140-572: Erbil ( Arabic : أربيل , Arbīl ; Syriac : ܐܲܪܒܹܝܠ , Arbel ), also called Hawler ( Kurdish : هەولێر , Hewlêr ), is the capital and most populated city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq . The city is in the Erbil Governorate . Human settlement at Erbil may be dated back to the 5th millennium BC. At the heart of the city is the ancient Citadel of Erbil and Mudhafaria Minaret . The earliest historical reference to
280-641: A tell topped by an Ottoman fort . During the Middle Ages , Erbil became a major trading centre on the route between Baghdad and Mosul , a role which it still plays today with important road links to the outside world. Erbil is also home to a large population of refugees due to ongoing conflicts in Syria . In 2020, it was estimated that 450,000 refugees had settled in the Erbil metropolitan area since 2003, with many of them expected to remain. The parliament of
420-540: A "Sumerian renaissance" in the past. Already, the region was becoming more Semitic than Sumerian, with the resurgence of the Akkadian-speaking Semites in Assyria and elsewhere, and the influx of waves of Semitic Martu ( Amorites ), who founded several competing local powers in the south, including Isin , Larsa , Eshnunna and later, Babylonia. The last of these eventually came to briefly dominate
560-517: A centre of eastern Syriac Christianity until late in the Middle Ages. As many of the Assyrians who had converted to Christianity adopted Biblical (including Jewish) names, most of the early bishops had Eastern Aramaic or Jewish/Biblical names, which does not suggest that many of the early Christians in this city were converts from Judaism . It served as the seat of a Metropolitan of
700-651: A century in the Third Dynasty of Ur at approximately 2100–2000 BC, but the Akkadian language also remained in use for some time. The Sumerians were entirely unknown during the early period of modern archeology. Jules Oppert was the first scholar to publish the word Sumer in a lecture on 17 January 1869. The first major excavations of Sumerian cities were in 1877 at Girsu by the French archeologist Ernest de Sarzec , in 1889 at Nippur by John Punnett Peters from
840-689: A chamber tomb dating to the Neo-Assyrian Empire period has been excavated. During the Sassanian period and the Abbasid Caliphate , Erbil was an important centre for Syriac Christianity and the Assyrians in general. After the Mongols captured the citadel in 1258, Erbil's importance began to decline. The main gate is guarded by an immense statue of a Kurd reading: "the house of the citadel behind him are built into stony ground of
980-575: 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
1120-435: 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
1260-1081: 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
1400-598: A difficult environment. Others have suggested a continuity of Sumerians, from the indigenous hunter-fisherfolk traditions, associated with the bifacial assemblages found on the Arabian littoral. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians may have been the people living in the Persian Gulf region before it flooded at the end of the last Ice Age. In the early Sumerian period, the primitive pictograms suggest that There
1540-487: 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
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#17327836506451680-703: 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 ] {{main other| ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
1820-521: A peace agreement was signed between the Kurdish parties in 1997, but had no real power. The Kurdish government in Erbil had control only in the western and northern parts of the autonomous region. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq , a United States special forces task force was headquartered just outside Erbil. The city was the scene of celebrations on 10 April 2003 after the fall of the Ba'ath regime. During
1960-688: A power in its area. It was conquered by Shamsi-Adad I during his short lived Upper Mesopotamian Kingdom, becoming independent after its fall. By the time of the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC) Erbil was within the Assyrian zone of control. The region fell under the Neo-Assyrian Empire (935–605 BC). The city then changed hands a number of times including the Persian, Greek, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid rule. Under
2100-594: 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
2240-462: 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",
2380-470: 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
2520-744: A small excavation was conducted by Karel Novacek of the University of West Bohemia . While the citadel remains were of the Ottoman Period a field survey of the western slope of the tell found a few pottery shards from the Neolithic to Middle Bronze Age with more numerous finds from the Late Bronze to Iron Ages and from the Hellenistic, Arsacid, Sassanid Periods. Being so heavily occupied, the site has never been properly excavated. In 2013
2660-719: A team from the Sapienza University of Rome conducted some ground penetrating radar work on the center of the citadel. Starting in 2014 an Iraqi-led excavation began on a citadel location where the collapse of a modern building provided an opportunity for excavation. Historical aerial photographs and ground survey have also begun on the lower city. The wider plain around Erbil has a number of promising archaeological sites, most notably Tell Baqrta. The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey began in 2012. The survey combines satellite imagery and field work to determine
2800-507: 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
2940-440: 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
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#17327836506453080-476: 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
3220-590: 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
3360-559: 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
3500-478: 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
3640-587: Is considerable evidence concerning Sumerian music . Lyres and flutes were played, among the best-known examples being the Lyres of Ur . Sumerian culture was male-dominated and stratified. The Code of Ur-Nammu , the oldest such codification yet discovered, dating to the Ur III, reveals a glimpse at societal structure in late Sumerian law. Beneath the lu-gal ("great man" or king), all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata: The " lu " or free person, and
3780-408: 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
3920-472: 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
4060-569: Is first attested in proper names of the kings of Kish c. 2800 BC , preserved in later king lists. There are texts written entirely in Old Akkadian dating from c. 2500 BC . Use of Old Akkadian was at its peak during the rule of Sargon the Great ( c. 2334 –2279 BC), but even then most administrative tablets continued to be written in Sumerian, the language used by
4200-407: Is little break in historical continuity between the pre- and post-Sargon periods, and that too much emphasis has been placed on the perception of a "Semitic vs. Sumerian" conflict. It is certain that Akkadian was also briefly imposed on neighboring parts of Elam that were previously conquered, by Sargon. c. 2193–2119 BC (middle chronology) c. 2200 –2110 BC (middle chronology) Following
4340-526: Is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf . The oldest evidence for occupation comes from Tell el-'Oueili , but, given that environmental conditions in southern Mesopotamia were favourable to human occupation well before the Ubaid period, it is likely that older sites exist but have not yet been found. It appears that this culture
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4480-404: Is most clearly seen at Tell el-'Oueili near Larsa , excavated by the French in the 1980s, where eight levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware. According to this theory, farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in
4620-574: 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
4760-855: 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
4900-513: 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
5040-663: Is the earliest known civilization , located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq ), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. Like nearby Elam , it is one of the cradles of civilization , along with Egypt , the Indus Valley , the Erligang culture of the Yellow River valley, Caral-Supe , and Mesoamerica . Living along
5180-590: 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
5320-413: 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
5460-524: 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
5600-445: 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
5740-570: The Ak Koyunlu . Erbil was the birthplace of the famous 12th and 13th century Kurdish historians and writers Ibn Khallikan and Ibn al-Mustawfi . After the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, Erbil came under the Soran emirate . In the 18th century Baban Emirate took the city but it was retaken by Soran ruler Mir Muhammed Kor in 1822. The Soran emirate continued ruling over Erbil until it was taken by
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5880-532: The Akkadian name for the "Sumerians", the ancient non- Semitic -speaking inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia . In their inscriptions, the Sumerians called their land "Kengir", the "Country of the noble lords" ( Sumerian : 𒆠 𒂗 𒄀 , romanized: ki-en-gi(-r) , lit. ''country" + "lords" + "noble''), and their language "Emegir" ( Sumerian : 𒅴𒂠 , romanized: eme-g̃ir or 𒅴𒄀 eme-gi 15 ). The origin of
6020-589: 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
6160-625: The Assyrian Church of the East moved its seat from Chicago to Erbil. In February 2021, a series of missiles hit the city killing two and injuring eight people. Further missile attacks took place in March 2022. Erbil International Airport is one of Iraq's busiest airports. Services include direct flights to many domestic destinations such as Baghdad international airport. There are international flights from Erbil to many countries; such as
6300-575: The Assyrian Church of the East . From the city's Christian period come many church fathers and well-known authors in Aramaic . Following the Muslim conquest of Persia , the Sassanian province of Naxwardašīragān and later Garamig ud Nodardashiragan , of which Erbil made part of, was dissolved, and from the mid-seventh century AD the region saw a gradual influx of Muslim peoples, predominantly Arabs and Turkic peoples . The most notable Kurdish tribe in
6440-642: The Citadel of Erbil was inscribed as a World Heritage Site . Erbil is the romanization of the city's Ottoman Turkish name اربيل , still used as the city's name in official English translation. The Modern Standard Arabic form of the name is Arbīl ( أربيل ). In classical antiquity, it was known as Arbela in Latin and Arbēla ( Ἄρβηλα ) in Greek , derived from Old Persian Arbairā ( 𐎠𐎼𐎲𐎡𐎼𐎠𐏓 ), from Assyrian Arbaʾilu , from Sumerian Urbilum ( 𒌨 𒉈 𒈝 𒆠 , ur-bi₂-lum ). In 2006
6580-606: The Iraqi Kurdistan was established in Erbil in 1970 after negotiations between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Mustafa Barzani , but was effectively controlled by Saddam Hussein until the Kurdish uprising at the end of the 1991 Gulf War . The legislature ceased to function effectively in the mid-1990s when fighting broke out between the two main Kurdish factions,
6720-622: The Malek (governor) of the region attempted to seize it from them with the help of the Kurds. Despite the Turkic bishop Mar Yahballaha 's best efforts to avert the impending doom, the citadel was at last taken after a siege by Ilkhanate troops and Kurdish tribesmen on 1 July 1310, and all the defenders were massacred, including many of the Assyrian inhabitants of the lower town. However, the city's Assyrian population remained numerically significant until
6860-589: The Medes , Cyaxares might have settled a number of people from the ancient Iranian tribe of Sagartians in the Assyrian cities of Arbela and Arrapha (modern Kirkuk ), probably as a reward for their help in the capture of Nineveh . According to Classical authors, the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great occupied Assyria in 547 BC and established it as an Achaemenid military protectorate state (or satrapy) called in Old Persian Aθurā ( Athura ) , with Babylon as
7000-555: The Median Empire , the Achaemenid Empire ( Achaemenid Assyria ), Macedonian Empire , Seleucid Empire , Armenian Empire , Parthian Empire , Roman Assyria and Sasanian Empire , as well as being the capital of the tributary state of Adiabene between the mid-second century BC and early 2nd century AD. In ancient times the patron deity of the city was Ishtar of Arbela . Following the Muslim conquest of Persia ,
7140-525: The Middle East and were responsible for the spread of farming in the Middle East. However, contrary evidence strongly suggests that the first farming originated in the Fertile Crescent . Although not specifically discussing Sumerians, Lazaridis et al. 2016 have suggested a partial North African origin for some pre-Semitic cultures of the Middle East, particularly Natufians , after testing
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#17327836506457280-750: The Ottomans in 1851. Erbil became a part of the Mosul vilayet in Ottoman Empire until World War I , when the Ottomans and their Kurdish and Turkmen allies were defeated by the British Empire . Erbil lies on the plain beneath the mountains, but for the most part, the inhabitants of Iraqi Kurdistan dwell up above in the rugged and rocky terrain that is the traditional habitat of the Kurds since time immemorial. The modern town of Erbil stands on
7420-525: The Turkmen Culture House . Erbil's Ankawa district is mainly populated by Christian Assyrians. The district houses approximately 40 churches. The Citadel of Erbil is a tell or occupied mound in the historical heart of Erbil, rising between 25 and 32 metres (82 and 105 ft) from the surrounding plain. The buildings on top of the tell stretch over a roughly oval area of 430 by 340 metres (1,410 ft × 1,120 ft) occupying 102,000 square metres (1,100,000 sq ft). It has been claimed that
7560-444: The U.S. occupation of Iraq , sporadic attacks hit Erbil. Parallel bomb attacks against Eid celebrations killed 117 people in February 2004 . Responsibility was claimed by Ansar al-Sunnah . A suicide bombing in May 2005 killed 60 civilians and injured 150 more outside a police recruiting centre. The Erbil International Airport opened in the city in 2005. In September 2013, a quintuple car bombing killed six people. In 2015,
7700-417: The University of Pennsylvania between 1889 and 1900, and in Shuruppak by German archeologist Robert Koldewey in 1902–1903. Major publications of these finds were " Decouvertes en Chaldée par Ernest de Sarzec " by Léon Heuzey in 1884, " Les Inscriptions de Sumer et d'Akkad " by François Thureau-Dangin in 1905, and " Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik " on Sumerian grammar by Arno Poebel in 1923. In
7840-467: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
7980-440: The ancient Mesopotamian religion between the first and fourth centuries to Christianity , with Pkidha traditionally becoming its first bishop around 104 AD. The ancient Mesopotamian religion did not die out entirely in the region until the tenth century AD. There also existed a Christian community thought to be converts from Judaism. The Adiabene (East Syriac ecclesiastical province) in Arbela ( Syriac : ܐܪܒܝܠ Arbel ) became
8120-450: The archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the early Ubaid period (5300–4700 BC C-14 ) settlements in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people who settled here, farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates . Some archaeologists have speculated that the original speakers of ancient Sumerian may have been farmers, who moved down from
8260-494: 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
8400-415: The " Dynasty of Isin " in the Sumerian king list, ending with the rise of Babylonia under Hammurabi c. 1800 BC. Later rulers who dominated Assyria and Babylonia occasionally assumed the old Sargonic title "King of Sumer and Akkad", such as Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria after c. 1225 BC. Uruk, one of Sumer's largest cities, has been estimated to have had a population of 50,000–80,000 at its height. Given
8540-419: 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
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#17327836506458680-733: 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. Sumer Sumer ( / ˈ s uː m ər / )
8820-454: 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
8960-414: The 13th century. When the Mongols invaded the Near East in the 13th century, they attacked Arbil for the first time in 1237. They plundered the lower town but had to retreat before an approaching Caliphate army and had to put off the capture of the citadel. After the fall of Baghdad to Hülegü and the Mongols in 1258, the last Begtegenid ruler surrendered to the Mongols, claiming the Kurdish garrison of
9100-462: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
9240-616: 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 ] {{main other|. Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
9380-435: The Akkadian and Ur III phases, there was a shift from the cultivation of wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley , but this was insufficient, and during the period from 2100 BC to 1700 BC, it is estimated that the population in this area declined by nearly three-fifths. This greatly upset the balance of power within the region, weakening the areas where Sumerian was spoken, and comparatively strengthening those where Akkadian
9520-429: The Great defeated Darius III of Persia , took place in 331 BC approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Erbil according to Urbano Monti 's world map. After the battle, Darius managed to flee to the city. (Somewhat inaccurately, the confrontation is sometimes known as the "Battle of Arbela".) Subsequently, Arbela was part of Alexander's Empire. After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, Arbela became part of
9660-426: The Hellenistic Seleucid Empire . Erbil became part of the region disputed between Rome and Persia under the Sasanids . During the Parthian era to early Sassanian era, Erbil became the capital of the state of Adiabene (Assyrian Ḥadyab ). The town and kingdom are known in Jewish history for the conversion of the royal family, notably Queen Helena of Adiabene , to Judaism. Its populace then gradually converted from
9800-473: The Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The city was captured by the KDP in 1996 with the assistance of the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The PUK then established an alternative Kurdish government in Sulaimaniyah . KDP claimed that in March 1996, PUK asked for Iran's help to fight KDP. Considering this as a foreign attack on Iraq's soil, the KDP asked Saddam Hussein for help. The Kurdish Parliament in Erbil reconvened after
9940-412: 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
10080-549: The Netherlands, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Austria, Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere around the world. There are occasionally seasonal flights from Erbil international airport. Erbil International Airport was briefly closed to international commercial flights in September 2017 by the Iraqi government in retaliation for the Kurdish independence vote but reopened in March 2018. Another important form of transportation between Erbil and
10220-690: 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
10360-576: 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
10500-528: The Sumerian king list whose name is known from any other legendary source is Etana , 13th king of the first dynasty of Kish . The earliest king authenticated through archaeological evidence is Enmebaragesi of Kish (Early Dynastic I), whose name is mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh —leading to the suggestion that Gilgamesh himself might have been a historical king of Uruk. As the Epic of Gilgamesh shows, this period
10640-421: The Sumerians is not known, but the people of Sumer referred to themselves as "Black-Headed Ones" or "Black-Headed People" ( Sumerian : 𒊕 𒈪 , romanized: sag̃-gíg , lit. ''head" + "black'', or 𒊕 𒈪 𒂵 , sag̃-gíg-ga , phonetically /saŋ ɡi ɡa/ , lit. "head" + "black" + relative marker). For example, the Sumerian king Shulgi described himself as "the king of
10780-767: The Sumerians’ sphere of influence (ordered from south to north): Apart from Mari, which lies full 330 kilometres (205 miles) north-west of Agade, but which is credited in the king list as having exercised kingship in the Early Dynastic II period, and Nagar, an outpost, these cities are all in the Euphrates-Tigris alluvial plain, south of Baghdad in what are now the Bābil , Diyala , Wāsit , Dhi Qar , Basra , Al-Muthannā and Al-Qādisiyyah governorates of Iraq . The Sumerian city-states rose to power during
10920-750: The Tophane, Tekke and Saray neighborhoods of the Citadel, which contained almost 700 houses. In 2006, the citadel was emptied, and the Turkmen in the citadel were relocated to other neighbourhoods. Turkmens participate in the political institutions of the KRG, including the Parliament. Iraq's first two Turkmen schools were opened on 17 November 1993, one in Erbil and the other in Kifri . Erbil's citadel also contains
11060-473: The Ubaid period to the Uruk period is marked by a gradual shift from painted pottery domestically produced on a slow wheel to a great variety of unpainted pottery mass-produced by specialists on fast wheels. The Uruk period is a continuation and an outgrowth of Ubaid with pottery being the main visible change. By the time of the Uruk period, c. 4100–2900 BC calibrated, the volume of trade goods transported along
11200-509: The Uruk period coincided with the Piora oscillation , a dry period from c. 3200–2900 BC that marked the end of a long wetter, warmer climate period from about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, called the Holocene climatic optimum . The dynastic period begins c. 2900 BC and was associated with a shift from the temple establishment headed by council of elders led by a priestly "En" (a male figure when it
11340-422: The Uruk period were probably theocratic and were most likely headed by a priest-king ( ensi ), assisted by a council of elders, including both men and women. It is quite possible that the later Sumerian pantheon was modeled upon this political structure. There was little evidence of organized warfare or professional soldiers during the Uruk period, and towns were generally unwalled. During this period Uruk became
11480-430: The canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the rise of many large, stratified , temple-centered cities, with populations of over 10,000 people, where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. It is fairly certain that it was during the Uruk period that Sumerian cities began to make use of slave labour captured from the hill country, and there is ample evidence for captured slaves as workers in
11620-550: The capital. The Medes , and with them the Sagarthians , were to revolt against Darius I of Persia in 522 BC, but this revolt was firmly put down by the army which Darius sent out under the leadership of General Takhmaspada the following year. The events are depicted in the Behistun Inscription which stands today in the mountains of Iran's Kermanshah province . The Battle of Gaugamela , in which Alexander
11760-614: The city would follow suit; they refused this however, therefore the Mongols returned to Arbil and were able to capture the citadel after a siege lasting six months. Hülegü then appointed a Christian Assyrian governor to the town, and the Syriac Orthodox Church was allowed to build a church. As time passed, sustained persecutions of Christians, Jews and Buddhists throughout the Ilkhanate began in earnest in 1295 under
11900-574: 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
12040-921: The destruction of the city by the forces of Timur in 1397. In the Middle Ages , Erbil was ruled successively by the Umayyads , the Abbasids , the Buwayhids , the Seljuks and then the Turkmen Begtegīnid Emirs of Erbil (1131–1232), most notably Gökböri , one of Saladin 's leading generals; they were in turn followed by the Ilkhanids , the Jalayirids , the Kara Koyunlu , the Timurids and
12180-613: The development and archaeology of the plain around Erbil. Tell Baqrta is a very large, 80 hectare, site which dates back to the Early Bronze Age. The region in which Erbil lies was largely under Sumerian domination from c. 3000 BC . With the rise of the Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC) all of the Akkadian Semites and Sumerians of Mesopotamia were united under one rule. Erridupizir , king of
12320-718: The downfall of the Akkadian Empire at the hands of Gutians , another native Sumerian ruler, Gudea of Lagash, rose to local prominence and continued the practices of the Sargonic kings ' claims to divinity. The previous Lagash dynasty, Gudea and his descendants also promoted artistic development and left a large number of archaeological artifacts. Later, the Third Dynasty of Ur under Ur-Nammu and Shulgi (c. 2112–2004 BC, middle chronology), whose power extended as far as southern Assyria , has been erroneously called
12460-754: The earliest texts. Artifacts, and even colonies of this Uruk civilization have been found over a wide area—from the Taurus Mountains in Turkey , to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and as far east as western Iran . The Uruk period civilization, exported by Sumerian traders and colonists, like that found at Tell Brak , had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. The cities of Sumer could not maintain remote, long-distance colonies by military force. Sumerian cities during
12600-587: 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
12740-728: 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
12880-607: 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
13020-471: The first empires known to history was that of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed practically all of Sumer, including Kish, Uruk, Ur , and Larsa , and reduced to tribute the city-state of Umma , arch-rival of Lagash. In addition, his realm extended to parts of Elam and along the Persian Gulf . He seems to have used terror as a matter of policy. Eannatum's Stele of the Vultures depicts vultures pecking at
13160-540: The first state that successfully united larger parts of Mesopotamia in the 23rd century BC. After the Gutian period , the Ur III kingdom similarly united parts of northern and southern Mesopotamia. It ended in the face of Amorite incursions at the beginning of the second millennium BC. The Amorite "dynasty of Isin " persisted until c. 1700 BC , when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule. The Ubaid period
13300-739: The four quarters, the pastor of the black-headed people". The Akkadians also called the Sumerians "black-headed people", or ṣalmat-qaqqadi , in the Semitic Akkadian language. The Akkadians, the East Semitic-speaking people who later conquered the Sumerian city-states , gave Sumer its main historical name, but the phonological development of the term šumerû is uncertain. Hebrew שִׁנְעָר Šinʿar , Egyptian Sngr , and Hittite Šanhar(a) , all referring to southern Mesopotamia, could be western variants of Sumer . Most historians have suggested that Sumer
13440-510: 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
13580-576: The genomes of Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture-bearers. Craniometric analysis has also suggested an affinity between Natufians and ancient North Africans. Some scholars associate the Sumerians with the Hurrians and Urartians , and suggest the Caucasus as their homeland. This is not generally accepted. Based on mentions of Dilmun as the “home city of the land of Sumer” in Sumerian legends and literature, other scholars have suggested
13720-471: The idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language; they think the Sumerian language may originally have been that of the hunting and fishing peoples who lived in the marshland and the Eastern Arabia littoral region and were part of the Arabian bifacial culture. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia , today's Persian Gulf region, before it
13860-597: 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
14000-406: The kingdom of Gutium , captured the city in 2150 BC. The first mention of Erbil in literary sources comes from the archives of the kingdom of Ebla . They record two journeys to Erbil ( Irbilum ) by a messenger from Ebla around 2300 BFC. The Neo-Sumerian ruler of Ur , Amar-Sin , sacked Urbilum in his second year, c. 1975 BC. In the centuries after the fall of the Ur III empire Erbil became
14140-613: 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
14280-514: The late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states , which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a temple dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city and ruled over by a priestly governor ( ensi ) or by a king ( lugal ) who was intimately tied to the city's religious rites. An incomplete list of cities that may have been visited, interacted and traded with, invaded, conquered, destroyed, occupied, colonized by and/or otherwise within
14420-604: 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)
14560-420: 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
14700-883: 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
14840-489: The marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians. Reliable historical records begin with Enmebaragesi ( Early Dynastic I ). The Sumerians progressively lost control to Semitic states from the northwest. Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC ( short chronology ), but Sumerian continued as a sacred language . Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about
14980-429: The most urbanized city in the world, surpassing for the first time 50,000 inhabitants. The ancient Sumerian king list includes the early dynasties of several prominent cities from this period. The first set of names on the list is of kings said to have reigned before a major flood occurred. These early names may be fictional, and include some legendary and mythological figures, such as Alulim and Dumizid . The end of
15120-493: The mound and look down on the streets and tarmacked roads that circle them". Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in
15260-795: 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 ] {{main other| (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
15400-467: The north of Mesopotamia after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. The Ubaid period pottery of southern Mesopotamia has been connected via Choga Mami transitional ware, to the pottery of the Samarra period culture ( c. 5700 –4900 BC C-14 ) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection
15540-402: The north. Ecologically, the agricultural productivity of the Sumerian lands was being compromised as a result of rising salinity. Soil salinity in this region had been long recognized as a major problem. Poorly drained irrigated soils, in an arid climate with high levels of evaporation, led to the buildup of dissolved salts in the soil, eventually reducing agricultural yields severely. During
15680-424: 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
15820-551: The other cities in Sumer, and the large agricultural population, a rough estimate for Sumer's population might be 0.8 million to 1.5 million. The world population at this time has been estimated at 27 million. The Sumerians spoke a language isolate . A number of linguists have claimed to be able to detect a substrate language of unknown classification beneath Sumerian, because names of some of Sumer's major cities are not Sumerian, revealing influences of earlier inhabitants. However,
15960-604: 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
16100-518: The possibility that the Sumerians originated from Dilmun, which was theorized to be the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. In Sumerian mythology, Dilmun was also mentioned as the home of deities such as Enki . The status of Dilmun as the Sumerians’ ancestral homeland has not been established, but archaeologists have found evidence of civilization in Bahrain, namely the existence of Mesopotamian-style round disks. A prehistoric people who lived in
16240-469: The prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. Sumerian written history reaches back to the 27th century BC and before, but the historical record remains obscure until the Early Dynastic III period, c. 23rd century BC , when the language of the written records becomes easier to decipher, which has allowed archaeologists to read contemporary records and inscriptions. The Akkadian Empire was
16380-524: The region before the Sumerians have been termed the " Proto-Euphrateans " or " Ubaidians ", and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia. The Ubaidians, though never mentioned by the Sumerians themselves, are assumed by modern-day scholars to have been the first civilizing force in Sumer. They drained the marshes for agriculture , developed trade, and established industries, including weaving , leatherwork , metalwork , masonry , and pottery . Some scholars contest
16520-514: The region dates to the Third Dynasty of Ur of Sumer , when King Shulgi mentioned the city of Urbilum. The city was later conquered by the Assyrians . In the 3rd millennium BC, Erbil was an independent power in its area. It was conquered for a time by the Gutians . Beginning in the late 2nd millennium BC, it came under Assyrian control. Subsequent to this, it was part of the geopolitical province of Assyria under several empires in turn, including
16660-410: 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
16800-602: The region no longer remained united, and during the Middle Ages , the city came to be ruled by the Seljuk and Ottoman empires. Erbil's archaeological museum houses a large collection of pre-Islamic artifacts, particularly the art of Mesopotamia , and is a centre for archaeological projects in the area. The city was designated as the Arab Tourism Capital 2014 by the Arab Council of Tourism. In July 2014,
16940-639: The region was the Hadhabani , of which several individuals also acted as governors for the city from the late tenth century until the 12th century when it was conquered by the Zengids and its governorship given to the Turkic Begtegenids, of whom the most notable was Gökböri , who retained the city during the Ayyubid era. Yaqut al-Hamawi further describes Erbil as being mostly Kurdish-populated in
17080-634: The rule of Oïrat amir Nauruz , which affected the indigenous Christian Assyrians greatly. This manifested early on in the reign of the Ilkhan Ghazan . In 1297, after Ghazan had felt strong enough to overcome Nauruz's influence, he put a stop to the persecutions. During the reign of the Ilkhan Öljeitü , the Assyrian inhabitants retreated to the citadel to escape persecution. In the Spring of 1310,
17220-458: 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
17360-433: The scribes. Gelb and Westenholz differentiate three stages of Old Akkadian: that of the pre-Sargonic era, that of the Akkadian empire, and that of the Ur III period that followed it. Akkadian and Sumerian coexisted as vernacular languages for about one thousand years, but by around 1800 BC, Sumerian was becoming more of a literary language familiar mainly only to scholars and scribes. Thorkild Jacobsen has argued that there
17500-665: The severed heads and other body parts of his enemies. His empire collapsed shortly after his death. Later, Lugal-zage-si , the priest-king of Umma, overthrew the primacy of the Lagash dynasty in the area, then conquered Uruk, making it his capital, and claimed an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. He was the last ethnically Sumerian king before Sargon of Akkad . The Akkadian Empire dates to c. 2234 –2154 BC ( middle chronology ), founded by Sargon of Akkad . The Eastern Semitic Akkadian language
17640-402: The site is the oldest continuously inhabited town in the world. The earliest evidence for occupation of the citadel mound dates to the fifth millennium BC and possibly earlier. It appears for the first time in historical sources during the Ur III period and gained particular importance during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (tenth to seventh centuries BC) period. West of the citadel at Ary Kon quarter,
17780-458: 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
17920-691: The south of Mesopotamia as the Babylonian Empire , just as the Old Assyrian Empire had already done in the north from the late 21st century BC. The Sumerian language continued as a sacerdotal language taught in schools in Babylonia and Assyria, much as Latin was used in the Medieval period, for as long as cuneiform was used. This period is generally taken to coincide with a major shift in population from southern Mesopotamia toward
18060-563: 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
18200-491: The surrounding areas is by bus. Among others, bus services offer connections to Turkey and Iran. A new bus terminal was opened in 2014. Erbil has a system of six ring roads encircling the city. Erbil has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen climate classification Csa ) with long, extremely hot summers and mild winters. Summers are arid, with little to no precipitation occurring between June and September. Winters are usually wet with occasional flooding, with January being
18340-501: 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
18480-551: The valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, a surplus which enabled them to form urban settlements. The world's earliest known texts come from the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr , and date to between c. 3350 – c. 2500 BC , following a period of proto-writing c. 4000 – c. 2500 BC . The term "Sumer" ( Akkadian : 𒋗𒈨𒊒 , romanized: šumeru ) comes from
18620-432: The wettest month. A downpour on 17 December 2021 caused flash floods in the area, killing 14 people. The city is predominantly Kurdish and has minorities of local Turkmen and Assyrians , as well as Arabs . The Turkmen population in Erbil is estimated to be around 300,000. They mainly reside in the neighbourhoods of Taci, Mareke and Three Tak in Erbil's city centre, around the citadel. Until 2006, they were living in
18760-451: 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
18900-610: Was a temple for a goddess, or a female figure when headed by a male god) towards a more secular Lugal (Lu = man, Gal = great) and includes such legendary patriarchal figures as Dumuzid , Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh —who reigned shortly before the historic record opens c. 2900 BC, when the now deciphered syllabic writing started to develop from the early pictograms. The center of Sumerian culture remained in southern Mesopotamia, even though rulers soon began expanding into neighboring areas, and neighboring Semitic groups adopted much of Sumerian culture for their own. The earliest dynastic king on
19040-410: Was associated with increased war. Cities became walled, and increased in size as undefended villages in southern Mesopotamia disappeared. Both Enmerkar and Gilgamesh are credited with having built the walls of Uruk. The dynasty of Lagash (c. 2500–2270 BC), though omitted from the king list, is well attested through several important monuments and many archaeological finds. Although short-lived, one of
19180-479: Was derived from the Samarran culture from northern Mesopotamia. It is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk culture. The story of the passing of the gifts of civilization ( me ) to Inanna , goddess of Uruk and of love and war, by Enki , god of wisdom and chief god of Eridu, may reflect the transition from Eridu to Uruk. The archaeological transition from
19320-417: Was first permanently settled between c. 5500 – c. 3300 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence), a non-Semitic and non- Indo-European agglutinative language isolate . Others have suggested that the Sumerians were a North African people who migrated from the Green Sahara into
19460-586: Was flooded at the end of the Ice Age . Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. The Sumerian city of Eridu , on the coast of the Persian Gulf, is considered to have been one of the oldest cities , where three separate cultures may have fused: that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in
19600-416: Was the major language. Henceforth, Sumerian remained only a literary and liturgical language, similar to the position occupied by Latin in medieval Europe. Following an Elamite invasion and sack of Ur during the rule of Ibbi-Sin (c. 2028–2004 BC), Sumer came under Amorite rule (taken to introduce the Middle Bronze Age ). The independent Amorite states of the 20th to 18th centuries are summarized as
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