Misplaced Pages

#239760

108-625: The Daily Star was an English -language newspaper in Lebanon which was distributed across the Middle East . It was founded by Kamel Mrowa in 1952, ceased its print format in February 2020, and completely closed on 31 October 2021. The paper was founded in 1952 by Kamel Mrowa, the publisher of the Arabic daily Al-Hayat , to serve the growing number of expatriates brought by the oil industry. The Daily Star

216-546: A mixed language or a creole —a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis . Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages including Dutch , German , and Swedish . These shared innovations show that

324-635: A 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents. A working knowledge of English has become

432-514: A Shia cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Reza Sa'idi, in 1970. According to Iranian political historian Ervand Abrahamian , after this attack SAVAK interrogators were sent abroad for "scientific training to prevent unwanted deaths from 'brute force.'" Brute force was supplemented with the bastinado ; sleep deprivation; extensive solitary confinement; glaring searchlights; standing in one place for hours on end; nail extractions; snakes (favored for use with women); electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into

540-551: A daily until mid 1985 and then as a weekly for another year, before ceasing publication once again. One of daily's early editors was Jihad Khazen. With the arrival of peace in 1991, and the development of a rebuilding program three years later, the paper again looked to publish. With Kamel's first son Jamil Mroue as leader, printing was recommenced in 1996 with modern presses, experienced foreign journalists, and Lebanese staff. In 2004, The Daily Star merged its Lebanon and regional editions choosing to focus on Lebanese expatriates in

648-700: A dispute regarding the newspaper's length, which the IHT management wanted to see reduced. The paper reduced considerably in size after temporarily closing in January 2009. It was no longer distributed with the IHT . In light of changes in consumer behavior having adverse reactions towards politically owned and affiliated media outlets following the October 17 Revolution , The Daily Star began losing revenue and readership. In February 2020, The Daily Star ceased its print editions, citing its inability to secure advertising. The company

756-651: A distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms , and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns ( he , him , his ) and has a few verb inflections ( speak , speaks , speaking , spoke , spoken ), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings. Its closest relative

864-484: A foreign language, make up the "expanding circle". The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English

972-711: A former classmate of the Shah, was a deputy director of SAVAK until he was appointed head of the Imperial Inspectorate, also known as the Special Intelligence Bureau, to watch over high-level government officials, including SAVAK directors. Fardoust later switched sides during the revolution and managed to salvage the bulk of the SAVAK organization. According to author Charles Kurzman, SAVAK was never dismantled but rather changed its name and leadership and continued on with

1080-656: A moderate who was a victim converted to "extreme jihad," applying Geneva Convention articles in Gaza and the West Bank, and expressing skepticism of US-Israeli-Saudi relations, especially after the 1991 Gulf War honeymoon period, in view of demolition of Palestinian homes supported by Colin Powell and the Israeli government, and the lucrative target for potential seizure presented by Saudi Arabia's one-fourth of world's proven oil reserves. One of

1188-520: A more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners. Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in

SECTION 10

#1732877266240

1296-688: A number of other Anglic languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland. Like Icelandic and Faroese , the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, as it differs in vocabulary , syntax , and phonology . However, some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages. Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated,

1404-679: A requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995. International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language , with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop

1512-407: A rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspects and moods , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives , and some negation . The earliest form of English

1620-744: A significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide

1728-560: A strike at the company due to nonpayment of salaries, many of whom went on to join L'Orient Today , L'Orient le Jour ' s English section. Jamal Khashoggi was a contributor as a Saudi political analyst and deputy editor of Saudi Arabia’s English-language Arab News and published several commentaries for The Daily Star . His opinions since 2002 included endorsing moderation and combating extremism in Western nations, referring to bin Laden as

1836-447: A verb ending ( present plural): From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually transformed through language contact with Old Norse in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in

1944-527: A weekly basis with Ayatollah Khomeini while Khomeini was under house arrest, and later intervened to prevent Khomeini's execution on the grounds that it would "anger the common people of Iran". After the Iranian Revolution , however, Pakravan was among the first of the Shah's officials to be executed by the Khomeini regime. Pakravan was replaced in 1966 by General Nematollah Nassiri , a close associate of

2052-552: Is Old Frisian , but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the Danelaw and other Viking invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility, although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than

2160-400: Is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India , Ireland , and Canada ). In some other countries, it is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in

2268-459: Is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power. As of 2016 , 400 million people spoke English as their first language , and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is the largest language by number of speakers . English

SECTION 20

#1732877266240

2376-603: Is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK. However, English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in

2484-407: Is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world. The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three circles model . In his model, Kachru based his model on

2592-528: Is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( c.  450–1150 ). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic , and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia , Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes . From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as

2700-527: Is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1150 to 1500. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with Old French , in particular Old Norman French , influencing it as a superstrate. The Norman French spoken by

2808-424: Is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language. Many users of English in

2916-517: Is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English

3024-777: Is the third person pronoun group beginning with th- ( they, them, their ) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- ( hie, him, hera ). Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting. Although, from

3132-479: The Augustinian canon Orrm , which highlights the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English for the first time. In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis . Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English

3240-737: The CIA and the Pakistani ISI , although Afghan–Iranian relations later improved in 1976 under Mohammad Daoud Khan . Two days before the Saur Revolution in 1978, the KGB were informed of the coup by Afghan Army leaders Mohammed Rafie and Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy . As a result, the KGB mistakenly informed its operatives in Kabul that SAVAK tricked the PDPA into starting a rebellion, expecting it to be crushed and for

3348-450: The CIA by sending their agents to an air force base in New York to share and discuss interrogation tactics. Teymur Bakhtiar was assassinated by SAVAK agents in 1970, and Mansur Rafizadeh , SAVAK's United States director during the 1970s, reported that General Nassiri's phone was tapped. Mansur Rafizadeh later wrote of his life as a SAVAK man and detailed the human rights violations of

The Daily Star (Lebanon) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3456-537: The Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English . The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey . After 920 CE, when Lindsey was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today

3564-532: The European Free Trade Association , Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of

3672-525: The Germanic language branch, and as of 2021 , Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide. Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons . Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse , a North Germanic language . Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects , which are

3780-731: The Low Saxon and Frisian languages . English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on

3888-475: The Pahlavi dynasty . Iranian-American scholar and ex-politician Gholam Reza Afkhami estimates that SAVAK had between 4,000 and 6,000 members, while TIME stated in a publication on 19 February 1979 that the agency had 5,000 members. After the 1953 Iranian coup d'état , Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq was removed. He was originally focused on nationalizing Iran's oil industry but had also set out to weaken

3996-476: The Persian Gulf region. The unified edition appeared in most countries except for Kuwait which had its own local edition published in partnership with Al-Watan , a Kuwaiti Arabic language daily. For two weeks (14 January to 31 January 2009), the printing of the paper was suspended by a Lebanese court order after financial difficulties. The website was not being updated either. The newspaper resumed publishing

4104-564: The Shah's power. After the coup, the monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah , established an intelligence service with police powers. The Shah's goal was to strengthen his regime by placing political opponents under surveillance and repressing dissident movements. According to Encyclopædia Iranica : A U.S. Army colonel working for the CIA was sent to Persia in September 1953 to work with General Teymur Bakhtiar , who

4212-641: The United Nations at the end of World War II , English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee , specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation. Many regional international organisations such as

4320-511: The palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization ). The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse -speaking Viking invaders and settlers , starting in

4428-558: The "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines , Jamaica , India , Pakistan , Singapore , Malaysia and Nigeria with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government. Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to

The Daily Star (Lebanon) - Misplaced Pages Continue

4536-596: The 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when a considerable amount of Old French vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three centuries. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with

4644-595: The Angles. English may have a small amount of substrate influence from Common Brittonic, and a number of possible Brittonicisms in English have been proposed, but whether most of these supposed Brittonicisms are actually a direct result of Brittonic substrate influence is disputed. Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ( Mercian and Northumbrian ) and the Saxon dialects ( Kentish and West Saxon ). Through

4752-512: The British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies. For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India. English

4860-537: The Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I . Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent

4968-628: The English Language , which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of

5076-543: The English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers. English has ceased to be an "English language" in

5184-550: The Roman economy and administration collapsed . By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain , replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and British Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc ) are both named after

5292-458: The SAVAK's existence. One well known writer was arrested, tortured for months, and finally placed before television cameras to 'confess' that his works paid too much attention to social problems and not enough to the great achievements of the White Revolution . By the end of 1975, twenty-two prominent poets, novelist, professors, theater directors, and film makers were in jail for criticizing

5400-558: The Shah expanded his security organizations, including SAVAK, which grew to over 5,300 full-time agents and a large but unknown number of part-time informers. In 1961 the Iranian authorities dismissed the agency's first director, General Teymur Bakhtiar , and he later became a political dissident. In 1970, SAVAK agents assassinated him, disguising the deed as an accident. General Hassan Pakravan , director of SAVAK from 1961 to 1966, had an almost benevolent reputation, for example dining on

5508-577: The Shah in his book Witness: From the Shah to the Secret Arms Deal: An Insider's Account of U.S. Involvement in Iran . Mansur Rafizadeh was suspected to have been a double agent also working for the CIA. SAVAK was additionally involved in supporting Jamiat-e Islami militants during the 1975 Panjshir Valley uprising and 1975 Laghman uprising in the Republic of Afghanistan , in collaboration with

SECTION 50

#1732877266240

5616-539: The Shah stated that he did not know the exact number of employees of SAVAK. However, he estimated their total number to be less than 2,000 employees. To the frequently asked question about “torture and atrocities” in SAVAK, the shah answered negatively, designating newspaper reports about the “arbitrariness and cruelty of SAVAK” as a lie and slander. Leaflets circulated after the Islamic Revolution indicated that 15,000 Iranians officially served in SAVAK, not to mention

5724-430: The Shah's opponents." The Federation of American Scientists also found it guilty of "the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners" and symbolizing "the Shah's rule from 1963–79." The FAS list of SAVAK torture methods included "electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails." SAVAK

5832-454: The Shah, and the service was reorganized and became increasingly active in the face of rising leftist and Islamist militancy and political unrest. A turning point in SAVAK's reputation for ruthless brutality was reportedly an attack on a gendarmerie post in the Caspian village of Siahkal by a small band of armed Marxists in February 1971, although it is also reported to have tortured to death

5940-490: The Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations. Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language . In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta ). In

6048-507: The United States and United Kingdom ). It is a co-official language of the United Nations , the European Union , and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become the de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the Internet . English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of

6156-407: The base from which English spreads to other countries in the world. Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Kachru's three-circles model,

6264-449: The basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of

6372-400: The beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. John Trevisa , c.  1385 Middle English

6480-638: The consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation. American listeners readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers. The settlement history of

6588-682: The continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages , are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the North Sea Germanic languages, though this grouping remains debated. Old English evolved into Middle English , which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into

SECTION 60

#1732877266240

6696-423: The dawn of "jimmykrasy". Over the years, the question of the number of employees of SAVAK has been the subject of debate by many historians and researchers. Given the fact that Iran has never disclosed data on the number of employees of the secret agency - many historians gave conflicting figures for the number of SAVAK personnel - 6,000, 20,000, 30,000 and 60,000. In one of his interviews, on February 4, 1974,

6804-476: The development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and French dialects . These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades —but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered

6912-467: The distinct characteristics of Early Modern English. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests." This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and

7020-401: The early period of Old English were written using a runic script . By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms . It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ ƿ ⟩ and thorn ⟨ þ ⟩ , and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ ð ⟩ , and ash ⟨ æ ⟩ . Old English is essentially

7128-431: The educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex , the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety . The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn , is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from

7236-580: The elite in England eventually developed into the Anglo-Norman language . Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains. Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases

7344-408: The expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use the language. Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties. Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in

7452-525: The first generation of SAVAK personnel". In October 1956, news of the intended establishment of an agency was reported by state media and in 1965, this agency was reorganized and given the name Sazeman-e Ettela'at va Amniyat-e Keshvar (SAVAK). These in turn were replaced by SAVAK's own instructors in 1965. SAVAK had the power to censor the media, screen applicants for government jobs, and "according to reliable Western source, use all means necessary, including torture, to hunt down dissidents". After 1963,

7560-477: The four 9/11 widows - known as the "Jersey Girls" - mentions the unusual timing of the disappearance of Khashoggi with respect to the release of documents by the Department of Justice, supporting the 9/11 Families' Litigation, that may implicate the Saudi government in the 9/11 attacks. English language English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , whose speakers, called Anglophones , originated in early medieval England on

7668-606: The growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster. In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been. As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of

7776-479: The history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift , meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised , and close vowels were broken into diphthongs . For example,

7884-407: The history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time. Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where

7992-403: The inner-circle countries, and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries. In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as

8100-524: The introduction of loanwords from French ( ayre ) and word replacements ( bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol ). By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English

8208-467: The introduction of the printing press to London. This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare . The printing press greatly standardised English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of

8316-483: The island of Great Britain . The namesake of the language is the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain . It is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations ) and the United States . English is the third-most spoken native language , after Standard Chinese and Spanish ; it

8424-431: The languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic . Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs , and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws . English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as

8532-477: The many unofficial employees. During the height of its power, SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers. It operated its own detention centers, such as Evin Prison . In addition to domestic security, the service's tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians abroad, notably in the United States , France , and the United Kingdom , and especially students on government stipends . The agency also closely collaborated with

8640-606: The new 'scientific' methods, the torture of choice remained the traditional bastinado used to beat soles of the feet. The "primary goal" of those using the bastinados "was to locate arms caches, safe houses and accomplices ..." Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368 guerrillas including the leadership of the major urban guerrilla organizations ( Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas , People's Mujahedin of Iran ) such as Hamid Ashraf between 1971–1977 and executed up to 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979—the most violent era of

8748-635: The newspaper was officially shutting down. According to the Media Ownership Monitor, an initiative by Reporters Without Borders and the Samir Kassir Foundation, The Daily Star was owned by the political Hariri family through D.S. Holding and Millennium Development. The Daily Star signed an exclusive marketing representation, printing and distribution agreement with the International Herald Tribune in 2000. Under

8856-400: The ownership of Kamel Mrowa who was an anti-Nasserist. However, the relations with Iran ended when the newspaper's office was attacked due to its extensive publications against Gamal Nasser , President of Egypt , and Iran recognized Israel . The Daily Star , along with other Hariri-owned outlets like Future TV, had not been paying their staff salaries. They let go of employees who organized

8964-481: The paper, running it until the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War forced the suspension of publication. With peace hopes running high in the beginning of 1983, the paper restarted publication under the guidance of Mrowa's sons, but the intensification of the war again put the paper under pressure. The flight of the intelligentsia from the country depleted the paper's staff and its readership. Still, it continued as

9072-426: The prestige varieties among the middle classes. In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him , she and her , who and whom ), and SVO word order is mostly fixed. Some changes, such as the use of do-support , have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it

9180-438: The rebels to fail. According to Polish author Ryszard Kapuściński , SAVAK was responsible for: Censorship of press, books, and films; Interrogation and often torture of prisoners; and Surveillance of political opponents. Writing at the time of the Shah's overthrow, Time magazine on February 19, 1979, described SAVAK as having "long been Iran's most hated and feared institution" which had "tortured and murdered thousands of

9288-519: The rectum; cigarette burns ; sitting on hot grills; acid dripped into nostrils; near-drownings; mock executions; and an electric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim. This latter contraption was dubbed the Apollo—an allusion to the American spacecraft of the same name. Prisoners were also humiliated by being raped, urinated on, and forced to stand naked. Despite

9396-475: The regime. And many others had been physically attacked for refusing to cooperate with the authorities. The repression was softened thanks to publicity and scrutiny by "numerous international organizations and foreign newspapers." Jimmy Carter became president of the United States and he raised the issue of human rights in the Imperial State of Iran . Overnight prison conditions changed. Inmates dubbed this

9504-657: The reign of Henry V . Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents , and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard , developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands . In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. Literature from

9612-467: The second week of February 2009 with certain agreements with creditors about payment of accumulating debt. On 4 February 2020, the newspaper announced a temporary suspension of its print publication owing to financial difficulties. On 13 October 2021, the newspaper said its online news coverage had been temporarily suspended due to "circumstances beyond our control." Several weeks later, on 31 October 2021, its editor-in-chief Nadim Ladki told employees that

9720-464: The sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English . Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries. As decolonisation proceeded throughout

9828-478: The source of approximately 28% of Modern English words , and from Latin , which is the source of an additional 28% . As such, though most of its total vocabulary comes from Romance languages , Modern English's grammar, phonology, and most commonly used words in everyday use keep it genealogically classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to

9936-524: The southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them. The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ( nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and

10044-455: The study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English . The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into

10152-575: The terms of the agreement, The Daily Star represented the IHT in the GCC, Lebanon, Syria , Jordan , Egypt , Yemen and Iraq . The Daily Star also produced a local edition in Kuwait. Under this agreement, The Daily Star was published and distributed alongside the International Herald Tribune ' s Middle-East edition. The Daily Star management however decided to break the agreement over

10260-469: The vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death , and to claims of linguistic imperialism , and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives. SAVAK At peak, there were around 5,000 SAVAK agents operating under

10368-473: The word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages. English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during

10476-785: The world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences. English is a pluricentric language , which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language. Spoken English, including English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents , but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English . The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by

10584-539: The world, but the number of English speakers in India is uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca , is also regarded as the first world language . English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty,

10692-438: The worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation , and law. Its modern grammar is the result of a gradual change from a dependent-marking pattern typical of Indo-European with

10800-405: Was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. In the 20th century

10908-478: Was also unable to pay their staff, with many reporting working for at least 6 months with no pay - a similar story to that of other Hariri-owned outlets like Future TV. As of December 2020, it no longer held the leading position for Lebanese news in English - losing its decades-long position to The961 . The Daily Star was one of the Lebanese newspapers which were close to SAVAK , Iranian intelligence agency, during

11016-498: Was appointed military governor of Tehran in December 1953, and immediately began to assemble the nucleus of a new intelligence organization. The U.S. Army colonel worked closely with Bakhtīār and his subordinates, commanding the new intelligence organization and training its members in basic intelligence techniques, such as surveillance and interrogation methods, the use of intelligence networks, and organizational security. This organization

11124-488: Was closed down shortly before the overthrow of the monarchy and the coming to power of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the February 1979 Iranian Revolution . Following the departure of the Shah in January 1979, SAVAK's more than 3,000 strong central staff and its agents were targeted for reprisals. However, it is believed that Khomeini may have changed his mind and may have retained them into the new SAVAMA . Hossein Fardoust ,

11232-463: Was established as an English supplement of Al-Hayat . First circulating in Lebanon and then expanding throughout the region, The Daily Star not only relayed news about foreign workers' home countries, but also served to keep them informed about the region. By the 1960s, it was the leading English language newspaper in the Middle East . Upon the death of Mrowa in 1966, his widow Salma El Bissar took over

11340-511: Was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , and Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer. The next period in

11448-500: Was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession . The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms, and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible. The transition from Old to Middle English can be placed during the writing of the Ormulum . The oldest Middle English texts that were written by

11556-533: Was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory. Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing , appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt ), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer ). British English

11664-711: Was the first modern, effective intelligence service to operate in Persia. Its main achievement occurred in September 1954, when it discovered and destroyed a large communist Tudeh Party network that had been established in the Persian armed forces. In March 1955, the Army colonel was "replaced with a more permanent team of five career Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers, including specialists in covert operations, intelligence analysis, and counterintelligence, including Major General Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf who "trained virtually all of

#239760