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123-520: Irbid ( Arabic : إِربِد ), known in ancient times as Arabella or Arbela (Άρβηλα in Ancient Greek ), is the capital and largest city of Irbid Governorate . It has the second-largest metropolitan population in Jordan after Amman , with a population of around 2,003,800. As a city, Irbid is Jordan's third-largest, after Amman and Zarqa . Irbid is located about 70 kilometres (43 mi) north of Amman on

246-562: 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

369-426: A convenient starting point for tourists interested in seeing the northern Jordan Valley ; visiting Umm Qais , Beit Ras ( Capitolias ), Pella , Ajloun , Umm el-Jimal and other historical sites; or traveling on to Syria . Irbid is situated in northern Jordan, on a fertile plateau . As of 2010, the city of Irbid encompassed an area of 30 km, with residential areas making up 74.3% of the total area, followed by

492-435: 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

615-1077: 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

738-473: A fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products; including wheat (22,500 akçe ), barley, summer crops, fruit trees, goats and bee-hives; in addition to a market toll. The total tax was 38,116 akçe . In 1838, Eli Smith noted Irbid (Arbela) as being a place with Sunni Muslim . The Jordanian census of 1961 found 44,585 inhabitants in Irbid. Irbid today combines the bustle of a provincial Middle Eastern town and

861-407: A key role in carving a unique identity of the city. The largest universities in Irbid are: Private Schools in Irbid (sorted by alphabetical order): Most of the city's economy is based on the services sector, that is directly or indirectly related to the higher education institutions in the city, as an example there are 26 book publishing companies in the city. The number of internet cafes per capita

984-483: 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

1107-677: 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

1230-539: A result of the 1967 war and the 1970–71 " Black September " war between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Jordan . Investments by the Jordanian government in the region allowed the population to rebound to over 85,000 by 1979. 80% of the farms in the Jordanian part of the valley are family farms no larger than 30 dunams (3 ha, 7.4 ac). Population levels in the past are unclear. According to

1353-576: 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

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1476-462: 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",

1599-465: 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

1722-595: A thousand people died in Jordan due to the conflict. In September 1970; following failed assassination attempts of the king, and the Dawson's Field hijackings in which 4 planes were hijacked and landed at a desert airstrip in Jordan; the Jordanian king ordered the army to attack and expel Palestinian militants, and declared martial law . Syria attempted to aid the Palestinian cause in Jordan by sending significant military forces across

1845-503: 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

1968-499: 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

2091-470: 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

2214-494: Is Al-Arabi. Established in 1945, it is one of the oldest athletic clubs in the country. As of 2008, there are 22 cultural and sport clubs registered in Irbid. Irbid hosted the 1999 Pan Arab Games . Irbid is twinned with: Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )

2337-727: 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

2460-585: 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

2583-542: 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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2706-591: Is administered by the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories , including approximately 2,700 people who live in small Bedouin and herding communities. Inside pre-1967 borders, 17,332 Israelis live in the independent municipality of Beit She'an , 12,000 live in 24 communities in Valley of Springs Regional Council that are located in the valley. An additional 12,400 live in 22 communities in

2829-469: 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

2952-408: 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

3075-468: 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

3198-625: Is disconnected from the rest of the West Bank, and is far from the Israeli hinterland, was viewed as a suitable location for nascent Palestinian self-rule. Subsequent agreements, in the Oslo Accords , handed over additional West Bank territories, however Israel has retained control as Area C administered by Israel, with the exception of an Area A enclave surrounding Jericho and very small Area B zones around some small Palestinian settlements. In 1998,

3321-411: Is divided into 23 city districts forming smaller cities within the metropolitan sphere of influence of Irbid: Many villages surround the city of Irbid including: As of 2007, there were 70,000 registered students in Irbid's 10 universities, community colleges and institutes, of whom 8,000 were international students from 47 countries. This high concentration of institutions of higher education has played

3444-566: 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

3567-836: 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

3690-559: 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

3813-535: Is the highest in the world that took Irbid to the Guinness Book of World Records . Irbid is considered the cultural capital of Jordan. There is one Qualifying Industrial Zone in Irbid. The Irbid-based club Al-Hussein (Irbid) was ranked fourth in the Jordanian football premier league in the year 2008. Its home matches are held in Prince Hasan Youth City's Stadium . The other major football club in Irbid

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3936-477: Is the valley with the lowest elevation in the world, beginning at −212 m (−696 ft) below sea level (BSL) and terminating at less than −400 m (−1,300 ft) BSL. On both sides, to the east and west, the valley is bordered by high, steep escarpments rising from the valley floor by between 1,200 m (3,900 ft) to 1,700 m (5,600 ft). Over most of its length, the Jordan Valley forms

4059-584: 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

4182-413: 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

4305-516: 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

4428-445: 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

4551-587: The Emek HaYarden Regional Council whose southern half is in the valley. In the West Bank the Israeli Bik'at HaYarden Regional Council contains 21 settlements with a total of 4,200 residents as of 2014, and the independent municipality of Ma'ale Efrayim an additional 1,206 as of 2015. The Jordan Valley is part of the Levantine corridor and constitutes a route for animal migration, including in

4674-530: The PLO , before 1967, there were approximately 250,000 Palestinians living in the part of the valley that lies in the West Bank. As of 2009, the number of Palestinians remaining in this area was approximately 58,000, living in about twenty permanent communities, mostly concentrated in the city of Jericho and communities in the greater Jericho area in the south of the valley. Of these, approximately 10,000 live in Area C which

4797-556: The Sea of Galilee was captured by Israel opening further supply lines to the settlements in the northern Jordan valley. Throughout the entire war, Jordanian Arab Legion forces as well as Iraqi military forces crossed the Jordan valley to support the Arab effort in the central sector, the current West Bank. From the beginning of the second truce on 18 July 1948 and until the end of hostilities with Jordan on 3 April 1949 and Syria on 20 July 1949 there were no further major military operations around

4920-561: 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

5043-494: 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

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5166-419: 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

5289-734: 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. Jordan Valley (Middle East) The valley, in

5412-454: 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

5535-562: 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

5658-812: 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

5781-637: The British empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force captured Jericho . Subsequently, during the British occupation of the Jordan Valley the Desert Mounted Corps were placed in the valley to protect the eastern flank of the British forces facing Ottoman forces in the hills of Moab . This position provided a strong position from which to launch the Battle of Megiddo which lead to the capture of Amman , Damascus , and

5904-620: The Ghor a key agricultural area. South of the Dead Sea, the continuation of the larger Jordan Rift Valley contains the hot, dry area known as Wadi 'Araba , the "wilderness" or "Arabah desert" of the Bible. Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War , the valley's Jordanian side was home to about 60,000 people largely engaged in agriculture and pastoralism. By 1971, the Valley's Jordanian population had declined to 5,000 as

6027-596: The Jericho area. Israel has also enforced zoning rules, building permit requirements, natural reserves, and military firing zones in the territory which has restricted Arab development. Jericho, and the surrounding area in the southern valley, along with Gaza was the first territory handed over to the Palestinian National Authority , as a result of the Gaza–Jericho Agreement in 1994. Jericho, which

6150-444: The Jordan Valley, and contact lines remained static in this area. Unlike other areas, at the end of hostilities Israel controlled roughly the same territory of the Jordan Valley that it was allotted in the partition plan. Some Jewish settlements in the Jordanian controlled Jordan Valley were abandoned, while significantly more Arab residents fled mixed cities and Arab settlements as part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight . In

6273-587: The Jordan Valley. During and following the Six-Day War, many Palestinians, who at the time had Jordanian citizenship, fled the West Bank to Jordan due to choice, fear, and in some cases being forced to do so. In the Jordan valley the majority of the inhabitants of Aqabat Jaber (30,000) and Ein as-Sultan (20,000) refugee camps fled. In al-Jiftlik over 800 homes were razed by the Israeli army and its 6,000 inhabitants were ordered to leave; most, however, returned to

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6396-570: The Jordan Valley. It was negotiated and developed by US ambassador Eric Johnston between 1953 and 1955, and based on an earlier plan commissioned by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Modeled upon the Tennessee Valley Authority 's engineered development plan, it was approved by technical water committees of all the regional riparian countries—Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Though

6519-562: The Jordan river. Israel's destruction, via airstrikes, of the diversion project in April 1967 was one of the events leading to the Six-Day War . Following commencement of hostilities of the Six-Day War on 5 June 1967, initial hostilities between Israel and Jordan were mainly around the line of contact between Israel and Jordan and around Jerusalem in particular. Following heavy fighting in Jerusalem,

6642-455: The Jordan valley were particularly disconnected from the rest of the Jewish Yishuv , were fairly small and dispersed among Arab settlements, and relied on a tenuous supply line via Nazareth . In March 1948 Haganah forces captured Samakh, Tiberias , located at the northern edge of the valley, the inhabitants fleeing to Nazareth . The Arab population of Tiberias (6,000 residents or 47.5% of

6765-517: The Jordan, while during others the valley was bordered by Syria Vilayet and Beirut Vilayet . According to the PEF Survey of Western Palestine , the people who lived in the Jordan Valley in the late 19th century were almost entirely Arabs of various tribes, save for a group of Armenian hermits on the Mount of Temptation and a group of Greek monks at Mar Saba . The explorers added that fellahin from

6888-467: The Jordanian Jordan Valley population was severe as the valley had a relatively high fraction of Palestinian population and PLO bases and fighters. According to some estimates, half the buildings in the Jordanian side of the Jordan Valley were razed and the population decreased from 63,000 to 5,000. Even though Jordan was Western aligned, and was invaded by Syrian forces just three years prior,

7011-687: The Jordanian Police and army were losing their authority. Uniformed PLO militants openly carried weapons, set up checkpoints, and attempted to extort "taxes". During the November 1968 negotiations, a seven-point agreement was reached between King Hussein and Palestinian organizations. This agreement, however, was not adhered to, and clashes grew between the Jordanian army and Palestinian militants. In February 1970 fighting broke out in Amman resulting in approximately 300 deaths. Between February and June 1970, about

7134-441: The Jordanian government decided to intervene in the 1973 conflict a week after the beginning of hostilities, sending an armoured division as an Expeditionary Force to southern Syria to aid in the defense of Damascus . However, declassified documents show this was a token participation to preserve King Hussein's status in the Arab world, and that some tacit understandings were made with Israel. The Israeli-Jordanian contact line,

7257-410: The Jordanian side of the Jordan valley and deeper in Jordanian territory. The Jordanian valley features, namely the river and the high and steep escarpments contributed to the strength of this position. Coupled with Israeli reluctance to cross the 1948 British Mandate border in this sector, American diplomatic pressure, and needs on additional fronts the war ended with the sides opposing one another across

7380-412: 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

7503-672: 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

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7626-561: 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

7749-515: The Services areas occupying 9.5%, then Empty or unoccupied areas of 7.7%, then 4.2% is classified as Commercial areas, and 3.3% as Industrial areas, and finally gardens occupied 1% of the total city area. Irbid has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csa), common in the Levant region. Summers are hot at days with warm nights, while winters are cool and wet, with two snowy days on average. Irbid

7872-636: The Syrian forces' defeat at the Deganias a few days later, they abandoned the Samakh village. Following the heavy fighting, the Arab inhabitants of the city of Beit She'an in the northern valley fled across the Jordan River. Following the first truce which ended on 8 July, the successful Israeli Operation Dekel captured by the time a second truce took effect at 19:00 18 July, the whole Lower Galilee from Haifa Bay to

7995-433: The Syrian-Mandate border in a series of engagement called Battles of the Kinarot Valley . The Syrians thrust down the eastern and southern Sea of Galilee shores, and attacked Samakh the neighboring Tegart fort and the settlements of Sha'ar HaGolan , Ein Gev , but they were bogged down by resistance. Later, they attacked Samakh using tanks and aircraft, and on 18 May they succeeded in conquering Samakh and occupied

8118-458: The West bank portion of the Jordan valley in three main phases: Two of the settlements, Kalya and Beit HaArava , were reestablished on the sites of settlements that were evacuated in the beginning of the 1948 war. Concurrently, as it has done elsewhere , Israel has sought to settle migrant Bedouin pastoral communities, who roamed the arid plateau above the valley without regard to land ownership, into permanent communities particularly around

8241-405: The abandoned Sha'ar HaGolan . On 21 May, the Syrian army was stopped at kibbutz Degania Alef , at the northern edge of the Jordan valley. where local militia reinforced by elements of the Carmeli Brigade halted Syrian armored forces with Molotov cocktails , hand grenades and a single PIAT . The remaining Syrian forces were driven off the next day by four Napoleonchik mountain guns. Following

8364-399: The aftermath of the war, a Palestinian Arab state was not formed in the West Bank, and the Jordanians retained control of both sides of the Jordan Valley along the West Bank – Jordan border due to the Jordanian occupation and annexation of the West Bank . The Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan , commonly known as the " Johnston Plan ", was a plan for the unified water resource development of

8487-405: The border between Jordan to the east, and Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank , to the west. The details are regulated by the Israel–Jordan peace treaty of 1994, which establishes an "administrative boundary" between Jordan and the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, without prejudice to the status of that territory. Israel has allocated 86% of the land, in the West Bank portion of

8610-409: The border, though nominally under the Palestine Liberation Army command, which were repulsed after some initial successes as a result of Jordanian air force strikes. After a protracted campaign, lasting 10 months, and claiming more than 3,400 Palestinian deaths the king reasserted Jordanian sovereignty. Yasser Arafat and remaining fighters fled to Southern Lebanon . The effect of Black September on

8733-424: The city came under the rule of the Rashidun Caliphate and became known as Irbid, at which time it shifted from wine to olive oil production. Wheat was also an important product in the area. In 1596 it appeared in the Ottoman tax registers named as Irbid , situated in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Bani Juhma, part of the Hauran Sanjak . It had 72 households and 35 bachelors; all Muslim . The villagers paid

8856-459: The city was captured on 7 June. The Israeli Harel Brigade advanced on the Jordan Valley and Israeli sappers blew up sections of the Allenby Bridge and King Abdullah Bridge in the south of the valley, and forces 36th Division blew up Damia Bridge located in the middle of the valley. As it became clear that the Jordanian position, from the get-go a salient with limited supply routes from

8979-648: The collapse of the Ottoman armies in the Levant. Following conflicting promises and agreements during WWI, in particular McMahon–Hussein Correspondence and Balfour Declaration , as well as a power vacuum following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to a series of diplomatic conferences and treaties ( Treaty of Sèvres , San Remo conference , Paulet–Newcombe Agreement ) which convened with continued armed struggle between

9102-416: The common, narrow sense, is a long and narrow trough, 105 km (65 mi) long if measured " as the crow flies ", with a width averaging 10 km (6.2 mi) with some points narrowing to 4 km (2.5 mi) over most of the course, before widening out to a 20 km (12 mi) delta when reaching the Dead Sea. Due to meandering, the length of the river itself is 220 km (140 mi). This

9225-567: 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

9348-643: The course of the Jordan River through the Hula Valley and the Korazim Plateau , both north of the Sea of Galilee . The lower part of the valley, known as the Ghor (from the Arabic Ghawr or Ghōr , غور ), includes the Jordan River segment south of the Sea of Galilee which ends at the Dead Sea. Several degrees warmer than adjacent areas, its year-round agricultural climate, fertile soils and water supply have made

9471-513: The day hostilities formally commenced with Arab states, an Iraqi brigade invaded via Naharyim in an unsuccessful attempt to take Gesher. After the Tel Or village and the power plant were overrun by the Arab forces they were destroyed. To prevent Iraqi tanks from attacking Jewish villages in the Jordan Valley, the sluice gates of the Degania dam were opened. The rush of water, which deepened the Jordan river,

9594-493: The division, the concept of an east and west bank of the Jordan, as separate territorial units took hold. As a political example to this new reality, in 1929 Ze'ev Jabotinsky composed the political poem Two Banks to the Jordan which asserts that the Jordan river should be the central feature of Greater Israel , with the repeating refrain : "Two Banks has the Jordan/This is ours and, that is as well." in 1926 Pinhas Rutenberg

9717-577: 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

9840-728: 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

9963-593: 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

10086-501: 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

10209-620: The great powers, their proxies, and Arab elements that were part of the Arab Revolt . Following the Battle of Maysalun the Transjordan area east of the valley become a no man's land and the British, who directly controlled the area west of the valley, chose to avoid any definite connection between the two areas. Following the Cairo Conference (1921) and meetings with Abdullah bin Hussein it

10332-484: The hills come to cultivate their land for them. In 1916, Britain and France engaged in the Sykes–Picot Agreement in which the Ottoman territory of the Levant, which divided the yet undefeated Ottoman regions of the Levant between France and Britain. Under the agreement, the Jordan valley would be entirely within the British sphere of control. In February 1918, as part of the wider Sinai and Palestine Campaign

10455-579: 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

10578-608: 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

10701-407: The late 19th century, and prior to 1948 it served as a significant centre of transit trade. The city is a major ground transportation hub between Amman, Syria to the north, and Mafraq to the east. The Irbid region is also home to several colleges and universities. The two most prominent universities are Jordan University of Science and Technology and Yarmouk University . The original spelling

10824-599: 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)

10947-420: 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

11070-424: The main portion being the Jordanian valley, remained quiet during the war. Israel and Jordan did however deploy units in a defensive posture on each side of the Jordan valley. Since the end of the 1967 war, many Israeli governments have treated the western Jordan Valley as the eastern border of Israel with Jordan, intending to annex it or keep deployment of Israeli forces in the valley. An early example of this view

11193-883: 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

11316-768: 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

11439-599: The northern ridge of the Gilead , equidistant from Pella , Beit Ras ( Capitolias ), and Um Qais , and approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the Syrian border. Irbid was built on successive Early Bronze Age settlements and was possibly the biblical Beth Arbel and the Arbila of the Decapolis , a Hellenistic league of the 1st-2nd century BCE. The population of Irbid swelled in

11562-528: The occasional foreign visitors who stop by to relax in any of its numerous restaurants and cafés that open late into the night. Though not usually a major tourist destination itself, Irbid is home to two notable museums: the Museum of Jordanian Heritage and the Jordan Natural History Museum, both on the campus of Yarmouk University . Furthermore, Irbid's strategic location in northern Jordan makes it

11685-424: 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

11808-477: The other side of the Jordan river, was collapsing due to lack of suitable supply and reinforcement routes most of the remaining Jordanian units able to retreat did so, crossing the Jordan river to Jordan proper and the remaining West Bank cities were captured with little resistance by the Israelis. These retreating units, as well as two brigades that were held in reserve in the Jordan Valley, formed defensive positions on

11931-549: 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

12054-560: The past for the developing human species. Genetic studies indicate that during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods, the Levantine corridor, of which the Jordan Valley is one part, was more important for bi-directional human migrations between Africa and Eurasia than was the Horn of Africa. Nowadays the Jordan Valley still is an essential part of one of the main migration routes for birds in

12177-557: The plan was rejected by the Arab League, both Israel and Jordan undertook to abide by their allocations under the plan. The US provided funding for Israel's National Water Carrier after receiving assurances from Israel that it would continue to abide by the plan's allocations. Similar funding was provided for Jordan's East Ghor Main Canal project after similar assurances were obtained from Jordan. The Israeli National Water Carrier of Israel

12300-666: The political boundary of the Jordan River. The Jordanian (North Ghor) IBA on the eastern side covers some 6,000 ha, with the Israeli one covering 7,000 ha of the western side. Significant bird populations for which the IBAs were designated, including resident, wintering and passage migrant species, comprise the following: black francolins , marbled teals , black and white storks , black-crowned night herons , cattle and little egrets , collared and black-winged pratincoles , Egyptian vultures , European honey-buzzards , Levant sparrowhawks and Dead Sea sparrows . The Jordan valley

12423-402: The population) was evacuated under British military protection on 18 April 1948 following clashes in the mixed city. The Battle of Mishmar HaEmek in April 1948 a strategic settlement located on the route to the valley was successfully defended by Jewish forces, and Arab positions surrounding it were captured in a counter-attack. The Jewish supply route to the Jordan Valley and Galilee Panhandle

12546-410: 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

12669-458: 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

12792-458: 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

12915-556: 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

13038-630: The total Jordanian was always high, and the 1967 refugees further increased their number. After the Six-Day War in 1967, the PLO and Fatah stepped up their guerrilla attacks against Israel from Jordanian soil, using the Jordan Valley town of Karameh as their headquarters. The Israeli army attacked this base in March 1968 in the Battle of Karameh which ended in the destruction of the PLO base, deaths on both sides, destruction of property, and an Israeli withdrawal. In Palestinian enclaves and refugee camps in Jordan,

13161-501: 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

13284-577: The valley, to Israeli settlements . Annexation of the Jordan Valley to Israel has been proposed by a variety of Israeli politicians, most recently Benjamin Netanyahu in September 2019. According to the definition used in this article, what is elsewhere sometimes termed the Upper Jordan Valley is not considered part of the Jordan Valley. The Upper Jordan Valley comprises the Jordan River sources and

13407-489: The village. The population of the Jordan Valley fled in disproportionate numbers compared to the rest of the West Bank. According to some estimates, the population of the Jericho sub-district which is in the Jordan Valley area decreased from around 79,407 in May 1967 to 10,800 in the September 1967 census or 83% compared to an estimate of 850,343 to 661,757 or 23% for the entire West Bank. The proportion of Palestinians in Jordan of

13530-451: 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

13653-789: The world; within the region, it constitutes the Eastern Route which, together with the parallel Western Route and the Southern-Eilat Mountains Route, allow an estimated 500 million birds belonging 200 species to fly across Israel twice a year - in spring from here or from Africa towards their breeding places in Asia and Europe, and in autumn on the way back to their winter home in the Levant or in Africa. The northern Jordan valley has two adjoining and complementary Important Bird Area (IBAs) recognised by BirdLife International , separated only by

13776-509: The year 3200 B.C. A city wall dated to around 1300-1200 BC. In the Hellenistic period, Irbid, then known as Arabella was a major trade center. Before the advent of Islam , Arabella was famous for producing some of the best wines in the ancient world. The area in the region had extremely fertile soil and moderate climate, allowing the growing of high quality grapes. After the Muslim conquests,

13899-493: The youthful nightlife of a typical college town. The city is home to four major universities: Yarmouk University, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid National University and Jadara University. In addition, it is home for two campuses of Balqa Applied University and several private colleges. University Street, which defines the western border of the Yarmouk University campus, is popular with locals as well as with

14022-514: Was agreed that he would administer the territory east of the Jordan River, Emirate of Transjordan . The area west of the Jordan river was allocated in 1922 to the Mandatory Palestine under British Administration. The Jordan river, in the middle of the Jordan valley, was the border between these two entities. This agreement split the Jordan valley, which during Ottoman times was under a single administration, to two distinct entities. Following

14145-469: Was completed in 1964, and coupled with increased closing of Degania Dam , greatly decreased the flow of water from the Sea of Galilee down to Jordan Valley. The Jordanian East Ghor Main Canal was completed in stages between 1961 and 1966, and likewise diverts a significant amount of water from the Jordan river. While providing benefits elsewhere by utilization of fresh water, the combined result of both of these projects and subsequent management and usage,

14268-672: Was founded in the vicinity of the power plant. The plant remained in operation until the war of 1948. Under the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine the northern portion of the western side of the valley would have been assigned to the Jewish state, and the southern portion to an Arab state. However hostilities between the Arabs and Jews commenced soon after the UN resolution as 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine . The Jewish settlements in

14391-601: Was further secured by the Battle of Ramat Yohanan and a modus vivendi agreed with Druze in the Galilee . Subsequently, Operation Yiftach further opened up supply lines via Safed . In the lead up to the full 1948 Arab–Israeli War , Naharayim, Tel-Or, and Gesher were shelled on 27–29 April 1948 by the Arab Legion . The power plant workers and their families without a Jordanian ID card evacuated into Mandatory Palestine. On 15 May 1948,

14514-721: Was granted a 70-year concession for the construction of hydroelectric plants along the Jordan River; the only plant built was the First Jordan Hydro-Electric Power House in the Jordan valley at the confluence of the Yarmouk River with the Jordan River near Naharayim . The Naharayim plant was a major source of electricity to the British Mandate and the Emirate of Transjordan. An adjacent company town, Tel Or ,

14637-526: Was instrumental in blocking the Iraqi-Jordanian incursion. On 20 May 1948, after a failure to reach an agreement with Transjordan 's King Abdullah , the southern Jordan valley Beit HaArava and the nearby north Dead sea Kalia were abandoned due to their isolation amidst Arab settlements. The residents and fighters of the villages evacuated via boat over the Dead Sea to the Israeli post at Sodom . Concurrently, on 14 May Syrian forces began attacking via

14760-541: Was probably ארבאל, a name that also appears in Hosea 10:14. This name persisted among Jews and was later transmitted to the Arabs. Greek sources from the same periods also confirm this, often featuring a final 'a', which might indicate an official version of the name. Artifacts and graves in the area show that Irbid was inhabited in the Bronze Age . Pieces of pottery and wall stones found at Tell Irbid were estimated to be made in

14883-568: Was the Allon Plan formulated in 1967–1968. This Israeli position (which has also been held by the Yitzhak Rabin government that signed the Oslo Accords ) stems from the narrowness of the Israeli coastal plain , the geographic defensive barrier created by the Jordan valley, and the demographic realities (lack of a significant Arab population in the valley that would impact the overall demographics of Israel). Israel has constructed settlements in

15006-477: Was to greatly reduce the flow of water through the Jordan valley. The flow rate of the Jordan River once was 1.3 billion cubic meters per year; as of 2010, just 20 to 30 million cubic metres per year flow into the Dead Sea. The Arab League which objected to Israeli National Water Carrier approved in 1964 the Headwater Diversion Plan (Jordan River) which would have diverted two of the three sources of

15129-598: Was under control of the Ottoman Empire from their victory over the Mamluks in 1486, which involved a small battle in the valley en route to Khan Yunis and Egypt , until 1918. The Ottoman internal administrative divisions varied throughout the period with the Jordan river being at times a provincial border, and at times not. However the valley was contained within the group of provinces termed Ottoman Syria . Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem during some periods contained both banks of

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