100-594: Sirte ( / ˈ s ɜːr t / ; Arabic : سِرْت , pronunciation ), also spelled Sirt , Surt , Sert or Syrte , is a city in Libya . It is located south of the Gulf of Sirte , almost right in the middle between Tripoli and Benghazi . It is famously known for its battles, ethnic groups and loyalty to former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi . Due to developments in the First Libyan Civil War , it
200-763: A 9 million Libyan dinars reconstruction project started in 2014. During the widespread chaos and civil war that followed the revolution and led to the erosion of territorial control under the General National Congress (GNC) (which had succeeded the NTC) and the new GNC (NGNC), local loyalists to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which had previously seized the port city of Derna , launched an attack in March 2015 to capture Sirte, which
300-639: A battleground between the Fatimids and the Zirid dynasty of Kairouan . The Banu Khazrun of Tripoli also controlled Surt for a while as Fatimid allies. Around 1037, the Banu Hilal began to settle in the Surt region. Somewhat later, al-Bakri described Surt as "a large city by the sea" with a mosque, a hammam , and bazaars (these three features are mentioned for the first time here). He listed three gates in
400-575: 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
500-435: 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
600-1081: 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
700-458: A general hospital run by Libya's ally Bulgaria . In other respects, however, it remained comparatively undeveloped – many of the roads were left as dirt tracks without drainage, resulting in them being muddy and flooded in the winter and dirty and dusty in the summer. Libya's predominately tribal society also resulted in an unusual style of urbanisation; nomadic members of the Zuwaya tribe settled on
800-487: 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
900-703: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] {{main other| ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
1000-427: A month of intense fighting, which was preceded by NATO airstrikes throughout the war, and was considered to have been subjected to the most damage of any Libyan city during the civil war. Many homes were ransacked and looted by fighters, angering residents including those loyal to Gaddafi and those sympathetic to the revolution. Many streets and buildings also experienced flooding as water mains were destroyed, though it
1100-565: A peace agreement between the government of Sudan and warring factions in Darfur . In 2008, China Railway Construction Corporation won a $ 2.6 billion bid in Libya to build a west-to-east coastal railway 352 km (219 mi) from Khoms to Sirte and a south-to-west railway 800 km (500 mi) long for iron ore transport from the southern city Sabha to Misrata . On 5 March 2011, anti-Gaddafi forces said they were preparing to capture
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#17327650841931200-515: A prolonged period of decline. In the 12th century, the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi described Ajdabiya as "a town situated on a flat, stony plateau". He wrote in his treatise Nuzhat al-Mushtaq (published in Europe as De geographia universali ): The town was later revived by the Ottomans to serve as a minor administrative centre for western Cyrenaica . It became an important centre for
1300-484: A radio address on 1 September 2011, Gaddafi declared Sirte the new capital of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , replacing the former capital Tripoli , which had been captured by rebels. Anti-Gaddafi forces surrounded the city during September 2011 and began a long, difficult battle there, hoping to bring the war to an end. On 20 October, after suffering massive casualties during
1400-594: 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
1500-462: 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",
1600-414: A siege that lasted over a month, NTC fighters mounted a major offensive and took control of the last remaining district of Sirte, "Number Two", that was in the hands of regime loyalists. Muammar Gaddafi attempted to flee the city, but he was injured and hid in a large drainage pipe before being captured by NTC fighters. He was killed in custody less than an hour later. Sirte was left heavily damaged by
1700-470: 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
1800-507: 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
1900-507: 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
2000-476: 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
2100-737: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
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#17327650841932200-590: 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
2300-559: 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
2400-636: Is a town in and capital of the Al Wahat District in northeastern Libya . It is some 150 kilometres (93 mi) south of Benghazi . From 2001 to 2007 it was part of and capital of the Ajdabiya District . The town is divided into three Basic People's Congresses : North Ajdabiya, West Ajdabiya and East Ajdabiya. During the Libyan Civil War , the city changed hands several times between rebels and pro-Gaddafi forces, with
2500-478: 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
2600-408: 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
2700-472: 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
2800-574: 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
2900-855: 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
3000-572: 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
3100-590: 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
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3200-413: 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
3300-524: 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
3400-445: 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
3500-541: The Mediterranean Sea coast at the eastern end of the Gulf of Sidra . It is located on an arid plain about 6.4 kilometres (4.0 mi) from the sea, 850 kilometres (530 mi) from the Libyan capital of Tripoli and 150 kilometres (93 mi) from Libya's second largest city, Benghazi . The city is the site of an important crossroads between the coastal road from Tripoli to Benghazi and inland routes south to
3600-905: The Senussi movement in the early 20th century and became the capital of an autonomous Senussi-ruled region between 1920 and 1923 under the terms of an accord with Italy , which had occupied Libya from 1911. In April 1923, however, the accord broke down and the Italians seized Ajdabiya, turning it into an important military outpost. The area was the scene of heavy fighting during the Second World War ; during Operation Compass , British forces forced Italian troops to retreat through Ajdabiya (February 1941, Battle of Beda Fomm ), but soon later they lost control of it again on April 2, 1941, when Rommel's Afrikakorps counter-attacked. The town finally reverted to Allied control on November 23, 1942, when it
3700-568: 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
3800-494: 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
3900-419: 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
4000-832: 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. Ajdabiya Ajdabiya ( / ˌ ɑː dʒ d ə ˈ b iː ə / AHJ -də- BEE -ə ; Arabic : أجدابيا , romanized : Aǧdābiyā )
4100-454: 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
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4200-571: 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
4300-847: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] {{main other|. Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
4400-467: The Butr confederation settled in Surt, and around the middle of the 8th century they converted to Ibadi Islam along with the surrounding region. A mosque was probably built at Surt during this period, although no authors mention a mosque in Surt until the 11th century. The most detailed early description of the city was written by Ibn Hawqal , who passed through Surt in 947 on his way to al-Mahdiyyah (which
4500-630: The LNA retaliating by conducting airstrikes from MiG-29s on a huge Turkish convoy of military and GNA forces heading for Sirte, destroying it and resulting in heavy GNA and possibly Turkish casualties. Sirte has a hot desert climate ( Köppen : Bsh ) with hot, dry summers and mild, somewhat rainy winters. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
4600-412: 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
4700-690: 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
4800-602: The Roman road network in the fourth or fifth centuries AD. It gained its importance for two reasons: it possessed drinkable water, which made it a useful staging post in an arid region, and it stood on the intersection of two important trade routes, the coastal route along the North African littoral and the desert caravan route from the oases of Jalu and al-Ujlah. The town passed to the Byzantine Empire following
4900-576: 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
5000-413: The age of ten. After seizing power in 1969 , Gaddafi transformed Sirte into a showcase of his self-proclaimed revolution, carrying out an extensive program of public works to expand the former village into a small city. After 1988, most government departments and the Libyan parliament were relocated from Tripoli to Sirte, although Tripoli remained formally the capital of the country. Al-Tahadi University
5100-707: The anti-Gaddafi forces finally securing the town in April 2011. As many civilians had fled the fighting, one March 2011 report described the city as a "ghost town." Later, during the Second Libyan Civil War , the city was seized by the Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council until it was taken over by the Libyan National Army on 21 February 2016. Ajdabiya is situated in central northern Libya near
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#17327650841935200-553: The city and declared it to be a "Free City" after burning down the local government headquarters. The city subsequently came under attack from the Libyan air force and on March 15, 2011, the Libyan army encircled Ajdabiya in preparation for an assault to retake it. The battle for Ajdabiya was cited as a potential turning point in the conflict on which the fate of the whole rebellion against the Gaddafi government could be decided. After two days of heavy fighting, pro-Gaddafi forces seized
5300-519: The city started, although unexploded ordnance still posed a great risk to civilians. In February 2012, some local residents said they felt abandoned by the National Transitional Council (NTC), but the new government had promised to rebuild the city and Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur insisted this would happen. Some local rebuilding was done in 2012 and 2013, but reconstruction of municipal services did not begin until
5400-494: The city walls: Qiblī (facing southeast), Jawfī (facing inland), and "a small one facing the sea". There were no suburbs outside the walls. He also noted, "its animals are goats and their meat is juicy and tender, the like of which is not found in Egypt." Al-Bakri also alluded to a merchant community including Arabs, Berbers, Persians, and Copts . In the late Fatimid period, Surt began to decline - it seems to have lost its position at
5500-541: The city. However, on 6 March, the rebel advance was stopped during the Battle of Bin Jawad before reaching Sirte. Government forces launched a counter-offensive that recaptured Ra's Lanuf and continued to advance as far as the outskirts of the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi . Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 , several Western and Arab countries then intervened with air and missile strikes, which turned
5600-443: The coast towards Sirte, which then faced a pincer movement from the rebels on two fronts. On 24 August, rebel units were reported as being 56 km (35 mi) from the city. On 27 August, Bin Jawad – about 150 km east – was once again recaptured by the rebels. It was also reported that the National Transitional Council were in negotiations with tribal figures from the city for it to surrender to rebel forces. In
5700-519: The coast was "proverbially dangerous to shipping", called "inhospita Syrtis" in Virgil 's Aeneid . John Milton 's Paradise Lost Book 2 lines 939-940 speaks of "a boggy Syrtis, neither sea/Nor good dry land". The medieval city of Surt was located some 55 km east of the present-day city, at a site now known as al-Mudayna or Madina Sultan. After the Umayyad conquest of North Africa, Berbers from
5800-574: 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
5900-587: 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
6000-638: The end of the year. Sirte was substantially under the control of the GNA by 6 December 2016. A contributing factor to the recapture of the city were the over 400 airstrikes organized by the United States Africa Command against ISIL positions during the months-long battle. Approximately 700 Libya pro-government fighters and 2,000 ISIL loyalists died in Sirte between May and November 2016. Mayoral elections were scheduled for 12 December 2016 with
6100-728: 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
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#17327650841936200-607: 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
6300-421: The fall of Rome but gained new importance under the rule of the Fatimid Caliphate . After sacking the town in 912, the Fatimids redeveloped Ajdabiya and built a new mosque and palace complex, the ruins of which can still be seen. Around 1051–52 it was sacked again, this time by the Beni Hilal and Banu Sulaym , Arab tribes that migrated to North Africa at the instigation of the Fatimids. It subsequently fell into
6400-429: The final major stronghold of Gaddafi loyalists in the civil war and Gaddafi was killed there by rebel forces on 20 October 2011 after sustaining major injury caused by French Air Force Bombs discharged as part of the NATO intervention . During the battle , Sirte was left almost completely in ruins, with many buildings destroyed or damaged. Six months after the civil war, almost 60,000 inhabitants, more than 70 percent of
6500-403: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
6600-416: The immediate threat of an attack on Sirte. In August, the city faced a more severe threat from the rebels as the loyalist position deteriorated rapidly, with rebels making gains on multiple fronts. As Tripoli came under attack , other rebel forces based in Benghazi broke the military stalemate in the eastern desert, taking Brega and Ra's Lanuf . At the same time, rebels in Misrata pushed eastward along
6700-420: 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
6800-509: The intersection of east-west and north-south trade routes. The 12th-century author al-Idrisi apparently visited the Surt region and wrote about the city's decline. The 13th-century author Ali ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi wrote that its forts were still standing. At some point thereafter, the old city of Surt was finally abandoned. Since the 19th century and particularly since the 1960s, the old city of Surt has been explored by archaeologists, mostly based on al-Bakri's reports. Excavations have revealed
6900-558: 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
7000-550: 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)
7100-420: 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
7200-883: 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
7300-795: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] {{main other| (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
7400-473: The oasis at Jalu and east to Tobruk and the border with Egypt . Ajdabiya lies close to the Sabkhat Ghuzayyil , a large dry region below sea level. Ajdabiya has a hot desert climate ( Köppen climate classification BWh ). For a location very close to the Mediterranean Sea it is very prone to strong heat waves and has reached above 47 °C (117 °F) as early as in April in spite of
7500-415: The old city walls, enclosing an area of 184,003 square meters, as well as the gates, the forts, the mosque, and the city streets. No evidence of the harbor has been found, though. In 1842 the Ottomans built a fortress at Marsat al Zaafran (" saffron harbour") which became known as Qasr al Zaafran ("saffron castle "), and later as Qasr Sert. The fortress was built under sultan Abdülmecid I as part of
7600-424: 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
7700-512: The outskirts of the town and established tent camps, which they gradually replaced with houses. The layout of some areas of the town thus resembles that of nomadic camps, with a senior man in the centre of an area, his married sons nearby, with their younger brothers and their own sons clustered around them. Ajdabiya was the site of anti-government protests on February 16–17, 2011 in which up to ten people were said to have been killed, some by pro-government snipers. Protesters quickly took control of
7800-549: 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
7900-465: The pre-war population, had returned. Sirte is built near the site of the ancient Phoenician city of Macomedes-Euphranta , which was an important link on the road along the Mediterranean Sea littoral. It is the last confirmed place where the Punic language was spoken, in the 5th century CE. The region had no recognized administrative centre and was infested for centuries by bandits. In Classical times,
8000-428: The previously (2015) municipal councilmen taking office again. The Libyan National Army fought a battle with the GNA and entered the city on 6 January 2020. GNA forces launched an attack to capture Sirte from the LNA on 6 June 2020. LNA forces proposed a ceasefire backed by Egypt . However, the GNA rejected the ceasefire as they entered Sirte. Despite this, the attack was thwarted the following day, which led to
8100-410: 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
8200-596: The restoration of Ottoman control over Tripolitania after the fall of the Karamanli dynasty . It was around this fortification, which was taken over and repaired by the Italians in 1912, that the settlement of Sirte grew up. Sirte served as an administrative centre under Italian rule. During the North African Campaign of the Second World War there were no noteworthy events in this location, which
8300-458: 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
8400-645: The sea having mild surface temperatures that time of the year. This is due to hot winds from the Sahara Desert bringing extreme temperatures north. In summer Ajdabiya is similar to interior climates in Southern Europe, except drier. Winters are mild, with occasional rainfall. Ajdabiya has been identified as the site of the Roman city of Corniclanum , which is shown on the Peutinger Table of
8500-458: 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
8600-563: 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
8700-469: The strategic crossroads, gained control of most of the city and pressed on to the rebel-held stronghold of Benghazi . The city was retaken by rebel forces on March 26, 2011, after air strikes authorised by the United Nations destroyed much of the Libyan army's heavy weaponry in and around Ajdabiya and forced them to retreat to the west. Much of the population fled the fighting in the city, which
8800-402: The tide again in favour of the rebels. On 28 March, Al Jazeera reported that Sirte had been claimed to be taken by rebel forces overnight with little resistance, but other news organisations later reported that rebels and Gaddafi forces were fighting on the road between Bin Jawad and Sirte. By 30 March, Gaddafi loyalists had forced the rebels out of Bin Jawad and Ra's Lanuf and once again removed
8900-501: 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
9000-451: 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
9100-527: Was alum mining, which was exported. According to Ibn Hawqal, Surt at this point was wealthier than nearby Ajdabiya . Surt was probably fortified by the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz around 965, in preparation for the Fatimid conquest of Egypt under his general Jawhar al-Siqilli . The Fatimids founded the new city of Cairo to serve as their new capital in Egypt. After they moved there, the Surt region became
9200-470: Was briefly the capital of Libya as Tripoli 's successor after the Fall of Tripoli from 1 September to 20 October 2011. The settlement was established in the early 20th century by the Italians , at the site of a 19th-century fortress built by the Ottomans . It grew into a city after World War II . Contrary to popular belief, Sirte was not Muammar Gaddafi's birthplace, as wrongly reported. Gaddafi's birthplace
9300-426: Was characterised at the time as "a shabby little Arab village of mud huts, clustered on the banks of a foul-smelling stream." The village grew into a prominent town after the Second World War for two reasons – the discovery and exploitation of oil nearby and the birth of Muammar Gaddafi in 1942 in a tent at Qasr Abu Hadi , some 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of Sirte. He was sent to the primary school at Sirte at
9400-549: Was established in 1991. In 1999, Gaddafi proposed the idea of creating a " United States of Africa " with Sirte as its administrative centre. Ambitious plans to build a new international airport and seaport were announced in 2007. In 1999, the Sirte Declaration was signed in the city by the Organisation of African Unity in a conference that was hosted by Gaddafi. In 2007 he also hosted talks in Sirte to broker
9500-585: Was in a village 20 km south of Sirte, which is called Qasr Abu Hadi . The inhabitants of this village were farmers. Just a few significant people from the Gaddafi tribe , of whom some were born in Sirte, were appointed to government roles during the time of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya until the NATO-led invasion of Libya in 2011. Sirte was favoured by the Gaddafi government . The city was
9600-510: Was recaptured by the British 7th Armoured Division . Ajdabiya's fortunes were transformed after the war by the development of the Libyan oil industry at nearby Brega . By 1979 it had become a boom town with a population of about 32,000 people. The bulk of the male population worked in the oil industry, government service or other local service industries. The town acquired a new area of public housing, police stations, educational facilities and
9700-523: Was reported to have suffered heavy damage. On April 8, loyalist forces attempted to recapture the city. Taking advantage of a disorganised rebel retreat following the Third Battle of Brega , loyalist troops entered the city and had taken control of most of it by April 9. However, rebel forces soon regrouped and had pushed pro-Gaddafi forces out of the city by April 11, with heavy support from NATO airstrikes . The front line then stagnated outside of
9800-784: Was then occupied by the Libya Shield Force , an NGNC-linked militia. Sirte fell to ISIL loyalists in May 2015. Following the formation of a new Tripoli-based government, the Government of National Accord (GNA), an offensive backed by the United Nations was launched in May 2016 by GNA-aligned forces, known as the Bunyan Marsous , to recapture Sirte. After two months of advances, pro-government forces took control of ISIL's Sirte headquarters on 10 August 2016, although pockets of ISIL resistance continued to prolong fighting through
9900-490: Was then the capital of the Fatimid Caliphate ). Ibn Hawqal described Surt as being "a bow-shot away from the sea, built on hard, sandy ground with strong walls of mud and brick". He described it as inhabited by Berbers, who stored rainwater in cisterns and were engaged in various forms of agriculture and livestock herding. They grew dates , grapes, and other fruits, and kept goats and camels. Another local industry
10000-515: Was unclear by which side. Landmarks like the Ouagadougou Conference Center, which became an impromptu fortress for the city's defenders during the battle, were ruined by artillery fire and blasts. A number of Libyan residents and fighters described the city as unrecognisable after weeks of siege. In April 2012, almost six months after the civil war, more than 70 percent of the inhabitants had returned to Sirte. Rebuilding of
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