107-468: Kifri ( Arabic : کفري ; Kurdish : کفری , romanized : Kifrî ; Turkish : Kifri ) is the central town of Kifri District in Diyala Governorate , Iraq . It has a mixed population of Arabs , Kurds and Turkmen. It is under de facto administration by Kurdistan Region , but remains a disputed area claimed by the central government. Kifri was known to have oil as early as
214-575: 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
321-435: 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
428-1081: 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
535-487: 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
642-568: A mass grave from the Anfal genocide was discovered in the town. In September 2005, residents of Kifri demanded to be reincorporated into Kirkuk Governorate to reverse the Arabization policy of 1976. In July 2020, Iraqi and Kurdish forces agreed to jointly run the area south of the town despite recurring tensions. A Jewish community existed in Kifri for decades until the exodus to Israel in
749-690: 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
856-594: 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
963-462: 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",
1070-470: 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
1177-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
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#17327722643961284-507: 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
1391-476: 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
1498-737: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
1605-590: 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
1712-559: 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
1819-478: 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
1926-408: 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
2033-472: 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
2140-574: 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
2247-855: 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
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#17327722643962354-530: Is that which was published by HRW. Human Rights Watch's 1993 report on Anfal was based on Iraqi documents, examination of grave sites, and interviews with Kurdish survivors. In 1993, the United States government collected 18 tons of Iraqi government documents which were captured by the Peshmerga during the 1991 uprising and airlifted them to the United States. In those files, HRW conducted research on
2461-572: 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
2568-590: 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
2675-413: 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
2782-524: 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
2889-445: 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
2996-494: The Anfal campaign. To many Iraqis, Anfal was presented as an extension of the ongoing Iran–Iraq War , although its victims were overwhelmingly Kurdish civilians. In March 1987, Ali Hassan al-Majid was appointed secretary-general of the Ba'ath Party's Northern Bureau, which included Iraqi Kurdistan . Anfal, officially conducted in 1988, had eight phases (Anfal 1–Anfal 8) altogether, seven of which targeted areas controlled by
3103-705: The Directorate of General Security . Many Iraqi Arabs reject that any mass killings of Kurds occurred during the Anfal campaign. On 28 February 2013, the British House of Commons formally recognized the Anfal as genocide following a campaign which was led by Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi , who is of Kurdish descent . Monuments and Statues In 2014, a German organization in Sulaimani agreed with Kurdish artist and sculptor Shwan Kamal to build
3210-722: The Human Rights Watch produced its reports, were not enough to establish "a sufficient degree of certainty for a finding of fact in respect of genocide can be derived". In an interview broadcast on Iraqi television on 6 September 2005, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani , a Kurdish politician of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan , said that judges had directly extracted confessions from Saddam Hussein that he had ordered mass killings and other crimes during his regime and that he deserves to die. Two days later, Saddam's lawyer denied that he had confessed. In June 2006,
3317-731: The International Court of Justice . It convinced the United States Department of State 's legal bureau that Anfal met the legal criteria for genocide. In December 2005, a court in The Hague convicted Frans van Anraat of complicity in war crimes for his role in selling chemical weapons to the Iraqi government. He was given a 15-year sentence. The court also ruled that the killing of thousands of Kurds in Iraq in
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3424-553: The Iraqi Special Tribunal announced that Saddam Hussein and six co-defendants would face trial on 21 August 2006 in relation to the Anfal campaign. In December 2006, Saddam was put on trial for the genocide during Operation Anfal. The trial for the Anfal campaign was still underway on 30 December 2006, when Saddam Hussein was executed for his role in the unrelated Dujail massacre . The Anfal trial recessed on 21 December 2006, and when it resumed on 8 January 2007,
3531-766: The Jafali Valley headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan near the Iranian border, and the command centers in Sargallu and Bargallu. There was heavy resistance by the Peshmerga . The battles were conducted in a theater around 1,154 square kilometres (445 sq. mi.). The villages of Gwezeela, Chalawi, Haladin and Yakhsamar were attacked with poison gas. During mid March, the PUK, in an alliance with Iranian troops and other Kurdish factions, captured Halabja. This led to
3638-719: The Kurdistan Islamic Movement in December 1993 which quickly spread to other towns in the region. 18 KIM members were killed on 28 December only. Despite being the southernmost point of the autonomous region, the town remained calm for over a decade until April 2003 when the US military shelled the outskirts of the town during the US-led invasion of Iraq , forcing the Iraqi Army to retreat southward. In April 2005,
3745-477: The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan . The Kurdish Democratic Party -controlled areas in the northwest Iraqi Kurdistan , were the target of the Final Anfal operation in late August and early September 1988. The first Anfal stage was conducted between 23 February and 18 March 1988. It started with artillery and air strikes in the early hours of 23 February 1988. Then, several hours later, there were attacks at
3852-568: 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
3959-494: 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
4066-612: The poison gas attack on Halabja on 16 March 1988, during which several thousand Kurdish people were killed, most of them civilians. During the second Anfal from 22 March and 2 April 1988, the Qara Dagh region, including Bazian and Darbandikhan, was targeted in the Suleimanya governorate . Again several villages were attacked with poison gas. Villages attacked with poisonous gas were Safaran, Sewsenan, Belekjar, Serko and Meyoo. The attacks began on 22 March after Newruz , surprising
4173-478: The prosecution ; whose claims couldn't be cross-analyzed by the defendants. Both within and outside Iraq, the trials by the Special Tribunal have been widely dubbed as a "show parade" designed to execute Saddam and deemed as illegitimate by numerous lawyers and human rights organizations. There have been few publications about the Anfal campaign and as of 2008, the only comprehensive account of it
4280-419: 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
4387-1046: 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. Anfal genocide Iraqi invasion of Iran (1980) Stalemate (1981) Iranian offensives to free Iranian territory (1981–82) Iranian offensives in Iraq (1982–84) Iranian offensives in Iraq (1985–87) Final stages (1988) Tanker War International incidents Main phase Later phase The Anfal campaign
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4494-454: 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
4601-467: The 1820s. James Buckingham visited Kifri in the 1820s. He described the town as clean and moderately large, estimating its population at 3,000. Buckingham also described the town as having furnished bazaars with excellent fruit, especially melons and grapes. Kifri had a cookshop selling kebabs, roast meat and sausages, and one coffee-house. Kifri, which was also known as Salahiye during the Ottoman era,
4708-556: The 1950s. While the Jewish population in Kifri was only six in 1826, it grew to 15 households in 1845 with one synagogue located in the town. The number of Jews was 30 households in 1859 and 50 people in 1884. The population grew steadily by the turn of the century to 300 people in 1906, 540 in 1924 and 722 in 1931. Eski Kifri (lit. ‘Old Kifri’ in Turkish) is a large and extensive site situated some eight kilometers south-west of Kifri. In
4815-606: The 1980s was indeed an act of genocide. In the 1948 Genocide Convention , the definition of genocide is "acts committed with the intent to destroy , in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". The Dutch court said that it was considered "legally and convincingly proven that the Kurdish population meets the requirement under the Genocide Conventions as an ethnic group . The court has no other conclusion than that these attacks were committed with
4922-487: The 19th century, Claudius Rich found artefacts at the site dating to the Sasanian and Middle Assyrian periods, including a fortified complex, jar and vessel. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
5029-571: 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
5136-834: 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
5243-709: The Anfal campaign in collaboration with United States federal government agencies such as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Defense Intelligence Agency , and the Defense Department . The US government provided Arabic translators and CD ROM scanners. HRW accepted the US government role under the condition that personnel involved worked under its direction. The files include documents which were collected by
5350-455: The Anfal campaign was disputed by a 2007 Hague court ruling, which stated that the evidences from the documents were not sufficient to establish the charge of genocide. Although many Iraqi Arabs reject that there were any mass killings of Kurdish civilians during Anfal, the event is an important element constituting Kurdish national identity . Following the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980,
5457-530: The Committee for the Defence of Anfal Victims' Rights released a report documenting 63,000 disappeared and stating that the entire death toll was lower than 70,000, with almost all these deaths occurring in the area of Anfal III. According to Hiltermann, the figure of 100,000, although considered too low by many Kurds, is probably higher than the actual number of deaths. In September 1988, the Iraqi government
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#17327722643965564-460: The Defence of Anfal Victims' Rights. According to HRW, Kurdish leaders met with Iraqi government official Ali Hassan al-Majid in 1991 and mentioned a figure of 182,000 deaths; the latter reportedly replied that "it couldn't have been more than 100,000". The 182,000 figure provided by the PUK was based on extrapolation and "has no empirical relation to actual disappearances or killings", though it "has assumed mythical status among Kurds". In 1995,
5671-580: The Garmia region. In the next Anfal campaign from 7 to 20 April 1988, the Garmian region east of Suleimanya was targeted. In this campaign, many women and children disappeared. The only village attacked with chemical weapons was Tazashar. Many were lured to come towards the Iraqi forces due to an amnesty announced through a loudspeaker of a mosque in Qader Karam from 10 to 12 April. The announced amnesty
5778-559: The Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who opposed capital punishment. The Anfal trial was widely criticized for its methodical defects marked by various acts of political meddling from the Iraqi government . These involved the sacking of its presiding judge in September 2006 by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ; who perceived the judge as biased towards defendants. Human Rights Watch stated that many of
5885-673: The Kurdish Kurdistani Alliance . Saddam's Ba'athist regime built several public housing facilities in Kirkuk as part of his "Arabisation", shifting poor Arabs from Iraq's southern regions to Kirkuk with the lure of inexpensive housing. Another part of the Arabisation campaign was the census of October 1987. Citizens who failed to turn up for the October 1987 census were no longer recognized as Iraqi citizens. Most of
5992-463: The Kurdish collaborators of the Iraqi Army so that the civilians could flee. Hiran, Balisan, Smaquli, Malakan, Shek Wasan, Ware, Seran and Kaniba were attacked with poisonous gas. After the Anfal 7 attack, the valleys were under the control of the Iraqi government. The last Anfal was aimed at the region controlled by the KDP named Badinan and took place from 25 August to 6 September 1988. In this campaign,
6099-574: The Kurdish parties PUK and KDP, both parties hold the ultimate ownership of the documents that were airlifted to the US. In exchange for access to the National Archives documents, HRW agreed to help the United States government find information about Iraqi atrocities. Joost Hiltermann, HRW's lead researcher on Anfal, referred to these files as "the good stuff…material to smear the enemy with". Kanan Makiya , an Iraqi–American academic and pro-Iraq War advocate, criticized HRW for promising that
6206-487: The Kurdish population who learned that a census was taking place did not take part in the census. Precise figures of Anfal victims do not exist due to lack of records. In its 1993 report, Human Rights Watch wrote that the death toll "cannot conceivably be less than 50,000, and it may well be twice that number". This figure was based on an earlier survey by the Sulaymaniyah –based Kurdish organization Committee for
6313-412: 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
6420-447: The Peshmerga. Although of shorter duration, Peshmerga suffered more severe casualties in this attack than the first Anfal. As a result of the attack, the majority of the population in the Qara Dagh region fled in the direction of Suleimanya. Many fugitives were detained by the Iraqi forces, and the men were separated from the women. The men were not seen again. The women were transported to camps. The population that managed to flee, fled to
6527-474: 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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#17327722643966634-413: 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
6741-411: The United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, mass graves were discovered in parts of western Iraq that had been under Ba'athist control. The event has become an important element in the constitution of Kurdish national identity . The Kurdistan Regional Government has set aside 14 April as a day of remembrance for the Al-Anfal campaign. In Sulaymanya a museum was established in the former prison of
6848-462: The charges were "vague" and concluded that the defendants were unable to bring their witnesses due to safety issues within Iraq . Video interactions from witnesses of the defendants were also denied by the court; thus hampering the defendants' ability to challenge the claims of the prosecutors. The trial was marked by absence of fundamental judicial proceedings , such as the murder of three defense lawyers and ample utilization of anonymous witnesses by
6955-509: 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
7062-412: 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
7169-728: 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
7276-447: 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
7383-399: The former had started shelling the town indiscriminately, prompting about 1,000 Kurds to flee toward Sulaymaniyah . Iraqi forces would ultimately fail at recapturing the town and Kifri would be included in the autonomous Kurdistan Region when established in May 1992, despite being part of Diyala Governorate . The town experienced deadly clashes between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and
7490-403: 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
7597-492: The highway leading out of Kirkuk. Arabization , another major element of al-Anfal, was a tactic used by Saddam Hussein's regime to drive pro-insurgent populations out of their homes in villages and cities like Kirkuk , which are in the valuable oil field areas, and relocate them in the southern parts of Iraq. The campaign used heavy population redistribution , most notably in Kirkuk, the results of which now plague negotiations between Iraq's Shi'a United Iraqi Alliance and
7704-597: 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
7811-527: The intent to destroy the Kurdish population of Iraq". During another trial involving the legal appeal of Van Anraat, The Hague appellate court upheld the previous conviction of his complicity in war crimes; but ruled that actions of Iraqi military during Anfal operations cannot be regarded as constituting a " genocide ". The verdict of the Hague Court of Appeal stated in 9 May 2007 that tons of Iraqi documents collected by US government, based on which
7918-613: 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
8025-604: 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)
8132-420: 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
8239-883: 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
8346-782: 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
8453-424: 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
8560-448: The orders of President Saddam Hussein . The campaign's name was taken from the title of the eighth chapter of the Qur'an ( al-ʾanfāl ). In 1993, Human Rights Watch released a report on the Anfal campaign based on documents captured by Kurdish rebels during the 1991 uprisings in Iraq ; HRW described it as a genocide and estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths. This characterization of
8667-549: 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
8774-408: The peshmerga gained ground in most Kurdish-inhabited rural areas while also infiltrating towns and cities. In 1983, after the joint KDP-Iranian capture of Haj Omran , the Iraqi government arrested 8,000 Barzani men and executed them. During the battle for Haj Omran, the Iraqi government also used gas weapons for the first time against both Kurdish and Iranian forces. "Al Anfal", literally meaning
8881-569: The provinces of Erbil and Kirkuk . The morale of the Iraqi army was on the rise due to the capture of the Faw Peninsula on the 17–18 April 1988 from Iran in the Iran–Iraq War . Major poisonous gas attacks were perpetrated in Askar and Goptapa. Again it was announced an amnesty was issued, which turned out to be false. Many of the ones who surrendered were arrested. Men were separated from
8988-439: The records proved genocide. He warned that the records contained neither "smoking guns" nor do they contain records of the "explosive nature" as HRW claimed. Furthermore, he said that certain documents that seemed incriminating could have been planted by Kurdish rebels. After the invasion of Iraq, Makiya said in December 2003 that the Iraqi document archives contained no "smoking gun" to convict Saddam Hussein of war crimes. After
9095-410: 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
9202-554: The remaining charges against Saddam Hussein were dropped. Six co-defendants continued to stand trial for their roles in the Anfal campaign. On 23 June 2007, Ali Hassan al-Majid , and two co-defendants, Sultan Hashem Ahmed and Hussein Rashid Mohammed , were convicted of genocide and related charges and sentenced to death by hanging . Another two co-defendants ( Farhan Jubouri and Saber Abdel Aziz al-Douri ) were sentenced to life imprisonment , and one ( Taher Tawfiq al-Ani )
9309-576: The rival Kurdish opposition parties in Iraq—the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) as well as other smaller Kurdish parties—experienced a revival in their fortunes. Kurdish fighters ( peshmerga ) fought a guerrilla war against the Iraqi government and established effective control over the Kurdish-inhabited mountainous areas of northern Iraq. As the war went on and Iran counterattacked into Iraq,
9416-458: 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
9523-458: 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
9630-626: The spoils (of war) , was used to describe the military campaign of extermination and looting against the Kurds. It is also the title of the eighth sura , or chapter, of the Qur'an which describes the victory of 313 followers of the new Muslim faith over almost 900 non-Muslims at the Battle of Badr in 624 AD. According to Randal, Jash (Kurdish collaborators with the Baathists) were told that taking cattle, sheep, goats, money, weapons and even women
9737-563: 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
9844-663: The town for arbitrary reasons. 70% of the population was Kurdish in the Iraqi census of 1947. Iraq's first two Turkmen schools were opened on November 17, 1993, one in Erbil and the other in Kifri. While it was previously part of Kirkuk Governorate , it was attached to Diyala Governorate in 1976 as part of the Arabization efforts by Iraq. The town was quickly captured by Kurdish rebels ( Peshmerga ) in March 1991 during an uprising that began that month. In October 1991, heavy fighting took place between Iraqi forces and Peshmerga after
9951-501: 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
10058-496: The villages of Wirmeli, Barkavreh, Bilejane, Glenaska, Zewa Shkan, Tuka and Ikmala were targeted with chemical attacks. After tens of thousands of Kurds fled to Turkey, the Iraqi Army blocked the route to Turkey on 26 August 1988. The population who did not manage to flee was arrested, and the men were separated from the women and children. The men were executed, and the women and children were brought to camps. Detention camps were established to accommodate thousands of prisoners. Dibs
10165-466: The women. In these three consecutive attacks between 15 May and 16 August 1988, the valleys of Rawandiz and Shaqlawa were targeted, and the attacks had different successes. The Anfal 5 failed completely; therefore, two more attacks were necessary to gain Iraqi government control over the valleys. The Peshmerga commander of the region, Kosrat Abdullah , was well prepared for a long siege with stores of ammunition and food. He also reached an agreement with
10272-451: 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
10379-507: Was halal (religiously permitted or legal). The Anfal campaign began in February 1988 and continued until August or September and included the use of ground offensives , aerial bombing , chemical warfare , systematic destruction of settlements , mass deportation and firing squads. The campaign was headed by Ali Hassan al-Majid who was a cousin of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from Saddam's hometown of Tikrit . The Iraqi Army
10486-611: Was a counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq from February to September 1988 during the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict at the end of the Iran–Iraq War . The campaign targeted rural Kurds because its purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups and Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate . The Ba’athist regime committed atrocities on the local Kurdish population, mostly civilians. The Iraqi forces were led by Ali Hassan al-Majid , on
10593-504: Was a detention camp for women and children and located near an army training facility for the Iraqi commando forces. From Dibs, groups of detainees were transferred to Nugra Salman in a depression in the desert about 120 km southwest of Samawah , in the Muthanna Governorate . Nugra Salman held an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 prisoners during the Anfal campaign. Another detention camp was Topzawa near an army base near
10700-460: Was a trap, and many who surrendered were detained. Some civilians were able to bribe Kurdish collaborators of the Iraqi Army and fled to Laylan or Shorsh. Before the Anfal campaign, the mainly rural Garmian region counted over 600 villages around the towns of Kifri , Kalar and Darbandikhan . Anfal 4 took place between 3–8 May 1988 in the valley of the Little Zab , which forms the border of
10807-491: Was achieved in 1991. Following, most survivors returned, and began to reconstruct the villages. In Kurdish society, the Anfal survivors are known as Anfal mothers ( Kurdish : Daykan-î Enfal) , Anfal relatives ( Kurdish : Kes-u-kar-î Enfal) or Anfal widows ( Kurdish : Bewajin-î Enfal) . Human Rights Watch unsuccessfully attempted to attract support for a lawsuit under the Genocide Convention against Iraq at
10914-483: Was acquitted on the prosecution's demand. Al-Majid was charged with war crimes , crimes against humanity and genocide . He was convicted in June 2007 and was sentenced to death . His appeal for the death sentence was rejected on 4 September 2007. He was sentenced to death for the fourth time on 17 January 2010 and was hanged eight days later, on 25 January 2010. Sultan Hashem Ahmed was not hanged due to opposition of
11021-509: Was an official language in Kifri under Article 5 of the Language Act of 1930, due to the town's significant Turkmen population. British data stated that Kurds constituted 67% and 60% of the population in the town in 1924 and 1931, respectively, while the remaining population was Arab and Turkmen. However, the town was not included in the 1931 British-Iraqi 'Local Languages Law' initiative which would have made Kurdish an official language in
11128-597: Was killed during the tribal takeover. The locals of Kifri did not support the Mahmud Barzanji revolts causing Mahmud Barzanji not to push for the inclusion of the town into his jurisdiction. In 1921, the town was included in the plans of Winston Churchill in creating an independent Kurdistan which would work as a bulwark against Turkey . Under the British Mandate of Iraq , the Turkoman language
11235-781: Was part of the Ottoman Empire until the United Kingdom captured the town in April 1918 during the Mesopotamian campaign . During the capture, 565 Ottoman prisoners and one mountain gun were captured. The local Kurds were supportive of the British and were described as very hostile to the Ottomans. Britain briefly lost control over the town for two days during the revolt of 1920 to the local tribes. Captain G. H. Salmon
11342-424: Was satisfied with its achievements. The male population between 15 and 50 had either been killed or fled. The Kurdish resistance fled to Iran and was no longer a threat to Iraq. An amnesty was issued, and the detained women, children and elderly were released but not permitted to return. They were sent into camps known as mujamm'at where they lived under military rule until a regional autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan
11449-447: Was supported by Kurdish collaborators whom the Iraqi government armed, the so-called Jash forces, who led Iraqi troops to Kurdish villages that often did not figure on maps as well as to their hideouts in the mountains. The Jash forces frequently made false promises of amnesty and safe passage. Iraqi state media extensively covered the Anfal campaign using its official name. Approximately 1,200 Kurdish villages were destroyed during
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