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115-622: The argument that the Mardaites were Greek, is supported on two facts. Firstly, their loyalty to the Greek emperors in Constantinople: If they were Maronites they would not have obeyed (as they did) his orders to make war or peace with the new Muslim Arab conquerors. The same argument is made against being Muslim Arab renegades. They would not exhibit such fierce loyalty to a Greek emperor. Linguistic evidence also supports this theory. The name Mardaites

230-537: A Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the National Assembly has historically been a Shi'ite . Maronites derive their name from Maron , a 4th-century Syriac Christian saint venerated by multiple Christian traditions. He is often conflated with John Maron , the first Maronite Patriarch, who ruled 685-707. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Lebanese people is a blend of many peoples that have come to rule

345-683: A Syriac Christian ethnoreligious group group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant whose members belong to the Maronite Church . The largest concentration has traditionally resided near Mount Lebanon in modern Lebanon . The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church in full communion with the pope and the rest of the Catholic Church . The Maronites derive their name from Saint Maron ,

460-512: A Syriac Christian whose followers migrated to the area of Mount Lebanon from their previous place of residence around the area of Antioch , and established the nucleus of the Maronite Church. Christianity in Lebanon has a long and continuous history. The spread of Christianity in Lebanon was very slow where paganism persisted, especially in the mountaintop strongholds of Mount Lebanon. During

575-536: A Syriac Christian , going on to explain that to him and many Lebanese the "acceptance" of Lebanon's "Arab identity" according to the Taef Agreement was not something that they "accepted" but instead were forced into signing through pressure. The official declared "Arab Identity" of Lebanon was created in 1990 based on the Taif Agreement, without any free discussion or debate among Lebanese people and while Lebanon

690-689: A Chalcedonian conflict resulted in the massacre of 350 Maronite monks. Some sources detail the massacre was exacted under the orders of Monophysite Emperor Anastasius I, while others assign the responsibility to the Miaphysite Jacobite Syriacs. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 637 AD, the Christians living in the low lands and coastal cities began to settle in the Mount Lebanon and to

805-825: A Patriarch made the Byzantine Emperor furious, which led to the persecution of the Maronites by the Byzantines. Following the Byzantine persecutions in the Orontes valley, many Maronite monks left their lands in the Orontes Valley and took refuge in the mountains of Lebanon. The Maronite community migrated since the mid 7th century and through the 8th century, moving from the Orontes Valley in central Syria to Mount Lebanon , becoming

920-562: 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

1035-435: 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

1150-418: A dialect of Aramaic called Syriac . Syriac remains the liturgical language of the Maronite Church. Phoenicianism is an identity on the part of Lebanese Christians that has developed into an integrated ideology led by key thinkers, but there are a few who have stood out more than others: Charles Corm , Michel Chiha , and Said Aql in their promotion of Phoenicianism . In post civil-war Lebanon since

1265-1077: 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

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1380-739: A dialect. A Maronite community of about 11,000 people lives in Israel. The 2017 Annuario Pontificio reported that 10,000 people belonged to the Maronite Catholic Archeparchy of Haifa and the Holy Land and 504 people belonged to the Exarchate of Jerusalem and Palestine . [REDACTED] Catholicism portal According to various sources the Maronite diaspora is estimated to be somewhere between 7 and 12 million individuals, much larger than

1495-678: A key role in the establishment of Greater Lebanon by the French Mandate. With only two exceptions, all Lebanese presidents have been Maronites as part of a tradition that persists as part of the National Pact , by which the Prime Minister has historically been a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of the National Assembly has historically been a Shia Muslim . A unique feature of the Lebanese system

1610-483: 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

1725-677: 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

1840-868: A more security-minded view of Lebanon. They regarded the national project as mainly a program for the security of Maronites and a bulwark against threats from Muslims and their hinterland. The right-wing yet secular Guardians of the Cedars , with its exiled Leader and founder Etienne Saqr (also the father of singers Karol Sakr and Pascale Sakr ) took no sectarian stance and even had Muslim members who joined in their radical stance against Arabism and Palestinian forces in Lebanon . Saqr summarized his party's view on Arab Identity in their official ideological manifesto by stating Lebanon will remain, as always, Lebanese without any labels. The French passed through it yet it remained Lebanese. The Ottomans ruled it and it remained Lebanese. The stinky winds of Arabism blow through it, but

1955-438: A purposeful exclusion of Arabism in the segment. The speech met with applause afterward from the audience; What we are missing today is an important element of our life and our honor, which is our identity. I will tell you today, that I as a Lebanese citizen , my identity is Maronite , Syriac Christian , and Lebanese ( Arabic : مارونية سريانية مسيحية لبنانية mārūniyya, suryāniyya masīḥiyya, lubnāniyya). Etienne Sakr , of

2070-576: 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

2185-462: 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",

2300-465: 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

2415-503: 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

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2530-499: 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

2645-470: 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

2760-727: 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

2875-568: Is a Christian-based political party of Maronite majority and former militia. it currently holds 4 of the 128 seats in parliament, all of which are Christian. As a militia , it played a pivotal role during the Lebanese Civil War as it controlled its own Maronite canton (Marounistan) as part of the Lebanese Front . The party is also led by the Gemayel family , a notable Maronite family based in

2990-585: 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

3105-542: 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

3220-469: 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

3335-520: Is claimed that they forced Muawiyah I , Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate , to pay tribute to the Byzantine emperor Constantine IV , or possibly to them instead. Emperor Justinian II sent the Mardaites again to raid Syria in 688/9; this time they were joined by native peasants and slaves and were able to advance as far as Lebanon. The Umayyads were compelled to sign another treaty by which they paid

3450-408: 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

3565-468: 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

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3680-476: Is found in use in areas of the Byzantine empire at least until the 10th century. It was synonym to apelates , seen in Greek folk and epic poems ( akrites ). Finally, indicative of their ancestry and locality is that after the peace treaty was signed between the Byzantines and the Arabs, they remained in the land. Whether their name was due to their existence outside of legitimate political authority or their residence in

3795-540: Is no distinct pattern that shows that one community carries significantly more Phoenician than another." Although Christianity existed in Roman Phoenice since the time of the Apostles, Christians were a minority among the majority pagans by the time Emperor Theodosius I issued The Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD. The coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon remained prosperous during Roman rule, but Phoenicia had ceased to be

3910-566: 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

4025-836: 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

4140-559: 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

4255-622: Is the principle of "confessional distribution": all religious community has an allotted number of deputies in the Parliament. Thirty-four seats in parliament are reserved for Maronites. The largest party is the Lebanese Forces that receives most of its support from the Maronite Christians but it also supported by other Christian sects throughout the country. It currently has 19 seats in parliament, 11 of them being Maronite. The Phalange Party

4370-584: 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

4485-413: 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

4600-516: 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

4715-559: Is well known, was assembled against them and in which they suffered sentence of condemnation. Now however...they repented all of these heresies and returned to the catholic church". The Maronites have also had a presence in Cyprus since the early 9th century and many Maronites went there following the Sultan Saladin 's successful Siege of Jerusalem in 1187 AD. During the papacy of Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585), steps were taken to bring

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4830-445: 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

4945-606: The Arab identity instead. This conflict of ideas of identity is believed to be one of the pivotal disputes between the Muslim and Christian populations of Lebanon and what mainly divides the country to the detriment of national unity. In general it appears that Muslims focus more on the Arab identity of the Lebanese history and culture whereas the Christian communities–especially the Maronites, focus on their history and struggles as an ethnoreligious group as distinct from Arab identity and

5060-1192: The Byzantine navy for several centuries. Others however remained behind and continued raiding Muslim-held territories until their chief stronghold fell to Umayyad prince-general Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik in 708. Maslama then resettled them throughout Syria, and although he allowed them to retain their faith, he conscripted them into his army. Describing the abna' of Yemen, Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani states in his Kitab al-Aghani that, up to his time (10th century), these people were called " banū al-aḥrār ( بنو الأحرار ) in Sanaa, al-abnāʾ in Yemen, al-aḥāmira ( الأحامرة ) in Kufa , al-asāwira ( الأساورة ) in Basra , al-khaḍārima ( الخضارمة ) in al-Jazira , and al-jarājima ( الجراجمة ) in Bilad al-Sham ". [REDACTED] Catholicism portal Maronites Maronites ( Arabic : الموارنة , romanized :  Al-Mawārinah ; Syriac : ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ , romanized :  Marunoye ) are

5175-599: The Druze founded modern Lebanon in Ottoman Lebanon in the early 18th century, through the ruling and social system known as the "Maronite-Druze dualism" in the Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate . All Lebanese presidents , with the exception of Charles Debbas and Petro Trad , have been Maronites as part of a continued tradition of the National Pact , by which the prime minister has historically been

5290-645: The Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of São Paulo , Brazil, had 521,000 members; in 2020 the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Sydney , Australia, had 161,370 members; in 2020 the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Montreal , Canada, had 94,300 members; in 2021 the Eparchy of Our Lady of the Martyrs of Lebanon in Mexico had 167,190 members; in 2021 the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles in the United States had 47,480 members; in 2020 and

5405-528: The Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn in the United States had 23,939 members. According to the Annuario Pontificio , 51,520 people belonged to the Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Paris in 2021. In Europe, some Belgian Maronites are involved in the trade of diamonds in the diamond district of Antwerp . According to the Annuario Pontificio , 74,900 belonged to

5520-684: The Guardians of the Cedars Lebanese party, in an interview responded "We are not Arabs" to an interview question about the Guardians of the Cedars' ideology of Lebanon being Lebanese. He continued by talking about how describing Lebanon as being not Arab was a crime in present-day Lebanon, about the Lebanese Civil War, and about Arabism as being a first step towards Islamism, claiming that "the Arabs want to annex Lebanon" and in order to do this "to push

5635-436: The Marada Movement , National Liberal Party and Independence Movement . People born into Christian families or clans who have either Aramaic or Maronite cultural heritage are considered an ethnicity separate from Israeli Arabs and since 2014 can register themselves as Arameans. The Christians who have applied so far for recognition as Aramean are mostly Galilean Maronites . In addition, some 500 Christian adherents of

5750-399: The Phoenician legacy of the Lebanese people and has promoted the use of the Lebanese dialect written in a modified Latin alphabet , rather than the Arabic one , although both alphabets have descended from the Phoenician alphabet. In opposition to such views, Arabism was affirmed at the March 1936 Congress of the Coast and Four Districts, when the Muslim leadership at the conference made

5865-409: The Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Damascus , reject this. Mass emigration to the Americas at the outset of the 20th century, famine during World War I that killed an estimated one third to one half of the population, the 1860 Mount Lebanon conflict and the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 and 1990 greatly decreased their numbers in the Levant; however Maronites today form more than one quarter of

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5980-486: The Taif agreement , politically Phoenicianism is restricted to a small group. Among leaders of the movement, Said Akl and Etienne Saqr have been notable names, some going as far as voicing anti-Arab views. In his book the Israeli writer Mordechai Nisan , who at times met with some of them during the war, quoted Said Akl , a famous Lebanese poet and philosopher, as saying; "I would cut off my right hand, and not associate myself to an Arab." Akl believes in emphasizing

6095-467: 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

6210-494: 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

6325-419: 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

6440-454: 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

6555-402: The 1860 massacres, many Maronites fled to Egypt. Antonios Bachaalany, a Maronite from Salima (Baabda district) was the first emigrant to the New World, where he reached the United States in 1854 and died there two years later. According to the Maronite church, there were approximately 1,062,000 Maronites in Lebanon in 1994, where they constitute up to 32% of the population. Under the terms of

6670-462: 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

6785-420: The 5th century AD, Saint Maron sent Abraham of Cyrrhus , often referred to as the Apostle of Lebanon, to convert the still significant pagan population of Lebanon to Christianity . The area's inhabitants renamed the Adonis River the Abraham River after Saint Abraham preached there. The early Maronites were Hellenized Semites, natives of Byzantine Syria who spoke Greek and Syriac , yet identified with

6900-603: 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

7015-491: The Apostolic Exarchate of West and Central Africa ( Nigeria ) in 2020. The Diocese is centered in Ibadan , Nigeria and covers the countries of Angola , Benin , Burkina Faso , Cameroon , Central African Republic , Chad , Republic of the Congo , Democratic Republic of the Congo , Côte d'Ivoire , Equatorial Guinea , Gabon , Gambia , Ghana , Guinea , Guinea-Bissau , Liberia , Mali , Mauritania , Niger . Senegal , Sierra Leone and Togo . In 1920, Maronites played

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7130-480: The Arab world, while also reaffirming the Lebanese identity, as well as refraining from Arab characterization as it would deny them their striving achievement of having fended off the Arabs and Turks physically, culturally, and spiritually since their conception. The Maronite perseverance led to their existence even to today. Lebanese Maronites are known to be specifically linked to the root of Lebanese Nationalism and opposition to Pan-Arabism in Lebanon, this being

7245-534: The Arabs and to guard the Amanian Gate , but their loyalty was intermittent and they often sided with the Byzantine Empire as their agenda varied. According to Greek and Syriac historians, their territory stretched from the Amanus to the "holy city", the latter often identified as Jerusalem , although more likely to refer to Cyrrhus , also called Hagioupolis, the capital of Cyrrhestica , in upper Syria. Their numbers were swelled by thousands of runaway slaves, making them an ethnically diverse group. In light of this, it

7360-452: The Aramean Christian Foundation in Israel, led by IDF Major Shadi Khalloul Risho and the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, headed by Father Gabriel Naddaf of the Greek-Orthodox Church and Major Ihab Shlayan. Shadi Khalloul Risho is also a member of the Israeli right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, and was placed 15th in the 2015 parliamentary elections in the party's member list; the party however received only 5 seats. The followers of

7475-427: The Assyrian Patriarch of the Church of the East , Awa III proclaiming: We affirm that we are one Syriac people, rooted in the beloved East and we form its essential constituents, despite our number and the variety of our apostolic traditions. Our witness to our Christian faith in general, and to our Syriac identity in particular, is a constant source of concern for us. Therefore, we took the time to deepen our role in

7590-435: The BBC placed the number of Maronites in Syria at between 28,000 and 60,000. Maronites first migrated to Cyprus in the 8th century, and there are approximately 5,800 Maronites on the island today, the vast majority in the Republic of Cyprus . The community historically spoke Cypriot Maronite Arabic , but today Cypriot Maronites speak the Greek language , with the Cypriot government designating Cypriot Maronite Arabic as

7705-482: The Byzantines half the tribute of Cyprus , Armenia and the Kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus Mountains ; in return, Justinian relocated around 12,000 Mardaites to the southern coast of Anatolia , and the area of Laconia in the Southern Peloponnese, being under Byzantine control, Nicopolis in Epirus and Cephalonia as part of his measures to restore population and manpower to areas depleted by earlier conflicts. There they were conscripted as rowers and marines in

7820-431: The Christians continued to settle in the Mountains of Lebanon. The Christians that chose to remain in the newly Arab-controlled areas and inhabited by the Arab invaders gradually became a minority and many of those converted to Islam in order to escape taxation and to further their own political and professional advancement. In 685 AD, St. John Maron became the first Patriarch of the Maronite Church. The appointing of

7935-430: The Christians out (of Lebanon)", this being "the plan since 1975", among other issues. On 16 December 2022, at the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Residence in Atchaneh, Lebanon, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch , Ignatius Aphrem II issued a joint statement with the Maronite Patriarch , Bechara Boutros al-Rahi , the Syriac Catholic Patriarch , Ignatius Joseph III Yonan , the Chaldean Patriarch , Louis Raphaël I Sako and

8050-477: The East and to find ways to activate it and strengthen it. We discussed the available means of supporting our people to remain in the homeland which was baptized with the blood of our forefathers and ancestors. In this regard, we have renewed our firm resolve to continue our fatherly ministry to our people in order to help them remain in their countries and to stop the migrations caused by the current conflicts and political, economic, and social difficult conditions that

8165-569: The Greek-speaking populace of Constantinople and Antioch. They were able to maintain an independent status in Mount Lebanon and its coastline after the Muslim conquest of the Levant , keeping their Christian religion, and even their distinct Lebanese Aramaic as late as the 19th century. While Maronites identify primarily as native Lebanese of Maronite origin, many identify as Arab Christians . Others identify as descendants of Phoenicians . Some Maronites argue that they are of Mardaite ancestry, while other historians, such as Clement Joseph David,

8280-516: The Maronite Church form a part of the Syriac Christians and belong to the West Syriac Rite . The Maronite Syriac Church of Antioch traces its foundation to Maron , an early 4th-century Syriac monk venerated as a saint. Before the conquest by Arabian Muslims reached Lebanon, the Lebanese people , including those who would become Muslim and the majority who would remain Christian, spoke

8395-607: The Maronite population living in their historic homelands in Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Israel, and Palestine. Due to cultural and religious assimilation, especially in the Americas , many Maronites or those of Maronite descent might not identify as Maronite or are unaware of their Maronite heritage. According to the Annuario Pontificio , in 2020 the Eparchy of San Charbel in Buenos Aires , Argentina, had 750,000 members; in 2021

8510-473: The Maronites numbered 40,000 people. During the several centuries of separation from the rest of the Christian world, they often claim to have been in full communion with the Catholic Church throughout. Despite this the majority of the accounts of those interacting with them at the time indicate that they were monothelites ; notable figures from the era such as the medieval historian Jacques de Vitry and

8625-454: The Maronites still closer to Rome. The Maronite College in Rome ( Pontificio Collegio dei Maroniti ) being founded by Gregory XIII in 1584. By the 17th century, the Maronites had developed a strong natural liking for Europe – particularly France. The relationship between the Druze and Christians has been characterized by harmony and peaceful coexistence , with amicable relations between

8740-412: 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

8855-571: The National Pact agreement between the various political and religious leaders of Lebanon, the president of the country must be a Maronite Christian. There is also a small Maronite Christian community in Syria. In 2017, the Annuario Pontificio reported that 3,300 people belonged to the Archeparchy of Aleppo , 15,000 in the Archeparchy of Damascus and 45,000 in the Eparchy of Lattaquié ). In 2015,

8970-672: 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

9085-561: 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

9200-674: The Syriac Catholic Church in Israel are expected to apply for the recreated ethnic status, as well as several hundred Aramaic-speaking adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Though supported by Gabriel Naddaf , the move was condemned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, which described it as "an attempt to divide the Palestinian minority in Israel". This recognition comes after about seven years of activity by

9315-649: The case during 1958 Lebanon crisis . Muslim Arab nationalists backed by Gamel Abdel Nasser tried to overthrow the then Maronite dominated government in power, due to displeasure at the government's pro-western policies and their lack of commitment and duty to the so-called "Arab brotherhood" by preferring to keep Lebanon away from the Arab League and the political confrontations of the Middle East. A more hard-nosed nationalism among some Maronites leaders, who saw Lebanese nationalism more in terms of its confessional roots and failed to be carried away by Chiha's vision, clung to

9430-458: The chronicler of the Pope, William of Tyre affirming this, the latter of which (William Tyre) recorded both their kindness upon receiving him and the monothelitic views of which they recanted, stating; "The heresy of Maro and his followers is and was that in our Lord Jesus Christ, there exists and did exist from the beginning one will and one energy only, as may be learned from the sixth council, which as

9545-521: The coastal cities of the coast which did not particularly interest the Muslim Arabs; the area consisting of those regions extending from Sidon in the South and up to Batroun and the south of Tripoli in the north. The Arab conquerors settled in various cities of the coast to reduce Byzantine interference even though they were not interested in maritime trade. Since the mountains offered no attraction to them,

9660-567: 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

9775-597: The declaration that Lebanon was an Arab country, indistinguishable from its Arab neighbors. In the April 1936 Beirut municipal elections, Christian and Muslim politicians were divided along Phoenician and Arab lines in the matter of whether the Lebanese coast should be claimed by Syria or given to Lebanon, increasing the already mounting tensions between the two communities. Phoenicianism is still disputed by many Arabist scholars who have on occasion tried to convince its adherents to abandon their claims as false, and to embrace and accept

9890-577: 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

10005-728: 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

10120-593: 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

10235-501: 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

10350-526: 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

10465-465: The issue of identity was brought up on several occasions, by various politicians including Druze leader Walid Jumblatt , who claimed that all Lebanese lack somewhat of a real identity and the country is yet to discover one everybody could agree on. Sami Gemayel , of the Gemayel clan and son of former president Amin Gemayel , stated he did not consider himself an Arab but instead identified himself as

10580-507: The land over the course of thousands of years. In a 2013 interview, Pierre Zalloua , a Lebanese biologist who took part in the National Geographic Society 's Genographic Project , pointed out that genetic variation preceded religious variation and divisions: "Lebanon already had well-differentiated communities with their own genetic peculiarities, but not significant differences, and religions came as layers of paint on top. There

10695-608: 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

10810-599: 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)

10925-420: 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

11040-479: The majority of the Christians in the hills around Tripoli and Byblos by the 10th century. The Maronites managed then to become "civilly semiautonomous" where they settled and kept speaking Lebanese Aramaic in daily life and Classical Syriac for their liturgy. The Maronites welcomed the conquering Christians of the First Crusade in 1096 AD. Around the late 12th century, according to William of Tyre ,

11155-883: 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

11270-425: The maritime empire it once was centuries ago and the north of Berytus ( Beirut ) and the mountains of Lebanon concentrated a big part of the intellectual and religious activities. Very few Roman temples were built in the coastal cities, hence the reason for the reign of paganism in the interior of the land. The Maronite movement reached Lebanon when in 402 AD Saint Maron's first disciple, Abraham of Cyrrhus , who

11385-602: The mountains is not known. They were joined later by various escaped slaves and peasants during their insurgency and were said to have claimed territory from "the Holy City" to the "Black Mountain" (Nur Mountains). After the Muslim conquest of the Levant , the Mardaites gained a semi-independent status around the Nur Mountains within al-ʿAwāṣim , the Byzantine-Arab border region. They initially agreed to serve as mercenaries for

11500-768: 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

11615-424: 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

11730-599: 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

11845-410: 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

11960-451: The regions of Achrafieh and Metn which carries the legacy of Pierre and Bashir Gemayel . The Free Patriotic Movement is Christian-based political party which follows the agenda of former president Michel Aoun . It currently holds 17 seats of the 128 seats in Lebanon's parliament. The party has large support in Christian districts like Batroun and Jezzine . Other smaller Maronite-based parties that only receive local support includes,

12075-458: 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

12190-458: 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

12305-556: 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

12420-494: The total population of modern-day Lebanon. Though concentrated in Lebanon, Maronites also show presence in the neighboring Levant , as well as a significant part in the Lebanese diaspora in the Americas, Europe, Australia, and Africa. The Maronite Church, under the patriarch of Antioch , has branches in nearly all countries where Maronite Christian communities live, in both the Levant and the Lebanese diaspora . The Maronites and

12535-501: 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

12650-459: The two groups prevailing throughout history, with the exception of some periods, including 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war . In the 19th century, thousands of Maronites were massacred by the Lebanese Druze during the 1860 conflict. According to some estimates about 11,000 Lebanese Christians (including Maronites) were killed; over 4,000 died from hunger and disease as a result of the war. After

12765-456: The wind will wither away and Lebanon will remain Lebanese. I do not know what will become of those wretched people who claim that Lebanon is Arabic when Arabism disappears from the map of the Middle East and a new Middle East would emerge, which is clean from Arabs and Arabism . On an Al Jazeera special dedicated to the political Christian clans of Lebanon and their struggle for power in the 2009 election entitled, "Lebanon: The Family Business",

12880-451: 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

12995-599: The world is witnessing, and that is significantly affecting in the Middle East. Therefore, we pray for our countries' citizens who are suffering because of these crises that are affecting their daily lives. We assure them to continue our Christian witness and ministry to help all people and preserve their dignities and rights. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )

13110-592: Was called the Apostle of Lebanon, realized that there were many non-Christians in Lebanon and so he set out to convert the Phoenician inhabitants of the coastal lines and mountains of Lebanon, introducing them to the way of Saint Maron. In 451 AD, the Maronites followed the Council of Chalcedon , rejecting both monophysitism and miaphysitisim in favor of maintaining full communion with the then united Catholic Church. In 517 AD,

13225-417: Was under Syrian custody and in the presence of armed Syrian military inside the Lebanese parliament when votes on constitutional amendments were taking place. In a speech in 2009 to a crowd of Christian Kataeb supporters Gemayel declared that he felt there was importance in Christians in Lebanon finding an identity and went on to state what he finds identification with as a Lebanese Christian, concluding with

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