109-599: The Hebron Hills , also known as Mount Hebron ( Arabic : جبل الخليل , romanized : Jabal al-Khalīl , Hebrew : הר חברון , romanized : Har Hevron ), are a mountain ridge , geographic region, and geologic formation, constituting the southern part of the Judean Mountains . The Hebron Hills are located in the southern West Bank . During the Iron Age , the Hebron Hills were part of
218-520: 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
327-537: A common practice of spending part of the year in caves and underground caverns. In the years before Muhammad Ali of Egypt took control of the Levant (1831-1840) and the following two decades, the area faced ongoing insecurity. The struggle for control over Mount Hebron between rival groups in Dura led to a violent conflict, drawing in nearby Bedouin tribes and prompting local residents to relocate to cave dwellings . In
436-435: 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
545-1081: 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
654-487: 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
763-690: 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
872-529: A nomadic lifestyle not only in the Hebron Hills but also in other parts of Palestine. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent in Yatta and as-Samu, where droughts are frequent. Sometimes, this prolonged nomadism led to permanent migration to more hospitable areas. Consequently, rural communities from the Hebron Hills emerged in regions such as Nablus and Dothan in the northern West Bank, as well as in Wadi 'Ara and
981-594: 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
1090-462: 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",
1199-473: A separate administrative unit known as Idumea, named after its inhabitants. Marisa became its administrative center, with Ziph and Adoraim being of secondary importance. Hellenistic rule brought Greek and Phoenician culture into Idumea, while the prevalence of male circumcision shows a growing affinity with Judaism . In 113-112 BCE, the region was captured by the John Hyrcanus , who converted
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#17327731653201308-470: 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
1417-756: A tributary kingdom, then a province, of the Roman Empire. The Romans had allied themselves to the Maccabees and interfered again in 63 BCE, at the end of the Third Mithridatic War , when the proconsul Pompey ("Pompey the Great") stayed behind to make the area secure for Rome, including his siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE . Queen Salome Alexandra had recently died, and a civil war broke out between her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II . Pompeius restored Hyrcanus but political rule passed to
1526-507: 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
1635-507: 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
1744-638: A village in Judea. The King James Version of the Bible refers to the region as "Jewry". "Judea" was a name used by English speakers for the hilly internal part of Mandatory Palestine until the Jordanian rule of the area in 1948. For example, the borders of the two states to be established according to the UN's 1947 partition scheme were officially described using the terms "Judea" and "Samaria" and in its reports to
1853-476: 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
1962-590: 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
2071-549: Is a mountainous region of the Levant . Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem , it is now part of Palestine and Israel . The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the present day; it originates from Yehudah , a Hebrew name . Yehudah was a son of Jacob , who was later given the name " Israel " and whose sons collectively headed the Twelve Tribes of Israel . Yehudah's progeny among
2180-559: 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
2289-478: 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
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#17327731653202398-667: Is considered a desert . It varies greatly in height, rising to an altitude of 1,020 metres (3,350 ft) in the south at the Hebron Hills , 30 km (19 mi) southwest of Jerusalem , and descending to as much as 400 metres (1,300 ft) below sea level in the east of the region. It also varies in rainfall, starting with about 400–500 millimetres (16–20 in) in the western hills, rising to 600 millimetres (24 in) around western Jerusalem (in central Judea), falling back to 400 millimetres (16 in) in eastern Jerusalem and dropping to around 100 millimetres (3.9 in) in
2507-408: 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
2616-472: 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
2725-574: 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
2834-855: 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
2943-572: 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
3052-590: 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
3161-413: 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
3270-524: 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
3379-445: 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
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3488-702: The Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
3597-591: The Arabian Desert . However, in the southern Hebron Hills, the prevalent genetic makeup features alleles for blonde hair, fair skin, and blue eyes, which he says could be attributed to Crusaders or cross-cousin marriage. Qleibo found it curious that the genetic characteristics of Beit Ummar's population, who consider themselves descendants of a Crusader prince converted to Islam over seven centuries ago, predominantly exhibit typical Arabian traits, including white skin and jet-black hair. The Hebron Hills form
3706-575: The Bar Kokhva revolt , a Jewish presence persisted in the area. In the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, the Hebron Hills were divided demographically into a Christian northern part and a mixed Jewish-Christian southern area. During this time, the southern Hebron Hills became known as Daroma , meaning "South" in Hebrew and Aramaic . Several synagogues from this period have been unearthed in
3815-644: The Bethel hills and the Judaean Desert east of Jerusalem, which descends in a series of steps to the Dead Sea . The hills are distinct for their anticline structure. In ancient times the hills were forested, and the Bible records agriculture and sheep farming being practiced in the area. Animals are still grazed today, with shepherds moving them between the low ground to the hilltops as summer approaches, while
3924-459: The Green Line ) continue to farm grapes in this region. Local wineries include Yatir Winery . Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of
4033-563: The Herodian dynasty , who ruled as client kings . In 6 CE, Judea came under direct Roman rule as the southern part of the province of Judaea , although Jews living there still maintained some form of independence and could judge offenders by their own laws, including capital offences, until c. 28 CE. The province of Judea, during the late Hellenistic period and early Roman Empire was also divided into five conclaves: Jerusalem, Gadara , Amathus , Jericho , and Sepphoris , and during
4142-1192: The Israelites formed the Tribe of Judah , with whom the Kingdom of Judah is associated. Related nomenclature continued to be used under the rule of the Babylonians (the Yehud province ), the Persians (the Yehud province ), the Greeks (the Hasmonean Kingdom ), and the Romans (the Herodian Kingdom and the Judaea province ). Under the Hasmoneans, the Herodians, and the Romans, the term
4251-534: The Kingdom of Judah , which underwent a forced exile after being conquered by the Babylonians . Subsequently, in the Hellenistic period , an Edomite population migrating to the area became dominant, leading to its being referred to as Idumaea . The Edomites later converted to Judaism and assimilated into the Jewish population. Despite many settlements being destroyed or abandoned due to the brutal suppression of
4360-519: The Manasseh Hills . In recent times, several areas where traditional Palestinian herding communities live have been declared restricted military zones, forcing the displacement of many families. Several Israeli settlements have been established over the terrain. The Israeli military administration regards the area as a high priority for enforcing demolition orders regarding Palestinian dwellings. Several Palestinian Muslim clans residing in
4469-775: The Tomb of the Patriarchs . The early history of Judah is uncertain; the biblical account states that the Kingdom of Judah, along with the Kingdom of Israel , was a successor to a united monarchy of Israel and Judah , but modern scholarship generally holds that the united monarchy is ahistorical. Regardless, the Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 720 BCE. The Kingdom of Judah remained nominally independent, but paid tribute to
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4578-568: 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
4687-494: 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
4796-532: The "West Bank"), though "Yehuda" is the Hebrew term used for the area in modern Israel since the region was captured and occupied by Israel in 1967. The Israeli government in the 20th century used the term Judea as part of the Israeli administrative district name " Judea and Samaria Area " for the territory that is generally referred to as the West Bank . The name Judea is a Greek and Roman adaptation of
4905-419: 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
5014-923: 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. Judea Judea or Judaea ( / dʒ uː ˈ d iː ə , dʒ uː ˈ d eɪ ə / ; Hebrew : יהודה , Modern : Yəhūda , Tiberian : Yehūḏā ; Greek : Ἰουδαία , Ioudaía ; Latin : Iudaea )
5123-454: 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
5232-475: The 17th and 18th centuries, Mount Hebron witnessed widespread violence, resulting in significant migrations and hegemony changes. Travelers' accounts from the late 17th to the early 19th century documented violence in the Hebron area, especially in its northern fringe, where conflicts between Hebron and Bethlehem districts led to the destruction of many villages. Limited information on southern Mount Hebron suggests
5341-464: The 19th century, there were instances of peasants from Transjordan moving to Hebron, driven by long droughts in their home areas. This migration provided labor for growing grains commercially in the Bayt Jibrin area, not far from western Hebron. Both fellahin and Bedouins relied on their livestock as a form of "insurance" during droughts, prompting them to migrate following the rains and adopt
5450-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
5559-834: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
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#17327731653205668-615: The Assyrian Empire from 715 and throughout the first half of the 7th century BCE, regaining its independence as the Assyrian Empire declined after 640 BCE, but after 609 again fell under the sway of imperial rule, this time paying tribute at first to the Egyptians and after 601 BCE to the Neo-Babylonian Empire , until 586 BCE, when it was finally conquered by Babylonia. The Babylonian Empire fell to
5777-610: The Christians there were recent arrivals who had moved from the Kerak area only a few years previously. According to Ehrlich, the region's Christian population decreased as a result of a combination of factors including impoverishment, oppression, marginalization, and persecution. Sufi activity took place in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, which most likely pushed Christian villagers in the region to convert to Islam. Judea, in
5886-407: The Dead Sea. The suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt led to widespread destruction and displacement throughout Judea, and the district saw a decline in population. The Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina , which was built on the ruins of Jerusalem, remained a backwater for the duration of its existence. The villages around the city were depopulated, and arable lands in the region were confiscated by
5995-420: The Edomites to Judaism and incorporated Idumaea into the Hasmonean kingdom . The region took part in the Bar Kokhva revolt against the Roman Empire (132-135 CE). The revolt left many settlements in the area destroyed or abandoned, and some of its residents migrated to the Galilee . However, while many areas in Judea proper were depopulated during the revolt and subsequently resettled by foreigners loyal to
6104-581: The Franks tended to settle in the southern half of the region between Jerusalem and Nablus since there was a sizable Christian population there. Most of the people living in the northern portion of Judea in the late 16th century were Muslims; some of them resided in towns that today have significant Christian populations. According to the 1596–1597 Ottoman census, Birzeit and Jifna , for instance, were wholly Muslim villages, while Taybeh had 63 Muslim families and 23 Christian families. There were 71 Christian families and 9 Muslim families in Ramallah , although
6213-587: The Hebron Hills are purported to have or claim Jewish ancestry. The Makhamra family , based in Yatta , has a tradition of tracing their ancestry back to a Jewish tribe of Khaybar . They have preserved various customs resembling Jewish practices. In Halhul , the Sawarah clan and the Shatrit family are reputed to have Jewish origins. Traditions of Jewish ancestry have also been noted in Dura and Beit Ummar . Palestinian anthropologist Ali Qleibo noted that residents of as-Samu and Yatta identify as Qaysi , pure Arabs from Hejaz , with genealogical records tracing back to
6322-419: The Land of Israel. The Eshtemoa synagogue was excavated in the mid-1930s and was initially considered architecturally unique, being classified as 'transitional' between early and late synagogues. Later excavation of the Susiya synagogue revealed significant similarities between the two, leading scholars to categorize the synagogues of the area as a distinct architectural group. Between 1987 and 1990, excavations at
6431-430: The League of Nations Mandatory Committee, as in 1937, the geographical terms employed were "Samaria and Judea". Jordan called the area ad-difa'a al-gharbiya (translated into English as the "West Bank"). "Yehuda" is the Hebrew term used for the area in modern Israel since the region was captured and occupied by Israel in 1967. The first century Roman-Jewish historian Josephus wrote ( The Jewish War 3.3.5): In
6540-403: The Maon and 'Anim synagogues revealed both similarities and differences compared to those in Eshtemoa and Susiya. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant , the Jewish population in the southern Hebron Hills had been gradually replaced by Muslims . During the early Islamic period, the synagogues of Susya and Eshtemoa were repurposed as mosques . It remains unclear whether local Jews had fled
6649-412: 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
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#17327731653206758-419: The Navel of the country. Nor indeed is Judea destitute of such delights as come from the sea, since its maritime places extend as far as Ptolemais: it was parted into eleven portions, of which the royal city Jerusalem was the supreme, and presided over all the neighboring country, as the head does over the body. As to the other cities that were inferior to it, they presided over their several toparchies ; Gophna
6867-474: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
6976-407: The Roman period had eleven administrative districts ( toparchies ): Jerusalem, Gophna , Akrabatta , Thamna , Lod , Emmaus , Pella , Idumaea , Ein Gedi , Herodeion , and Jericho . In 66 CE, the Jewish population rose against Roman rule in a revolt that was unsuccessful. Jerusalem was besieged in 70 CE . The city was razed, the Second Temple was destroyed, and much of the population
7085-413: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
7194-451: The Romans finally put an end to the uprising, most of the Jews in Judea were killed or displaced, and a sizable number of captives were sold into slavery, leaving the district mostly depopulated. Jews were expelled from the area surrounding Jerusalem. No village in the district of Judea whose remains have been excavated so far has not been destroyed during the revolt. Roman emperor Hadrian , determined to root out Jewish nationalism, changed
7303-427: The Romans, the southern Hebron Hills stood out with its continuing, albeit diminished, Jewish presence. In his Geography , written around 150 CE, Claudius Ptolemy describes Idumea as a desolate area, in contrast to the relative density in the rest of the country north of Idumea to the Galilee. During the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, the Hebron Hills were demographically divided into two distinct sub-regions. In
7412-411: The Romans. Having no alternative population to fill the empty villages led the authorities to establish imperial or legionary estates and monasteries on confiscated village lands to benefit the elites and, later, the church. This also initiated a process of romanization that took place during the Late Roman period, with pagan populations penetrating the region and settling alongside Roman veterans. There
7521-412: The ancient names. As the Nabataeans pushed northwards, the Edomites were driven out of old Edom to the south of the Dead Sea and into the southern Hebron Hills between the southern part of the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, establishing new Edom or Idumaea. During the Hellenistic period , the Edomites became the dominant population of the southern Hebron Hills. Under Ptolemaic rule , the area became
7630-411: The area or had converted to Islam . Some Palestinians residing in the Hebron Hills, most notably the Makhamras of Yatta, view themselves as having Jewish ancestry. During the Crusades, at the time of the Kingdom of Jerusalem , all the Hebron Hills fell under the dominion of the seigneurie of St. Abraham . In the 16th century, Mount Hebron came under Ottoman rule. Findings indicate that during
7739-426: The conquests of Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE. Judea remained under Persian rule until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, eventually falling under the rule of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire until the revolt of Judas Maccabeus resulted in the Hasmonean dynasty of kings who ruled in Judea for over a century. Judea lost its independence to the Romans in the 1st century BCE, becoming first
7848-574: 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
7957-692: The descendants of the Jewish residents who remained in the area after the Bar Kokhba revolt , in addition to Jewish migrants from Galilee who joined them. This influx might have occurred during the time of Judah ha-Nasi , who maintained positive relations with the Roman authorities. In the southern Hebron Hills, four synagogues dating from the Talmudic period have been unearthed: Eshtemoa , Susiya , Maon , and 'Anim . These synagogues share common architectural features that set them apart from others found in
8066-484: The destruction of many villages. The highest peak of the mountain ridge is in the Palestinian city of Halhul , where a tableland exists with an altitude of 1,026 metres (3,366 ft). The Book of Joshua mentions Maon , Carmel , Adora , and Juttah among others as part of the tribal territory of the Tribe of Judah . The modern Arabic names of Ma'in , al-Karmil , Dura , and Yatta respectively preserve
8175-479: The eastern parts, due to a rain shadow : this is the Judaean Desert . The climate, accordingly, moves between Mediterranean in the west and desert climate in the east, with a strip of semi-arid climate in the middle. Major urban areas in the region include Jerusalem, Bethlehem , Gush Etzion , Jericho and Hebron . Geographers divide Judea into several regions: the Hebron hills, the Jerusalem saddle,
8284-587: 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
8393-728: 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
8502-607: 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
8611-429: The fountains of Jordan, and reaches breadthways to Lake Tiberias ; and in length is extended from a village called Arpha, as far as Julias. Its inhabitants are a mixture of Jews and Syrians. And thus have I, with all possible brevity, described the country of Judea, and those that lie round about it. Elsewhere, Josephus wrote that "Arabia is a country that borders on Judea." Judea is a mountainous region, part of which
8720-510: 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
8829-597: 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
8938-613: 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
9047-604: 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)
9156-420: 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
9265-530: The limits of Samaria and Judea lies the village Anuath, which is also named Borceos . This is the northern boundary of Judea. The southern parts of Judea, if they be measured lengthways, are bounded by a village adjoining to the confines of Arabia ; the Jews that dwell there call it Jordan. However, its breadth is extended from the river Jordan to Joppa. The city Jerusalem is situated in the very middle; on which account some have, with sagacity enough, called that city
9374-883: 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
9483-636: The mid-5th century BCE: Palaestina Prima , Secunda , and Tertia or Salutaris (First, Second, and Third Palestine), part of the Diocese of the East . Palaestina Prima consisted of Judea, Samaria, the Paralia , and Peraea with the governor residing in Caesarea . Palaestina Secunda consisted of Galilee, the lower Jezreel Valley , the regions east of Galilee, and the western part of the former Decapolis with
9592-639: The name " Judah ", which originally encompassed the territory of the Israelite tribe of that name and later of the ancient Kingdom of Judah . Nimrud Tablet K.3751 , dated c. 733 BCE, is the earliest known record of the name Judah (written in Assyrian cuneiform as Yaudaya or KUR.ia-ú-da-a-a). Judea was sometimes used as the name for the entire region, including parts beyond the river Jordan . In 200 CE Sextus Julius Africanus , cited by Eusebius ( Church History 1.7.14), described "Nazara" ( Nazareth ) as
9701-617: The name of the province from Judaea to Syria Palaestina . The province's Jewish population was now mainly concentrated in Galilee, the coastal plain (especially in Lydda , Joppa , and Caesarea ), and smaller Jewish communities continued to live in the Beth She'an Valley , the Carmel , and Judea's northern and southern frontiers, including the southern Hebron Hills and along the shores of
9810-782: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
9919-675: The northern part, Christian settlements were established atop the remains of previously destroyed Jewish villages. Meanwhile, the southern Hebron Hills were inhabited by both Jewish and Christian communities. There is evidence that the region was also inhabited by pagans and Jewish Christians during that period. During the same period, the southern Hebron Hills became known as Darom or Daroma (Hebrew and Aramaic for "South"). This term appears in rabbinic literature and in Eusebius ' Onomasticon . In his Onomasticon , Eusebius mentions seven Jewish settlements that existed in his time in
10028-424: 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
10137-549: 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
10246-410: 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
10355-572: The region. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant , the Jewish population in the area declined as Muslims became dominant. In the Ottoman period, Mount Hebron served as a stop for farmers and herders, primarily from the deserts of Arabia and Transjordan , who migrated due to factors like severe drought. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, Mount Hebron experienced extensive violence involving rival families and Bedouins , leading to migrations and
10464-502: The regional population, composed of pagan populations who had migrated there after Jews were driven out following the Bar Kokhba revolt, gradually converted to Christianity . The Byzantines redrew the borders of the land of Palestine. The various Roman provinces ( Syria Palaestina , Samaria , Galilee , and Peraea ) were reorganized into three dioceses of Palaestina, reverting to the name first used by Greek historian Herodotus in
10573-458: 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
10682-496: The seat of government at Scythopolis . Palaestina Tertia included the Negev , southern Jordan—once part of Arabia—and most of Sinai , with Petra as the usual residence of the governor. Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris. According to historian H.H. Ben-Sasson, this reorganisation took place under Diocletian (284–305), although other scholars suggest this change occurred later, in 390. According to Ellenblum,
10791-596: The slopes are still layered with centuries-old stone terracing . The Jewish Revolt against the Romans ended in the devastation of vast areas of the Judean countryside. Mount Hazor marks the geographical boundary between Samaria to its north and Judea to its south. Judea is central to much of the narrative of the Torah , with the Patriarchs Abraham , Isaac and Jacob said to have been buried at Hebron in
10900-458: 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
11009-538: The southern Hebron Hills: Juttah, Carmel, Eshtemoa, Rimmon, Tele, Lower Anim, and Ein Gedi . Archaeological finds confirm the existence of Jewish and Christian settlements in Yatta , al-Karmil , as-Samu , Zif , Maon , Kfar Aziz , Eaton, Gomer, Kishor, Tela, Rimon, and Aristobolia. Jewish settlements were typically built surrounding a synagogue. The Jewish population in the southern Hebron Hills appears to have consisted of
11118-581: The southern and eastern border of Mediterranean vegetation in the region of Palestine . A 2012 survey by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority discovered 54 rare plant species in the region, more than half of them in cultivated fields. They include Boissiera squarrosa , a type of grass; Legousia hybrida , a plant from the bellflower family; and Reseda globulosa , a rare mignonette . The region has been known for its vineyards since biblical times . Palestinians and Israelis (from both parts of
11227-563: 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
11336-501: 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
11445-451: 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
11554-519: Was applied to an area larger than Judea of earlier periods. In 132 CE, the Roman province of Judaea was merged with Galilee to form the enlarged province of Syria Palaestina . The term Judea was used by English speakers for the hilly internal part of Mandatory Palestine until the Jordanian rule of the area in 1948. Most of the region of Judea was incorporated into what the Jordanians called ad-difa'a al-gharbiya (translated into English as
11663-539: Was killed or enslaved. In 132 CE, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) broke out. After an initial string of victories, rebel leader Simeon Bar Kokhba was able to form an independent Jewish state that lasted several years and included most of the district of Judea, including the Judean Mountains, the Judean Desert, and northern Negev desert, but probably not other sections of the country. When
11772-464: Was only a revival of village settlement on the eastern edges of Jerusalem's hinterland, on the transition between the arable highlands and the Judaean Desert . Those settlements grew on marginal lands with vague ownership and unenforced state land dominion. Judea's decline only came to an end in the fifth century CE, when it developed into a monastic center, and Jerusalem became a major Christian pilgrimage and ecclesiastical hub. Under Byzantine rule,
11881-451: Was the second of those cities, and next to that Acrabatta, after them Thamna, and Lydda , and Emmaus , and Pella, and Idumea , and Engaddi , and Herodium , and Jericho ; and after them came Jamnia and Joppa , as presiding over the neighboring people; and besides these there was the region of Gamala, and Gaulonitis, and Batanea, and Trachonitis, which are also parts of the kingdom of Agrippa. This [last] country begins at Mount Libanus, and
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