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97-572: The Jordan River or River Jordan ( Arabic : نَهْر الْأُرْدُنّ , Nahr al-ʾUrdunn ; Hebrew : נְהַר הַיַּרְדֵּן , Nəhar hayYardēn ), also known as Nahr Al-Sharieat ( Arabic : نهر الشريعة ), is a 251-kilometre-long (156 mi) river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead Sea . The river passes by or through Jordan , Syria , Israel , and

194-575: 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

291-435: 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

388-1081: 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

485-635: A few drops from the River Jordan. The Jordan is a frequent symbol in folk , gospel , and spiritual music , and in poetic and literary works. The baptism of Jesus is referred to in a hymn by the reformer Martin Luther, " Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam " (1541), base for a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam , BWV 7 (1724). The Jordan River, due primarily to its rich spiritual importance, has provided inspiration for countless songs, hymns, and stories, including

582-645: A flow of 106 million m annually. It flows into the Dan along with the Nahal Sion or Nahal Assal (Hebrew) / Wadi el-'Asl or Assal (Arabic). The Jordan River has an upper course from its sources to the Sea of Galilee (via the Bethsaida Valley ) and a lower course south of the Sea of Galilee down to the Dead Sea . In traditional terminology, the upper course (or most of it) is commonly referred to as passing through

679-487: 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

776-690: 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

873-594: 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

970-462: 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",

1067-470: 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

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1164-475: A total drainage area of 158 km . The total annual streamflow of the river comes to 106 million m . The banks of the river abound in willow trees, oriental planes , silver-leaf poplars , Tabor oaks , Palestine oaks , Mt. Atlas mastics , terebinths , carobs , ferns, giant canes , and various vines. The stream is home to a variety of fluvial fish, including longhead barbel , large-scale barbel , Damascus barbel , and tilapia . Living and roaming around

1261-507: 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

1358-507: 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

1455-476: 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

1552-737: 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

1649-590: 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

1746-559: 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

1843-528: Is a stream which flows from Merj 'Ayun area in southern Lebanon into the Hasbani. The Dan (Arabic: اللدان Leddan or Liddan , Hebrew: דן Dan ) is the largest among the Jordan's upper course tributaries with c. 240-252 million cubic metres per year. The Banias (Arabic: بانياس Banias , Hebrew: either Banias or חרמון Hermon ) is a stream arising from a spring at Banias at the foot of Mount Hermon, with

1940-752: Is also where John the Baptist bore record of Jesus as the Son of God and Lamb of God ( John 1:29–36 ). The prophecy of Isaiah regarding the Messiah which names the Jordan ( Isaiah 9:1–2 ) is reported in Matthew 4:15 . The New Testament speaks several times about Jesus crossing the Jordan during his ministry ( Matthew 19:1 ; Mark 10:1 ) and of believers crossing the Jordan to come hear him preach and to be healed of their diseases ( Matthew 4:25 ; Mark 3:7–8 ). When his enemies sought to capture him, Jesus took refuge at

2037-478: 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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2134-408: 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

2231-472: 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

2328-574: 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

2425-855: 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

2522-572: 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

2619-590: 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

2716-413: 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

2813-524: 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

2910-445: 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

3007-546: The Golan Heights . South of the lake, it forms the border between the Kingdom of Jordan (to the east), and Israel (to the west). South of the Sea of Galilee, the river is situated about 210 metres below sea level. The last 120-kilometre-long (75 mi) section follows what is commonly termed the "Jordan Valley", which has less gradient (the total drop is another 210 metres) so that the river meanders before entering

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3104-523: The Midianites ( Judges 7:24 ). In the plain of the Jordan, between Succoth and Zarthan , is the clay ground where Solomon had his bronze foundries ( 1 Kings 7:46 ). In 2 Kings 6:1–4 the Jordan valley is portrayed as a woodland region. Biblical commentator Albert Barnes suggests that "trees were rare in most parts of Palestine, but plentiful in the Jordan Valley". In biblical history,

3201-699: The National Water Carrier . Also in 1964, Jordan constructed a channel that diverted water from the Yarmouk to the East Ghor Canal . Syria has also built reservoirs that catch the Yarmouk's waters. Environmentalists blame Israel, Jordan and Syria for extensive damage to the Jordan River ecosystem. The Jordan River basin has a unique ichthyofauna as it serves as the meeting point for several different biogeographic regions, including

3298-651: The Nile ). According to this hypothesis, "Den" might be linked to the Akkadian word dannum for "powerful". Cognates of the word are found in Aramaic , Hebrew , Mandaic , and other Semitic languages . The first recorded use of the name appears as Yārdon in Anastasi I , an ancient Egyptian papyrus that probably dates to the time of Rameses II . Early Arab chronicles referred to the river as Al-Urdunn . In Mandaic ,

3395-530: The Palestine loach ( Oxynoemacheilus insignis ), catfish such as the African sharptooth catfish ( Clarias gariepinus ), cichlids such as the blue tilapia ( Oreochromis aureus ), redbelly tilapia ( Coptodon zillii ), & mango tilapia ( Sarotherodon galilaeus ), and blennies such as the freshwater blenny ( Salariopsis fluviatilis ). The Jordan bream and Jordan barbel are thought to be endemic to

3492-928: The Palestinian territories . Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border the river to the east, while Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank lie to its west. Both Jordan and the West Bank derive their names in relation to the river. The river holds major significance in Judaism and Christianity . According to the Bible , the Israelites crossed it into the Promised Land and Jesus of Nazareth

3589-568: 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

3686-494: 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

3783-559: The " Hula Valley ", as opposed to "Upper Jordan Valley"; the Sea of Galilee through which the river passes is a separate entity, and the term Jordan Valley is reserved for the lower course. Over its upper course (fed by the Hasbani River, Banias River, Dan River, and the Iyyon Stream), the river drops rapidly in a 75-kilometre (47 mi) run to the once large and swampy Lake Hula, which is slightly above sea level . Exiting

3880-419: 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

3977-438: The "nine tribes and the half tribe of Manasseh " that settled to the west ( Joshua 13:7 , passim). Opposite Jericho , it is called "the Jordan of Jericho" ( Numbers 34:15 ; 35:1 ). The Jordan has a number of fords , and one of them is famous as the place where many Ephraimites were slain by Jephthah ( Judges 12:5–6 ). It seems that these are the same fords mentioned as being near Beth-barah, where Gideon lay in wait for

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4074-723: 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. Banias River The main source of

4171-454: 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

4268-571: 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

4365-834: 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

4462-463: The Banias Ridge in the early 1950s, leaving only the southern part of the stream under Israeli jurisdiction. In 1964, Syria mobilized heavy engineering equipment in the area and initiated a project to divert the stream eastward, aiming to prevent its waters from reaching Israel, which contravened international law. Israel strongly opposed this action, sparking an intense conflict over control of

4559-863: The Banias River is the Banias spring, located at the southern base of the Hermon mountain range and contributing a discharge of 67·million m annually. From there the stream flows south for nine kilometers before draining into the Dan River just north of Sde Nehemia . Along the way, it drains the Guvta Stream (right), the Sa'ar Stream (left), the Pera' Stream (left), and the Sion (Ar.: el-'Asl ) Stream (right), with

4656-538: The Dead Sea were explored by boat primarily by Christopher Costigan in 1835, Thomas Howard Molyneux in 1847, William Francis Lynch in 1848, and John MacGregor in 1869. The full text of W. F. Lynch's 1849 book Narrative of the United States' Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea is available online. In 1964, Israel began operating a pumping station that diverts water from the Sea of Galilee to

4753-468: The Dead Sea, a terminal lake about 422 metres below sea level with no outlet. The river is fed by two major tributaries , the Yarmouk and Zarqa . The Yarmouk, the largest tributary of the lower course, forms the border between Syria and Jordan and then Jordan and Israel. Smaller tributaries or "side wadis" / "side streams" in this segment are, north to south In the 19th century the River Jordan and

4850-477: The Dead Sea. A small section of the northernmost portion of the Lower Jordan, the first ca. 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) below the Sea of Galilee, has been kept pristine for baptism and local tourism. Most polluted is the 100-kilometre downstream stretch—a meandering stream from above the confluence with the Yarmouk to the Dead Sea. Environmentalists say the practice of letting sewage and brackish water flow into

4947-599: The Israeli-occupied West Bank and parallels the Jordan River on the western side. There are two border crossings between Israel and Jordan which cross the river over bridges. The northern one, Jordan River Crossing or Sheikh Hussein Bridge is near Beit She'an ; the southern one, Allenby Bridge (also King Hussein Bridge), is near Jericho . North to south: Until the first decade of the 21st century,

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5044-563: The Jordan River as well as the Promised Land. Jordan River is the subject of roots reggae artist Burning Spear 's song of the same title. Belarusian band Spasenie dedicated its whole album " Crossing the Jordan " to the topic. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )

5141-811: The Jordan River basin. The Jordan basin may have also served as the center of diversification for several now-widespread Palearctic fish groups. A native freshwater reptile is the Balkan terrapin ( Mauremys rivulata ), which is thought to have also been a food source for the earliest Neanderthal residents of the region. Several introduced species of fish are known from the region, including common carp ( Cyprinus carpio ), grass carp ( Ctenopharyngodon idella ), black carp ( Hypophthalmichthys molitrix ), rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ), Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ), and sea mullet ( Mugil cephalus ). Many of these introduced fish either prey on or outcompete native fish and threaten their populations, especially

5238-535: The Jordan River's water resources. A pivotal moment in this conflict was the IDF 's operation on August 12, 1965, when they successfully destroyed the diversion equipment in a battle involving artillery and tanks. Despite Syrian efforts, they managed to dig only a small portion of the diversion before the area was later captured by Israel during the Six-Day War . During that conflict, a Syrian tank battalion ventured into

5335-481: The Jordan appears as the scene of several miracles , the first taking place when the Jordan, near Jericho, was crossed by the Israelites under Joshua ( Joshua 3:15-17 ). Later the two tribes and the half tribe that settled east of the Jordan built a large altar on its banks as "a witness" between them and the other tribes ( Joshua 22:10 , 22:26 , et seq.). The Jordan was crossed by Elijah and Elisha on dry ground ( 2 Kings 2:8 , 2:14 ). Elisha performed two miracles at

5432-400: The Jordan river. The Hasbani (Arabic: الحاصباني Hasbani , Hebrew: either שניר Snir or Hatzbani ) is a stream which flows from the north-western foot of Mount Hermon in Lebanon , with a flow of 118 million m annually. The Iyyon (Hebrew: עיון Iyyon , Arabic name: Ajoun stream, but دردره Dardara for the uppermost course and براغيث Bareighith or Beregeith for the rest of its course)

5529-583: The Jordan: he healed Naaman 's leprosy by having him bathe in its waters ( 2 Kings 5:14 ), and he made an axe head lost by one of the "children of the prophets" float, by throwing a piece of wood into the water ( 2 Kings 6:6 ). The New Testament states that John the Baptist baptised unto repentance in the Jordan ( Matthew 3:5 – 6 ; Mark 1:5 ; Luke 3:3 ; John 1:28 ). These acts of baptism are also reported as having taken place at Bethabara ( John 1:28 ). Jesus came to be baptised by him there ( Matthew 3:13 ; Mark 1:9 ; Luke 3:21 , 4:1 ). The Jordan

5626-412: The LORD" ( Genesis 13:10 ). There is no regular description of the Jordan in the Bible; only scattered and indefinite references to it are given. Jacob crossed it and its tributary, the Jabbok (the modern Zarqa River), on his way back from Haran ( Genesis 32:11 , 32:23–24 ). It is noted as the line of demarcation between the "two tribes and the half tribe" settled to the east ( Numbers 34:15 ) and

5723-412: 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

5820-418: The Promised Land , the Jordan can refer to freedom. The actual crossing is the final step of the journey, which is then complete. Among many other references, the Jordan River is given this meaning in the text of Old Man River : "Let me go 'way from the Mississippi / Let me go 'way from the white man boss / Show me that stream called the River Jordan / That's the old stream that I long to cross". Because of

5917-474: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from

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6014-413: 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

6111-410: The Sea of Galilee as part of the 1994 peace treaty was meant to compensate for this loss. A 2010 study found that the Lower Jordan River has been reduced to 2% of its historic flow. Water quality has also deteriorated sharply, with high levels of salinity and pollution from agricultural fertilizer and untreated wastewater upstream in Israel and the West Bank. Conflict about the waters of the Jordan River

6208-407: The agreement, the stream itself would remain within British Mandate territory, while the village and springs would fall under French Mandate control ( therefor, part of Syria). Following the armistice agreements after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, areas west of the international boundary line captured by Syria were designated as demilitarized zones. In practice, Syria took control of the northern part of

6305-399: The baptism of Jesus, water from the Jordan is employed for the christening of heirs and princes in several Christian royal houses, such as the cases of Prince George of Wales , Simeon of Bulgaria and James Ogilvy . Earlier, On 15 May 1717, the Empress Maria Theresa was baptised in Vienna by the Papal Nuntius Giorgio Spinola, representing Pope Clement XI , with baptismal water containing

6402-509: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after

6499-412: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of

6596-444: The etymologically related term Yardena ( Classical Mandaic : ࡉࡀࡓࡃࡍࡀ ) can refer not only to the Jordan River, but also any other body of flowing water that can be used for Mandaean baptismal rituals ( masbuta ). After the Crusades , the Arabic name Nahr Al Sharieat ( Arabic : نهر الشريعة ), literally "the watering place" began to be used, and was recorded by medieval geographers such as Abu'l-Fida and Al-Dimashqi . The name

6693-728: 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

6790-447: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From

6887-403: 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

6984-597: 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

7081-613: 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

7178-604: 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)

7275-420: 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

7372-883: 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

7469-464: The more endangered species. In modern times, up to 95% of the water is diverted for human purposes, and the flow is less than 10% of the past average. Because of this and the high evaporation rate of the Dead Sea, as well as industrial extraction of salts through evaporation ponds, the Dead Sea is rapidly shrinking. The flow rate of the Jordan River once was 1.3 billion cubic metres per year; as of 2010, just 20 to 30 million cubic metres per year flow into

7566-782: 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

7663-620: The northern Palearctic , the Afrotropics , East & South Asia , and the Mediterranean . Native fish include cyprinids such as the Jordan bream ( Achanthobrama lissneri ), Jordan himri ( Carasobarbus canis ), Jordan barbel ( Luciobarbus longiceps ), Levantine scraper ( Capoeta damascina ; the most common native fish in the basin), red garra ( Garra rufa ), & Damascus garra ( Garra nana ), hillstream loaches such as

7760-410: The now much-diminished lake, it goes through an even steeper drop over the 25 kilometres (16 mi) down to the Sea of Galilee, which it enters at its northern end. The Jordan deposits much of the silt it is carrying within the lake, which it leaves again near its southern tip at Degania Dam . Its section north of the Sea of Galilee is within the boundaries of Israel and forms the western boundary of

7857-424: 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

7954-549: 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

8051-410: 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

8148-399: The river has almost destroyed its ecosystem. Rescuing the Jordan could take decades, according to environmentalists. In 2007, FoEME named the Jordan River as one of the world's 100 most endangered ecological sites, due in part to lack of cooperation between Israel and neighboring Arab states. Route 90 , part of which is named after Rehavam Zeevi , connects the northern and southern tips of

8245-613: The river in the place John had first baptised ( John 10:39–40 ). Scholars have concluded that the site called Al-Maghtas on the east side has long been considered the location for the Baptism of Jesus and a place of pilgrimage. This has led to choosing Al-Maghtas as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015. Because, according to Jewish tradition, the Israelites made a difficult and hazardous journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom in

8342-601: The river, a quantity which is regulated by the 1994 peace treaty with Israel. In the past, one of the main water resources in Jordan was the Jordan River, with a flow of 1.3 billion m per year (BCM/yr). However, after Israel built the National Water Carrier in 1953 and diverted water from the Sea of Galilee to Israel's coastal plains and southern desert, the flow of the Lower Jordan River dropped significantly. The 50 MCM/yr that Israel provides from

8439-458: 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

8536-458: 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

8633-563: 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

8730-634: The stream or in it are wild boars , Syrian rock hyrax , swamp cats , nutria , and Indian porcupines . Birds that frequent the vicinity of the stream include rock doves and Western rock nuthatch . The Newcombe-Paulet Agreement of 1923, endorsed later by the League of Nations, delineated the international boundary between the British Mandate and the French Mandate, effectively separating Palestine from Syria and Lebanon. According to

8827-501: 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

8924-495: The traditional African-American spiritual/folk songs " Michael Row the Boat Ashore ", " Deep River ", and " Roll, Jordan, Roll ". It is mentioned in the songs " Eve of Destruction ", " Will You Be There ", and " The Wayfaring Stranger " and in " Ol' Man River " from the musical Show Boat . "The Far Side Banks of Jordan" by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash on June's Grammy Award -winning studio album, Press On , mentions

9021-530: The waters of the Jordan River had been the largest water resource for Israel; lately, desalinated sea water from the Mediterranean has taken over this role. Israel's National Water Carrier, completed in 1964, has delivered water from the Sea of Galilee to the Israeli coastal plain for over four decades, until prolonged drought led to abandoning this solution in favour of desalination. Jordan receives 50,000,000 cubic metres (1.8 × 10 cu ft) of water from

9118-451: 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

9215-521: Was a contributing factor to the Six-Day War when, starting in 1965, Syria attempted to divert some of its headwaters in collaboration with Lebanon and Jordan. The diversion works would have reduced the water availability for Israel's carrier by about 35%, and Israel's overall water supply by about 11%. In the Hebrew Bible the Jordan is referred to as the source of fertility of a large plain ("Kikkar ha-Yarden"), said to be watered like "the garden of

9312-476: Was baptized by John the Baptist in it. Several hypotheses for the origin of most of the river's names in modern languages (e.g., Jordan, Yarden, Urdunn), one is that it comes from Semitic 'Yard|on' 'flow down' <√ירד reflecting the river's declivity, possibly appearing also in other river names in the region such as Yarkon and Yarmouk , or it may be related to the Egyptian loanword 'yǝʾor' ('big river',

9409-502: Was shown in various forms on most notable 19th century maps of the region and is described by Edward Robinson in his Biblical Researches in Palestine . Although historical sources do not appear to make this distinction, it is described in some modern sources as the name for the part of the river before it flows into the Sea of Galilee. The Dan and Hasbani rivers merge near the kibbutz Sde Nehemia in northern Israel and become

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