloodless coup, Abdallahi's daughter, Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi, said: "The security agents of

4576-582: The Persian emperor Darius III and conquest of the Persian empire , or the later Roman generals' difficulties with the Persian armies, such as Pompey the Great , and of Marcus Licinius Crassus (conqueror of the slave general Spartacus ), who was defeated in the field by a Persian force and was beheaded by them. In the schools of art , philosophy , and rhetoric , the foundations of education were transmitted throughout

4680-521: The Roman world followed the principles and style that had been established by ancient Greece. That era's most representative building was the temple. Other prominent structures that represented that style included government buildings like the Roman Senate . The three primary styles of column design used in temples in classical Greece were Doric , Ionic , and Corinthian . Some examples of Doric architecture are

4784-413: The Sahara to the Iberian Peninsula in Europe. According to a disputed Arab tradition the Almoravids traveled south and conquered the ancient and extensive Ghana Empire around 1076. From 1644 to 1674 the indigenous peoples of the area that is modern Mauritania made what became their final effort to repel the Yemeni Maqil Arabs who were invading their territory. This effort, which was unsuccessful,

4888-412: The Tauric Chersonesus (modern-day Crimea and the coast of Ukraine ). The Greco-Roman world had another "world" or empire to its east, the Persians, with which there was constant interaction: Xenophon 's Anabasis (the ' March Upcountry ' ), the Greco-Persian wars , the famous battles of Marathon and Salamis , the Greek tragedy The Persians by Aeschylus , Alexander the Great 's defeat of

4992-433: The US and Europe. It was rewarded with diplomatic normalization and aid projects. On 28 October 1999, Mauritania joined Egypt, Palestine, and Jordan as the only members of the Arab League to officially recognize Israel . Ould Taya also started co-operating with the United States in anti-terrorism activities, a policy that was criticized by some human rights organizations. (See also Foreign relations of Mauritania .) During

5096-418: The Western Sahara conflict has been, since the 1980s, one of strict neutrality. The Mauritania–Senegal Border War started as a result of a conflict in Diawara between Moorish Mauritanian herders and Senegalese farmers over grazing rights. On 9 April 1989, Mauritanian guards killed two Senegalese. Following the incident, several riots erupted in Bakel , Dakar and other towns in Senegal, directed against

5200-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

5304-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of

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5408-474: The anticolonial rebellion (or jihad ) of shaykh Maa al-Aynayn and by insurgents from Tagant and the other occupied regions. In 1904, France organized the territory of Mauritania, and it became part of French West Africa , first as a protectorate and later as a colony. In 1912, the French armies defeated Adrar, and incorporated it into the territory of Mauritania. French rule brought legal prohibitions against slavery and an end to interclan warfare. During

5512-509: The capital Nouakchott . The coup proceeded without loss of life. Calling themselves the Military Council for Justice and Democracy , the officers released the following statement: The national armed forces and security forces have unanimously decided to put a definitive end to the oppressive activities of the defunct authority, which our people have suffered from during the past years. The Military Council later issued another statement naming Colonel Ould Mohamed Vall as president and director of

5616-420: The colonial occupation and creation of modern-day Mauritania. This term, employed by the French, gradually replaced other designations previously used for referring to the country. The ancient tribes of Mauritania were Berber , Niger-Congo , and Bafour peoples. The Bafour were among the first Saharan peoples to abandon their previously nomadic lifestyle and adopt a primarily agricultural one. In response to

5720-435: The colonial period 90% of the population remained nomadic. Gradually many individuals belonging to sedentary peoples, whose ancestors had been expelled centuries earlier, began to migrate into Mauritania. Until 1902, the capital of French West Africa was in modern-day Senegal. It was first established at Saint-Louis and later, from 1902 to 1960, in Dakar. When Senegal gained its independence that year, France chose Nouakchott as

5824-502: The country (or 2.1% of the population). . Despite an abundance of natural resources, including iron ore and petroleum, Mauritania remains poor; its economy is based primarily on agriculture, livestock, and fishing. Mauritania is culturally and politically part of the Arab world ; it is a member of the Arab League and Arabic is the official language. The official religion is Islam , and almost all inhabitants are Sunni Muslims . Despite its prevailing Arab identity , Mauritanian society

5928-480: The country's sacrifice and defense. In late 2018, Mauritania bribed members of the EU parlament ( Antonio Panzeri ) to "not speak ill of Mauritania" in what became known as the Qatar corruption scandal at the European Parliament . In August 2019 Mohamed Ould Ghazouani was sworn in as president after the 2019 elections , which were considered Mauritania's first peaceful transition of power since independence. In June 2021 former president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz

6032-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of

6136-473: The education system. This was also a reaction to the consequences of the French domination under the colonial rule. Various models for maintaining the country's cultural diversity have been suggested, but none have been successfully implemented. This ethnic discord was evident during intercommunal violence that broke out in April 1989 (the " Mauritania–Senegal Border War "), but has since subsided. Mauritania expelled some 70,000 sub-Saharan African Mauritanians in

6240-510: The end of Roman paganism . Along with philosophy and political theory , mythology is one of the greatest contributions of Classical antiquity to Western society . From a historical point of view, early Christianity was born in the Greco-Roman world, which had a massive influence on Christian culture . Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

6344-448: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute

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6448-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in

6552-480: The future, under UN auspices, to determine whether or not the indigenous Sahrawis wish to be independent, as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic , or to be part of Morocco. In 1960, Mauritania became an independent nation. In 1964 President Moktar Ould Daddah , originally installed by the French, formalized Mauritania as a one-party state with a new constitution , setting up an authoritarian presidential regime. Daddah's own Parti du Peuple Mauritanien became

6656-476: The gradual desiccation of the Sahara, they eventually migrated southward. Many of the Berber tribes have claimed to have Yemeni (and sometimes other Arab) origins. Little evidence supports those claims, although a 2000 DNA study of the Yemeni people suggested some ancient connection might exist between the peoples. The Umayyads were the first Arab Muslims to enter Mauritania. During the Islamic conquests , they made incursions into Mauritania and were present in

6760-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn

6864-494: The lands of Greek and Roman rule. Within its educated class, spanning all of the "Greco-Roman" eras, the testimony of literary borrowings and influences are overwhelming proofs of a mantle of mutual knowledge. For example, several hundred papyrus volumes found in a Roman villa at Herculaneum are in Greek. The lives of Cicero and Julius Caesar are examples of Romans who frequented schools in Greece. The installation, both in Greek and Latin , of Augustus 's monumental eulogy,

6968-430: The languages of the urban and cosmopolitan elites and the Empire's lingua franca for those who lived within the large territories and populations outside the Macedonian settlements and the Roman colonies . All Roman citizens of note and accomplishment, regardless of their ethnic extractions, spoke and wrote in Greek or Latin. Examples include the Roman jurist and imperial chancellor Ulpian of Phoenician origin;

7072-414: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

7176-401: The late 1980s Ould Taya had established close co-operation with Iraq , and pursued a strongly Arab nationalist line. Mauritania grew increasingly isolated internationally, and tensions with Western countries grew dramatically after it took a pro-Iraqi position during the 1991 Gulf War . During the mid-to late 1990s, Mauritania shifted its foreign policy to one of increased co-operation with

7280-433: The late 1980s. Ethnic tensions and the sensitive issue of slavery – past and, in some areas, present – are still powerful themes in the country's political debate. A significant number from all groups seek a more diverse, pluralistic society. The International Court of Justice concluded that in spite of some evidence of both Morocco's and Mauritania's legal ties prior to Spanish colonization, neither set of ties

7384-446: The mainly Arabized Mauritanians who dominated the local retail business. The rioting, adding to already existing tensions, led to a campaign of terror against black Mauritanians, who are often seen as 'Senegalese' by the Bidān (White Moors), regardless of their nationality. As low scale conflict with Senegal continued into 1990/91, the Mauritanian government engaged in or encouraged acts of violence and seizures of property directed against

7488-611: The mathematician and geographer Claudius Ptolemy of Greco-Egyptian ethnicity; and the theologian Augustine of Berber origin. Note too the historian Josephus Flavius , who was of Jewish origin but spoke and wrote in Greek. Based on the above definition, the "cores" of the Greco-Roman world can be confidently stated to have been the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea , specifically the Italian Peninsula , Greece , Cyprus ,

7592-621: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek

7696-486: The military junta organizing elections within a promised two-year timeline. In a referendum on 26 June 2006, 97% of Mauritanians approved a new constitution that limited the duration of a president's stay in office. The leader of the junta , Col. Vall, promised to abide by the referendum and relinquish power peacefully. Mauritania's establishment of relations with Israel – it was one of only three Arab states to recognize Israel – was maintained by

7800-468: The military coup in 2005. This was the first time since Mauritania gained independence in 1960 that it elected a president in a multi-candidate election. The elections were won in a second round of voting by Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi , with Ahmed Ould Daddah a close second. On 6 August 2008 the head of the presidential guards took over the president's palace in Nouakchott, a day after 48 lawmakers from

7904-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and

8008-457: The national police force, the Sûreté Nationale . Vall, once regarded as a firm ally of the now-ousted president, had aided Ould Taya in the coup that had originally brought him to power, and had later served as his Security Chief. Sixteen other officers were listed as members of the council. Though cautiously watched by the international community, the coup came to be generally accepted, with

8112-549: The new order and call for Abdel Aziz's resignation. In February 2011 the waves of the Arab Spring spread to Mauritania, where thousands of people took to the streets of the capital. In November 2014 Mauritania was invited as a non-member guest nation to the G20 summit in Brisbane . The national flag of Mauritania was changed on 5 August 2017. Two red stripes were added as a symbol of

8216-588: The new regime, despite widespread criticism from the opposition. They considered that position as a legacy of the Taya regime's attempts to curry favor with the West. Parliamentary and municipal elections in Mauritania took place on 19 November and 3 December 2006. Mauritania's first fully democratic presidential elections took place on 11 March 2007. The elections effected the final transfer from military to civilian rule following

8320-650: The new state. At the same time, the French were militarily suppressing the most intransigent Hassane tribes in the north. French pressure on those tribes altered the existing balance of power, and new conflicts arose between the southern populations and the Moors. The great Sahel droughts of the early 1970s caused massive devastation in Mauritania, exacerbating problems of poverty and conflict. The arabized dominant elites reacted to changing circumstances, and to Arab nationalist calls from abroad, by increasing pressure to arabize many aspects of Mauritanian life, such as law and

8424-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks

8528-521: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It

8632-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

8736-467: The people who remained within the lands (including Byzantium) that the empire comprised continued to call themselves Rhomaioi . ( Hellenes had been referring to pagan, or non-Christian, Greeks until the Fourth Crusade .) Through attrition of Byzantine territory in the preceding 400 or so years from perceived friends and foes alike (Crusaders, Ottoman Turks, and others), Constantinople, the capital of

8840-508: The regime of President Ould Taya Mauritania developed economically, oil was discovered in 2001 by the Woodside Company. On 3 August 2005 a military coup led by Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall ended President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya 's twenty-one years of rule. Taking advantage of Ould Taya's attendance at the funeral of Saudi King Fahd , the military, including members of the presidential guard (BASEP), seized control of key points in

8944-702: The region by the end of the seventh century. Many Berber tribes in Mauritania fled the arrival of the Arabs to the Gao region in Mali . Other peoples also migrated south past the Sahara and into West Africa. In the 11th century, several nomadic Berber confederations in the desert regions overlapping present-day Mauritania joined together to form the Almoravid movement. They expanded north and south, spawning an important empire that stretched from

9048-444: The release of Abdallahi, who was instead placed under house arrest in his home village. The new government broke off relations with Israel. After the coup Abdel Aziz insisted on holding new presidential elections to replace Abdallahi, but was forced to reschedule them due to internal and international opposition. During the spring of 2009, the junta negotiated an understanding with some opposition figures and international parties. As

9152-407: The ruling organization in a one-party system . The President justified this on the grounds that Mauritania was not ready for western style multiparty democracy . Under this one-party constitution, Daddah was re-elected in uncontested elections in 1976 and 1978. Daddah was ousted in a bloodless coup on 10 July 1978. He had brought the country to near-collapse through the disastrous war to annex

9256-471: The ruling party resigned in protest of President Abdallahi's policies. The Army surrounded key government facilities, including the state television building, after the president fired senior officers, one of them the head of the presidential guards. The President, Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghef , and Mohamed Ould R'zeizim, Minister of Internal Affairs, were arrested. The coup was coordinated by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz , former chief of staff of

9360-467: The site of the new capital of Mauritania. At the time, Nouakchott was little more than a fortified village (or ksar ). After Mauritanian independence, larger numbers of indigenous sub-Saharan African peoples ( Haalpulaar , Soninke , and Wolof ) migrated into it, most of them settling in the area north of the Senegal River . Many of these new arrivals had been educated in the French language and customs, and became clerks, soldiers, and administrators in

9464-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

9568-517: The takeover of a government that had become "an authoritarian regime" under a president who had "marginalized the majority in parliament". However, Abdel Aziz's regime was isolated internationally, and became subject to diplomatic sanctions and the cancellation of some aid projects. Domestically, a group of parties coalesced around Abdallahi to continue protesting the coup, which caused the junta to ban demonstrations and crack down on opposition activists. International and internal pressure eventually forced

9672-409: The third century BC and later became the Roman province of Mauretania , which flourished into the seventh century AD. The two territories do not overlap, though; historical Mauretania was considerably farther north than modern Mauritania, as it was spread out along the entire western half of the Mediterranean coast of Africa. The term "Mauretania", in turn, derives from the Greek and Roman exonym for

9776-501: The world; 90% of its territory is in the Sahara . Most of its population of some 4.3 million lives in the temperate south of the country, with roughly a third concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott , on the Atlantic coast. The country's name derives from Mauretania , the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb . It extended from central present-day Algeria to

9880-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

9984-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of

10088-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

10192-612: Was arrested amidst a corruption probe into allegations of embezzlement. In December 2023, Aziz was sentenced to 5 years in prison for corruption. In January and February 2024 there was a sudden increase of refugees from 2000 to 12,000 arriving on the Canary Islands by boat, so in March 2024, Ursula von der Leyen and Pedro Sánchez visited and the EU made a €210mn deal with Mauritania to reduce passage of African migrants through its territory towards

10296-432: Was deposed by Colonel Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya , who, while retaining tight military control, relaxed the political climate. Ould Taya moderated Mauritania's previous pro-Algerian stance, and re-established ties with Morocco during the late 1980s. He deepened these ties during the late 1990s and early 2000s, as part of Mauritania's drive to attract support from Western states and Western-aligned Arab states. Its position on

10400-399: Was led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz , who won subsequent presidential elections in 2009 and 2014 . He was succeeded by General Mohamed Ould Ghazouani following the 2019 elections , head of an autocratic government with a very poor human rights record , particularly because of its perpetuation of slavery ; the 2018 Global Slavery Index estimates there are about 90,000 slaves in

10504-495: Was plagued by attempted coups and intrigue within the military establishment. It became increasingly contested due to his harsh and uncompromising measures against opponents; many dissidents were jailed, and some executed. Slavery in Mauritania still exists, despite being officially abolished three timesː 1905, 1981, and again in August 2007. Anti-slavery activists are persecuted, imprisoned and tortured. In December 1984 Haidallah

10608-692: Was sufficient to affect the application of the UN General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples to Western Sahara . In 1976, Mauritania, along with Morocco , annexed the territory of Western Sahara . After several military losses to the Polisario – heavily armed and supported by Algeria, the regional power and rival to Morocco – Mauritania withdrew in 1979. Its claims were taken over by Morocco. Due to economic weakness, Mauritania has been

10712-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

10816-605: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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