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162-552: La Réunion ( / r iː ˈ juː n j ə n / ; French: [la ʁe.ynjɔ̃] ; Reunionese Creole : La Rényon ; known as Île Bourbon before 1848) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands , it is located approximately 679 km (422 mi) east of the island of Madagascar and 175 km (109 mi) southwest of

324-539: A French overseas region. The low number of communes , compared with French metropolitan departments of similar size and population, is unique: most of its communes encompass several localities, sometimes separated by significant distances. The communes voluntarily grouped themselves into five groups for cooperating in some domains, apart from the four arrondissements to which they belong for purposes of national laws and executive regulation. After some changes in their composition, name and status, all of them operate with

486-575: 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

648-435: 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

810-1081: 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

972-464: A favourite saint , which suggests that the date of the Portuguese discovery could have been 9 February, her feast day. Diogo Lopes de Sequeira is said to have landed on the islands of Réunion and Rodrigues in 1509. By the early 1600s, nominal Portuguese rule had left Santa Apolónia virtually untouched. The island was then occupied by France and administered from Port Louis , Mauritius. Although

1134-468: A global rise in sea level. Sea level also increases in the Indian Ocean, except in the south tropical Indian Ocean where it decreases, a pattern most likely caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases . Among the tropical oceans, the western Indian Ocean hosts one of the largest concentrations of phytoplankton blooms in summer, due to the strong monsoon winds. The monsoonal wind forcing leads to

1296-487: 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

1458-551: A lower case in the article, but during the end of the 20th century the spelling "La Réunion" with a capital letter was developed in many writings to emphasize the integration of the article in the name. This last spelling corresponds to the recommendations of the Commission nationale de toponymie and appears in the current Constitution of the French Republic in articles 72-3 and 73. The island has been inhabited since

1620-451: A maximum width of 175 km (109 mi). The passive margins have an average width of 47.6 ± 0.8 km (29.58 ± 0.50 mi). The average width of the slopes (horizontal distance from shelf break to foot of slope) of the continental shelves are 50.4–52.4 km (31.3–32.6 mi) for active and passive margins respectively, with a maximum width of 205.3–255.2 km (127.6–158.6 mi). In correspondence of

1782-690: 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

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1944-549: A number of islands. These include those controlled by surrounding countries, and independent island states and territories. Of the non-coastal islands, there are two broad clusters: one around Madagascar, and one south of India. A few other oceanic islands are scattered elsewhere. In contrast to the Atlantic and Pacific, the Indian Ocean is enclosed by major landmasses and an archipelago on three sides and does not stretch from pole to pole, and can be likened to an embayed ocean. It

2106-470: A period of six years, except for debris that gets indefinitely stuck in the centre of the gyre. The garbage patch in the Indian Ocean will, according to a 2012 study, decrease in size after several decades to vanish completely over centuries. Over several millennia, however, the global system of garbage patches will accumulate in the North Pacific. There are two amphidromes of opposite rotation in

2268-790: A process of aridification began in the southwest Indian Ocean began around 4,000 years ago. Mammalian megafauna once widespread in the MPA was driven to near extinction in the early 20th century. Some species have been successfully recovered since then — the population of white rhinoceros ( Ceratotherium simum simum ) increased from less than 20 individuals in 1895 to more than 17,000 as of 2013. Other species still depend on fenced areas and management programs, including black rhinoceros ( Diceros bicornis minor ), African wild dog ( Lycaon pictus ), cheetah ( Acynonix jubatus ), elephant ( Loxodonta africana ), and lion ( Panthera leo ). This biodiversity hotspot (and namesake ecoregion and "Endemic Bird Area")

2430-594: 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

2592-462: 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",

2754-536: A significant garbage patch . Historically, the Indian Ocean has been a hub of cultural and commercial exchange since ancient times. It played a key role in early human migrations and the spread of civilizations. In modern times, it remains crucial for global trade, especially in oil and hydrocarbons. Environmental and geopolitical concerns in the region include the effects of climate change , piracy, and strategic disputes over island territories. The Indian Ocean has been known by its present name since at least 1515, when

2916-470: 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

3078-525: A sister to Hawaiian volcanoes because of the similarity of climate and volcanic nature. It has erupted more than 100 times since 1640, and is under constant monitoring, most recently erupting on 2 July 2023. During another eruption in April 2007, the lava flow was estimated at 3,000,000 m (3,900,000 cu yd) per day. The hotspot that fuels Piton de la Fournaise also created the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues . The Piton des Neiges volcano,

3240-464: A strong coastal and open ocean upwelling , which introduces nutrients into the upper zones where sufficient light is available for photosynthesis and phytoplankton production. These phytoplankton blooms support the marine ecosystem, as the base of the marine food web, and eventually the larger fish species. The Indian Ocean accounts for the second-largest share of the most economically valuable tuna catch. Its fish are of great and growing importance to

3402-507: 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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3564-507: 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

3726-476: 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

3888-605: Is a member of the Indian Ocean Commission , which also includes the Comoros , Madagascar , Mauritius and the Seychelles . Administratively, La Réunion is divided into 24  communes (municipalities) grouped into four arrondissements . It is also subdivided into 25  cantons , meaningful only for electoral purposes at the departmental or regional level. It is a French overseas department, hence

4050-590: 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

4212-473: Is a patchwork of small forested areas, often with a unique assemblage of species within each, located within 200 km (120 mi) from the coast and covering a total area of c. 6,200 km (2,400 sq mi). It also encompasses coastal islands, including Zanzibar and Pemba, and Mafia. This area, one of the only two hotspots that are entirely arid, includes the Ethiopian Highlands ,

4374-559: 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

4536-596: Is an overseas department and region of France (known in French as a département et région d'outre-mer , DROM) governed by article 73 of the Constitution of France , under which the laws and regulations are applicable as of right, as in metropolitan France. Thus, Réunion has a regional council and a departmental council. These territorial entities have the same general powers as the departments and regions of metropolitan France, albeit with some adaptations. Article 73 of

4698-478: 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

4860-513: Is centered on the Indian Peninsula. Although this subcontinent has played a significant role in its history, the Indian Ocean has foremostly been a cosmopolitan stage, interlinking diverse regions by innovations, trade, and religion since early in human history. The active margins of the Indian Ocean have an average width (horizontal distance from land to shelf break ) of 19 ± 0.61 km (11.81 ± 0.38 mi) with

5022-408: 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

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5184-472: 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

5346-453: Is known of La Réunion's history prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in the early 16th century. Arab traders were familiar with it by the name Dina Morgabin , "Western Island" (likely Arabic : دنية/دبية مغربي Daniyah/Dībah Maghribīy ). The island is possibly featured on a map from 1153 AD by Al Sharif el-Edrisi . The island might also have been visited by Swahili or Austronesian (ancient Indonesian–Malaysian) sailors on their journey to

5508-701: Is located between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Islands. In Indonesia, the so-called Indonesian Seaway is composed of the Malacca , Sunda and Torres Straits . The Gulf of Carpentaria is located on the Australian north coast while the Great Australian Bight constitutes a large part of its southern coast. Several features make the Indian Ocean unique. It constitutes the core of

5670-522: Is not affected by cyclones. During the Napoleonic Wars , the island was invaded by British forces and its governor, General Sainte-Suzanne, was forced to capitulate on 9 July 1810. The island then came under British rule and was under British occupation until the end of the Napoleonic period. The old name of Île Bourbon was restored in 1810. Bourbon Island was returned to the French under

5832-574: 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

5994-698: Is now a member of such an intercommunality, with its own taxation, to which member communes have delegated their authority in various areas. Although diplomacy, military, and French government matters are handled by Paris, La Réunion is a member of La Francophonie , the Indian Ocean Commission , the International Trade Union Confederation , the Universal Postal Union , the Port Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa , and

6156-476: Is now named after India , which protrudes into it, and has been known by its current name since at least 1515. It is the only ocean named after a country. It has an average depth of 3,741 m. All of the Indian Ocean is in the Eastern Hemisphere . Unlike the Atlantic and Pacific, the Indian Ocean is bordered by landmasses and an archipelago on three sides, making it more like an embayed ocean centered on

6318-855: 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

6480-469: Is projected to push the tropical Indian Ocean into a basin-wide near-permanent heatwave state by the end of the 21st century, where marine heatwaves are projected to increase from 20 days per year (during 1970–2000) to 220–250 days per year. South of the Equator (20–5°S), the Indian Ocean is gaining heat from June to October, during the austral winter, while it is losing heat from November to March, during

6642-534: Is represented in Réunion by a prefect . The territory is divided into four districts (Saint-Benoît, Saint-Denis, Saint-Paul and Saint-Pierre). Réunion has 24 municipalities organized into 5 agglomeration communities. From the point of view of the European Union , Réunion is considered an "outermost region.” The positioning of La Réunion Island has given it a more or less important strategic role depending on

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6804-572: 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

6966-745: Is the headquarters of the French Armed Forces of the Southern Indian Ocean Zone (FAZSOI), which brings together French Army units stationed in La Réunion and Mayotte. Réunion is also a base for the so-called Frenchelon signal intelligence system, whose infrastructure includes a mobile listening and automatic search unit. Saint-Pierre is also the headquarters of the mostly uninhabited French Southern and Antarctic Lands ( Terres australes et antarctiques françaises , TAAF). Because of France's possession of Réunion, France

7128-590: 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

7290-413: 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

7452-524: 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

7614-582: Is widely used in perfumery, also took off. From 1838 to 1841, Rear-Admiral Anne Chrétien Louis de Hell was governor of the island. A profound change of society and mentality linked to the events of the last ten years led the governor to present three emancipation projects to the Colonial Council. On 9 June 1848, after the arrival of news of the French Revolution of 1848 from Europe, governor Joseph Graëb  [ fr ] announced

7776-445: 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

7938-589: 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

8100-632: The East African Rift valley , the Socotra islands, as well as some small islands in the Red Sea and areas on the southern Arabic Peninsula. Endemic and threatened mammals include the dibatag ( Ammodorcas clarkei ) and Speke's gazelle ( Gazella spekei ); the Somali wild ass ( Equus africanus somaliensis ) and hamadryas baboon ( Papio hamadryas ). It also contains many reptiles. In Somalia,

8262-799: The French Revolution , the island's name was changed to "La Réunion" in homage to the meeting of the Federates of Marseille and the National Guards of Paris, during the march on the Tuileries Palace on 10 August 1792, and to erase the name of the Bourbon dynasty. The abolition of slavery voted by the National Convention on 4 February 1794, was rejected by La Réunion, as well as by Île de France (Mauritius). A delegation accompanied by military forces, charged with imposing

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8424-785: The International Hydrographic Organization in 1953 included the Southern Ocean but not the marginal seas along the northern rim but in 2002 the IHO delimited the Southern Ocean separately, which removed waters south of 60°s from the Indian Ocean but included the northern marginal seas. Meridionally , the Indian Ocean is delimited from the Atlantic Ocean by the 20° east meridian , running south from Cape Agulhas , South Africa, and from

8586-818: The Mascarene Basin the CDW becomes a deep western boundary current before it is met by a re-circulated branch of itself, the North Indian Deep Water. This mixed water partly flows north into the Somali Basin whilst most of it flows clockwise in the Mascarene Basin where an oscillating flow is produced by Rossby waves . Water circulation in the Indian Ocean is dominated by the Subtropical Anticyclonic Gyre,

8748-513: The Shelf break , also known as Hinge zone, the Bouguer gravity ranges from 0 to 30 mGals that is unusual for a continental region of around 16 km thick sediments. It has been hypothesized that the "Hinge zone may represent the relict of continental and proto-oceanic crustal boundary formed during the rifting of India from Antarctica ." Australia, Indonesia, and India are the three countries with

8910-656: The Treaty of Paris of 1814. The slave trade openly operated in the colony after French rule was restored, and despite international condemnation Bourbon Island imported 2,000 slaves every month during the 1820s, mostly from the Swahili coast or Quelimane in Portuguese Mozambique. In 1841, Edmond Albius' discovery of hand-pollination of vanilla flowers enabled the island to soon become the world's leading vanilla producer. The cultivation of geranium , whose essence

9072-631: The World Federation of Trade Unions in its own right. The French Armed Forces are responsible for the defence of the department. These forces also contribute to the defence of other French territories in the region, including Mayotte and the French Southern and Antarctic Lands . A total of some 2,000 French troops are deployed in the region, mostly in La Réunion centred on the 2nd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment . Two CASA CN 235 aircraft, forming air detachment 181 and drawn from

9234-568: 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

9396-786: The Zambezi , Ganges - Brahmaputra , Indus , Jubba , and Murray rivers and (order 4) the Shatt al-Arab , Wadi Ad Dawasir (a dried-out river system on the Arabian Peninsula) and Limpopo rivers. After the breakup of East Gondwana and the formation of the Himalayas, the Ganges-Brahmaputra rivers flow into the world's largest delta known as the Bengal delta or Sunderbans . Marginal seas , gulfs, bays and straits of

9558-476: The abolition of slavery in Réunion, effective on 20 December 1848 (December 20 has been an official holiday in Réunion since then). Louis Henri Hubert Delisle became its first Creole governor on 8 August 1852, and remained in this position until 8 January 1858. After abolition, many foreign workers came as indentured workers . Slavery was replaced by a system of contract labor known as engagés , which lasted from 1848 until 1864. In practice, an illegal slave trade

9720-494: 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

9882-432: The runoff water to the Indian Ocean. Mainly in summer, this runoff flows into the Arabian Sea but also south across the Equator where it mixes with fresher seawater from the Indonesian Throughflow . This mixed freshwater joins the South Equatorial Current in the southern tropical Indian Ocean. Sea surface salinity is highest (more than 36  PSU ) in the Arabian Sea because evaporation exceeds precipitation there. In

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10044-419: 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

10206-454: 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

10368-402: The 17th century, when people from France and Madagascar settled there. Slavery was abolished on 20 December 1848 (a date celebrated yearly on the island), when the Second Republic abolished slavery in the French colonies. However, indentured workers continued to be brought to Réunion from South India , among other places. The island became an overseas department of France in 1946. Not much

10530-407: The 19th century: in 1806, under the First Empire , General Decaen named it Île Bonaparte (after Napoleon ), and in 1810 it became Île Bourbon again. It was eventually renamed Réunion after the fall of the July monarchy by a decree of the provisional government on 7 March 1848. In accordance with the original spelling and the classical spelling and typographical rules, "la Réunion" was written with

10692-462: 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

10854-409: The 50th Air Transport squadron, provide a modest air transport and surveillance capability. In 2022, the French Air Force demonstrated a capacity to reinforce the territory by deploying two Rafale fighter aircraft, supported by an A330 MRTT Phénix tanker, from France to Réunion for a regional exercise. The French naval presence includes two Floréal -class frigates , Floréal and Nivôse ,

11016-603: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ    [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized

11178-453: The Arabian Sea, the violent Monsoon brings rain to the Indian subcontinent. In the southern hemisphere, the winds are generally milder, but summer storms near Mauritius can be severe. When the monsoon winds change, cyclones sometimes strike the shores of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal . Some 80% of the total annual rainfall in India occurs during summer and the region is so dependent on this rainfall that many civilisations perished when

11340-404: The Arabic Peninsula. Along the west coast of India, the Gulf of Kutch and Gulf of Khambat are located in Gujarat in the northern end while the Laccadive Sea separates the Maldives from the southern tip of India. The Bay of Bengal is off the east coast of India. The Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait separate Sri Lanka from India, while Adam's Bridge separates the two. The Andaman Sea

11502-462: The Comoros. Although both species represent an order of lobe-finned fishes known from the Early Devonian (410 mya ) and though extinct 66 mya, they are morphologically distinct from their Devonian ancestors. Over millions of years, coelacanths evolved to inhabit different environments — lungs adapted for shallow, brackish waters evolved into gills adapted for deep marine waters. Of Earth's 36 biodiversity hotspots nine (or 25%) are located on

11664-611: The East India Coastal Current to the Arabian Sea from January to April. An Indian Ocean garbage patch was discovered in 2010 covering at least 5 million square kilometres (1.9 million square miles). Riding the southern Indian Ocean Gyre , this vortex of plastic garbage constantly circulates the ocean from Australia to Africa, down the Mozambique Channel , and back to Australia in

11826-572: The French overseas department of Mayotte , one of the two eurozone areas in the Southern Hemisphere . Owing to its strategic location, France maintains a large military presence. France took possession of the island in the 17th century, naming it Bourbon , after the dynasty that then ruled France. To break with this name, which was too attached to the Ancien Régime , the National Convention decided on 23 March 1793 to rename

11988-492: The French royal House of Bourbon . Colonisation started in 1665, when the French East India Company sent the first settlers. The French colonists developed a plantation economy founded on the cultivation of coffee and sugar by use of slave labor. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, French colonisation, supplemented by importing Africans, Chinese and Indians as workers, contributed to ethnic diversity in

12150-574: The Hauts, there is a steep transitional zone whose gradient varies considerably before arriving at the ridge lines setting the cirques or the Enclos, the caldera of the Piton de la Fournaise. La Réunion is characterized by a humid tropical climate , tempered by the oceanic influence of the trade winds blowing from east to west. The climate of Réunion is characterized by its great variability, mainly due to

12312-820: The Horn of Africa. The northern end of the Red Sea terminates in the Gulf of Aqaba and Gulf of Suez . The Indian Ocean is artificially connected to the Mediterranean Sea without ship lock through the Suez Canal , which is accessible via the Red Sea. The Arabian Sea is connected to the Persian Gulf by the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz . In the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Bahrain separates Qatar from

12474-824: The Indian Ocean Walker circulation there are no continuous equatorial easterlies. Upwelling occurs near the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula in the Northern Hemisphere and north of the trade winds in the Southern Hemisphere. The Indonesian Throughflow is a unique Equatorial connection to the Pacific. The climate north of the equator is affected by a monsoon climate. Strong north-east winds blow from October until April; from May until October south and west winds prevail. In

12636-771: The Indian Ocean include: Along the east coast of Africa, the Mozambique Channel separates Madagascar from mainland Africa, while the Sea of Zanj is located north of Madagascar. On the northern coast of the Arabian Sea , Gulf of Aden is connected to the Red Sea by the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb . In the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Tadjoura is located in Djibouti and the Guardafui Channel separates Socotra island from

12798-509: The Indian Ocean includes beaches and intertidal zones covering 3,000 km (1,200 sq mi) and 246 larger estuaries . Upwelling areas are small but important. The hypersaline salterns in India covers between 5,000–10,000 km (1,900–3,900 sq mi) and species adapted for this environment, such as Artemia salina and Dunaliella salina , are important to bird life. Coral reefs, sea grass beds, and mangrove forests are

12960-481: The Indian Ocean region, or almost half of the world's mangrove habitat, of which 42,500 km (16,400 sq mi) is located in Indonesia, or 50% of mangroves in the Indian Ocean. Mangroves originated in the Indian Ocean region and have adapted to a wide range of its habitats but it is also where it suffers its biggest loss of habitat. In 2016, six new animal species were identified at hydrothermal vents in

13122-730: The Indian Ocean, during the past six decades. The tuna catch rates have also declined 50–90% during the past half-century, mostly due to increased industrial fisheries, with the ocean warming adding further stress to the fish species. Endangered and vulnerable marine mammals and turtles: 80% of the Indian Ocean is open ocean and includes nine large marine ecosystems : the Agulhas Current , Somali Coastal Current , Red Sea , Arabian Sea , Bay of Bengal , Gulf of Thailand , West Central Australian Shelf , Northwest Australian Shelf and Southwest Australian Shelf . Coral reefs cover c. 200,000 km (77,000 sq mi). The coasts of

13284-432: The Indian Ocean, probably caused by Rossby wave propagation. Icebergs drift as far north as 55° south latitude , similar to the Pacific but less than in the Atlantic where icebergs reach up to 45°S. The volume of iceberg loss in the Indian Ocean between 2004 and 2012 was 24  Gt . Since the 1960s, anthropogenic warming of the global ocean combined with contributions of freshwater from retreating land ice causes

13446-466: The Indian Ocean. While the Indian Ocean warmed at a rate of 1.2°C per century during 1950–2020, climate models predict accelerated warming, at a rate of 1.7 °C–3.8 °C per century during 2020–2100. Though the warming is basin-wide, maximum warming is in the northwestern Indian Ocean including the Arabian Sea, and reduced warming off the Sumatra and Java coasts in the southeast Indian Ocean. Global warming

13608-466: The Indian Peninsula. Its coasts and shelves differ from other oceans, with distinct features, such as a narrower continental shelf . In terms of geology, the Indian Ocean is the youngest of the major oceans, with active spreading ridges and features like seamounts and ridges formed by hotspots . The climate of the Indian Ocean is characterized by monsoons . It is the warmest ocean, with a significant impact on global climate due to its interaction with

13770-606: The Latin form Oceanus Orientalis Indicus ( lit.   ' Indian Eastern Ocean ' ) is attested, named after India, which projects into it. It was earlier known as the Eastern Ocean , a term that was still in use during the mid-18th century, as opposed to the Western Ocean ( Atlantic ) before the Pacific was surmised. In modern times, the name Afro-Asian Ocean has occasionally been used. The Hindi name for

13932-412: 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

14094-536: The Monsoon failed in the past. The huge variability in the Indian Summer Monsoon has also occurred pre-historically, with a strong, wet phase 33,500–32,500 BP; a weak, dry phase 26,000–23,500 BC; and a very weak phase 17,000–15,000 BP, corresponding to a series of dramatic global events: Bølling–Allerød warming , Heinrich , and Younger Dryas . The Indian Ocean is the warmest ocean in

14256-708: The Ocean is हिंद महासागर ( Hind Mahāsāgar ; lit. transl.  Ocean of India ). Conversely, Chinese explorers (e.g., Zheng He during the Ming dynasty ) who traveled to the Indian Ocean during the 15th century called it the Western Oceans. In Ancient Greek geography , the Indian Ocean region known to the Greeks was called the Erythraean Sea . The borders of the Indian Ocean , as delineated by

14418-732: The Pacific Ocean and half that of the Atlantic basin, or 30% of its ocean surface (compared to 15% for the Pacific). The Indian Ocean drainage basin is divided into roughly 800 individual basins, half that of the Pacific, of which 50% are located in Asia, 30% in Africa, and 20% in Australasia. The rivers of the Indian Ocean are shorter on average (740 km (460 mi)) than those of the other major oceans. The largest rivers are ( order 5 )

14580-472: The Pacific Ocean by the meridian of 146°49'E, running south from South East Cape on the island of Tasmania in Australia. The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean (including marginal seas) is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf . The Indian Ocean covers 70,560,000 km (27,240,000 sq mi), including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf but excluding the Southern Ocean, or 19.5% of

14742-407: The Piton des Neiges is separated from the massif of La Fournaise by a gap formed by the plaine des Palmistes and the plaine des Cafres, a passageway between the east and the south of the island. Apart from the plains, the coastal areas are generally the flattest regions, especially in the north and west of the island. The coastline of the wild south is however steeper. Between the coastal fringe and

14904-690: 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

15066-576: 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

15228-570: The Southeast Arabian Sea salinity drops to less than 34 PSU. It is the lowest (c. 33 PSU) in the Bay of Bengal because of river runoff and precipitation. The Indonesian Throughflow and precipitation results in lower salinity (34 PSU) along the Sumatran west coast. Monsoonal variation results in eastward transportation of saltier water from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal from June to September and in westerly transport by

15390-486: The Southwest Indian Ridge, from where it continues into the Mozambique Channel and Prince Edward Fracture Zone . North of 20° south latitude the minimum surface temperature is 22 °C (72 °F), exceeding 28 °C (82 °F) to the east. Southward of 40° south latitude , temperatures drop quickly. The Bay of Bengal contributes more than half (2,950 km or 710 cu mi) of

15552-532: The Southwest Indian Ridge: a "Hoff" crab, a "giant peltospirid" snail, a whelk-like snail, a limpet, a scaleworm and a polychaete worm. The West Indian Ocean coelacanth was discovered in the Indian Ocean off South Africa in the 1930s and in the late 1990s another species, the Indonesian coelacanth , was discovered off Sulawesi Island , Indonesia. Most extant coelacanths have been found in

15714-515: The artificial harbor of the Pointe des Galets. These major construction projects offered a welcome alternative for agricultural workers. During World War II , Réunion was under the control of Vichy France until 30 November 1942, when Free French forces disembarked from the destroyer Léopard and liberated the colony . La Réunion became a département d'outre-mer (overseas département ) of France on 19 March 1946. INSEE assigned to Réunion

15876-440: The atmosphere. Its waters are affected by the Indian Ocean Walker circulation , resulting in unique oceanic currents and upwelling patterns. The Indian Ocean is ecologically diverse, with important marine life and ecosystems like coral reefs, mangroves, and sea grass beds. It hosts a significant portion of the world's tuna catch and is home to endangered marine species. It faces challenges like overfishing and pollution , including

16038-756: The austral summer. In 1999, the Indian Ocean Experiment showed that fossil fuel and biomass burning in South and Southeast Asia caused air pollution (also known as the Asian brown cloud ) that reach as far as the Intertropical Convergence Zone . This pollution has implications on both a local and global scale. Forty percent of the sediment of the Indian Ocean is found in the Indus and Ganges fans. The oceanic basins adjacent to

16200-400: The bordering countries for domestic consumption and export. Fishing fleets from Russia, Japan, South Korea , and Taiwan also exploit the Indian Ocean, mainly for shrimp and tuna. Research indicates that increasing ocean temperatures are taking a toll on the marine ecosystem. A study on the phytoplankton changes in the Indian Ocean indicates a decline of up to 20% in the marine plankton in

16362-453: The capital city of Saint-Denis are concentrated on the surrounding coastal lowlands. Offshore, part of the west coast is characterised by a coral reef system . Réunion also has three calderas : the Cirque de Salazie , the Cirque de Cilaos and the Cirque de Mafate . The last is accessible only on foot or by helicopter. La Réunion is a volcanic island born some three million years ago with

16524-701: The centre of the 1,500,000 km (580,000 sq mi) hotspot, the landscape is dominated by Acacia - Commiphora deciduous bushland, but also includes the Yeheb nut ( Cordeauxia edulus ) and species discovered more recently such as the Somali cyclamen ( Cyclamen somalense ), the only cyclamen outside the Mediterranean. Warsangli linnet ( Carduelis johannis ) is an endemic bird found only in northern Somalia. An unstable political situation and mismanagement has resulted in overgrazing which has produced one of

16686-510: The coast of the commune of Trois-Bassins (west), is the driest season, with a normal annual precipitation of 447.7 mm (17.63 in), while Le Baril, in Saint-Philippe (southeast), is the wettest coastal season, with a normal annual precipitation of 4,256.2 mm (167.57 in). However, the wettest station is in the highlands of Sainte-Rose, with an average annual rainfall of almost 11,000 mm (430 in), making it one of

16848-420: The constitution provides for the possibility of replacing the region and the department by a single territorial entity, but, unlike French Guiana or Martinique , there are currently no plans to do so. Unlike the other DROMs, the constitution explicitly excludes Réunion from the possibility of receiving authorization from Parliament to set certain rules itself, either by law or by the national executive. The state

17010-551: The continental slopes mostly contain terrigenous sediments. The ocean south of the polar front (roughly 50° south latitude ) is high in biologic productivity and dominated by non-stratified sediment composed mostly of siliceous oozes . Near the three major mid-ocean ridges the ocean floor is relatively young and therefore bare of sediment, except for the Southwest Indian Ridge due to its ultra-slow spreading rate. The ocean's currents are mainly controlled by

17172-574: 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

17334-480: The department code 974 , and the region code 04 when regional councils were created in 1982 in France, including in existing overseas departments which also became overseas regions. Over about two decades in the late 20th century (1963–1982), 1,630 children from La Réunion were relocated to rural areas of metropolitan France , particularly to Creuse , ostensibly for education and work opportunities. That program

17496-612: The eastern extension of which is blocked by the Southeast Indian Ridge and the 90°E Ridge. Madagascar and the Southwest Indian Ridge separate three cells south of Madagascar and off South Africa. North Atlantic Deep Water reaches into the Indian Ocean south of Africa at a depth of 2,000–3,000 m (6,600–9,800 ft) and flows north along the eastern continental slope of Africa. Deeper than NADW, Antarctic Bottom Water flows from Enderby Basin to Agulhas Basin across deep channels (<4,000 m (13,000 ft)) in

17658-587: 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

17820-494: The emergence of the Piton des Neiges volcano. It has an altitude of 3,070.5 m (10,074 ft), the highest peak in the Mascarene Islands and the Indian Ocean. The eastern part of the island is constituted by the Piton de la Fournaise, a much more recent volcano (500,000 years old) which is considered one of the most active on the planet. The emerged part of the island represents only a small percentage (about 3%) of

17982-728: 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

18144-607: 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

18306-460: The first French claims date from 1638, when François Cauche  [ fr ] and Salomon Goubert visited in June 1638, the island was officially claimed by Jacques Pronis  [ fr ] of France in 1642, when he deported a dozen French mutineers to the island from Madagascar . The convicts were returned to France several years later, and in 1649, the island was named Île Bourbon after

18468-558: The following years, but all were dismissed by French courts and finally by the European Court of Human Rights in 2011. In 2005 and 2006, La Réunion was hit by a crippling epidemic of chikungunya , a disease spread by mosquitoes. According to the BBC News , 255,000 people on La Réunion had contracted the disease as of 26 April 2006. The neighbouring islands of Mauritius and Madagascar also suffered epidemics of this disease during

18630-510: 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

18792-492: The greatest proportion of the population is of mixed descent, while the predominant language is Réunion Creole , though French remains the sole official language. Since 1946, Réunion has been governed as a French region and thus has a similar status to its counterparts in Metropolitan France. Consequently, it is one of the outermost regions of the European Union and part of the eurozone ; it is, along with

18954-468: The highest point on the island at 3,070 m (10,070 ft) above sea level, is northwest of the Piton de la Fournaise. Collapsed calderas and canyons are south west of the mountain. While the Piton de la Fournaise is one of Earth's most active volcanoes, the Piton des Neiges is dormant. Its name is French for "peak of snows", but snowfall on the summit of the mountain is rare. The slopes of both volcanoes are heavily forested. Cultivated land and cities like

19116-460: The icebreaker L'Astrolabe , the patrol and support ship Champlain and the coast guard vessel Le Malin . The naval aviation element includes a Eurocopter AS565 Panther helicopter from Flottille 36F able to embark on the Floréal -class frigates as required. In 2025, the helicopter is to be replaced by a AS 365N Dauphin . By 2025, Le Malin is to be replaced by Auguste Techer , a vessel of

19278-511: The imposing relief of the island, which is at the origin of numerous microclimates. As a result, there are strong disparities in rainfall between the windward coast in the east and the leeward coast in the west, and in temperature between the warmer coastal areas and the relatively cooler highland areas. In La Réunion there are two distinct seasons, defined by the rainfall regime: April and December are transition months, sometimes very rainy but also very dry. Pointe des Trois Bassins, located on

19440-597: 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

19602-477: The island of Mauritius . As of January 2024, it had a population of 885,700. Its capital and largest city is Saint-Denis . La Réunion was uninhabited until French immigrants and colonial subjects settled the island in the 17th century. Its tropical climate led to the development of a plantation economy focused primarily on sugar; slaves from East Africa were imported as fieldworkers, followed by Malays, Vietnamese , Chinese, and Indians as indentured laborers. Today,

19764-505: The island was renamed Île Bonaparte and found itself in the front line of the Franco-British conflict for the control of the Indian Ocean. Following climatic catastrophes of 1806-1807 (cyclones, floods), coffee cultivation declined rapidly and was replaced by sugar cane , whose demand in France increased, due to France's recent loss of Saint-Domingue , and soon of the Île-de-France (Mauritius). Because of its growth cycle, sugarcane

19926-402: The island. Europe increasingly turned to sugar beet to meet its sugar needs. Despite the development policy of the local authorities and the recourse to compromise, the economic crisis became evident from the 1870s onwards. However, this economic depression did not prevent the modernization of the island, with the development of the road network, the creation of the railroad and the construction of

20088-593: The islands of the Indian Ocean are textbook cases of evolutionary processes; the dung beetles , day geckos , and lemurs are all examples of adaptive radiation . Many bones (250 bones per square metre) of recently extinct vertebrates have been found in the Mare aux Songes swamp in Mauritius, including bones of the Dodo bird ( Raphus cucullatus ) and Cylindraspis giant tortoise. An analysis of these remains suggests

20250-613: 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

20412-513: The large-scale Tropical Warm Pool which, when interacting with the atmosphere, affects the climate both regionally and globally. Asia blocks heat export and prevents the ventilation of the Indian Ocean thermocline . That continent also drives the Indian Ocean monsoon , the strongest on Earth, which causes large-scale seasonal variations in ocean currents, including the reversal of the Somali Current and Indian Monsoon Current . Because of

20574-604: 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)

20736-420: 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

20898-489: The liberation of slaves, arrived on the island of Bourbon on 18 June 1796, only to be immediately expelled without mercy. There followed a period of unrest and challenges to the power of the metropolis , which no longer had any authority over the two islands. The First Consul of the Republic, Napoleon Bonaparte , maintained slavery there, which was never abolished in practice, with the law of 20 May 1802. On 26 September 1806,

21060-427: The longest shorelines and exclusive economic zones . The continental shelf makes up 15% of the Indian Ocean. More than two billion people live in countries bordering the Indian Ocean, compared to 1.7 billion for the Atlantic and 2.7 billion for the Pacific (some countries border more than one ocean). The Indian Ocean drainage basin covers 21,100,000 km (8,100,000 sq mi), virtually identical to that of

21222-883: 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

21384-481: The margins of the Indian Ocean. The origin of this diversity is debated; the break-up of Gondwana can explain vicariance older than 100 mya, but the diversity on the younger, smaller islands must have required a Cenozoic dispersal from the rims of the Indian Ocean to the islands. A "reverse colonisation", from islands to continents, apparently occurred more recently; the chameleons , for example, first diversified on Madagascar and then colonised Africa. Several species on

21546-400: The monsoon. Two large gyres , one in the northern hemisphere flowing clockwise and one south of the equator moving anticlockwise (including the Agulhas Current and Agulhas Return Current ), constitute the dominant flow pattern. During the winter monsoon (November–February), however, circulation is reversed north of 30°S and winds are weakened during winter and the transitional periods between

21708-622: The monsoons. The Indian Ocean contains the largest submarine fans of the world, the Bengal Fan and Indus Fan , and the largest areas of slope terraces and rift valleys . The inflow of deep water into the Indian Ocean is 11  Sv , most of which comes from the Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW). The CDW enters the Indian Ocean through the Crozet and Madagascar basins and crosses the Southwest Indian Ridge at 30°S. In

21870-439: The most degraded hotspots where only c. 5 % of the original habitat remains. 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

22032-475: The most productive ecosystems of the Indian Ocean — coastal areas produce 20 tones of fish per square kilometre. These areas, however, are also being urbanised with populations often exceeding several thousand people per square kilometre and fishing techniques become more effective and often destructive beyond sustainable levels while the increase in sea surface temperature spreads coral bleaching. Mangroves covers 80,984 km (31,268 sq mi) in

22194-624: 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

22356-415: The new Félix Éboué class of patrol vessels. The French Navy will further reinforce its offshore patrol capabilities in the region by deploying a second vessel of the class ( Félix Éboué ) to Réunion by 2026. About 800 National Gendarmerie , including one mobile squadron and one high mountain platoon, are also stationed in Réunion. The Maritime Gendarmerie has also operated the patrol boat Verdon in

22518-424: 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

22680-549: 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

22842-445: The period. Already at the time of the India Route or Route des Indes, Réunion was a French possession located between Cape Town and the Indian trading posts, although far from the Mozambique Channel . Île de Bourbon (its name under the Ancien Régime ) was not, however, the preferred position for trade and military. Governor Labourdonnais claimed that Île de France (Mauritius) was a land of opportunity, thanks to its topography and

23004-467: The population. From 1690, most of the non-Europeans on the island were enslaved. Of the 80,000 slaves imported to Réunion and Mauritius between 1769 and 1793, 45% was provided by slave traders of the Sakalava people in North West Madagascar, who raided East Africa and the Comoros for slaves, and the rest was provided by Arab slave traders who bought slaves from Portuguese Mozambique and transported them to Réunion via Madagascar. On 19 March 1793, during

23166-429: The presence of two natural harbours. He intended Île de Bourbon to be a depot or an emergency base for Île de France. The opening of the Suez Canal diverted much of the maritime traffic from the southern Indian Ocean and reduced the strategic importance of the island. This decline is confirmed by the importance given to Madagascar, which was later colonized. Today, the island, the seat of a defense and security zone,

23328-508: The proclamation of the French Republic in Saint-Denis , and on that same day the island was definitely renamed "Réunion", the name it had already held between 1793 and 1806. The establishment of the Republic was met with coldness and distrust by the white plantocracy due to the professed abolitionism of the new Republican authorities in Paris. On 18 October 1848, the new Commissioner of the Republic Joseph Napoléon Sébastien Sarda Garriga , sent from Paris to replace Graëb, announced in Saint-Denis

23490-410: 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

23652-458: 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

23814-399: The same year. A few cases also appeared in mainland France, carried by people travelling by airline. The French government of Dominique de Villepin sent an emergency aid package worth €36 million and deployed about 500 troops in an effort to eradicate mosquitoes on the island. La Réunion sends seven deputies to the French National Assembly and three senators to the Senate . Réunion

23976-458: 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

24138-498: 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

24300-410: The status of agglomeration communities , and apply their own local taxation (in addition to national, regional, departmental, and municipal taxes) and have an autonomous budget decided by the assembly representing all member communes. This budget is also partly funded by the state, the region, the department, and the European Union for some development and investment programs. Every commune in Réunion

24462-418: The territory (though she was reported forward deployed in Mayotte as of 2022). The island is 63 km (39 mi) long; 45 km (28 mi) wide; and covers 2,512 km (970 sq mi). It is above a hotspot in the Earth's crust. The Piton de la Fournaise , a shield volcano on the eastern end of La Réunion, rises more than 2,631 m (8,632 ft) above sea level and is sometimes called

24624-424: The territory Réunion Island. ("La Réunion", in French, usually means "meeting" or "assembly" rather than "reunion". This name was presumably chosen in homage to the meeting of the fédérés of Marseilles and the Paris National Guards that preceded the insurrection of 10 August 1792 . No document establishes this and the use of the word "meeting" could have been purely symbolic.) The island changed its name again in

24786-501: 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

24948-444: The underwater mountain that forms it. In addition to volcanism, the relief of the island is very uneven due to active erosion. The center shelters three vast cirques dug by erosion (Salazie, Mafate and Cilaos) and the slopes of the island are furrowed by numerous rivers digging gullies, estimated at least 600, generally deep and whose torrents cut the sides of the mountains up to several hundreds of meters deep. The ancient massif of

25110-410: The water area of Earth's surface . It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by the Southern Ocean , or Antarctica , depending on the definition in use. The Indian Ocean has large marginal, or regional seas, such as the Andaman Sea , the Arabian Sea , the Bay of Bengal , and the Laccadive Sea . Once called the Eastern Ocean, it

25272-421: The west from the Malay Archipelago to Madagascar. The first European discovery of the area was made around 1507 by Portuguese explorer Diogo Fernandes Pereira , but the specifics are unclear. The uninhabited island might have been first sighted by the expedition led by Dom Pedro Mascarenhas , who gave his name to the island group around Réunion, the Mascarenes . Réunion itself was dubbed Santa Apolónia after

25434-463: The wettest places in the world. Temperatures in La Réunion are characterized by their great mildness throughout the year. In fact, the thermal amplitude from one season to another is relatively small (rarely exceeding 10 °C or 18 °F), although it is perceptible: Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km (27,240,000 sq mi) or approximately 20% of

25596-451: 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

25758-426: The world's oceans; its volume is 264,000,000 km (63,000,000 cu mi) or 19.8% of the world's oceans' volume; it has an average depth of 3,741 m (12,274 ft) and a maximum depth of 7,290 m (23,920 ft). All of the Indian Ocean is in the Eastern Hemisphere and the centre of the Eastern Hemisphere, the 90th meridian east , passes through the Ninety East Ridge . Within these waters are

25920-417: The world. Long-term ocean temperature records show a rapid, continuous warming in the Indian Ocean, at about 1.2 °C (34.2 °F) (compared to 0.7 °C (33.3 °F) for the warm pool region) during 1901–2012. Research indicates that human induced greenhouse warming , and changes in the frequency and magnitude of El Niño (or the Indian Ocean Dipole ), events are a trigger to this strong warming in

26082-419: Was conducted in which slaves were acquired from Portuguese Mozambique and Zanzibar and then trafficked to Réunion via the Comoros slave trade . They were officially called engagés to avoid the anti-slavery British blockade of Africa . The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 reduced the importance of the island as a stopover on the East Indies trade route and caused a shift in commercial traffic away from

26244-433: Was led by influential Gaullist politician Michel Debré , who was an MP for La Réunion at the time. Many of these children were abused or disadvantaged by the families with whom they were placed. Known as the Children of Creuse , they and their fate came to light in 2002 when one of them, Jean-Jacques Martial, filed suit against the French state for kidnapping and deportation of a minor. Other similar lawsuits were filed over

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