116-580: The Hebron Hills , also known as Mount Hebron ( Arabic : جبل الخليل , romanized : Jabal al-Khalīl , Hebrew : הר חברון , romanized : Har Hevron ), are a mountain ridge , geographic region, and geologic formation, constituting the southern part of the Judean Mountains . The Hebron Hills are located in the southern West Bank . During the Iron Age , the Hebron Hills were part of
232-512: 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
348-529: A common practice of spending part of the year in caves and underground caverns. In the years before Muhammad Ali of Egypt took control of the Levant (1831-1840) and the following two decades, the area faced ongoing insecurity. The struggle for control over Mount Hebron between rival groups in Dura led to a violent conflict, drawing in nearby Bedouin tribes and prompting local residents to relocate to cave dwellings . In
464-435: 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
580-1077: 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
696-483: 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
812-677: 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
928-521: A nomadic lifestyle not only in the Hebron Hills but also in other parts of Palestine. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent in Yatta and as-Samu, where droughts are frequent. Sometimes, this prolonged nomadism led to permanent migration to more hospitable areas. Consequently, rural communities from the Hebron Hills emerged in regions such as Nablus and Dothan in the northern West Bank, as well as in Wadi 'Ara and
1044-569: A quarter of the globe. Ptolemy's work included a single large and less detailed world map and then separate and more detailed regional maps. The first Greek manuscripts compiled after Maximus Planudes 's rediscovery of the text had as many as 64 regional maps. The standard set in Western Europe came to be 26: 10 European maps, 4 African maps, and 12 Asian maps. As early as the 1420s, these canonical maps were complemented by extra-Ptolemaic regional maps depicting, e.g., Scandinavia . An outline of
1160-576: 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
1276-663: A scribal error was made and Cattigara was located at eight and a half degrees South of the Equator. On Ptolemaic maps, such as that of Martellus, Catigara was located on the easternmost shore of the Mare Indicum, 180 degrees East of the Cape St Vincent at, due to the scribal error, eight and a half degrees South of the Equator. Catigara is also shown at this location on Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 world map, which avowedly followed
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#17328697675081392-462: 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",
1508-466: A separate administrative unit known as Idumea, named after its inhabitants. Marisa became its administrative center, with Ziph and Adoraim being of secondary importance. Hellenistic rule brought Greek and Phoenician culture into Idumea, while the prevalence of male circumcision shows a growing affinity with Judaism . In 113-112 BCE, the region was captured by the John Hyrcanus , who converted
1624-465: 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
1740-503: 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
1856-499: 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
1972-470: 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
2088-585: 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
2204-542: 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
2320-399: Is a treatise on cartography and chorography , describing the methods used to assemble and arrange Ptolemy's data. From Book II through the beginning of Book VII, a gazetteer provides longitude and latitude values for the world known to the ancient Romans (the " ecumene "). The rest of Book VII provides details on three projections to be used for the construction of a map of
2436-469: 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
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#17328697675082552-408: 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
2668-468: 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
2784-566: 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
2900-836: 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
3016-559: 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
3132-584: 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
3248-413: 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
3364-622: Is used now, though Ptolemy used fractions of a degree rather than minutes of arc. His Prime Meridian , of 0 longitude , ran through the Fortunate Isles , the westernmost land recorded, at around the position of El Hierro in the Canary Islands . The maps spanned 180 degrees of longitude from the Fortunate Isles in the Atlantic to China . Ptolemy was aware that Europe knew only about
3480-516: 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
3596-632: The Geographia and the Cosmographia , is a gazetteer , an atlas , and a treatise on cartography , compiling the geographical knowledge of the 2nd-century Roman Empire . Originally written by Claudius Ptolemy in Greek at Alexandria around 150 AD, the work was a revision of a now-lost atlas by Marinus of Tyre using additional Roman and Persian gazetteers and new principles. Its translation – Kitab Surat al-Ard – into Arabic by Al-Khwarismi in
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3712-445: 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
3828-692: 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
3944-584: The Arabian Desert . However, in the southern Hebron Hills, the prevalent genetic makeup features alleles for blonde hair, fair skin, and blue eyes, which he says could be attributed to Crusaders or cross-cousin marriage. Qleibo found it curious that the genetic characteristics of Beit Ummar's population, who consider themselves descendants of a Crusader prince converted to Islam over seven centuries ago, predominantly exhibit typical Arabian traits, including white skin and jet-black hair. The Hebron Hills form
4060-559: The Bar Kokhva revolt , a Jewish presence persisted in the area. In the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, the Hebron Hills were divided demographically into a Christian northern part and a mixed Jewish-Christian southern area. During this time, the southern Hebron Hills became known as Daroma , meaning "South" in Hebrew and Aramaic . Several synagogues from this period have been unearthed in
4176-483: The Canary Islands . He said that he had sailed 1100 leagues from the Canaries when he found Cuba in 1492. This was approximately where he thought the coast of eastern Asia would be found. On this basis of calculation he identified Hispaniola with Cipangu, which he had expected to find on the outward voyage at a distance of about 700 leagues from the Canaries. His later voyages resulted in further exploration of Cuba and in
4292-682: The Geography in providing the coordinates for 545 cities and regional maps of the Nile , the Island of the Jewel , the Sea of Darkness, and the Sea of Azov . A 1037 copy of these are the earliest extant maps from Islamic lands. The text clearly states that al-Khwārazmī was working from an earlier map, although this could not have been an exact copy of Ptolemy's work: his Prime Meridian
4408-453: The Green Line ) continue to farm grapes in this region. Local wineries include Yatir Winery . Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of
4524-626: The Kingdom of Judah , which underwent a forced exile after being conquered by the Babylonians . Subsequently, in the Hellenistic period , an Edomite population migrating to the area became dominant, leading to its being referred to as Idumaea . The Edomites later converted to Judaism and assimilated into the Jewish population. Despite many settlements being destroyed or abandoned due to the brutal suppression of
4640-703: The Magnus Sinus . This known portion of the world was comprised within 180 degrees. In his extreme east Ptolemy placed Serica (the Land of Silk), the Sinarum Situs (the Port of the Sinae ), and the emporium of Cattigara . On the 1489 map of the world by Henricus Martellus, which was based on Ptolemy's work, Asia terminated in its southeastern point in a cape, the Cape of Cattigara. Cattigara
4756-512: The Manasseh Hills . In recent times, several areas where traditional Palestinian herding communities live have been declared restricted military zones, forcing the displacement of many families. Several Israeli settlements have been established over the terrain. The Israeli military administration regards the area as a high priority for enforcing demolition orders regarding Palestinian dwellings. Several Palestinian Muslim clans residing in
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4872-615: The Marvels of the Seven Climes to the End of Habitation . Surviving maps from the medieval period were not done according to mathematical principles. The world map from the 11th-century Book of Curiosities is the earliest surviving map of the Muslim or Christian worlds to include a geographic coordinate system but the copyist seems to have not understood its purpose, starting it from the left using twice
4988-561: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
5104-494: 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
5220-419: 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
5336-874: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Geography (Ptolemy) The Geography ( Ancient Greek : Γεωγραφικὴ Ὑφήγησις , Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis , lit. "Geographical Guidance"), also known by its Latin names as
5452-454: 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
5568-478: The 12th century AD. However, no copy of that translation has survived. The Greek text of the Geography reached Florence from Constantinople in about 1400 and was translated into Latin by Jacobus Angelus of Scarperia around 1406. The first printed edition with maps, published in 1477 in Bologna , was also the first printed book with engraved illustrations. Many editions followed (more often using woodcut in
5684-471: The 17th and 18th centuries, Mount Hebron witnessed widespread violence, resulting in significant migrations and hegemony changes. Travelers' accounts from the late 17th to the early 19th century documented violence in the Hebron area, especially in its northern fringe, where conflicts between Hebron and Bethlehem districts led to the destruction of many villages. Limited information on southern Mount Hebron suggests
5800-458: The 19th century, there were instances of peasants from Transjordan moving to Hebron, driven by long droughts in their home areas. This migration provided labor for growing grains commercially in the Bayt Jibrin area, not far from western Hebron. Both fellahin and Bedouins relied on their livestock as a form of "insurance" during droughts, prompting them to migrate following the rains and adopt
5916-403: The 3rd century BC. Ptolemy improved the treatment of map projections . He provided instructions on how to create his maps in the first section of the work. The gazetteer section of Ptolemy's work provided latitude and longitude coordinates for all the places and geographical features in the work. Latitude was expressed in degrees of arc from the equator , the same system that
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#17328697675086032-562: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
6148-812: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
6264-510: The 9th century was highly influential on the geographical knowledge and cartographic traditions of the Islamic world . Alongside the works of Islamic scholars – and the commentary containing revised and more accurate data by Alfraganus – Ptolemy's work was subsequently highly influential on Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Versions of Ptolemy's work in antiquity were probably proper atlases with attached maps, although some scholars believe that
6380-672: The Edomites to Judaism and incorporated Idumaea into the Hasmonean kingdom . The region took part in the Bar Kokhva revolt against the Roman Empire (132-135 CE). The revolt left many settlements in the area destroyed or abandoned, and some of its residents migrated to the Galilee . However, while many areas in Judea proper were depopulated during the revolt and subsequently resettled by foreigners loyal to
6496-550: The Elder demonstrated a reluctance to rely on the contemporary accounts of sailors and merchants who plied distant areas of the Indian Ocean , Marinus and Ptolemy betray a much greater receptiveness to incorporating information received from them. For instance, Grant Parker argues that it would be highly implausible for them to have constructed the Bay of Bengal as precisely as they did without
6612-587: The Hebron Hills are purported to have or claim Jewish ancestry. The Makhamra family , based in Yatta , has a tradition of tracing their ancestry back to a Jewish tribe of Khaybar . They have preserved various customs resembling Jewish practices. In Halhul , the Sawarah clan and the Shatrit family are reputed to have Jewish origins. Traditions of Jewish ancestry have also been noted in Dura and Beit Ummar . Palestinian anthropologist Ali Qleibo noted that residents of as-Samu and Yatta identify as Qaysi , pure Arabs from Hejaz , with genealogical records tracing back to
6728-419: The Land of Israel. The Eshtemoa synagogue was excavated in the mid-1930s and was initially considered architecturally unique, being classified as 'transitional' between early and late synagogues. Later excavation of the Susiya synagogue revealed significant similarities between the two, leading scholars to categorize the synagogues of the area as a distinct architectural group. Between 1987 and 1990, excavations at
6844-403: The Maon and 'Anim synagogues revealed both similarities and differences compared to those in Eshtemoa and Susiya. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant , the Jewish population in the southern Hebron Hills had been gradually replaced by Muslims . During the early Islamic period, the synagogues of Susya and Eshtemoa were repurposed as mosques . It remains unclear whether local Jews had fled
6960-412: 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
7076-474: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
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#17328697675087192-413: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
7308-427: The Romans, the southern Hebron Hills stood out with its continuing, albeit diminished, Jewish presence. In his Geography , written around 150 CE, Claudius Ptolemy describes Idumea as a desolate area, in contrast to the relative density in the rest of the country north of Idumea to the Galilee. During the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, the Hebron Hills were demographically divided into two distinct sub-regions. In
7424-400: The above stemma descends, even if maps existed in antiquity: "The transmission of Ptolemy's text certainly passed through a stage when the manuscripts were too small to contain the maps. Planudes and his assistants therefore probably had no pictorial models, and the success of their enterprise is proof that Ptolemy succeeded in his attempt to encode the map in words and numbers. The copies of
7540-427: The accounts of sailors. When it comes to the account of the Golden Chersonese (i.e. Malay Peninsula ) and the Magnus Sinus (i.e. Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea ), Marinus and Ptolemy relied on the testimony of a Greek sailor named Alexandros, who claimed to have visited a far eastern site called " Cattigara " (most likely Oc Eo , Vietnam , the site of unearthed Antonine -era Roman goods and not far from
7656-412: The ancient names. As the Nabataeans pushed northwards, the Edomites were driven out of old Edom to the south of the Dead Sea and into the southern Hebron Hills between the southern part of the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, establishing new Edom or Idumaea. During the Hellenistic period , the Edomites became the dominant population of the southern Hebron Hills. Under Ptolemaic rule , the area became
7772-411: The area or had converted to Islam . Some Palestinians residing in the Hebron Hills, most notably the Makhamras of Yatta, view themselves as having Jewish ancestry. During the Crusades, at the time of the Kingdom of Jerusalem , all the Hebron Hills fell under the dominion of the seigneurie of St. Abraham . In the 16th century, Mount Hebron came under Ottoman rule. Findings indicate that during
7888-457: The basis of his (now lost) Chorography of the Ecumene . Later imperial writers and mathematicians, however, seem to have restricted themselves to commenting on Ptolemy's text, rather than improving upon it; surviving records actually show decreasing fidelity to real position. Nevertheless, Byzantine scholars continued these geographical traditions throughout the Medieval period. Whereas previous Greco-Roman geographers such as Strabo and Pliny
8004-509: 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
8120-448: The coordinates provided by the text, as Planudes was forced to do. Later scribes and publishers could then copy these new maps, as Athanasius did for the emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus . The three earliest surviving texts with maps are those from Constantinople ( Istanbul ) based on Planudes's work. The first Latin translation of these texts was made in 1406 or 1407 by Jacobus Angelus in Florence , Italy , under
8236-526: The descendants of the Jewish residents who remained in the area after the Bar Kokhba revolt , in addition to Jewish migrants from Galilee who joined them. This influx might have occurred during the time of Judah ha-Nasi , who maintained positive relations with the Roman authorities. In the southern Hebron Hills, four synagogues dating from the Talmudic period have been unearthed: Eshtemoa , Susiya , Maon , and 'Anim . These synagogues share common architectural features that set them apart from others found in
8352-525: The destruction of many villages. The highest peak of the mountain ridge is in the Palestinian city of Halhul , where a tableland exists with an altitude of 1,026 metres (3,366 ft). The Book of Joshua mentions Maon , Carmel , Adora , and Juttah among others as part of the tribal territory of the Tribe of Judah . The modern Arabic names of Ma'in , al-Karmil , Dura , and Yatta respectively preserve
8468-454: The discovery of South and Central America . At first South America, the Mundus Novus ( New World ) was considered to be a great island of continental proportions; but as a result of his fourth voyage , it was apparently considered to be identical with the great Upper India peninsula ( India Superior ) represented by Behaim – the Cape of Cattigara. This seems to be the best interpretation of
8584-508: The early days), some following traditional versions of the maps, and others updating them. An edition printed at Ulm in 1482 was the first one printed north of the Alps . Also in 1482, Francesco Berlinghieri printed the first edition in vernacular Italian . Ptolemy had mapped the whole world from the Fortunatae Insulae ( Cape Verde or Canary Islands ) eastward to the eastern shore of
8700-635: 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
8816-468: The encyclopedia follows, with links to the appropriate Misplaced Pages article. The original treatise by Marinus of Tyre that formed the basis of Ptolemy's Geography has been completely lost. A world map based on Ptolemy was displayed in Augustodunum ( Autun , France ) in late Roman times. Pappus , writing at Alexandria in the 4th century, produced a commentary on Ptolemy's Geography and used it as
8932-474: The end of the thirteenth century, which are the earliest extant manuscripts of the Geography; these are U, K & F. Recension, Ξ, is represented by one codex only, X. Mittenhuber agrees with Berggren & Jones, stating that "The so-called Codex X is of particular significance, because it contains many local names and coordinates that differ from the other manuscripts ... which cannot be explained by mere errors in
9048-728: 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
9164-654: The extensive additions to the Ptolemaic map shown on the 1492 globe of Martin Behaim . The fact that Ptolemy did not represent an eastern coast of Asia made it admissible for Behaim to extend that continent far to the east. Behaim’s globe placed Marco Polo’s Mangi and Cathay east of Ptolemy’s 180th meridian, and the Great Khan’s capital, Cambaluc ( Beijing ), on the 41st parallel of latitude at approximately 233 degrees East. Behaim allowed 60 degrees beyond Ptolemy’s 180 degrees for
9280-593: 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
9396-501: 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
9512-579: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
9628-409: The intended scale and then (apparently realizing his mistake) giving up halfway through. Its presence does strongly suggest the existence of earlier, now-lost maps which had been mathematically derived in the manner of Ptolemy, al-Khwārazmi, or Suhrāb. There are surviving reports of such maps. Ptolemy's Geography was translated from Arabic into Latin at the court of King Roger II of Sicily in
9744-608: 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
9860-599: 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)
9976-420: 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
10092-520: The length of a degree instead of the longer degree of Ptolemy, and by adopting Marinus of Tyre ’s longitude of 225 degrees for the east coast of the Magnus Sinus . This resulted in a considerable eastward advancement of the longitudes given by Martin Behaim and other contemporaries of Columbus. By some process Columbus reasoned that the longitudes of eastern Asia and Cipangu respectively were about 270 and 300 degrees east, or 90 and 60 degrees west of
10208-606: The mainland of Asia and 30 degrees more to the east coast of Cipangu (Japan). Cipangu and the mainland of Asia were thus placed only 90 and 120 degrees, respectively, west of the Canary Islands. The Codex Seragliensis was used as the base of a new edition of the work in 2006. This new edition was used to "decode" Ptolemy's coordinates of Books 2 and 3 by an interdisciplinary team of TU Berlin , presented in publications in 2010 and 2012. Christopher Columbus modified this geography further by using 53⅔ Italian nautical miles as
10324-883: 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
10440-413: The maps in later manuscripts and printed editions of the Geography were reproduced from Planudes' reconstructions." Mittenhuber (2010) further divides the stemma into two recensions of the original c.AD 150 lost work: Ξ and Ω (c.3rd/4th cent., lost). Recension Ω contains most of the extant manuscripts and is subdivided into a further two groups: Δ and Π . Group Δ contains parchment manuscripts from
10556-482: The maps were either copied defectively for not at all. "Of the greatest importance for the text of the Geography" they state is manuscript X ( Vat.Gr.191 ); "because it is the only copy that is uninfluenced by the Byzantine revision." e.g. the 13th-14th century corrections of Planudes, possibly associated with recreating the maps. Regarding the maps, they conclude that it was unlikely that extant maps survived from which
10672-483: The name Geographia Claudii Ptolemaei . It is not thought that his edition had maps, although Manuel Chrysoloras had given Palla Strozzi a Greek copy of Planudes's maps in Florence in 1397. Berggren & Jones (2000) place these manuscripts into a stemma whereby U, K, F and N are connected with the activities of Maximos Planudes (c.1255-1305). From a sister manuscript to UKFN descends R, V, W & C, however
10788-768: 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
10904-670: The northern part, Christian settlements were established atop the remains of previously destroyed Jewish villages. Meanwhile, the southern Hebron Hills were inhabited by both Jewish and Christian communities. There is evidence that the region was also inhabited by pagans and Jewish Christians during that period. During the same period, the southern Hebron Hills became known as Darom or Daroma (Hebrew and Aramaic for "South"). This term appears in rabbinic literature and in Eusebius ' Onomasticon . In his Onomasticon , Eusebius mentions seven Jewish settlements that existed in his time in
11020-424: 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
11136-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
11252-414: The references to maps in the text were later additions. No Greek manuscript of the Geography survives from earlier than the 13th century. A letter written by the Byzantine monk Maximus Planudes records that he searched for one for Chora Monastery in the summer of 1295; one of the earliest surviving texts may have been one of those he then assembled. In Europe, maps were sometimes redrawn using
11368-410: 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
11484-522: The region of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam where ancient Chinese sources claim several Roman embassies first landed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries). Muslim cartographers were using copies of Ptolemy's Almagest and Geography by the 9th century. At that time, in the court of the caliph al-Maʾmūm , al-Khwārazmī compiled his Book of the Depiction of the Earth ( Kitab Surat al-Ard ) which mimicked
11600-515: The region. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant , the Jewish population in the area declined as Muslims became dominant. In the Ottoman period, Mount Hebron served as a stop for farmers and herders, primarily from the deserts of Arabia and Transjordan , who migrated due to factors like severe drought. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, Mount Hebron experienced extensive violence involving rival families and Bedouins , leading to migrations and
11716-458: 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
11832-403: The sketch map made by Alessandro Zorzi on the advice of Bartholomew Columbus (Christopher's brother) around 1506, which bears an inscription saying that according to the ancient geographer Marinus of Tyre and Christopher Columbus the distance from Cape St Vincent on the coast of Portugal to Cattigara on the peninsula of India Superior was 225 degrees, while according to Ptolemy the same distance
11948-458: 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
12064-530: The southern Hebron Hills: Juttah, Carmel, Eshtemoa, Rimmon, Tele, Lower Anim, and Ein Gedi . Archaeological finds confirm the existence of Jewish and Christian settlements in Yatta , al-Karmil , as-Samu , Zif , Maon , Kfar Aziz , Eaton, Gomer, Kishor, Tela, Rimon, and Aristobolia. Jewish settlements were typically built surrounding a synagogue. The Jewish population in the southern Hebron Hills appears to have consisted of
12180-574: The southern and eastern border of Mediterranean vegetation in the region of Palestine . A 2012 survey by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority discovered 54 rare plant species in the region, more than half of them in cultivated fields. They include Boissiera squarrosa , a type of grass; Legousia hybrida , a plant from the bellflower family; and Reseda globulosa , a rare mignonette . The region has been known for its vineyards since biblical times . Palestinians and Israelis (from both parts of
12296-556: 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
12412-446: The surviving manuscript tradition can be seen in the epitomes of Markianos by Stephanus : "Καὶ ἄλλοι οὕτως διὰ του π Πρετανίδες νῆσοι, ὡς Μαρκιανὸς καὶ Πτολεμαῖος ." The tradition preserved within the stemma of surviving (13th-14th century) manuscripts by Stückelberger & Grasshoff only preserves " Β " and not " Π " recentions of " Βρεττανικήσ ". The Geography consists of three sections, divided among 8 books. Book I
12528-501: 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
12644-553: The tradition of Ptolemy. Ptolemy's information was thereby misinterpreted so that the coast of China, which should have been represented as part of the coast of eastern Asia, was falsely made to represent an eastern shore of the Indian Ocean. As a result, Ptolemy implied more land east of the 180th meridian and an ocean beyond. Marco Polo ’s account of his travels in eastern Asia described lands and seaports on an eastern ocean apparently unknown to Ptolemy. Marco Polo’s narrative authorized
12760-629: The tradition.". Although no manuscripts survive from earlier than the late 13th century; there are references to the existence of ancient codicies in late antiquity. One such example is in an epistle by Cassiodorus (c.560 A.D.): “Tum, si vos notitiae nobilis cura inflammaverit, habetis Ptolemaei codicem, qui sic omnia loca evidenter expressit, ut eum cunctarum regionum paene incolam fuisse iudicetis. Eoque fit, ut uno loco positi, sicut monachos decet, animo percurratis, quod aliquorum peregrinatio plurimo labore collegit.”( Institutiones 1, 25) . The existence of ancient recensions that differ fundamentally to
12876-451: 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
12992-451: The world, varying in complexity and fidelity. Book VIII constitutes an atlas of regional maps. The maps include a recapitulation of some of the values given earlier in the work, which were intended to be used as captions to clarify the map's contents and maintain their accuracy during copying. Maps based on scientific principles had been made in Europe since the time of Eratosthenes in
13108-526: Was 10° east of Ptolemy's, he adds some places, and his latitudes differ. C.A. Nallino suggests that the work was not based on Ptolemy but on a derivative world map, presumably in Syriac or Arabic . The coloured map of al-Maʾmūm constructed by a team including al-Khwārazmī was described by the Persian encyclopædist al-Masʿūdī around 956 as superior to the maps of Marinus and Ptolemy, probably indicating that it
13224-648: Was 180 degrees. Prior to the 16th century, knowledge of geography in the Ottoman Empire was limited in scope, with almost no access to the works of earlier Islamic scholars that superseded Ptolemy. His Geography would again be translated and updated with commentary into Arabic under Mehmed II , who commissioned works from Byzantine scholar George Amiroutzes in 1465 and the Florentine humanist Francesco Berlinghieri in 1481. There are two related errors: This suggests Ptolemy rescaled his longitude data to fit with
13340-433: Was built along similar mathematical principles. It included 4530 cities and over 200 mountains. Despite beginning to compile numerous gazetteers of places and coordinates indebted to Ptolemy, Muslim scholars made almost no direct use of Ptolemy's principles in the maps which have survived. Instead, they followed al-Khwārazmī's modifications and the orthogonal projection advocated by Suhrāb's early 10th-century treatise on
13456-567: Was understood by Ptolemy to be a port on the Sinus Magnus, or Great Gulf, the actual Gulf of Thailand, at eight and a half degrees north of the Equator, on the coast of Cambodia, which is where he located it in his Canon of Famous Cities . It was the easternmost port reached by shipping trading from the Graeco-Roman world to the lands of the Far East. In Ptolemy's later and better-known Geography ,
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