90-551: Balearic may refer to: Of the Balearic Islands The Balearic dialect of Catalan Balearic horse, a term sometimes used to describe either or both of these horse breeds in the region: Mallorquín Menorquín horse Balearic beat , a style of electronic dance music Balearic cuisine Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with
180-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
270-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
360-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
450-540: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
540-644: A municipality. Note that the maritime and terrestrial natural reserves in the Balearic Islands are not owned by the municipalities, even if they fall within their territory, but are owned and managed by the respective insular councils. Those municipalities are further subdivided into civil parishes ( parròquies ), that are slightly larger than the traditional religious parishes. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
630-466: A post with the sling. The Phoenicians took possession of the islands in very early times; a remarkable trace of their colonisation is preserved in the town of Mago ( Maó in Menorca ). After the fall of Carthage in 146 BC, the islands seem to have been virtually independent. Notwithstanding their celebrity in war, the people were generally very quiet and inoffensive. The Romans, however, easily found
720-522: A pretext for charging them with complicity with the Mediterranean pirates, and they were conquered by Q. Caecilius Metellus , thence surnamed Balearicus, in 123 BC. Metellus settled 3,000 Roman and Spanish colonists on the larger island, and founded the cities of Palma and Pollentia . The islands belonged, under the Roman Empire , to the conventus of Carthago Nova (modern Cartagena), in
810-473: A single insular council, covering the whole of the Pitiusic Islands. The insular council of Mallorca is further subdivided into six comarques; three other comarques cover the same territory as the three remaining insular councils. These nine comarques are then subdivided into municipalities ( municipis ), with the exception of Formentera, which is at the same time an insular council, a comarca, and
900-496: Is a local pork sausage. Lobster stew (so-called caldereta ) from Menorca , is one of their most sought after dishes. Mayonnaise is said to originate from the Menorcan city of Maó (Mahón) which also produces its own cheese . Local pastries include Ensaïmada , Flaó and Coca . Both Catalan and Spanish are official languages in the islands. Virtually all residents of the Balearic Islands speak Spanish fluently. Most of
990-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
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#17327663067401080-773: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
1170-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
1260-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
1350-526: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
1440-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
1530-650: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
1620-518: Is today Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and western Libya) but ended in defeat. Fearing reprisals, the inhabitants of the Balearics rebelled against the Almoravids and accepted Almohad suzerainty in 1187. On the last day of 1229, King James I of Aragon captured Palma after a three-month siege. The rest of Mallorca quickly followed. Menorca fell in 1232 and Ibiza in 1235. In 1236, James traded most of
1710-645: The Baleares . The term Balearic may derive from Greek ( Γυμνησίαι / Gymnesiae and Βαλλιαρεῖς / Balliareis ). In Latin , it was Baleares . Of the various theories on the origins of the two ancient Greek and Latin names for the islands— Gymnasiae and Baleares —classical sources provide two. According to Lycophron's Alexandra verses, the islands were called Γυμνησίαι / Gymnesiae ( γυμνός / gymnos , meaning 'naked' in Greek) because its inhabitants were often nude, probably because of
1800-810: The Balearic Promontory , and were formed by uplift . They are cut by a network of northwest to southeast faults . The main islands of the autonomous community are Majorca ( Mallorca ), Menorca/Minorca ( Menorca ), Ibiza ( Eivissa/Ibiza ), and Formentera, all popular tourist destinations. Amongst the minor islands is Cabrera, the location of the Cabrera Archipelago Maritime-Terrestrial National Park . Neighbours: Algeria (south), Spain 's Catalonia and Valencian Community (west), France's South (north), and France 's Corsica as well as Italy 's Sardinia (east). The Balearic Islands province has
1890-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
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#17327663067401980-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
2070-758: The Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Portugal as well as the Kingdom of Spain , to end the conflict caused by the War of the Spanish Succession —gave Gibraltar and Menorca to the Kingdom of Great Britain, Sardinia to Austria (both territories had been part of the Crown of Aragon for more than four centuries), and Sicily to the House of Savoy . In addition, Flanders and other European territories of
2160-972: The Republic of Pisa , the expedition included 420 ships, a large army and a personal envoy from Pope Paschal II . In addition to the Pisans (who had been promised suzerainty over the islands by the Pope), the expedition included forces from the Italian cities of Florence , Lucca , Pistoia , Rome , Siena , and Volterra , from Sardinia and Corsica . Catalan forces under Ramon Berenguer , Hug II of Empúries , and Ramon Folc II of Cardona came from Spain and Occitan forces under William V of Montpellier , Aimery II of Narbonne , and Raymond I of Baux came from France. The expedition also received strong support from Constantine I of Logudoro and his base of Porto Torres . The crusade sacked Palma in 1115 and generally reduced
2250-641: The Treaty of Paris in 1783. However, during the French Revolutionary Wars , when Spain became an ally of France, it came under French rule. Menorca was finally returned to Spain by the Treaty of Amiens during the French Revolutionary Wars, following the last British occupation , which lasted from 1798 to 1802. The continued presence of British naval forces, however, meant that the Balearic Islands were never occupied by
2340-581: The Xueta people, who are supposedly descendants of persecuted Jews who were converts to Christianity . Each one of the four islands are administered, along with its surrounding minor islands and islets, by an insular council ( consell insular in Catalan) of the same name. These four insular councils are the first level of subdivision in the autonomous community (and province) of Illes Balears. Before administrative reform in 1977, Ibiza and Formentera formed
2430-565: The de facto independent islands occupied a strategic and profitable grey area between the competing religions and kingdoms of the western Mediterranean. The prosperous islands were thoroughly sacked by the Swedish Viking King Björn Ironside and his brother Hastein during their Mediterranean raid of 859–862. In 902, the heavy use of the islands as a pirate base provoked the Emirate of Córdoba , nominally
2520-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
2610-456: The province of Hispania Tarraconensis , of which province they formed the fourth district, under the government of a praefectus pro legato. An inscription of the time of Nero mentions the PRAEF. PRAE LEGATO INSULAR. BALIARUM. (Orelli, No. 732, who, with Muratori, reads pro for prae .) They were afterwards made a separate province, called Hispania Balearica , probably in the division of
2700-553: The sling . As slingers , they served as mercenaries, first under the Carthaginians , and afterwards under the Romans . They went into battle ungirt, with only a small buckler , and a javelin burnt at the end , and in some cases tipped with a small iron point; but their effective weapons were their slings, of which each man carried three, wound round his head (Strabo p. 168; Eustath.), or, as seen in other sources, one round
2790-532: The 1295 Treaty of Anagni . The tension between the kingdoms continued through the generations until James' grandson James III was killed by the invading army of Peter's grandson Peter IV at the 1349 Battle of Llucmajor . The Balearic Islands were then incorporated directly into the Crown of Aragon. In 1469, Ferdinand II of Aragon ( king of Aragon ) and Isabella I of Castile (queen of Castile ) were married. After their deaths, their respective territories (until then governed separately) were governed jointly, in
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2880-470: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
2970-685: The Balearic Islands in Catalan is Illes Balears , while in Spanish, they are known as the Islas Baleares . The ancient Greeks usually adopted local names into their own language, but they called the islands Γυμνησίαι / Gymnesiai , unlike either the native inhabitants of the islands, the Carthaginians, or the Romans, who called them Βαλεαρεῖς , with the Romans also calling them
3060-530: The Balearic Islands is dated to the 3rd millennium BC , around 2500-2300 BC from the Iberian Peninsula or southern France, by people associated with the Bell Beaker culture . Little is recorded about the inhabitants of the islands during classical antiquity, though many legends exist. The story, preserved by Lycophron , that certain shipwrecked Greek Boeotians were cast nude on the islands,
3150-836: The French during the Napoleonic Wars . The islands saw limited fighting in the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War , with Menorca and Formentera staying loyal to the Republican Spanish Government , while the rest of the Balearic Islands supported the Spanish Nationalists . The Republican forces recaptured Ibiza early in the conflict, but were unable to take control of Majorca in the Battle of Majorca in August 1936, an amphibious landing aimed at driving
3240-597: The French; the Colombians; and the Ecuadoreans, numbering at 5,437. At the Census of 1 January 2021, the population had increased to 1,183,415 inhabitants. Roman Catholicism is, by far, the largest religion in Balearic Islands. In 2012, the proportion of Balearicians that identify themselves as Roman Catholic was 68.7%. Xueta Christianity is a syncretic religion on the island of Majorca , Spain followed by
3330-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
3420-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
3510-495: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
3600-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
3690-685: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
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3780-621: The Iberian Peninsula by the rival Almohad Dynasty of Marrakech in 1147. Muhammad ibn Ganiya, the Almoravid claimant, fled to Palma and established his capital there. His dynasty, the Banu Ghaniya , sought allies in their effort to recover their kingdom from the Almohads, leading them to grant Genoa and Pisa their first commercial concessions on the islands. In 1184, an expedition was sent to recapture Ifriqiya (the coastal areas of what
3870-460: The Islands' residents knew how to speak Catalan (either Balearic or mainland) and 93.1% could understand it. The 2011 census, using slightly different phrasing, reported that 63.4% could fluently speak and 88.5% could understand Catalan. Other languages, such as English , French , German and Italian , are often spoken by locals, especially those who work in the tourism industry. Circa 2016
3960-642: The Nationalists from the island and reclaiming it for the Republic. After the battle, Nationalist forces re-took Ibiza in September 1936. Menorca would be occupied by the Nationalists in February 1939 after the Battle of Menorca . The cuisine of the islands can be grouped as part of wider Catalan , Spanish or Mediterranean cuisines. It features much pastry, cheese, wine, pork and seafood. Sobrassada
4050-662: The Spanish Crown were given to Austria. The island fell to French forces, under Armand de Vignerot du Plessis in June 1756 and was occupied by them for the duration of the Seven Years' War . The British re-occupied the island after the war but, with their military forces diverted away by the American War of Independence , it fell to a Franco-Spanish force after a seven-month siege (1781–82) . Spain retained it under
4140-456: The Statute designates the Balearic Islands as one of the nationalities of Spain . The official languages of the Balearic Islands are Catalan and Spanish . The archipelago islands are further grouped in western Pytiuses (the largest being Ibiza and Formentera ), and eastern Gymnesians (the largest being Mallorca and Menorca ). Many of its minor islands and islets are close to
4230-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
4320-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
4410-471: The biggest islands, such as Es Conills, Es Vedrà, Sa Conillera, Dragonera, S'Espalmador, S'Espardell, Ses Bledes, Santa Eulària, Plana, Foradada, Tagomago, Na Redona, Colom, L'Aire, etc. The Balearic Front is a sea density regime north of the Balearic Islands on the shelf slope of the Balearic Islands, which is responsible for some of the surface-flow characteristics of the Balearic Sea . Located in
4500-550: The coasts of the Balearic Islands and the Spanish mainland were raided by Turkish privateers under the command of the Ottoman admiral, Hayreddin Barbarossa . The Balearic Islands were ravaged in 1558 by Ottoman corsair Turgut Reis , and 4,000 people were taken into slavery . The island of Menorca was a British dependency for most of the 18th century as a result of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht . This treaty—signed by
4590-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
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#17327663067404680-409: The empire under Constantine . The two largest islands (the Balearic Islands, in their historical sense) had numerous excellent harbours, though rocky at their mouth, and requiring care in entering them (Strabo, Eustath.; Port Mahon is one of the finest harbours in the world). Both were extremely fertile in all produce, except wine and olive oil. They were celebrated for their cattle, especially for
4770-618: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
4860-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
4950-455: The head, one round the body, and one in the hand. (Diodorus) The three slings were of different lengths, for stones of different sizes; the largest they hurled with as much force as if it were flung from a catapult; and they seldom missed their mark. To this exercise, they were trained from infancy, in order to earn their livelihood as mercenary soldiers. It is said that the mothers allowed their children to eat bread only when they had struck it off
5040-437: The importation of the precious metals—so that those of them who served as mercenaries took their pay in wine and women instead of money. The Roman Diodorus Siculus described their marriage and funeral customs (v. 18 book 6 chapter 5), noting that Roman observers found those customs peculiar. In ancient times, the islanders of the Gymnesian Islands ( Illes Gimnèsies ) constructed talayots , and were famous for their skill with
5130-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
5220-492: The island's governor Abd Allah ibn Aglab rebelled and established the independent Taifa of Mallorca . For centuries, the Balearic sailors and pirates had been masters of the western Mediterranean. But the expanding influence of the Italian maritime republics and the shift of power on the Iberian peninsula from the Muslim states to the Christian states left the islands vulnerable. A crusade was launched in 1113. Led by Ugo da Parlascio Ebriaco and Archbishop Pietro Moriconi of
5310-424: The island's overlords, to invade and incorporate the islands into their state. However, the Cordoban emirate disintegrated in civil war and partition in the early eleventh century, breaking into smaller states called taifa . Mujahid al-Siqlabi , the ruler of the Taifa of Dénia , sent a fleet and seized control of the islands in 1015, using it as the base for subsequent expeditions to Sardinia and Pisa . In 1050,
5400-405: The islands for the Romans. Imperial power receded precipitately in the western Mediterranean after the fall of Carthage and the Exarchate of Africa to the Umayyad Caliphate in 698, and in 707 the islands submitted to the terms of an Umayyad fleet, which allowed the residents to maintain their traditions and religion as well as a high degree of autonomy. Now nominally both Byzantine and Umayyad,
5490-460: The islands had 1,107,220 total residents; the figures of Germans and British respectively were 20,451 and 16,134. Between 2016 and 2017 people from other parts of Spain moved to the Balearics, while the foreign population declined by 2,000. In 2007 there were 29,189 Germans, 19,803 British, 17,935 Moroccans, 13,100 Ecuadoreans, 11,933 Italians, and 11,129 Argentines. The numbers of Germans, British, and South Americans declined between 2007 and 2017 while
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#17327663067405580-452: The islands to Peter I, Count of Urgell for Urgell, which he incorporated into his kingdom. Peter ruled from Palma, but after his death without issue in 1258, the islands reverted by the terms of the deal to the Crown of Aragon . James died in 1276, having partitioned his domains between his sons in his will. The will created a new Kingdom of Mallorca from the Balearic islands and the mainland counties of Roussillon or Montpellier , which
5670-401: The islands, ending their period as a great sea power, but then withdrew. Within a year, the now shattered islands were conquered by the Berber Almoravid dynasty , whose aggressive, militant approach to religion mirrored that of the crusaders and departed from the island's history as a tolerant haven under Cordoba and the taifa . The Almoravids were conquered and deposed in North Africa and on
5760-427: The islands’ name), some say they went naked only in the summer, some that they wore only sheepskins—until the Phoenicians arrived and provided them with broad-bordered tunics. Other stories have it that the inhabitants lived in hollow rocks and artificial caves, that their men were remarkable for their love of women and would trade three or four men to ransom one woman, that they had no gold or silver coin, and forbade
5850-465: The larger islands, including Cabrera , Dragonera , and S'Espalmador . The islands have a Mediterranean climate , and the four major islands are all popular tourist destinations. Ibiza, in particular, is known as an international party destination, attracting many of the world's most popular DJs to its nightclubs . The islands' culture and cuisine are similar to those of the rest of Spain but have their own distinctive features. The official name of
5940-432: The largest-increasing populations were the Moroccans, Italians, and Romanians. Circa 2017 there were 1,115,999 residents of the Balearics; 16.7% of the islands' population were foreign (non-Spanish). At that time the islands had 23,919 Moroccans, 19,209 Germans, 16,877 Italians, and 14,981 British registered in town halls. The next-largest foreign groups were the Romanians; the Bulgarians; the Argentines, numbering at 6,584;
6030-414: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
6120-440: The longest coastline of any provinces in Spain, with a length of coastline 1,428 kilometres. The islands can be further grouped, with Majorca, Menorca, and Cabrera as the Gymnesian Islands ( Illes Gimnèsies ), and Ibiza and Formentera as the Pityusic Islands ( Illes Pitiüses officially in Catalan), also referred to as the Pityuses (or sometimes informally in English as the Pine Islands). Many minor islands or islets are close to
6210-458: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
6300-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
6390-417: The mostly balmy year-round climate. However, Strabo thought that Gymnesiai probably referred to the light equipment used by the Balearic troops γυμνῆται / gymnetae . Most of the ancient Greek and Roman writers thought that the name of the people, ( βαλεαρεῖς / baleareis , from βάλλω / ballo : ancient Greek meaning 'to launch') was based on their skill as slingers . However, Strabo thought
6480-490: The mules of the lesser island; they had an immense number of rabbits, and were free from all venomous reptiles. Amongst the snails valued by the Romans as a diet was a species from the Balearic Isles called cavaticae because they were bred in caves. Their chief mineral product was the red earth, called sinope , which was used by painters. Their resin and pitch are mentioned by Dioscorides . The population of
6570-517: The name was of Phoenician origin. He observed that it was the Phoenician word for lightly armoured soldiers, which the ancient Greeks called γυμνῆτας / gymnetas . The root bal arguably suggests a Phoenician origin; Strabo, in Volume III, Book XIV of his Geography suggests that the name comes from the Phoenician balearides . The Balearic Islands are on a raised platform called
6660-489: The native speakers of Spanish in the islands have family roots elsewhere in Spain. Catalan is designated as a llengua pròpia , literally own language in its statute of autonomy. The Balearic dialect features several differences from standard Catalan. Typically, speakers of Balearic Catalan call their own language with a name specific to each island: Mallorquí , Menorquí , Eivissenc , Formenterenc . In 2003 74.6% of
6750-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
6840-600: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
6930-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
7020-526: The person of their grandson, the Emperor Charles V . This can be considered the foundation of the modern Spanish state, albeit a decentralized one wherein the various component territories within the united crowns retained their particular historic laws and privileges. The Balearic Islands were frequently attacked by Ottomans and Barbary pirates from North Africa; Formentera was even temporarily abandoned by its population. In 1514, 1515 and 1521,
7110-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
7200-499: The title Balearic . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Balearic&oldid=1127790544 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in
7290-434: The two islands is stated by Diodorus at 30,000. The part of the Mediterranean east of Spain, around the Balearic Isles, was called Mare Balearicum , or Sinus Balearicus . The Vandals under Genseric conquered the Islands sometime between 461 and 468 during their war on the Roman Empire . However, in late 533 or early 534, following the Battle of Ad Decimum , the troops of Belisarius reestablished control of
7380-538: The west of the Mediterranean Sea , the Balearic Islands have mostly typical hot-summer Mediterranean climates ( Köppen : Csa) with some high altitude areas having a Warm-summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb) in the island of Majorca. The semi-arid climate ( Köppen : BSh and BSk) is also found in the Balearic Islands, mostly on the islands of Ibiza and Formentera but also in the southern part of Majorca. The earliest known evidence of inhabitation of
7470-480: The western Mediterranean Sea , near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula . The archipelago forms a province and autonomous community of Spain, with Palma de Mallorca being its capital and largest city. Formerly part of the Kingdom of Mallorca , the islands were made a province in the 19th century provincial division, which in 1983 received a Statute of Autonomy . In its later reform of 2007,
7560-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
7650-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
7740-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
7830-632: Was evidently invented to account for the name Gymnesiae ( Ancient Greek : Γυμνήσιαι ). In addition, Diodorus Siculus writes that the Greeks called the islands Gymnesiae because the inhabitants were naked (γυμνοί) during the summer time. Also, a tradition holds that the islands were colonized by Rhodes after the Trojan War . The islands had a very mixed population. Several stories describing them as having unusual habits. Some have it that they went naked year-round (a folk etymology claims this inspired
7920-592: Was left to his son James II . However, the terms of the will specified that the new kingdom be a vassal state to the Crown of Aragon , which was left to his older brother Peter . Chafing under the vassalage, James joined forces with the Pope Martin IV and Philip III of France against his brother in the Aragonese Crusade , leading to a 10-year Aragonese occupation before the islands were restored in
8010-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
8100-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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